rfm@urth (Rich McAllister) (12/15/89)
The justification for copyleft rather than just putting free software in the public domain seems to be "if it's not copyrighted, some Evil Hoarder could take it, make some trivial changes, copyright it, and then sue all the people who use the original PD product, or derive code from it." Does anyone know of a case where this actually happened? Rich McAllister (rfm@sun.com)
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (12/15/89)
Macsyma. The queueing system (MQS? can't remember the acronym). Matlab. Not to say that the "evil software hoarders" that sell or distribute these fine software packages aren't selling useful things, or that each of these fits the bill exactly; but in each case there's a core of free stuff wrapped with a thicket of copyright. --Ed
jbuck@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Buck) (12/15/89)
In article <129245@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> rfm@sun.com (Rich McAllister) writes: >The justification for copyleft rather than just putting free software in the >public domain seems to be "if it's not copyrighted, some Evil Hoarder could >take it, make some trivial changes, copyright it, and then sue all the >people who use the original PD product, or derive code from it." > >Does anyone know of a case where this actually happened? Sure. Unipress Emacs. It had been distributed all other the net (it was known as Gosling's Emacs), then Gosling sold his rights to Unipress, and the story came out that it was only released to a few close friends of Gosling's and no one else had any rights to it. While I don't know of any suits that came out of this, there were a lot of threats. Of course this case is a little different because Gosling was the author. But many others (notably Chris Torek) made lots of improvements to the code -- the University of Maryland enhanced version was distributed widely -- so the product definitely benefitted by being a publically distributed beast. Still, if anyone has a copy of Unipress Emacs, look at all the names of well known netters in the code. Unipress is, to a large extent, selling their work. (I do want to applaud Unipress for distributing source code for a not-too-unaffordable price). To be fair, I don't think Unipress actually attempted to stop people from using old (pre-Unipress) versions. But I've seen the bullshit story about Gosling's "few close friends" in the trade press recently. This isn't just a mistake, it's a deliberate distortion. -- Joe "disgustingly happy" Buck jbuck@janus.berkeley.edu {uunet,ucbvax}!janus.berkeley.edu!jbuck
dsill@ophiuchi.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill) (12/15/89)
In article <129245@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, rfm@urth (Rich McAllister) writes: > Does anyone know of a case where this actually happened? Didn't James Gosling release his UNIX Emacs into the public domain and then recall it when he found out he could sell it? (Is it possible to hoard one's own public domain code? :-) Dave Sill (dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil)
@read.columbia.edum) (f) (12/15/89)
Does anyone know the facts about Scribe? My recollections, which are shaky at best, say that Brian Reed wrote Scribe, only to have it usurped by an evil company. I would like to know the story in greater detail, if anyone recalls it. -steve
chase@Ozona.orc.olivetti.com (David Chase) (12/15/89)
Dave Sill <dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil> writes: >Didn't James Gosling release his UNIX Emacs into the public domain and >then recall it when he found out he could sell it? (Is it possible to >hoard one's own public domain code? :-) I don't think it was quite like that; Gosling emacs went through a number of versions. I recall (and may be completely incorrect) that the first I saw was #54. Later, I think we received #85. The Unipress version was #264. On some machine at CMU (installed in some bin directory) I came across #231. The person who obtained emacs #85 for us did mention something about needing to get permission from Gosling to give it away again, but I don't recall these restrictions on #54. So, no, he probably didn't recall it -- he just issued a new version with new features and new restrictions. David
jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone) (12/15/89)
not only that, but rms wrote the original emacs for the pdp-10 (i believe). I don~t know who was the first to port it to a unix system, but it seems to me, that it is rather unlikely, looking at how the source was (knowing rms stand on free source) probably publicly available, what is the likelyhood that gosling actually wrote all the code for gosmacs in the first place? historical note: james gosling used to work here at cmu for the itc - informational technology center his userid and account on the andrew system is being purged as of December 20, 1989
shebs@Apple.COM (Stan Shebs) (12/15/89)
As I understand it, one of the origins of GNU was the MIT AI Lab's troubles with Symbolics over the Lisp Machine software. I read a copy of a little flyer that RMS passed around several years ago describing the tug-of-war, featuring Symbolics people in black hats, and AI Lab/LMI people in white hats. Basically Symbolics tried to get exclusive rights to the LM code by legal harassment of both MIT and LMI, and to a large extent succeeded. Didn't do them that much good though, since although LMI went bankrupt, the collapse of the Lisp machine market has thrown Symbolics on the ropes as well (I cried a few crocodile tears over that). stan shebs shebs@apple.com
jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon) (12/15/89)
murthy@alsvid.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) writes: >University Ingres Try again. It's freely available from postgres.berkeley.edu. -- Jon -- Jonathan Krueger jkrueger@dtic.dla.mil uunet!dgis!jkrueger The Philip Morris Companies, Inc: without question the strongest and best argument for an anti-flag-waving amendment.
