dsill@NSWC-OAS.ARPA.UUCP (04/03/87)
(Root Boy) Jim "Just Say Yes" Cottrell <rbj@icst-cmr.arpa> wrote: >? ... Public domain means that the program can be sold, etc - >? no one owns it, while the GNU copyright restricts the use. > >So if anyone can do anything with it, one can slap the GNU copyright >on it. That doesn't mean they *own* it, but the value is that people >*think* thay do. ... Not quite, once something has been distributed as public domain, it can't be copyrighted. -Dave Sill dsill@nswc-oas.arpa
rbj@ICST-CMR.ARPA.UUCP (04/03/87)
? (Root Boy) Jim "Just Say Yes" Cottrell <rbj@icst-cmr.arpa> wrote: ? >? ... Public domain means that the program can be sold, etc - ? >? no one owns it, while the GNU copyright restricts the use. ? > ? >So if anyone can do anything with it, one can slap the GNU copyright ? >on it. That doesn't mean they *own* it, but the value is that people ? >*think* thay do. ... ? ? Not quite, once something has been distributed as public domain, it ? can't be copyrighted. ? ? -Dave Sill ? dsill@nswc-oas.arpa True, it can'y *be* copyrighted, but it can *claim* to be copyrighted. As I said before, most people will just assume that it is and avoid `violating' the `copyright'. This same procedure is used by people who write contracts. They add intimidating but legally invalid clauses, and the man on the street just assumes that because he signed them that he agreed to them and that they are legally binding. (Root Boy) Jim "Just Say Yes" Cottrell <rbj@icst-cmr.arpa> Wait.. is this a FUN THING or the END of LIFE in Petticoat Junction?? P.S. Where is -oas anyway, Dahlgren? My dad (same name) works at White Oak.
rb@cci632.UUCP (04/08/87)
In article <8704031442.AA25937@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> dsill@NSWC-OAS.ARPA writes: >(Root Boy) Jim "Just Say Yes" Cottrell <rbj@icst-cmr.arpa> wrote: >>? ... Public domain means that the program can be sold, etc - >>? no one owns it, while the GNU copyright restricts the use. >>So if anyone can do anything with it, one can slap the GNU copyright >>on it. That doesn't mean they *own* it, but the value is that people >>*think* thay do. ... >Not quite, once something has been distributed as public domain, it >can't be copyrighted. >-Dave Sill Not quite. If something is truly public domain (like the works of Shakespear), it is still possible to produce a "derivative work" which can be copyrighted. In theory, simply adding the copyright notice could be considered a "derivative work". If one can obtain the original work which was not copyrighted, they can use that without restriction. If one does not wish to have others producing "derivative works" from their software, they should copyright and specify licence terms. It is not uncommon for publishing companies to add a few footnotes or compile collections, or otherwise "improve" a public domain work. While the base work might be public domain, the final product can be copyrighted. The nice thing about "copyleft" is that it prevents someone from making "propriatery improvements" without the copyright owners permission. I have an old emacs manual which credits Richard Stallman as the original author of emacs as a public domain product, then proceeds to describe their own proprietary version. The main difference appears to be a few key bindings. Since Richard hadn't "copylefted" his original versions of emacs, with the current FSF manifesto, he can't prevent others from taking the public domain versions of his earlier versions of emacs. I don't know if there are any "totally proprietary" versions of emacs out there, but it is not unreasonable to assume that there are versions based on the original which must be purchased without source, and give none of the benifits of the GNU version. The main disadvantage to "copyleft" is that it does prevent others from making new products that might have a wider appeal. If Richard says "^S and ^Q are standard bindings", then you can't change this in the "Base line version", since this would be a "proprietary change". In theory, even setting up a "term/*.elc" file for a proprietary terminal could be considered a violation of the GNU manifesto. Fortunately, the GNU manifesto does allow certain types of changes in a non-proprietary manner. It does not however, allow linking in something like RFS or NFS libraries, since these libraries are proprietary. In general, with "public domain", one may mix "public" and "proprietary" with impunity, while with "copyleft", "copyleft" and "proprietary" must be kept almost entirely mutually exclusive. Rex B.
markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) (04/08/87)
In article <1090@cci632.UUCP> rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex B) writes: |The nice thing about "copyleft" is that it prevents someone from making |"propriatery improvements" without the copyright owners permission. |... |The main disadvantage to "copyleft" is that it does prevent others from |making new products that might have a wider appeal. If Richard says |... |In general, with "public domain", one may mix "public" and "proprietary" |with impunity, while with "copyleft", "copyleft" and "proprietary" must |be kept almost entirely mutually exclusive. It seems to me that you could sell any type of proprietary changes to GNU software in the form of "ed scripts" which do not contain any of the original source. You could even get fancy and have the change data be encrypted in some way and provide a magic binary program that did the changes to the GNU binary. Mark Biggar {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb
rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (04/22/87)
In article <4410@sdcrdcf.UUCP| markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) writes: |In article <1090@cci632.UUCP> rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex B) writes: ||The nice thing about "copyleft" is that it prevents someone from making ||"propriatery improvements" without the copyright owners permission. ||... ||The main disadvantage to "copyleft" is that it does prevent others from ||making new products that might have a wider appeal. If Richard says ||... ||In general, with "public domain", one may mix "public" and "proprietary" ||with impunity, while with "copyleft", "copyleft" and "proprietary" must ||be kept almost entirely mutually exclusive. | |It seems to me that you could sell any type of proprietary changes to GNU |software in the form of "ed scripts" which do not contain any of the |original source. You could even get fancy and have the change data be |encrypted in some way and provide a magic binary program that did the |changes to the GNU binary. |Mark Biggar To a certain degree, this is true. Just as "patches" are sold for MS-DOS, any other copyrighted software, GNU could similarly be patched. However, GNU also carries some liscence provisions, as well as a copyright. Read the GNU liscence agreement. These are conditions you agree to in exchange for permission to copy the materials. Of course, the biggest problem with "patches" is that many things "move around" from release to release, and with GNU's "weekly release schedule", it gets very difficult to do patches which do not contain ANY source (remember sed regular expressions and diff files require some source). Of course, there are ways to write "hooks" to proprietary code. Special key bindings for practially any terminal is an example. The code inside the terminal is proprietary, but the bindings aren't. Similarly, calling the various proprietary commands from the shell is also a use of "hooks" to proprietary code. Even in these examples, Richard or the FSF could prohibit certain types of hooks if they made the base product (Emacs for example) unusable without the proprietary code. Richard, have you ever had to stop someone from doing this? Rex B.