Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!gatech!kong!emory!stiatl!john From: john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: network public domain? Message-ID: <3025@stiatl.UUCP> Date: 9 Feb 89 03:05:37 GMT References: <1139@ssbn.WLK.COM> Reply-To: john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) Followup-To: news.admin Distribution: na Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., Atlanta, GA Lines: 175 In article <1139@ssbn.WLK.COM> bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes: >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. > >-- >Bill Kennedy usenet {killer,att,cs.utexas.edu,sun!daver}!ssbn!bill > internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM Bill, I'm afraid it has a bunch to do with the administration of this net. First, paraphrasing someone generally gets flame wars started. I'm not afraid to defend what I said. I don't need your help in paraphrasing. As a veteran of the legal wars - having prosecuted a total of 4 lawsuits, 2 of them major, and one involving intellectual property - I have some experiences and opinions that are fairly unique among the pseudo-lawyers on the net. As an ex-employee once said, "in a lawsuit, there are 2 winners and 2 loosers. You and your opponent are gonna be the loosers" Very true. I never cease to be amazed at the level of ignorance of the copyright laws displayed by the group on the network - a group supposed to be at least a bit literate on these subjects. I'd suggest anyone wanting to be taken the least bit seriously regarding copyright law to study the law AND caselaw - what little exists - and consult a copyright lawyer. You do others similarly uninformed a great disservice with your unfounded pronouncements. Funny, Brad and I are (have been) in very similiar professional situations. The difference is I sold my company to get away from the stress of running a software company. (Brad owns Looking Glass Software, for those of you just tuning in) I'm afraid that the same hardheadedness that makes a good CEO simply makes enemies on this network where operating practice and rules are governed by agreement and concensus. Brad MAY be technically correct regarding compilation copyrights but I doubt it. I've found that most judges apply a reasonableness test to any arguement, especially when a technicality is attempting to be used against an opponent. I really cannot imagine getting up in front of a judge and trying to explain the reasonablness of a claim that i have a copyright on a collection of things written by others and posted to a public network. This is almost a contradiction in terms. I SURE cannot imagine defending this line under cross examination from the opposition. To address the issue a bit more globally, does anyone really think that he retains any real (as opposed to theoretical) control over anything posted to a public network like Usenet? The reality is that anything posted to this net will be received by thousands of people, read by thousands, copied by thousands, and used by thousands. In many cases, "use" will involve exerpting or copying in total, the end result being material gain to the copier. I daresay there is not a truthful person on this net who can say that at some time they have not used someone elses' so-called intellectual property for their own purposes. I'd guarantee no programmer can. We all build on work done by others and hopefully we in turn contribute back to the public domain. Let's consider the case for a moment, of the one instance of someone trying to prosecute alledged copying of code released to the public - the famous ARC wars between PK and SEA. SEA published an archiving utility based on a long algorithmic evolution. SEA released the source to the public. (so good so far). PK allegedly took this code, modified it to enhance its performance and rereleased it as beg-ware. SEA got into a snit and sued. But let's look at the result. PK, lacking resources to fight, capitulated and gave in to SEA's onslaught. SEA won, right? WRONGO!! Public opinion was so opposed to what SEA did that SEA was damaged, perhaps fatally. Many sites, this one included, have banned SEA products. Most BBS ops have flushed SEA's products, including those unrelated to the ARC war. Meanwhile, most people have gone over to ZOO (thanks Rauhl), PAK or are waiting for PK's new ZIP product. So who was the winner. Well, obviously the lawyers. Who lost - both of them and us, the users. Who REALLY lost? SEA. While SEA possibly had a thread of legal basis for suit, the exercise of that basis so incensed the public that most people will never have anything to do with SEA or its products. So let's pull this back to the Usenet. Anything posted to this network is defacto public domain regardless of the poster's statement to the contrary. This network is run and financed by a combination of public and private money, is governed by a concensus opinion of those who care enough to participate, and is here for the mutual benefit of everybody. The problem posed by people like Brad asserting some godly right of control is that to the backbones and system administrators, it raises the spectre of a bunch of maddog crazed lawyers running amok against the network. This possibility layered on top of the increasing load from the influx of new users and the increasing noise-to-signal ratio of postings and the possibility of more worms A LA RTM is enough to cause many to pull the plug on the net. Our site is an example. We have to weigh the benefit of the net to our *commercial* goals against the risks. This balance has tipped perilously close to the negative. we've been able so far to assuage the worries of upper management vis a vie our exposure vs benefits. We're probably more liberal in this area than most. So to those of you like Bill or Phil Agai who feel some commercial exposure by posting your latest utility or algorithm, I can only suggest that you NOT POST IT. I'd hope that in the interest of fair play you would scrupulously avoid TAKING anything back from the net. and who knows, your little ditty may take off like Lotus. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I hope that we at ST can be an example of model net.citizens. Consider X-Windows as an example. We are very close to releasing a commercial product based on X. The exercize of taking an academic experiment and making a commercially sound product has cost thousands and has pretty much drained the team members. We obviously benefited from the advise and code available from the network. And we consider X to give us a pretty good advantage over our competition. Be that as it may, we are freely sharing our experiences and code fixes with anyone on the network interested enough to read the newsgroup or email questions. (Don't ask me any details - it's not my project :-) So does this help our competitors? Possibly. Does it matter enough to keep this knowledge to ourselves? Nope. We realize we will always be one step ahead of anyone who really needs the advise we dispense here. So in closing, I can only say that perhaps a reality check is in order for Brad and those who support his position on this copyright drivel. Brad, you know that the network will support you in your fight against the idiots and facists. We will support you morally and financially. If you want to lob a few lawyers toward JEDR, U of Waterloo, Sanford or the media, let us know. we'll send bucks and generate massive negative publicity for the perpitrators. At the same time, we will not allow you or any other person jepardize this very valuable resource. Please - drop you copyright dribble and go back to doing what you do well - spreading mirth across net.land. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | Manual? ... What manual ?!? Sales Technologies, Inc. Atlanta, GA | This is Unix, My son, You ...!gatech!stiatl!john | just GOTTA Know!!!