jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) (11/21/89)
[mind-boggling sharfile deleted] Am I the only one who thinks it's a bit odd to see a copylefted source posting that's less than half the size of the (included) GNU public license? I'm all for protecting software freedom, but come *on*. If I copyrighted every sub-100-line program I wrote, I'd quickly run out of disk space. "Look, Max! It's those pyramid-building aliens I've heard about in speculative films and books! They came to Earth to build these immense structures to keep their razor blades sharp and their hamburger fresh." -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)
tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) (11/21/89)
Did we really need 12.5k of licence for 3.5k of source code????
This really seems like a waste of net bandwidth. And it's not
like the program hasn't been written before many times. I'm
not sure it merited the GPL. But don't take me wrong: I support
alt.sources and freely-redistributable software, although I sometimes
question that the GNU idea is really better than public domain software,
like Henry Spencer's regular expression libaries.
--tom
Tom Christiansen {uunet,uiucdcs,sun}!convex!tchrist
Convex Computer Corporation tchrist@convex.COM
"EMACS belongs in <sys/errno.h>: Editor too big!"jeff@gistdev.gist.com (Jeff Johnson) (11/21/89)
wcf@psuhcx.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) writes: >#! /bin/sh ># This is a shell archive. Remove anything before this line, then unpack . . . ># Contents: COPYING README Makefile gettime.c . . . ># Wrapped by wcf@psuhcx on Mon Nov 20 15:07:14 1989 . . . >echo shar: Extracting \"COPYING\" \(12488 characters\) . . . >echo shar: Extracting \"README\" \(719 characters\) . . . >echo shar: Extracting \"Makefile\" \(465 characters\) . . . >echo shar: Extracting \"gettime.c\" \(3593 characters\) FLAME ON ! This is ridiculous! Including a 12.5K license agreement for a ~4K source program and Makefile. The license is 3X larger than the program and on top of that the source begins with more copyright mumbo-jumbo. I have no problem with copyrights, licenses, GNU or their copyleft. But is there REALLY a need to distribute "COPYING" AGAIN? You could have just pointed us to one of the BILLION other copies floating on the net and save us phone charges! Of course I realize this flame costs money too, but maybe someone else will think twice before doing the same thing. This is nothing personal aimed at Bill Fenner either... FLAME OFF -- Jeff Johnson Global Information Systems Technology, Inc. 1800 Woodfield Drive Savoy, IL 61874 +1 217 352 1165 jeff@gistdev.gist.com -or- {uunet|uiucuxc}!gistdev!jeff "I said what I said, and my employer did not."
montnaro@sprite.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro) (11/21/89)
Check with the GNU folks (try tower@prep.ai.mit.edu). I believe there is a sort of indirect GNU copyleft these days. Something like, "What it says over there is what I mean regarding copyright". -- Skip Montanaro (montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com)
lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) (11/25/89)
In article <834@gistdev.gist.com> jeff@gistdev.gist.com (Jeff Johnson) writes: >wcf@psuhcx.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) writes: > FLAME ON ! > This is ridiculous! Including a 12.5K license agreement for a ~4K > source program and Makefile. Certainly true. Is there anywhere in the world where the GNU licence actually means anything, or is in *any* way binding? I do not recall paying money, entering into a *written* contract, or signing anything, when I recieved the GNU software. It came down a wire, and is not stored on a medium copyrightable under British law. The place of origin (USA) is not a member of the international copyright convention, so there would not appear to be a binding copyright agreement either. And since the headers broke several of the programs I received (by trying to nest C comments, or by forgetting to open or close them altogether), I simply deleted them all, and retained a single copy on disk. Saved fifteen terabytes. Comments? Lee -- Liam R. Quin, Unixsys (UK) Ltd [note: not an employee of "sq" - a visitor!] lee@sq.com (Whilst visiting Canada from England) People caught shopping are warned that they will be fined by an amount not exceeding the total value of their purchases, plus sales tax.
rodney@sun.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) (11/26/89)
>>>>> On 24 Nov 89 17:39:51 GMT, lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) said: Liam> In article <834@gistdev.gist.com> jeff@gistdev.gist.com (Jeff Johnson) writes: >wcf@psuhcx.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) writes: > FLAME ON ! > This is ridiculous! Including a 12.5K license agreement for a ~4K > source program and Makefile. Liam> Certainly true. Liam> Is there anywhere in the world where the GNU licence actually means Liam> anything, or is in *any* way binding? Liam> I simply deleted them all, and retained a single copy on disk. Liam> Saved fifteen terabytes. Liam> Comments? Yes: WHO CARES! This is not gnu.misc.discuss. If you want to whine about the GNU Copyleft, go do it there. This group is for discussing software, not legal issues. Why are there so many of you who insist on jumping down someone's throat for the mildest infraction? Between this and the stupid perl argument, there is no information in this group! Don't any of you write small bits of useful software? Post them please, I'd like to see them. I read them and learn things from them. I might even make some useful changes and mail it back to you so you can use it. I bet that over 80% of the readers of this group are like myself. The loud minority, however, insists on exploding all over the group whenever they find something done wrong, or with the "wrong" software, etc. etc... Followups to gnu.misc.discuss. -- Rodney