🚀 go-pugleaf

roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes:

>bws@ccs.carleton.ca (Brian Sullivan) writes:

>> P.S.
>> While we are at it does, anyone know of any PD multi user games for 
>> DOS. I'm thinking of something like conquest on UNIX. While it is PD on 
>> UNIX, the author will not permit ports to DOS (Sigh ...)

>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. 

That is of course nit-picking. Would you suggest GCC if someone asks for a PD
C compiler? Of course not! It's not a PD C compiler but a freeware. Sheesh!

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.

While we're at nit-picking:
>Intellectual property is not limited by hardware platform.

Then why can't IBM sue every clone maker? The PC and AT architectures and BIOS
are intellectual property of IBM because they were invented and published by
IBM.

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.

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.

Greetings,
Peter Busser