Plan 9 license

[kmself at ix.netcom.com]

On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 12:40:23PM -0700, David Johnson wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, kmself at ix.netcom.com wrote:

> > > > Or if copyright is the only thing holding back software from
> > > > being free, why isn't my public domain binary considered Free
> > > > Software?
> > 
> > Failing to read the FSF's licenses discussion, we see.  PD *is* free
> > software.  However, it's not copyleft, which addresses an additional
> > set of concerns.  Review please for class.
> 
> I understood the FSF to mean that PD with_source_code is Free
> Software.  It is a requirement for Free Software that the source code
> be available. My hypothetical case involved a PD binary where the
> source code had not been disclosed.

Ok, you got me, I think.

Though, in this case, reverse-engineering the code to produce
human-readable sources would be allowable.  PD is PD for works and
derivatives.  The person REing the sources would then have to release
these as PD rather than claiming copyright to them, as might be
possible.  PD binary is a step removed from PD source, but it's still
PD, and could possibly meet the FSF's definition, even though source
code (a precondition in the FSF's discussion) isn't initially available.

Note also that a PD binary is of limited utility w/o the sources anyway.
I don't know what the point of the PD binary comment was -- it lacks
context (even in the original post).

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>     http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
 Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.                    http://www.opensales.org
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