Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re:  copyrighting standards to avoid their modification
Message-ID: <1988Feb3.190443.286@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <11140@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 3-Feb-88 19:04:40 EST

> ... just copyright the standard, release
> the machine-readable forms, but only give permission to distribute
> *unmodified* copies.

"If they ban guns, how will we protect ourselves from burglars?"
"Just ban burglars!"			- Russell Myers, in Broom-Hilda

The careful, ethical people who meticulously observe things like copyright
and redistribution restrictions are not the problem.

> If somebody runs it through a document scanner and distributes perfect,
> machine-readable copies (unlikely, given the current state of document
> scanning), what are they going to do, sue the guy for copyright violation?
> Gee, that's just what they would have to do to stop somebody who distributed
> a *modified* machine readable copy, had they released one.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here; are you saying "this is silly,
because machine-readable copies can be had anyway, it's just harder"?  If
so, I agree with the facts but not the evaluation.  The key word is "harder".
There's never any way to stop the turkeys completely; all you can do is
make it more difficult.

> So that can't be the reason.  I still think it's pure profit motive...

I didn't say it was *the* reason, I said it was *a* reason.  Profit motive
(or rather non-profit motive) undoubtedly is an important factor.  I was
just pointing out that there are real reasons other than that, too.

> [I] wonder that the committee of our peers who wrote it don't claim their
> own copyright on it, permitting redistribution, and only allow ANSI to
> distribute it if ANSI permits it to be redistributed...

Could it be that they think ANSI is useful and should be allowed to make a
bit of money to keep itself going?
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry