NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/sys/amiga/datacomm/6076

Internet Message Format | 1992-09-03 | 2.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!uknet!stl!crosfield!jc
From: [e-mail] (jerry cullingford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm
Subject: Re: C-NET
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 3 Sep 92 12:14:39 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Crosfield Electronics, Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom.
Lines: 47

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Dietz) writes:
>PD code is still Copywritten.  Copywritten code is protected for the basic
>principle of someone else cannot sell it.  People that produce PD code are a
>good asset to the Amiga community, they share there knowledge openly with
>others, this code is STILL copywritten..

I think you're confusing public domain and freely redistributable.

(At first, I thought it was a fairly minor point, but then I thought a bit
more and realised it could make quite a big difference, so here goes..)

"Public domain" means that you can do _whatever you like_ with it. Modify it,
give it away, or even sell it for vast sums of money to anyone prepared to
pay you for it. Specifically, there's nothing wrong in including public
doamin stuff in your code, although acknowledging the author would be the
nice/moral/ethical thing to do if it forms a significant part :-) :-)

"freely redistributable" is what you appear to mean - copyright (that's
right as in "the right to make copies" not write as in written, BTW;
there's no such animal as 'copywritten' :-) ) material which the author
has permitted to be freely redistributed under certain explicit conditions.

Those conditions may allow people to include the material in other works,
commercial or otherwise, or they may not. Depends on what the author said
when he released it.

Not being a lawyer :-) and in a different country anyway :-) I don't know
what the status of something put (by the author) on a fish disk,
bulletin board, or ftp site, that doesn't contain explicit conditions,
would be.

I would _guess_ that it could well be considered as placing it in the public
domain, since you're obviously encouraging people to copy it, and haven't
put any restrictions on what they can then do with it...

and I suspect that merely putting a copyright notice on makes no difference,
_unless_ the notice restricts what you are allowed to do. (Since the author
owned the copyright anyway, whether or not he put a notice on).

The moral? be careful when you release something, I guess :-) :-) unless
you really do want it to be public domain.


--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+     |
| Jerry Cullingford  #include <std.disclaimer> [phone] x3868|   ,-|--
| [e-mail] ([e-mail]) or [e-mail]        |   \_|__
+-----(Work)---------------------------------(home)----------------+ \___/