Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimomura@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura)
Subject: Mercury Authorship
Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura)
Organization: Consultant, Toronto
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 19:26:44 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Mar29.192644.6885@lsuc.on.ca>


     I'm a writer of Public Domain software.  The real thing.  I don't
release tons of source code every year, but I've put out more than most
other people in the world.  That's not a huge boast, it's more an
ironic joke.  The truth is that there isn't much real Public Domain
software released *anywhere* in the world at all.  I'm proud to say
that Henry Spence is the most prolific coder of Public Domain C that
I know of and he lives in my city (Toronto, Ontario, Canada).  Maybe
it has something to do with weather.  Anyway, for my own code, I don't
care if somebody strips off my "credits" and claims the code for
themselves.  Anybody who really wants to know if a piece of code is
mine can verify most of it.  Most of it has been recorded fairly permanently
on BIX and other fairly permanent installations.  The point of my
code is to help give people who use *my* code an "unfair advantage".
They make money?  Fine.  I expect to make my own money anyway on other
code I write.

     But all this is, unfortunately a rare attitude.  Most people who
"release" code put on all kinds of restrictions on usage and requirements.
I hate that.  If you want to add restrictions I think you should
keep your code off the Networks.  Maybe you can pass it around on
local BBS's, but Networks exist under and "understanding" that things
that are passed around are for *everybody's* benefit *equally*.

     Now, getting to the problem:  I've just started to look at the
source code to the Mercury UUCP clone with the intention of porting
it to Sozobon C.  Now, the author claims Copyrights and is distributing
as Shareware, with the usual beg for money.  Ok.  I'm not exactly keen
on Shareware, but it's fair enough generally.  I've paid some good
money to *some* Shareware authors already, despite the fact that my
own finances are pretty tight.  I appreciate hard work.  I should.
I've worked pretty hard myself.  But as I look at this Mercury package,
something strange stands out.  There are NO credits given to ANYBODY
else.  The author claims FULL ORIGINALITY of his code.  But when I
looked at a couple of the files, some of the code looked sort of
familiar.  Gee.  Didn't I see some of this before somewhere else?

     As I said before, speaking only for myself, I don't care if someone
strips off my credits regarding code that *I've* released to teh public
domain.  But if you do this to my "commercial" code I'll rip-your-lungs-out-
sucker!  And I generally go along with such sentiments in other peoples
works.  So here's my question:  Does anybody feel that the author of
Mercury has "illegitimately" removed credits of other peoples work?
IE: has he removed credits off code from programs written by other
people where the original authors specifically asked to keep their
credits?  If they didn't care, then I won't either, but if they did
care, well, I'll want to consider the matter before I send money. . . .
-- 
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
lsuc!jimomura
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