From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 15:04:30 -0800 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark In-Reply-To: References: <202002171520.01HFKqKi026749@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> <4d252035b323b7583c5760c952d1982c@firemail.de> <202002171839.01HId8FT1358073@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <202002180017.01I0HI0I1415945@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <202002181528.01IFSogM030831@freefriends.org> <20200218164031.GA147128@mit.edu> Message-ID: <01DD0405-D65B-4557-AD0E-4A128334DE2E@bitblocks.com> On Feb 18, 2020, at 1:51 PM, Clem Cole 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.