Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.sources.d Subject: Re: Charging the net.... Message-ID: Date: 23 Apr 91 15:08:27 GMT References: <1566@tronsbox.xei.com> <1991Apr22.081417@mccall.com> <1991Apr22.192306.29134@looking.on.ca> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 18 In article sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes: > "Grassroots" profiteering is NOT in the spirit of Usenet. Usenet has > been traditionally free. There is no Usenet tradition of binding > people to licenses and requiring payment. I don't want to start a debate on the relative merits of the GPL and shareware, but the following statement is not entirely true: > Traditionally, anything one > picked up from Usenet could be used without fear of litigation. Under the current version of the GPL, there are tools that have been distributed over Usenet that can not be freely used without fear of litigation. The difference between these programs and shareware has nothing to do with lawsuits and everything to do with money. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"