*BSD News Article 3707


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!darwin.sura.net!Sirius.dfn.de!fauern!fauna!camelot!husemann
From: husemann@camelot.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Dirk Husemann)
Subject: Re: selling 386BSD (was Re: 386BSD on CD-ROM?)
References: <1992Aug11.190949.1496@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE> <1992Aug12.100430.3467@Urmel.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE> <1557@hcshh.hcs.de> <1992Aug14.160938.22432@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <Bt2r7J.4Cw@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Sender: news@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
Organization: CSD., University of Erlangen
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 11:42:54 GMT
Lines: 35

dmuntz@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Daniel A Muntz) writes:

[...]

>Aaaagggghhhhh!  If everyone starts putting their own copyrights in the code
>we might as well all buy BSD386.  When a university wants to start using a
>software package, the u lawyers have to evaluate all of the licensing/copyright
>garbage associated with it.  If they have to evaluate every file on an 
>individual basis, possibly having to contact > 100 people, institutional use
>of 386bsd is threatened. 

While I am very much for freely available software, I think not to put 
copyright notices on some code is --- frankly spoken --- quite stupid. Why?
Well, unless the code I write will be included in a file that already has a
copyright notice (e.g. I'm writing an enhancement for a driver or some
such thing) --- in which case, if the restrictions of the original copyright
notice are to my taste, I could simply add my name/institution or whatever to
the copyright notice --- I'm creating some piece of new software. If I 
don't include a copyright notice I running the risk of having the piece of
software that *I* created being pirated by someone else who still can put
*his* copyright notice on *my* code, and also place restrictions on the
code I never would have agreed with!

I think the BSD copyright does the job.

>The copyright notice included by cgd sets a bad precedent, especially if code
>containing new restrictions is integrated into the Jolitz' release.  We'll have

Okay, you have a point there: there is a German saying --- ``A chain is just
as strong as its weakest member is'' --- which applies here in reverse, I 
think.

	Dirk
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