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From: tmb@ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: rms says...
Message-ID: <13109@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 91 02:20:24 GMT
Sender: news@ai.mit.edu
Reply-To: tmb@ai.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
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In article <43377@nigel.ee.udel.edu>, new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes:
|> I object to FSF taking something like ghostscript and putting it out as
|> freeware. [...]
|> I *do* object to software like ghostscript and GNU Smalltalk. 
|> [...] XEROX PARC spent literally decades
|> working Smalltalk into a useful and easy to use package.  FSF takes
|> their entire design, recodes it, and then sells it as their own.  I
|> think this is wrong.

Most kinds of research results and paradigms are not protected by law.
There are good reasons for this. Without the ability to build on
previous results, and without the ability to form public standards from
successful developments, scientific research would come to an end.

Only in specific cases, in order to provide additional economic
incentives for development efforts, does the government grant limited
protection in the form of patents and copyrights.

There is simply no generally recognized a fundamental right to make
profit from a published idea or an intellectual work you have developed.