Subject: Re: README: -current broken for a while
To: None <perry@piermont.com>
From: Chris G. Demetriou <cgd@pa.dec.com>
List: current-users
Date: 09/04/1997 11:12:45
> There is "what is legal" and there is "what is right". Virtually
> everyone has to learn the distinction at some point. What you did
> might have been legal, but was it "right" to harrass poor Bill for
> operating a CTM server, which he was running merely to try to provide
> a service to people without the ability to sup sources?

I did not harass him.  I repeatedly, nicely asked him (via what I
expected was a reasonable contact address) to tell me what was up with
CTM on the FTP server, and, if he was distributing software without
proper copyright and license notices.

Only after I received no response whatsoever for a very long time did
I even suggest that I would take any further action.


> I doubt it was
> causing you any significant harm.

Depends on what you define as significant.  In my book, redistributing
my code without copyright notices or license terms attached is
significant.

Significant monetary harm?  Well, who really knows.


> Sure, you had the "right" to do this and everything else you did. Did
> it make you friends? Did it make your life better? Did it reduce
> everyone's stress?

I don't care about friends or stress.  Getting somebody to stop
distributing my code without copyright notices or license terms
attached did, in fact, make my life better, yes.


I don't write code and put it in the public domain.  If I did, this
whole issue would never have come up.  Given that I copyright my code,
you have to assume that I do so for a reason -- and that ignoring
that copyright and distributing the code without a copyright notice or
license does in fact "hurt" me.

So, in other words, making Bill do the Right Thing with CTM was both
"legal," and "right," in my opinion.  If you don't agree it, well, as
far as i'm concerned, you're wrong.



cgd