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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!ddl
From: ddl@husc6.UUCP (Dan Lanciani)
Newsgroups: net.sources
Subject: Re: PD uu clone part 1
Message-ID: <1688@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Apr-87 00:24:13 EST
Article-I.D.: husc6.1688
Posted: Fri Apr 17 00:24:13 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 10:13:33 EST
References: <531@lids.mit.edu>, <4269@hi.uucp>
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Lines: 32

In article <531@lids.mit.edu>, lamb@lids.mit.edu writes:
> /* "DCP" a uucp clone. Copyright Richard H. Lamb 1985,1986,1987 */

	I know this has been said before, but it is getting very frustrating.
Public domain and copyright are mutually exclusive.  I appreciate that
people want to share their sources with us, and I understand if they
would prefer to protect them.  But placing two conflicting statements of
status in a program makes it useless to anyone who cares about such things.
We have no way of knowing what we may or may not do with this "PD uu clone;"
the copyright doesn't even include the usual "copy but not for profit
clause."  We have to assume that we can't even print it out...

In article <4269@hi.uucp>, josh@hi.uucp writes:
> XX  Copyright 1987, Josh Siegel
> XX  All rights reserved.

	In the cases of the "network library," there is no ambiguity,
but there is also no permission to use, modify, or otherwise enjoy the
code.  Why post it?

	Further examples may be found in the "public domain" curses,
grep, and many others in the mod.sources archive.  So please (pretty
please with sugar on it?) if you want to make something public domain,
don't copyright it.  If you have something about non-profit use in mind,
spell it out so we know what we can use it for.  If you actually want
to reserve all rights, avoid posting since it is an invitation to have
those rights violated by, e.g., someone's reading the article on a
printing terminal and leaving the terminal room without destroying the
copy...

					Dan Lanciani
					ddl@harvard.*