kurt@hi.UUCP (04/18/87)
Copyright 1987, Kurt D. Zeilenga You may hack this up as you see fit. :-) I am about to distribute some software and have a few restrictions I would like to impose on its copying and distribution. I read "Copyright Law" by Jordan J. Breslow again (ask your news admin for a copy), looked at some of the notices in various sources and then composed the verbose (I think) notice below. I would like to here your comments. Please mail them to me. I will summarize to the network as I deem appropriate. Copyright 1987, Kurt D. Zeilenga This notice and any statement of authorship must be reproduced on all copies. The author does not make any warranty expressed or implied, or assumes any liability or responsiblity for the use of this software. Any distributor of copies of this software shall grant the recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this notice. Any distributor must distribute this software without any fee or other monetary gains, unless expressed written permission is granted by the author. This software or its use shall not be: sold, rented, leased, traded, or otherwise marketed without the expressed written permission of the author. If the software is modified in a manner creating derivative copyrights, appropriate legends may be placed on derivative work in addition to that set forth above. Permission is hereby granted to copy, reproduce, redistribute or otherwise use this software as long as the conditions above are meet. All rights not granted by this notice are reserved. -- Kurt Zeilenga (zeilenga@hc.dspo.gov)
chongo@amdahl.UUCP (Landon Curt Noll) (04/19/87)
In article <4406@hi.uucp> kurt@hi.uucp (Kurt Zeilenga) writes: > > This software or its use shall not be: sold, rented, leased, > traded, or otherwise marketed without the expressed written > permission of the author. > Consider company X which sells a Un*x system & software. Can they include code that contains the above restriction, free of charge? Or in order words can one sell Un*x for $Y, and toss in such programs for free? If someone is going to broadcast a game all over USENET, why would they want to prevent someone else from adding it into their software distribution? Perhaps the following would make things more clear: This software or its use shall not be: sold, rented, leased, traded, or otherwise marketed without the expressed written permission of the author. This software may be included in a software package that is sold so long as its inclusion does not result in an increased cost of the package. chongo <constructive comments?> /\oo/\ -- [views above shouldn't be viewed as Amdahl views, or as views from Amdahl, or as Amdahl views views, or as views by Mr. Amdahl, or as views from his house]
webber@klinzhai.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber) (04/20/87)
In article <6280@amdahl.UUCP>, chongo@amdahl.UUCP (Landon Curt Noll) writes: > In article <4406@hi.uucp> kurt@hi.uucp (Kurt Zeilenga) writes: > > > > This software or its use shall not be: sold, rented, leased, > > traded, or otherwise marketed without the expressed written > > permission of the author. > > > > Consider company X which sells a Un*x system & software. Can they include > code that contains the above restriction, free of charge? Or in order words > can one sell Un*x for $Y, and toss in such programs for free? HOPEFULLY NOT. If the software did not add value to their distribution, they wouldn't distribute it (tossing it in for free is not a meaningful concept). The sentiment of the authors who make such copyright messages seems quite clear to me -- they are returning the favour of other people who have posted software to the net in a similar manner. Doubtless when commercial companies start posting production-quality copies of the source of their programs for free use by the net, people will want to share with them too. [NOTE: clearly a distinction is made between the people who work for companies and individually post to the net and the companies they work for, in that individuals benefit from having access to software whereas companies benefit mainly by selling it.] Of course, I wouldn't even begin to guess what a lawyer would say about all this. ------------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; BACKBONE!topazat tof !u
tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (04/21/87)
In an article, Webber writes:
<> Consider company X which sells a Un*x system & software. Can they include
<> code that contains the above restriction, free of charge? Or in order words
<> can one sell Un*x for $Y, and toss in such programs for free?
<
< HOPEFULLY NOT. If the software did not add value to their
< distribution, they wouldn't distribute it (tossing it in for free is
< not a meaningful concept).
When I worked at Callan Data Systems, we were seriously thinking
of putting all the interesting stuff we had found on net.sources in
our distributions. There was plenty of free space, so why not?
I wanted to do this because I thought that it would be a nice
surprise to people who buy the system to find a bunch of fun stuff
to play with ( besides, if they are all busy playing "hack", they
are not calling up and making me look bad by reporting bugs in
my code :-) ).
The plan was eventually killed by Support. They felt that no matter
how many disclaimers that the software is not from Callan and not
supported by Callan, there would still be a lot of customers who
would call in and expect support.
--
Tim Smith "Hojotoho! Hojotoho!
uucp: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim Heiaha! Heiaha!
Delph or GEnie: Mnementh Hojotoho! Heiaha!"
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