🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <NELSON.89Oct16205843@image.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu writes:
>The problem with public domain code is this: If I want my code to be
>and remain freely available, I can't put it in the public domain.  If
>I do, someone can take my code and mix it with theirs.  My code effectively
>becomes theirs.  This is not acceptable to me.
>

If you put your code in the public domain, it remains in the public domain.
If someone else incorporates some or all of your code into their own program,
the code you placed in the public domain is still available and free.  If
you copyright your code, it is not free.  It has been restricted and
encumbered even if the requirement is only that your name remain associated
with the code.  Software sharing is not enhanced by copyrights regardless
of the conditions of the copyright.

Code is being continually rewritten with only superficial differences because
some misguided legislators have concluded that encoded algorithms are similar
to paragraphs of written prose.  Frankly, the vocabulary and semantics of
typical programming languages combined with the very real concerns over
run-time efficiency do not allow even a small subset of the expressive power
available to an author writing in a natural language.  The copyright laws
for computer software should only restrict the wholesale copying of
non-trivial programs and subsystems, not each function or statement.  Of
course, defining such a legally binding distinction may be nearly impossible.
However, there is little practical difference in enforcing copyrights on either
GNU's libg++ library routines by FSF or the Apple ][ bootstrap ROMS by Apple.
Both are needlessly restrictive even if both organizations enjoy the right
to restrict such code under current law.

If you really want your code to be free, believe in software sharing, and want
to contribute to a growing foundation on which others can build, place your
contributions in the public domain.  Otherwise, you are attempting to place
restrictions on the code produced by others who may wish to use a portion
of your own code, even a reimplementation if they have contaminated themselves
by having examined your code previously.  This is more properly the theft
of the work of others than the case you cite where your public domain code
is incorporated into another's proprietary program.  In that case, your own
code is still freely available.

Ned Nowotny, MCC CAD Program, Box 200195, Austin, TX  78720  Ph: (512) 338-3715
ARPA: ned@mcc.com                   UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!ned
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