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From: bothner@sevenlayer.cs.wisc.edu (Per Bothner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Ghostscript: The bad news
Message-ID: <1990Dec17.034817.8171@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 90 03:48:17 GMT
References: <1990Dec16.104300.12930@pegasus.com>
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In article <1990Dec16.104300.12930@pegasus.com> richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes:
>In reply to this Peter said the following:
>
>	The copyright that comes with Ghostscript is quite serious:
>	Ghostscript is, in my view, a piece of potentially commercial
>	software that I have developed, that I own, and that I choose
>	to distibute as GNUware.


I would read this as GS is "potentially commercial-quality
software," that Peter considers it "his baby," and he chooses to
distribute it as GNUware.

>Frankly, for me that took a few days to fully sink in.  Peter has
>written Ghostscript and will allow us to use it and debug it for him.
>He reserves the right to turn it into a commercial product once we've
>helped him get it to that point.

I think you're misreading it.

>Then what do we have?  A package of what used to be GNUware that we
>are no longer allowed to modify or perhaps even use?

Read the License. Even if he wanted to do that (which I doubt),
he can't revoke rights that he has already granted.

>I understand that anything distributed under a copyright like the GNU
>software can potentially be taken away.

No, it can't. (But there is no obligation that a *new* version
would also be distributed under the GPL, though there is no reason
to think that it wouldn't.)

>When Peter Deutsch says he's serious about going commercial in the future

Where? Not in the snippet you quoted. Anyway, lots of companies
have "gone commercial" with X11, TeX, or for that matter GNUware,
but enhancements to those programs still benefit us all.

>I'm sure Peter is a nice enough guy.

He is.

>But I personally feel betrayed, both by him and by GNU for
>leading me to believe that Ghostscript was
>going to be another great piece of "free" software in the traditions of
>emacs, gcc, and friends.

You're betrayal stems from a) jumping to conclusions,
b) not having the faintest understanding the GPL, and
c) imagining that Peter is under any obligation
legally or morally to do things your way.

Whether Peter is unwise in not accepting more help on Ghostscript
is his decision. His track-record on GS seems no worse than
other much-delayed GNU software. Remember: it's his reputation
that's on the line, so I quite understand that he wouldn't want
to delegate responsibility.

Anyway, nothing prevents you from making your own improvements
to GS, and distributing them to whomever you choose (according
to the GPL). But Peter is under no obligation to accept
your changes in the "offical" (his) version.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
bothner@cs.wisc.edu Computer Sciences Dept, U. of Wisconsin-Madison