🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9532@june.cs.washington.edu> scott@fred.cs.washington.edu (Scott Northrop) writes:
>In article <1989Oct19.140255.834@odi.com> benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) writes:
>>[...]
>>(question: what widely used piece of software (that is, by real people,
>>not by programmers) was ever developed at a University? If you
>>can name one, are you quite sure it wasn't cleaned up by an evil
>>software hoarder on the way to utility?)
>>[...]
>>Benson I. Margulies
>
>Funny, I *thought* Berkeley wrote a version of unix, but I could be wrong...
>Some of the code was AT&T, but that's all being rewritten, isn't it?
>Scott Northrop                                scott@fred.cs.washington.edu

1) Few people use BSD direct from B. Most use it as received from
Evil Software Hoarders that do QA, charge for the results, and 
do or don't distribute source as they choose. 

2) BSD is an example of the alternative to FSF. Its freely usuable.
Its widely used. It is copyrighted, but the restrictions are simple,
clear, and grind no political axes.

To me, the funniest part of the copyleft flap is those people who are
so het up about the possibility that someone, somewhere, may
distribute their code without source. Its not good enough for these
folks that anyone can still get the code from the author -- the Evil
Software Hoarders could Mislead them and Hide the Existence of the
Free Source. 

Copyleft is fundamentally a contradiction in terms -- you want to give
something away while still exercising detailed control on what the
recipient of the gift does with it. 

Have you had gnu make trash an archive lately? Or had gcc silently
turn your program into a killer because it has an overlarge switch
statement? If so, then you know why QA is the most important part of
software development. QA is EXPENSIVE. It is particularly hard to do
well in a decentralized development environment. The people who take
BSD and turn it into products do what the CSRG isn't funded to do --
QA.  In return, they get the right to some control over the results.
Sounds like a good deal to me.

Meanwhile, little of this is of any lasting importance. Even a C
compiler is a mighty exotic toy compared to a spreadsheet.  Guess
what? Non-computer hackers DON'T CARE ABOUT SOURCE.  And they vastly
outnumber the rest of us. The FSF claim that look-and-feel is the same
dispute as source distribution is guilt-by-association.

-- 
Benson I. Margulies