Copyright

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

William Tanksley wrote:
> BTW, "free" doesn't always mean "free", and I'm wondering which way YOU
> mean it here.  I now prefer "open source software" to "free software",
> since it's unambiguous.

I agree - this is a problem with the English language. People have
no problem distinguishing "this is a free country" from "there are
free refreshments on the table". But applied to software this is
a source of major confusion. GPL has nothing to say about how
much software should cost, for example! Of course, some people
assume that if the source code is available then there is no way
you can sell that program, but this has been proved wrong since
the earliest days of microcomputing.

> I'm strongly against releasing anything into the public domain.

Me too, though a clause that would cause the program to be
automatically released to public domain under certain conditions
would be nice. The author should have control, but if he dies or
becomes a total idiot and starts doing "bad things" then the
users should be protected.

-- Jecel