Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!ames!killer!texbell!ssbn!bill
From: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: network public domain?
Summary: Public gibbet?
Message-ID: <1139@ssbn.WLK.COM>
Date: 8 Feb 89 03:46:14 GMT
References: <2712@looking.UUCP> <1449@papaya.bbn.com> <2944@stiatl.UUCP> <24371@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Reply-To: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
Followup-To: poster
Distribution: na
Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr. and Associates, Pipe Creek, TX
Lines: 46

In article <24371@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@diablo.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) writes:
>In article <2944@stiatl.UUCP> john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes:
>|
>|This network is public domain and if you don't want anything in
>|the public domain, DON'T POST IT.
>
>I was trying to decide if I should get my company to post some free,
>useful, but NOT public domain, software to the network. 
>
>You've just helped me decide not to bother.

This disturbs me.  It doesn't disturb me because Phil doesn't want to urge
his organization to share some software, but because I got an eerie feeling
about a similar decision I reached some time back.  John says that is it
appears on usenet, it's public domain.  That may be true as a practical
matter but not in point of fact.  Any number of things have been posted that
were specifically _not_ public domain, said so in the preamble.

I'm disturbed with John's statement (generously paraphrased, the original is
above) "you put it here, we own it, or else" and Phil's reaction (ditto)
"Oh, in that case, we'll not share what we had planned to share".  Further,
I'm disturbed with the mood I feel on the net, as evidenced by my paraphrase
of the above.  The eerie feeling I mentioned I got while thinking about a
nifty little gadget I wrote, use, and like.  Phil won't post his because
John says he loses any rights he might want to retain.  Bob Webber did post
his and got soundly flamed because the presentation/technique didn't meet
someone elses standards of usa/porta/bility.

OK, I'm a hopeless romantic, but I remember when this was a cooperative
forum in which people could post problems and get help; share ideas and
get attribution; express opinions and get discussion.  I'll not forecast
the imminent death of the net, but it seems that the pugnacious nature of
the current mood has persisted far longer than usual.  Frankly, I'm
intimidated by the current mood, I don't think I should post anything of
substance (in which this article does not pretend to qualify) lest I be
beaten against the wall by hoardes who think that nihilism is the order
of the day.  What happened to common courtesy?  It left popular urban
society long ago.  Is that what made it leave the net?  As much screeching
as we do about autonomy and freedom, it makes sense (to me) that people
should not be discouraged from posting something they think is useful.

Followups are directed to poster (me) because this discussion has precious
little to do with news administration.
-- 
Bill Kennedy  usenet      {killer,att,cs.utexas.edu,sun!daver}!ssbn!bill
              internet    bill@ssbn.WLK.COM