begin quoting John H. Robinson, IV as of Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 01:18:31PM -0700: > > Imagine the uproar of $despised_corporation took code out of the > > public domain and relicensed it with their $oppressive_license -- there > > would be an uproar. Cries of "theft!" would ring out. Passionate > > denunciations would be posted to slashdot. The skies would shake with > > the wrath of the assembled geeks.... > > Oddly, I am not hearing it now. Public domain code is the child left at > the doorsteps. People write it, release it, and never bother with it > again.
I run across the outrage every so often. Generally the response is (correctly) yours: > Look at all the public domain code their used to be. Look at all the > proprietary code floating about there now. Are you going to tell me that > *no* public domain code is locked away in here? We find *GPL* code that > is *ILLEGALLY* in proprietary products. Putting Public Domain code in > a proprietary product is a freebie: no one can (legally) complain. Correct. No one can wave a lawyer about. Complain they can, complain they do, only ineffectively. This is why I think that some people are busy rereleasing public domain code under the GPL. That way they *do* have something to wave a lawyer at. When the original author is long gone and all the original sources are vanished into the mists of time... -Stewart "It's underhanded and not something 'the good guys do'." Stremler
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