🚀 go-pugleaf

This situation is getting out of hand:  How can you tell if the fantastic new
piece of software you picked up off an RBBS is commercial or public domain?
You can't, unless you get the source along with it (know what that will do to
your long distance phone bill???).  And don't give me that line about a copy-
right notice showing on the screen:  I downloaded a copy of BREAKOUT from some
(I'll never tell) BBS, and there ain't no copyright notice on it!

Regardless of the illegalities involved in posting something that's copyrighted
even if you don't know that is the case, netters need to keep this in perspec-
tive:  do you really believe the guy would have posted the thing if he knew it
was copyrighted?  The *only* reason I haven't posted DB Master One, which I got
from a "Public Domain" BBS, is because I can't get a straight (or at least,
consistent) answer on if it is pd or not.

I don't mean the following as a jab at Neil, or anyone else, because I don't
know whose job it is to police the net (certainly not Neil's), if it is
anyone's; it should be said, though, that a couple of people (myself included)
posted *several* queries to the net concerning BREAKOUT, well before BREAKOUT
itself was posted; wasn't that the time to shout "illegal!", rather than after
the thing had been posted?

Unfortunately I can't offer any solutions for the paranoia that is so prevalent
these days concerning software copying; but this is getting ridiculous.

Jim
Moore@NCSC.arpa
(i've got heaps of pd s/w on my host, but it might not *really* be pd, so you
 can't have it, nyahh!!)