🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <66187@sgi.sgi.com> karsh@trifolium.esd.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes:

  I resent that people in my profession want to rip-off other's work and they
  want the law to approve of their rip-off.  It's a real sad commentary on
  software developers circa 1990.  Hopefully we'll get past it and go on to
  creating new software.

No one wants to 'rip off' other people's work. What we do want is the
freedom to use *evolved* standards without fear of reprisals.

The world of software development always struck me as one based on the idea
of cooperation rather than competition. Certainly until very recently there
was no such hassle. Take UNIX as an example: okay, you paid for a UNIX
licence if you were using a distribution that included AT&T code. Fair
enough, you're using someone else's labour and they have a right to some form
of compensation. But no-one was stopping you from writing a new version from
scratch making no use whatever of AT&T code, and people have done. I don't
see 'look and feel' lawsuits on the horizon over that one.

Consider: what if rms started taking people to court over the use of
emacs-style key bindings?

I resent that people in my profession want to hoard their work and they
want the law to approve of their hoarding.  It's a real sad commentary on
software developers circa 1990.  Hopefully we'll get past it and get on with
creating more new software.

	--Rick.

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some form of copyright on it. Three out of four of them are freely available.
Where's the problem?