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From: phr@mit-hermes.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: What is Public Domain
Message-ID: <2810@mit-hermes.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 28-Feb-87 08:01:35 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2810
Posted: Sat Feb 28 08:01:35 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Mar-87 06:47:41 EST
References: <2419@dalcs.UUCP> <869@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: phr@hermes.UUCP (Paul Rubin)
Organization: GNU Project / Free Software Foundation
Lines: 33
Summary: use copylefts when you write free software

In article <869@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis) writes:
>As a programmer, I would *never* put a program in the public domain. If I
>care enough about the program to distribute it, I care enough to make sure
>that my name is associated with it. Therefore, a statement such as the
>following is probably appropriate:
>
>   "Copyright (C) Sarah Jane Smith, 1987. This program may be freely
>    distributed to anyone provided that this notice appears on all copies."

Designing copyright notices for free software is trickier than it
might at first seem.  In order to make sure that all versions of a
program remain free, you should specify that your copyright notice
must be preserved on all copies, that it is ok for anyone to
redistribute the program but the recipient must also get the right to
redistribute the program further, that modified versions are ok
subject to the preceding, and that the recipient must get *source
code* to any modified versions (or at least, source code must be
available at media cost+epsilon) with the right to further modify and
redistribute it.

At FSF, we call such notices "copylefts" and use them on everything we
release.  The GNU Emacs General Public License is a rather long
example of a copyleft.  We have a file that we send to people wanting
to contribute code to GNU which has some more info on copylefts and
why putting code in the public domain is against the interests of free
software, although it's mainly about what authors must do in order to
let the GNU project be able to use programs they write and is written
from that point of view.  I'll mail copies on request.

Note that the current version (3.8) of a famous formerly-public-domain
program (MicroEmacs) is now copyright (free noncommercial
redistribution permitted) because the author got tired of companies
making proprietary versions and thereby ripping off the public.