Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!brl-adm!brl-sem!ron From: ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: AT&T copyrights (was Re: Swedish copyright laws) Message-ID: <538@brl-sem.ARPA> Date: Tue, 23-Dec-86 17:16:10 EST Article-I.D.: brl-sem.538 Posted: Tue Dec 23 17:16:10 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 23-Dec-86 23:43:20 EST References: <8612171607.AA09065@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> <82@ames.UUCP> <101@ames.UUCP> Organization: Electronic Brain Research Lab Lines: 39 In article <101@ames.UUCP>, fouts@orville (Marty Fouts) writes: > AT&T has never to my knowledge claimed ownership of software someone developed > using a Unix system, or of changes someone else made to the Unix system. They > "merely" restricted your right to distribute software directly derived from an > AT&T distribution. As a matter of fact, many years ago they announced that you were free to use programs that included parts of the licensed binary libraries as you pleased without any other arrangement with AT&T. > The qustionable nature comes from the prices AT&T is now charging for a > product over which they hold a monopoly. But that's what the market wants. I'm not sure monopoly is the word. There have been several totally UNIX compatible non-AT&T operating systems on the market for a long time. These failed through no anti-competetive schemes of AT&T. > If the people who buy Unix thought it was valuable enough to do so, they > would have long ago have done what Stallman is trying to do, provide an > alternative. I feel no animosity towards Stallman's aim to create a usable software system that is free. I don't believe that software sales and licensing is the evil that he does, but he is not campaigning to outlaw it, only to counter it with his own free product. Stallman feels that the software hoarding counters the development of the great software innovations that came out of MIT in the previous decade. My only regret is that RMS is spending so much time and effort redoing ten year old programs to make them free rather than developing the next innovative advancement in computers. Perhaps, RMS is right. UNIX was developed in an open environment before anybody ever started in on it as a commercial product, most of the innovative improvements come as a result of University or Government funded work that makes these changes available to everyone. A competing operating system, totally commercially based has failed. But one man's fruit is another's emetic, there are ardent UNIX-haters that dislike UNIX for precisely the things that were caused by it's open evolution. -Ron