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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!nuchat!kevin From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) Subject: Re: selling 386BSD (was Re: 386BSD on CD-ROM?) Message-ID: <1992Aug23.060308.6392@nuchat.sccsi.com> Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity... References: <1992Aug14.160938.22432@zip.eecs.umich.edu> <1992Aug17.211105.7916@novatel.cuc.ab.ca> Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 06:03:08 GMT Lines: 43 It's not clear to me what the fuss is all about. Say that a copyright, regardless of who owns it, states that what is being copyrighted (a) is freely redistributable (i.e., anyone can give it to anyone else), (b) can be put to whatever legal use someone wants to put it to, e.g. commercial repackaging and selling, modification and reselling, modification and free redistribution of the modified version, etc., and (c) any modified version *must* be distributed with source as part of the distribution, but other than being included with the normal distribution, can be distributed with any copyright provisions. If you use a copyright like the above, then what's the big deal? All you have to do with respect to distribution is insure that all the pieces have copyrights that include the above conditions, and you're all set, right? Universities won't have a problem because they can obtain a copy of the software for free and then do whatever they like with it. Companies won't have a problem with it because they can "add value" to the base package and distribute the changed version in any way they like. End users won't have any basic problems with it because they're guaranteed to get the source and can make whatever private changes they need (and are guaranteed to be able to get the base distribution if they need something they can distribute themselves). The end result? The base version will contain only those features that people wish to make freely redistributable. Inasmuch as a company which participates in doing this can make a name for itself, it's an advertising win for such a company. But a company can also participate as above *and* sell modified, proprietary versions to satisfy the specific needs of its customers. So what am I so naively overlooking? A copyright like the above seems to me, offhand, to solve all the problems that I've seen brought up with respect to copylefts and private copyrights. Only companies that insist on a binary-only distribution and groups that insist on free redistribution of modifications to their software will have problems... -- Kevin Brown kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com kevin@taronga.taronga.com