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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: <6668@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 23 Jan 88 02:50:53 GMT
References: <8055@g.ms.uky.edu> <174@piring.cwi.nl> <14257@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> <6650@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1950@epiwrl.EPI.COM>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.UUCP (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
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In article <1950@epiwrl.EPI.COM> parker@epiwrl.EPI.COM (Alan Parker) writes:
<It was written by a couble of very smart people in a research lab many
<years ago.  It was shared at nearly no cost to Universities for many
<years.  But it was always property of a private company and
<today is one of their major products.

That doesn't negate that it was illegel for that company to sell the
OS when it was written. They "shared it at nearly no cost" because the
judge that decided they could sell "refuse of internal work" also
ruled they couldn't make a profit on it. It wasn't until the company
was dismembered that it could be treated as a legit product.

<>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).
<
<Where in the world did you get the idea that BSD Unix is free?    UCB,
<in effect, gives away their modifications to Unix, but only to those
<with a source license from AT&T.

Sorry - ambigious antecedents on "it". I was referring to those
enhancements, modulo licenses on the original source. But there are
large pieces of code that *aren't* covered by any license other than
the Berkeley ones. Work is underway to sort out what can and can't be
given away - and parts of that OS are already in the "can be given
away" state.

<Nothing came gratis with the OS.

True - there are people obnoxious enough to seperate out the C
compiler & editors. Most of them seem to be failing (or have already
failed) in the computer market.

AT&T doesn't charge extra for giving someone the editor with Unix -
last time I looked, the only thing you had to give someone when you
sold them Unix was /etc/init & /unix. No shell required. Since then,
they've started doing "validations." I would be surprised if at least
one shell weren't required, and wouldn't be surprised if an editor (or
two) weren't required. Whether the result is "gratis with the OS" or
"part of the package" is word games.

<You seem to imply that since they weren't priced individually that they
<are somehow public domain.  GNU emacs and microemacs are public domain
<(essentially), but not ed and ex (unless you are talking about different
<ones than I am).

No, you implied it. I said they came at no extra charge ("gratis")
with the OS. You have to have a license for the OS. That license
covers all the things I mentioned. On the other hand, microGNUemacs is
mostly public domain - some of the machine-specific files have
copyrights still held by their authers. I don't know about microemacs.
GNU is *not* public domain, and the copyrights are held very tightly
by the FSF. Just to prevent people from selling it for money.

<C in BSD is most certainly not *free*.

C in BSD is free from BSD, once you've dealt with the legalities of
getting the rest of the system - "gratis with the OS." Of course, the
legalities probably won't involve any large telecom companies for the
next release, as CSRG is working on switching from PCC to the GNU C
compiler.

<If you are running Unix, using the AT&T C compiler and you
<didn't pay somebody for it, then you've got a bogus system.  I grant,
<that it might look free, if you buy a Unix box that has Unix bundled
<with it; but its certainly part of the cost and your vendor sends a
<check to AT&T for each one sold.

No, the vendor does *not* send a check to AT&T for each C compiler
sold. Not unless they've radically changed their licensing since I
last dealt with them. The vendor sends a check for each Unix system
sold, and can't give (or sell) a C compiler to anyone that didn't buy
a Unix from them.

<Most software is written, because its a legitimate way to earn a living
<and to build a business.   Sun didn't write Suntools to be nice guys;
<they wrote it to make the systems they sell more attractive.
<Try taking their code, and making minor changes for your AT and see what
<they do.  They don't charge extra for it when you buy a Sun, but they
<don't call it free, and that doesn't make it up for grabs.

Suntools makes Suns more attractive? Giggle. What a laugh. And I don't
deal with obsolete hardware - unless it's noticably faster than
anything else I can get my hands on. Things using intel processors
prior to the '386 are always in the first category, and never in the
second.

I agree, *some* sotware is written specifically to be sold. Probably
even most (but not all) of the software being sold. But most software?
I doubt it. I claim that most software is written because it was
needed to get some job done. What becomes of it after that depends on
lots of things. I suspect that *most* software is written by the
government, and people doing work for the government. Most of that is
public domain modulo licenses that cover whatever was started with.

For instance, I worked on a C compiler for an obscure machine you
probably never heard of. You can have the front end (if you can find a
copy somewhere) for nothing, *if* you have a license for v7 Unix. The
back end doesn't have that restriction - you're welcome to a back end
that swallows pcc-produced trees and generates QM/C code if you want
it. You can even get the QM/C simulator I wrote - either the one in C,
or the one in QM/1 nanocode. You just have to find someone who's still
got a copy.

	<mike
--
Kiss me with your mouth.				Mike Meyer
Your love is better than wine.				mwm@berkeley.edu
But wine is all I have.					ucbvax!mwm
Will your love ever be mine?				mwm@ucbjade.BITNET