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From: jim@ci-dandelion.UUCP (Jim Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: COPYRIGHT NOTICES
Message-ID: <3123@ci-dandelion.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 11:04:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: ci-dande.3123
Posted: Thu Aug 20 11:04:42 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 12:35:09 EDT
References: <6236@brl-smoke.ARPA> <229@rocksvax.UUCP> <579@quacky.UUCP> <998@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Cognition, Inc., Billerica, Ma.
Lines: 35
Summary: issue not as clear cut as it was made out to be

In article <998@bsu-cs.UUCP>, dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
> 
>    >	"You can do anything you want with this software except sell
>    >	it or take out this copyright notice".
> 
>    My question is: what does it mean to "sell" the software in question?
> 
>    ...
>
> There is a very simple way to decide if you are selling the software.
> 
> You are selling a package containing hardware and software.  Now ask
> this question:  Do you supply this particular copyrighted software free
> of charge if somebody chooses *not* to buy the package?  In other
> words, is buying the package the only way somebody can get this
> software from you?  If you answer yes, then you're selling the
> software.


This doesn't take into account that distributing any software requires a lot of
effort, most of which is overhead.  The incremental costs of adding the
unsupported package to an existing distribution may be acceptable whereas
setting up a whole new distribution may not be.  Just because a company chooses
to eat the small costs but not the large ones doesn't necessarily mean that
it is "selling" the software. 

This question gets blurrier though if you propose to pay them for ALL of their
overhead (i.e. you are paying for making and administering the tape, not the
bits) in return for the software.  I suspect, though, that the customer and
the supplier would have fairly different opinions on just how much that
overhead should be.

						Jim Fulton
						Cognition Inc.
						(a small company)