On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 03:00:34PM -0500, A.J. Gardner wrote:
Then again, why bother appealing to copy "rights" and similar hooey in
the first place? I always consider it to be enough simply to appeal to
good sense, good manners, and social pressure to ensure credit is
given where credit is due. Something like "Notice: So-and-so created
this work. Do what you like with it, but don't claim you came up with
it 'cause that's lying. And nobody likes a liar. Thanks."
That's not the point. The point is that without claiming
copyright and granting explicit license to use and modify the
software as you will, you legally don't have that right. Perhaps
the likelihood of being sued by small time programmers isn't
very great, but it's a major distribution problem. No
respectable distrobution is willing to carry such software (look
at DJB-ware) without some extra hassle on the user's part.
--
Kris Maglione
Projects promoting programming in natural language are intrinsically
doomed to fail.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
