[I've finally joined current-users to I'm coming at the tail end
of this conversation.]

>On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, Chris G. Demetriou wrote:
>
>> First of all, my motive is _not_ necessarily to make it easier for
>> people to build commercial products around my code.  As stated before,
>> if somebody is building commercial software from my code, I want to be
>> credited for the work i've done, period.  Commercial software vendors

And I'd like to see world peace and the end to hunger too. :-)
I've taken almost the opposite approach as Chris.  My drivers don't
even require an acknowledgement in the documentation.  I thought
about it and decided if, possibly egotistically, I had the choice of
someone using my code or using someone else's, I'd rather have them
using mine.

>> My problem was that the type of software that I write is typically
>> _not_ the type of thing that gets mentioned.  It's low-level support
>> code without which the system could not function at all, but it has
>> little in the way of "features" except "system functionality," which
>> is really too general a claim.  Therefore, I wouldn't get attribution
>> credit, and that bugs me.

I understand completely.  I'd like to be mentioned in BSDI's install
documentaion or get credit from others who adapt my drivers but it's
not critical to me.  It bugs me though but I live with it.

So while I understand Chris's point of view, I do think it will be
counter-productive in the long run.

[Sorry, Chris.]
-- 
Matt Thomas               Internet:   matt@3am-software.com
3am Software Foundry      WWW URL:    http://www.3am-software.com/bio/matt.html
Westford, MA              Disclaimer: I disavow all knowledge of this message