🚀 go-pugleaf

peter@global.hacktic.nl (Peter Busser) writes:

> roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes:
> 
> >That's self-contradictory.  If the software has been placed in the
> >public domain (the traditional meaning of PD), then the author has given
> >up any rights of control.  If the author retains copyright, such that he
> >can control derivitave works (like a port to DOS), then the software is
> >not in the public domain. 
> 
> PD and freeware are only different for lawyers, for most people the two are
> practically the same. I've seen many programs which claim to be PD while the
> author claims the copyright of the complete source, or of the headers in the
> source or of the credits in the source, etc. So the difference is vague.

(getting out my own nit-pick for a moment.....:)

The difference doesn't seem vague to me.  I've certainly seen some
examples such as you describe.  They, too, are self-contradictory.  A
work is either protected by copyright (automatically, under the Berne
convention, or explicitly), or it is in the public domain.  Authors who
claim both states at once are confused.

> Intellectual property is not protected by copyright. Copyright restricts the
> right to copy the physical apearance (that is, the words, sentences, pictures
> etc.) not the ideas. The only way to protect intellectual property is to keep
> it strictly for yourself, making it a trade secret or pattenting it.

Point taken, and thanks for clarifying that.

> IBM is (or was) only able to sue clone makers who copied (i.e. whose work was
> largely identical to IBM's) the IBM BIOS or electronics.

You have to wonder about that, though... wasn't IBM going to keep
MicroChannel a proprietary bus?  And how long did the cloners take to
put out compatible cards?  
--
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