Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!versatc!arisia!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Re^2: New Communicational Morality
Keywords: software, copyright, society
Message-ID: <990@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 89 10:38:58 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net> <985@quintus.UUCP> <10212@megaron.arizona.edu>
Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 31

In article <10212@megaron.arizona.edu> rupley@arizona.edu (John Rupley) writes:
>In article <985@quintus.UUCP>, ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>> Even with material property, the value isn't always in _having_ the
>> thing but is sometimes in _controlling_ it.
>
>What a magnificent idea!
>		   THE SOFTWARE CONSERVANCY
>Monies donated to the Conservancy could be used to protect certain
>software from use by the public (and by symmetry, the public from use of
>such software).

No, the conservation societies are not attempting to protect the land from
use by the public, nor the public from the existence of the land.  What
they are trying to do is prevent _legal_ but _destructive_ use of the
land.  That was the point of my metaphor:  a conservation society which
is trying to protect a nature reserve is usually delighted to let hikers
and biologists have access to the land; what they want to do is prevent
strip-mining or clear-felling or the like.  The value of title to the
land to such a society (would that more could _afford_ such an approach)
is not in keeping absolutely everyone out for all time, but in letting
people in for some purposes but not others.  Thus the software analogy
is someone who wants to make a program _available_ to some people but
not others.  For example, when I was studying at Edinburgh I posted a
free implementation of the UNIX strings library (all V7 + Sys5 functions
plus several more) to net.sources, asking that it not be used for military
purposes.  I wish I had thought of GNU-style copylefts back then, be sure
I would have used one.  (Not that it would have stopped anyone, but it
might have made them think a bit.)  Ironically, the whole of Richard
Stallman's scheme would fall to the ground if it weren't for the fact
that the rest of the country believe that becuase it's the FSF's property
the FSF have the right to set the conditions under which it may be used.