Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!mtuxo!ldm
From: ldm@mtuxo.att.com (the wharf rat)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Suppose....
Message-ID: <3152@mtuxo.att.com>
Date: 21 Oct 88 21:22:30 GMT
Reply-To: ldm@mtuxo.UUCP (the wharf rat)
Organization: Franklin's Tower South
Lines: 19



	Suppose that a programmer for a large && not entirely well-liked company
was asked to write a program to allow the editing && subsequent mailing
of a message to a list of system administrators, and suppose this programmer
said to himself, "Gee, sounds *just* *like* *Pnews*, except of course I'd have 
to invoke the mailer... Hmmm.", and thought about _borrowing_ some code, but
had second thoughts about borrowing Netnews code to use at work, even though
this would be a strictly internal product && never sold for money, because 
he's aware that the nice people who built Netnews placed it in the public domain
with the explicit request that it *not* be re-sold for money...

	Would you tell him "Sure, software re-use is a Good Thing, and since
you're not making money directly off it and it'll never be included in a 
product sold to a customer", or would you tell him "Well, you *would* be using
it in a commercial product of sorts, and it *might* someday be sold as part
of a package - ya never know- and it owuld be easy enough to write your own 
anyway..."
							W.rat