Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!psueea!parsely!bucket!leonard
From: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re^2: Software, development & copyrights
Message-ID: <1610@bucket.UUCP>
Date: 8 Aug 89 04:56:30 GMT
References:  <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26832@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5401@ficc.uu.net> <26879@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1312@mcrware.UUCP> <1017@anise.acc.com>
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.
Lines: 28

I want to run through an analogy that I hope will shed some light on
how both sides feel about the GNU license agreement. At worst, it'll
shows how *I* feel about it.

Gnu is providing "tools" and "libraries". Ok, let pick a quite
reasonable analogy. 

I'm dealing with someone who produces a wonderful set of automated
machines tools and design libraries for them. You feed in a design
and out comes whatever... you can even (with a bit of work) get the
tools to produce themselves or even *improved* versions of themselves.

I have no problem with this person claiming rights to the tools. And if
I use the knowledge I get from examining them or the design libraries
to design better tools or libraries, then indeed they should be able to
excercise an amount of control based upon the extent to which the new
items are *derived* from the old. (that's what derivative work *means*)

But they want to say that they have rights over *anything* produced with
theses tools and libraries, not merely things *derived* from them.
Sorry, but if I use their tools to build a piano, the have no rights
to the piano in any ethical system. 

-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short