Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: COPYRIGHT NOTICES (on program sources, of course) Message-ID: <6316@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Sat, 22-Aug-87 01:43:33 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6316 Posted: Sat Aug 22 01:43:33 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 11:05:55 EDT References: <6236@brl-smoke.ARPA> <25095@sun.uucp> <12133@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <330@brandx.rutgers.edu> <14134@topaz.rutgers.edu> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 30 In article <14134@topaz.rutgers.edu> ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes: >I think what the original poster meant was that the moderators should >filter out messages with questionable copyright notices on them, rather >than filtering out the copyright notices themselves. Yes, or something like that. I would actually hope that people wouldn't insert them in the first place. Normal professional ethics should suffice insofar as making sure proper credit is given and is not lost in future revisions. By the way, as I read the GNU COPYING rules, they act like an infection: Suppose I packaged GNU EMACS along with a bunch of other "free" software into some sort of user-contributed tape. The GNU rules would spread to cover the entire package. Then suppose I wanted to distribute the user-contributed tape as a "freebie" along with an operating system (like Gould's "D4" tape). The GNU rules would, as I read them, then also encompass the operating system. As a commercial software developer (hypothetically), I would not be able to derive income from my work on the operating system. Such terms would certainly cause me to not include GNU EMACS in ANY software package, to avoid starting a plague. That somehow does not seem to be what the rules were trying to achieve, which I think was supposed to be the spread of Stallman's socialist notions about intellectual property (software, at least). Of course, the above scenario is oversimplified; in practice, the large software package would probably contain items that conflicted in their legal demands; who knows what the resolution would be in a court of law.