Quoting from Jordan Hubbard (Tue Dec 13 14:45:36 1994):
...
> disgusting. I don't think that anyone can really dispute that I've
> put a significant amount of my life into providing free software, and
When? Where? Are you by chance speaking of FreeBSD? Are you by
chance speaking of something like a free, functional, complete
U*X operating system? Or the rest of the software you provided
us? Naaa.
And that's you alone. WC? What does WC do for the FreeBSD group?
Oh, are you referring to a 192Mb-30Gig machine for production &
*FREE* (not even $35) distribution of this OS? Hu, everybody
could do that.
Now, for those who didn't understand it, I'm supporting Jordan
personally and WC as a whole for their work.
Done with my anger (yes, I think most of you are wrong), now on a
more productive tone:
...
> and pedel their selective altruism elsewhere! The free software
> community doesn't NEED this kind of shit when we get so much of it
> already from big business - either make it completely unrestricted or
> don't even bother releasing it.
I don't agree here. My Copyright notice says:
"...
Reproducing this FAQ or parts thereof by any means, included, but
not limited to, printing, copying existing prints, publishing by
electronic or other means, implies full agreement to the above
non-profit-use clause, unless upon explicit prior written permission
of the author.
..."
This is to stop (at least, try to) all those people publishing
FAQs and other free softare for real money, I mean hundreds $$.
And, as reported before by others, they *do* exist. They collect
your work, they publish it, they don't even tell you they did so
(this is the real issue, control over FAQs), they don't point to
the source, they spread out-of-date informations, and I didn't
see anyone wanting to hunt&sue those publishers.
If WC wants a written, signed permission to publish my FAQ they
will get it immediately.
Why?
1) They update their CD often, they leave your name on the
FAQ so that people can e-mail you and ask for updates, they point
to the source, so that people can grab latest revision.
2) They tell us of this CD (I have one at home, thanks to WC. I
got it as a free copy for my FAQ, and no, they didn't buy me
with a CD).
3) WC *did* post on this list last year giving full infos on how
to get the CD, how to give them the latest revision, how to cor-
rect errors, and *how to deny your consent to publication*.
4) WC doesn't charge an unreasonable sum. Getting the same in-
formations via modem costs you more than the CD, at least here in
Europe. In Italy, it costs > 35 US$ for the phone bill alone
(same area code), assuming 0 cost for the service provider.
The only fair comment I saw on this list lately was about FAQs
control, and up-to-date information. This is the real point.
Now, I think that people buying CD-ROMs don't expect them to be
an exact copy of what they found the day before on the Internet.
But CDs are a reasonable archive of what there was just a couple
of months before.
If the only mean someone has to get our FAQs is the CD-ROM, well
I say "welcome the CD-ROM". If they have other means to get our
FAQs, then I'm happy if the CD-ROM points to the source (me, the
newsgroup ad the ftp URL) so they can read *all* the FAQs, and
keep up-to-date on the relevant (to them) only.
> You think it's a desirable state of
> affairs to have to sift through every net-released document for
> someone's self-styled software patent? No.
Jordan! Please! You *want* to be flamed, then! :) It's not funny
but you *have* to do this.
> There are a number of more reasonable people who can write such FAQs.
> Why not step aside and let them get on with it? I'm sure there are
> people more than willing to deal with you on a purely commercial
> basis.
Here you are wrong, Jordan. People writes FAQs to help people,
not on a commercial basis. WC makes its business, this is a fact.
But I don't think this is the matter. See above.
Bye,
-- # $Id: .signature,v 1.8 1994/11/29 18:35:58 piero Exp $ # Disclaimer: I don't speak for I.Net S.p.A. Piero Serini Via Giambologna, 1 <Piero@Strider.Inet.IT> I 20136 Milano - ITALY
[
Usenet Hypertext FAQ Archive |
Search Mail Archive |
Authors |
Usenet
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997
]
© Copyright The Landfield Group, 1997
All rights reserved