[COFF] [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark

[bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)]

On Feb 18, 2020, at 1:51 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> As Ted saids, I'll give the Debian folks credit for naming it, but the idea really, really goes back to the early manufacturers and the early community.
> 
> FSF was a reaction to the manufacturers taking away something that some people thought was their 'birth right.'

Used to be that you would get schematics with your electrical or
electronic appliance. I used these to repair a few things, some
times by improvising. IIRC even the original IBM PC came with
schematics.

Given that experience, I felt that paid for software should
come with sources so that when something goes wrong you can
figure out what happened and may be find a way around it. I
had no problem trying to "use the source" but first they had
to provide it; the real documentation! If in the original
vendor goes out of business or decides to stop supporting a
product you bought, you're not stuck. Just as the original
Tektronix oscilloscopes continue being useful.

I do believe this should be a 'birth right'. If this was
always provided, RMS might not have come up with the copyleft!
This is a separate issue from giving away your own software
with sources or controlling what others can do with the sources
you gave away, or paying or being paid to produce such s/w.