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From: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Public Domain Netnews...
Message-ID: <4169@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Feb-87 14:39:18 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.4169
Posted: Wed Feb 18 14:39:18 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Feb-87 02:11:44 EST
References: <1312@hplabsc.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Organization: Unisys - System Development Group, Santa Monica
Lines: 61

[Watch out!  Here come the big guns!]

In article <1312@hplabsc.UUCP> taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) writes:
>So instead I'd like to propose a group of people get together and work
>on a replacement for netnews that is explicitly without copyright and
>without any limitations on its use and distribution.

There's a fly in your ointment, Dave.  The ONLY way to keep someone else
from copyrighting and selling your code, or a derivative of your code,
is to copyright it yourself.  Even if you go and get this "group of people
together and work on a replacement for netnews that is explicitly without
copyright", there is nothing to prevent Rick Adams from adding a few lines
and copyrighting it again.  Being the terrible ogre that he is, he probably
will.  Grrr!!!!.

What can you do?

I suggest that when you write this new and wonderful new version of news,
you copyright it, explicitly making it freely redistributable, swearing up
and down that you will never charge any money for it, so that terrible
Rick Adams can't swipe your code and sell it.

Only this would sound terribly familiar, since it is exactly the motivation
Rick had in putting the copyright into the netnews software...

...and that I had in putting a copyright notice into rn!  I'm a terrible ogre,
too!  Grrr!!!!  Grrr!!!!

I'm afraid you've fallen victim to an oversimplified view of reality.
Is there anything I can do to persuade you that those who developed the
news software in the first place know the meaning of the word "volunteer"?
That they already thought about what you are concerned about?  The fact is,
Rick Adams and I trust ourselves not to sell this software more than we trust
anyone else not to sell this software.  Got that?

Long ago, we realized that it would be absolutely impossible to sell netnews
software (for very long), given the presence of hotheads like you who would
rewrite netnews in a flash.  The fact of the matter is, Rick and I are
hotheads like you.  While we realize it is impossible to sell netnews software
in the current anarchical environment, long may it live, we also realize that
it is possible for someone of unsavory character to try to sell netnews to
a gullible sub-population, such as new MINIX users, or some such.  Eventually
such an unsavory person would be shouted down and drowned out by us hotheads,
but not before some people got burned.

The prevention of this is the only reason for the copyright in rn.

I firmly believe it is the only reason for the copyright in netnews.

It is unfortunate, but there it is: the only way under our current laws to
come closest to the ideal of "Public Domain" software is to NOT put it into
the public domain.

Now perhaps you can understand why so many people are upset because you are
upset at Rick.  He's been bending over backwards to be the ideal volunteer,
even going so far as to risk his reputation as the ideal volunteer to do so.

So, enough of panicking and shooting your comrades in the back.

Larry Wall
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall