🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <17240001@hpavla.lf.hp.com> griffith@hpavla.lf.hp.com (Jeff Griffith) writes:
>I've always thought that USENET was strictly non-commercial. From this
>premise, Shareware isn't allowed as it is an effort to produce income 
>from the distribution of software. So, given this basis, any time I've seen
>Shareware posted, I've ignored any requests for money.

First, your premise is invalid.  USENET is not "strictly non-commercial". It
never has been.  Your message shows that... :-)  Ignoring shareware requests 
is why most shareware does not work well in UNIX environments. This appears 
to be a common attitude.

>This group was created to distribute source code, and because USENET is
>not commercial, it must be presumed that the code is not for commercial use.

Comp.sources.misc was created to distribute source code, period.  It was not
because USENET is or is not commercial. You can never assume the copyright
restrictions based on any USENET grouping.  The authors place their individual
copyright restrictions or lack of them on their postings.  It is not the 
moderator's job to do that.  Copyrights on postings have ranged from truly 
public domain, to shareware, to everything in between.

>It must also be presumed that the author provides USENET sites with a license
>to distribute (but they cannot change a distrubition fee) and provides users
>with a license for personal use. 

Sites do have a presumed right to "re-distribute".  That may or may not be 
different than the right to use.  I have moderated using the same guidelines 
that I inherited a couple years ago.  They have not changed.  As I said before
and as stated in the Intro posting to comp.sources.misc,  just about anything 
is acceptable.  This thread pops up everytime a piece of shareware is posted, 
and not just to comp.sources.misc.  

==========
I propose a vote to once and for all decide whether of not comp.sources.misc 
will accept shareware.  Why bother ? I have received as many "FOR Shareware" 
email messages, 3, as I have "AGAINST Shareware" since this topic came up.

If you feel that shareware is (un)acceptable then let me know via a vote. 

VOTING PROCEDURE:

  Send votes to: votes@sparky.sterling.com   or   uunet!sparky!votes

  Preferably your message should include one of the following lines
  in the body of the text:

      I vote YES for shareware in comp.sources.misc
      I vote NO for shareware in comp.sources.misc

The vote will continue until Midnight, December 5, 1992.  At that time I
will tally and abide by the results of the vote.  A simple majority wins.
=========

>I have ordered shareware from other concerns (mostly Software Excitement)
>and obtained some on the "Fish" disks from computer stores. I these cases,
>I contribute. I obtain the software from a commercial vendor, I knew, (or
>found out before I used it) that the software was shareware and honored
>the licensing terms. 

OH NO! Advertizing on the non-commercial net! How do I know you are not
associated with Software Excitement ? (just kidding)  Now don't you think that
Software Excitement could potentially benefit from your reference ? 
The net never has been non-commercial.  If you truly think that the net is 
non-commercial then remove all references to your companies from your 
.signatures and convince the netadmin to remove the Organization: headers 
from your postings and never mention any for-profit ventures in any of your 
postings...  Truly ridiculous I know.. :-)

The purpose of the sources groups are to act as a means of distributing 
publically available software.  Shareware has been posted in the past with
only comp.sources.unix having a documented restriction against it.  Now its 
up to you do decide if I should change the guidelines to not accept and post 
shareware submissions in c.s.misc. 

			-Kent+
---
Kent Landfield                   INTERNET: kent@IMD.Sterling.COM
Sterling Software, IMD           UUCP:     uunet!sparky!kent
Phone:    (402) 291-8300         FAX:      (402) 291-4362
Please send comp.sources.misc-related mail to kent@uunet.uu.net.