Re: new webpage: rikai.com

[Simon Cozens <simon@example.com>]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 07:03:07PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> In fact, it is not clear that a couple of lines of Javascript wouldn't
> qualify for a "too small to notice" exemption from the copyright laws
> (the maximally anal folks at FSF do not demand papers for any change
> under 10, or maybe 16, lines, IIRC).  Ask Frank Bennett, he's a lawyer.
> 
> (That doesn't apply to the woolly stuff preceding; no precedents, no
> reason why a lawyer knows more than anybody else, eh, Frank?)
 
I would argue that if you're doing legal dances to make the GPL do exactly
what you'd like it to do, you probably should consider very strongly why
you're using the GPL in the first place. The GPL won't let you get control
over competition; if you actually want that, just use a proprietary license,
close the source and be done with it. Of course, that won't help because I've
just turned out a free equivalent.

At least I've stopped the inevitable patent, though.

-- 
"A few hours later, I'm on the administrative floor, and a secretary asks me 
about some mail I sent that had [scrambled double-byte characters] in it. 
While I do use a Japanese-patched Mutt at work, I've never had any instance of 
it sending scrambled characters, so I went over to her machine to take a look: 
[...] it was my sendmail.cf" - Jonathan Byrne.