steve@txsil.lonestar.org (Steve McConnel) (12/16/89)
In article <6672@columbia.edu> kearns@cs.columbia.edu writes: >Does anyone know the facts about Scribe? >My recollections, which are shaky at best, say that Brian Reed wrote >Scribe, only to have it usurped by an evil company. >I would like to know the story in greater detail, if anyone recalls it. > >-steve Brian K. Reid wrote Scribe while a CS grad student at Carnegie-Mellon. (I was a EE grad student at the time, and still have a copy of the second edition of the Scribe User's Manual, dated 25 July 1979, for Scribe version 2A(400).) Someone convinced Brian of the commercial potential of the program, and he sold all commercial rights to a company which I think was formed for the purpose of selling Scribe and related software. There was a big hassle for awhile with C-MU trying to claim ownership and therefore collect all the profits, but as i recall, the final decision was that, as a grad student, Brian indeed had the rights to Scribe and could sell the program and collect the profits if he wished. Whether it was a *good* thing for Scribe to go commercial or not is another question, but it certainly wasn't a case of an Evil Corporation usurping a helpless programmer. Disclaimer: my memory certainly isn't perfect, and my perceptions at the time may not have been totally accurate either. -- Stephen McConnel Summer Institute of Linguistics PHONE: 214-709-2418 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road UUCP: ...!{texbell|convex|pollux}!txsil!steve Dallas, TX 75236 Internet: steve@txsil.lonestar.org
jthomp@wintermute.Sun.COM (Jim Thompson) (12/18/89)
In article <5779@internal.Apple.COM> shebs@Apple.COM (Stan Shebs) writes: >As I understand it, one of the origins of GNU was the MIT AI Lab's troubles >with Symbolics over the Lisp Machine software. I read a copy of a little >flyer that RMS passed around several years ago describing the tug-of-war, >featuring Symbolics people in black hats, and AI Lab/LMI people in white >hats. Basically Symbolics tried to get exclusive rights to the LM code >by legal harassment of both MIT and LMI, and to a large extent succeeded. >Didn't do them that much good though, since although LMI went bankrupt, >the collapse of the Lisp machine market has thrown Symbolics on the ropes >as well (I cried a few crocodile tears over that). I don't know if its the work of rms or not, but lisp/term/supdup.el has the followning code: ;; Attempt to detect slimebollix machine serving as terminal. (if (let ((termcap (getenv "TERMCAP"))) (and termcap (string-match ":co#131:li#52:\\|:co#135:li#50:" termcap))) (message "In doing business with Symbolics, you are rewarding a wrong.")) Useless-Trivia-Dept: I've got the console from an LMI LAMDA lisp machine sitting in my living room. Shift-Control-Meta-Alt-Super-Hyper-Cokebottle! There's even an alt-lock (analagous to shift lock) for those heavy apl types. (And the arrow keys are a picture of a fist with thumb extended, pointing in the proper direction. Definitely hip! The *only* board to use with emacs.) Now if I could only get the rest of the box.... Jim Jim Thompson - Network Engineering - Sun Microsystems - jthomp@central.sun.com Member of the Fatalistic International Society for Hedonistic Youth (FISHY) "Unemployment is the solution, not the problem." -- B.I.R.D.
tower@AI.MIT.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (12/20/89)
Date: 14 Dec 89 19:06:05 GMT From: urth@sun.com (Rich McAllister) Organization: sun The justification for copyleft rather than just putting free software in the public domain seems to be "if it's not copyrighted, some Evil Hoarder could take it, make some trivial changes, copyright it, and then sue all the people who use the original PD product, or derive code from it." Rich McAllister (rfm@sun.com) I urge all authors of code to not use the Public Domain. One should always copyright one's code and then add a statement (such as the GPL or the BSD use statement) detailing what rights you give people to use and re-distribute it. You'll never be legally surprised this way. thanx -len PS: I would prefer you to use the GPL, but at least, I would like you to prevent hoarding.
annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) (12/27/89)
In article <702@dgis.dtic.dla.mil> jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon) writes: >murthy@alsvid.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) writes: > >>University Ingres > >Try again. It's freely available from postgres.berkeley.edu. >Jonathan Krueger jkrueger@dtic.dla.mil uunet!dgis!jkrueger Matlab It's also freely available from a couple of places on the INTERNET. But, what you have to keep in mind, is that in the case of both of these products (ingres & matlab) the commercial developers have substantially rewritten and enhanced the code prior to commercial release. I have worked with the source code version of university ingres and pd matlab and compared both of these products to their commercial counterparts. No one can deny the performance/reliability enhancements to university ingres and the complete rewrite of pd matlab from the original FORTRAN into C are significant enhancements to the original code. No one can retract any version of software once it is released into public domain. However, these companies (with the participation of the original authors of the code [stonebreaker and cleve moler]) have not ripped anyone off. They are only selling their enhancements to the code (and support, etc) not precluding distribution of the original public domain product. o.k. sometimes cleve (and ncar and others) try to call their original public domain distribution a "limited" distribution to friends ... but that doesn't get them anywhere once the actual facts of the original public domain distribution come out.