Silly Copyrights (was Re: Legal uses of lex & yacc)

[Martin Weitzel]

In article <34421 at ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jwl at ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis) writes:
[nob relevant stuff deleted]
>I just looked; none of these files contain copyright notices. 

You're happy. Don't hope, that went through unnoticed and someone
at AT&T is just sitting down in this very moment and putting the
notice in, because of this article ... 1/2:-)

>
>It'd be silly to copyright those files, because that would
>render these tools useless for commercial software development!
>You couldn't even distribute the binaries because they're derivative
>works (right?)  

Experience tells, that companies do in fact silly things with
copyrighting:

1) Traditionally, '/bin/true' is an empty file. Mine (on ISC 386/ix)
   contains a copyright notice. (Maybe, AT&T will try to sue me if
   I ever ship an empty file, because uncovering the source of their
   'true'-command ...:-))
2) IMHO it's against the spirit of UNIX, to have 'limited user' licences,
   because there is no "natural way" to enforce this. Practical
   methods vary from vendor to vendor (what is a user? An entry in
   /etc/passwd? A tty-line? How does UUCP count? What about multiple
   sessions on Multi-Screens? Under X-Windows?)
3) I quote from my license for my ISC 386/ix:
	"... [you may] either (a) make one (1) copy of the Software
	 solely for backup purposes or (b) transfer the Software to
	 a single hard disk provided you keep the original solely
	 for backup or archival copies"
    (no kidding: It seems, that I am not allowed, to make regular
    backup-copies of the hard disk to several tapes. This *is* silly.)

Of course, to me and you and many others, this would make no sense,
but I don't think, that we can legally insist on what makes sense
to an software-engineer, as soon commercial interests come into play.
>
>(The Bison skeleton is another story -- the reason it's copyrighted is not 
>to *prevent* copying, but to *encourage* people to share their (and FSF's!)
>code.)

I share this view (and if possible my code).
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin at mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83