childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) (08/03/89)
rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) writes: >hankd@pur-ee.UUCP (Hank Dietz) writes: >> I'd just like to clarify that public domain (PD) software DOES carry a >> copyright... >Hank, I'm sorry but you're completely wrong. It doesn't even take a lawyer >to check this one; a decent dictionary will tell you that "public domain" >means "not subject to copyright or patent". If a work is in the public >domain, it may be freely appropriated--the act of placing it in the public >domain is equivalent to relinquishing ALL rights in the work. I'm not entirely certain of this. Buckminster Fuller, after getting ripped off in his [ relative ] youth, was very careful about protecting all of his inventions from being stolen, by fastidiously patenting and / or copywriting everything he did. He was equally fastidious in placing his patents, at least, in the public domain, where they have been for decades and remain today. Nobody owns the geodesic dome theory, although they are free to implement it in practice and charge good money for their pre-assembled kits. Same with everything else he's developed. >If you put a notice in a piece of software saying that it is in the public >domain, but accompanying it with a restriction, you have made conflicting >statements. The best you could hope for if someone disobeyed the restric- >tion you attempt to place on it is a very murky legal hassle. I would argue that there is room for another category, and that when one views it from a profit-driven perspective one is missing something. >I suggest that folks who are interested in these issues look at the GNU >material talking about "copyleft"--the explanation of why GNU software is >not PD covers the issues. > >There is also a paper by Jordan Breslow - an attorney practicing copyright >and computer law - which came with the news software a while back. It >does a good job of explaining the distinctions. Regarding PD, he notes >that "...the phrase `public domain', when used correctly, means the >absence of copyright protection..." Both of these represent efforts on the part of rational individuals to manipulate rationality. In Jordan Breslow's case, he in interpreting the existing rationales, whereas in Richard Stallman's case, he is trying to establish a new paradigm which he hopes will become dominant in due time, and displace that set of rules which dominate today and under which Mssr Breslow operates and is familiar with. Neither of these are cast in concrete, and so pointing to the past or the present as constraints for future development is circular reasoning. The past and the present hold only failures for us to avoid, not lessons which we are bound to conform to. Precedents are the creations of lawyers, but when they fail we must be able to find other ways of steering our way through confusion, and while past successes provide one source for examples, I'd thinka little brainstorming is in order - which the net excels at providing an environment for, IMHO. >Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 > ...Simpler is better. Should we all become paramecia, then ? (-: Eschew generalizations. -- richard -- * Truth : the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of * * destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by * * all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death. * * ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers@tycho *