Article View: gnu.misc.discuss
Article #1948Actual case of hoarding public domain code?
From: Leonard H. Tower Jr.
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1989 12:17
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1989 12:17
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Date: 14 Dec 89 19:06:05 GMT From: urth@sun.com (Rich McAllister) Organization: sun The justification for copyleft rather than just putting free software in the public domain seems to be "if it's not copyrighted, some Evil Hoarder could take it, make some trivial changes, copyright it, and then sue all the people who use the original PD product, or derive code from it." Rich McAllister (rfm@sun.com) I urge all authors of code to not use the Public Domain. One should always copyright one's code and then add a statement (such as the GPL or the BSD use statement) detailing what rights you give people to use and re-distribute it. You'll never be legally surprised this way. thanx -len PS: I would prefer you to use the GPL, but at least, I would like you to prevent hoarding.
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From: tower@AI.MIT.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Actual case of hoarding public domain code?
Message-ID: <8912201217.AA03597@wheat-chex>
Date: 20 Dec 89 12:17:24 GMT
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