Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 to ban ARC files Message-ID: <3947@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: 14 Sep 88 16:35:13 GMT References: <12594@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <8476@smoke.ARPA> Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 42 In article <8476@smoke.ARPA> w8sdz@brl.arpa (Keith B. Petersen (WSMR|towson) ) writes: >How can we reason that we should use ZOO as the new standard when the >latest is *not* public domain? To say "well, if you go back to an >earlier version it's public domain" indicates to me that if we did that >we would never see any growth in the PUBLIC DOMAIN version because >anything with more features would be (and is) copyrighted. This assumption may have arisen because I didn't quite explain the idea behind 2.0 having different restrictions than previous versions. My general policy in the future will be to have some reasonable restrictions on the distribution of the then-current version, with all previous versions having no restrictions other than that the recipient know he's not getting the current version. When 2.0 is superseded by any significant upgrade, that upgrade will have some reasonable distribution requirements, but the restrictions on 2.0 will be lifted. The philosphy is that those who provide free software to others at a low cost and without trying to restrict redistribution get to distribute the current version. Those who do otherwise get to distribute the slightly-outdated but still-extremelely-useful previous version. Since the intent is to maintain both upward and downward compatiblity, nobody gets to receive a zoo archive that can't be listed and extracted. So, from the point of view of the user: 1. If I'm willing to go to slight trouble, I always get to use the latest version. 2. If I want to get zoo from a source that doesn't conform to the current version's distribution requirements, I possibly am a version behind. But I still get to extract all zoo archives I find anywhere. Should there ever be a need to change zoo such that downward compatibility is lost (no such plans for now), I will distribute a new version that will be redistributable without restrictions. You only have my verbal promise, but that's about all you get in this business anyway. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi