Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!unido!quando!elliott From: elliott@quando.quantum.de (C. David Elliott) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Atari ST software for sale Message-ID: <1885@quando.quantum.de> Date: 24 Jan 91 07:58:49 GMT References: <1792@ksr.com> <510012@hpbbi4.BBN.HP.COM> <21459@netcom.UUCP> Reply-To: elliott@quando.UUCP (C. David Elliott) Organization: Quantum Software GmbH, Dortmund, Germany Lines: 31 In article <21459@netcom.UUCP> seitz@netcom.UUCP (Matthew Seitz) writes: > >If I am right, public domain means you can do whatever you want with these >programs, including sell them for whatever price you want. Also I believe >the GNU software is copyrighted, not public domain. Whether or not it can >be sold depends on what the license agreement says. > >In short: > >public domain == can be sold >freely distributable != public domain >GNU == freely distributable != public domain > If you have a look at some public domain software and read the documentation files and such like, you will usually see the author saying something like >> This program is public domain and should not be sold for profit. To me this means pretty clearly that public domain software shouldn't be sold to make a profit (and if you buy any at profit making-prices perhaps you should look around a bit better first because - at least in the UK and Germany - many PD libraries exist which are run as non-profit making organisations). Dave. -- +---------------------+ | C. David Elliott | | elliott@quantum.de | +---------------------+