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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!agate!eris!mwm
From: mwm@eris (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Software (and other kinds of) copying
Keywords: technology changes things
Message-ID: <6650@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 21 Jan 88 22:13:36 GMT
References: <8055@g.ms.uky.edu> <174@piring.cwi.nl> <14257@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.UUCP (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 45

In article <14257@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> mcb@oddjob.uchicago.edu.UUCP (He Who Passes Through Locked Doors) writes:
<Copyright laws exist to allow people
<who write such software to make a living doing so.  If the laws didn't exist,
<neither would the software.

Matt, I don't know what drugs you've been doing, but you should stop.
It's causing you to overlook some important facts. Let's look at the
tools I use, from the ground up:

OS - it was written by a couple of people working for a company that
was forbidden *by law* from either selling or supporting it. Further
enhancement was done by a seperate group that has been giving it away
for the cost of time & materials, and may be required to do so by law
(4BSD).

Editors - two of the four I use come gratis with the above OS. The
other two are available to anyone for the asking (ed, ex, GNU Emacs
and microGNUEmacs).

Languages - one comes gratis with the above OS; one I had to pay for;
two were free for the asking (C on 4BSD & a PC, CScheme & T).

The software that manages the bbs-like system your message & this
reply appear on is free. The software I use to access that is free.
Free software is available to talk on the networks it travels over for
a wide variety of hardware.

Further, some of the best programmers I know (people who write working
device drivers without having hardware to test them on) don't write
software for a living. They maintain software for some group that
needs it to get their work done - and are allowed to give away their
changes and improvements to that software, and any tools they write to
make their job easier.

No, copyright law - or lack thereof - isn't why software gets written.
It gets written because people need it, or because they want it. All
the copyright laws really do is restrict the distribution of the
software once it gets written.

	<mike
--
Take a magic carpet to the olden days			Mike Meyer
To a mythical land where everybody lays			mwm@berkeley.edu
Around in the clouds in a happy daze			ucbvax!mwm
In Kizmiaz ... Kizmiaz					mwm@ucbjade.BITNET