Re: Copyright response from Pine Development

[richard@elmail.co.uk (Richard Kettlewell)]

[I thought my mailbox was a bit quieter than usual these days: I
appear to have fallen off debian-private.  Fortunately IanJ has a
restricted-access newsgroup which I can read it through.]

Dale Scheetz writes:

>Well, I sent a request to one of the developers at Pine for
>information as to why they don't provide a GPL or other free
>license. I have enclosed the reply because it is so strange. Is this
>just another example of how poorly Richard S. makes friends and
>influences people, or are these folks at Pine just too weird for
>words?

I'd say the latter, personally...

>-------------------------------  begin copy  ----------------------------
>From MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU Wed Apr 24 13:43:29 1996
>Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:51:26 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU>
>To: Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>
>Subject: re: Pine 3.93 CPYRIGHT
>
>I am the wrong person to ask.  I have nothing to do with this.  But,
>basically, here is the unofficial story.  Again, I have nothing to do
>with this; I didn't make the policy and I'm not the one to talk to
>about changing it.  So flaming me is useless.

I think you should find out who the right person to ask is.

>Richard Stallman is lying.  He is spreading FUD.  I think that it is
>out of a meglomanial desire to control all free software according to
>his own definition of morality.

(I don't know what assertions he's supposed to have made on this
subject.  A lot of people seem to have difficulty working with RMS but
I don't think this calls for ad hominem attacks.)

>The only "restrictions" are:
>	1) if you modify Pine, you should put an "L" after the version number
>	   (e.g. "3.93L").  This is so we can know if a bug report comes in
>	   from a modified Pine.

That's not entirely unreasonable...

>	2) for-profit organizations must ask UW for permission before
>	   distributing Pine.  All this means is that they must recognize UW's
>	   rights.  They can not claim to have "taken over Pine" and then sue
>	   UW to stop Pine work at UW.  UW has never said "no", and never
>	   intends to say "no".

I think this is silly for a number of reasons.

First, the license could state that using or distributing Pine carries
implicit recognition of UW's rights.  I think copyright law does this
for you *anyway*; but regardless of that, section 5 of the GPL might
be a useful model to work from.

Second, the requirement is imposed only on for-profit organizations.
The implication seems to be that only such organizations will attempt
to `steal' Pine; I see no reason why this should be the case.  It
represents a rather unpleasant value-judgement on commercial
organizations, and at the *same time* an incredibly naive one on
non-commercial organizations.

Finally, it's going to get them more hassle than it's worth l-)

>The GPL is much more restrictive.  The GPL prohibts people from
>modifying Pine and distributing it unless they also give out sources.
>It makes it impossible to build any derivative proprietary products
>if any GNU code is present.

This is perhaps a more valid objection, but it's not relevant to
Debian.  (I assume that the problem is whether to put Pine in non-free
or not.)  There's no reason why software should have to be GPLed to
not go in non-free.

>Unlike Stallman, we don't dictate the morality of others.  We just
>protect our own rights to develop and distribute Pine.
>
>If Debian wishes to join Stallman in intellectual dishonesty, that's
>their choice.  We can't tell Debian what to do.
>-------------------------------------------  end copy  -------------------

-- 
Richard Kettlewell
richard@elmail.co.uk                    http://www.elmail.co.uk/staff/richard/