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On Tue, 9 May 1995, david d `zoo' zuhn wrote:

> 
>    The internet exists in it's current form, not because of the technical 
>    superiority, but because of it's evolutionary development under GPL.
> 
> I think you're overstating the importance of GPL'd software.  Most WWW
> software isn't GPL'd.  The Berkeley networking code that is the base
> of the Internet protocols aren't GPL'd.  

The original WWW software (Mosaic and Lynx) were, and are covered by a 
copyright/license similar to GPL.  The big difference is that they let 
you know that you can negotiate for royalties.  This is also a feature of 
GPL-3.

The Berkely code IS also available under a similar GPL agreement.

>    screen.  I have a 23 inch monitor, and 1280x1024 resolution, I run a 
>    variant of Unix, and I run X11 at 100dpi resolution.  I might want 8 

> I don't know about your variant of Unix, but most are NOT GPL'd, and
> neither is X11, for that matter.

OSF/1 is available under GPL, as is MACH, as is Linux and 90% of BSD.
Only about 5% of SysVR4 is copyrighted for exclusive use of AT&T.  Unix 
was the first Public-Domain software (Version 6) to be put under GPL 
(Berkely BSD2.1).  The source code licenses for commercial distribution 
(of versions containing commercial/proprietary enhancements are very
expensive - $50K to $3 million).  I can give away Linux, or sell it for a 
modest fee, but I can't do anything that would give me the monopoly 
rights to charge $500/copy without negotiating terms.

Check out tsx11.mit.edu, this is the central clearing house for X11.

	Rex Ballard
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.



From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue May  9 20:23:12 1995