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From: fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: With friends like these....
Message-ID: <229@mcdsun.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Jan-87 11:33:45 EST
Article-I.D.: mcdsun.229
Posted: Fri Jan  9 11:33:45 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Jan-87 00:37:45 EST
References: <1112@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <227@mcdsun.UUCP> <2125@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer Division
Lines: 46

In article <2125@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) writes:
>	...							The
>thought of making some money off of it makes it more likely that I'd
>do it, but I'd hate to make anyone mad by doing so.
>
>The bottom line question is: if I did this, and charged dollars for
>the disks (say, $20 to $30, including printed copies of the
>documentation, where available), how many people would be upset. Most

My position is that anyone is free to do anything with my disks.  Period.
I have no interest in, nor could I legally enforce, putting any restrictions
on distribution or use of my collection.  It exists primarily through
the generosity of the many people who have made their software freely
available in source and/or binary form, and permitted redistribution.

Since it is reasonably clear from your posting that your intention is
to treat it as a "business", the only way I can see that you could
possibly stay in business at that price (I'm assuming you mean $20 to $30
per disk) is to prevent others from taking your resultant work and
remarketing it for substantially less. One way to do this, would be to
claim a copyright on the resultant collection (but not necessarily on
each individual piece).  It is my understanding that copyright law allows
you to do this.  Witness what CIS claims about their collection...

Previous postings on this subject, by myself and others, have made it
clear that doing anything with truely public domain software is perfectly
legal, but can draw public flames from the author if he deems such
action to be somehow out of line with his wishes for the software.
Doing the same thing with copyrighted, but freely redistributable, software
can not only draw public flames, but possibly legal action if it somehow
violates the author's stated restrictions on the software.  Note that
a good portion of the software on my disks falls into this second
category.

One of my goals was to get as much software as possible into the hands
of people that could take the time to enhance it and make it better,
value-added if you will, and thus increase both the quality and quantity
of available software for the Amiga.  What you propose to do is certainly
within the bounds of that goal.

-Fred
-- 
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Fred Fish  Motorola Computer Division, 3013 S 52nd St, Tempe, Az 85282  USA
{seismo!noao!mcdsun,hplabs!well}!fnf    (602) 438-5976
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