INF information for Dell 1920x1200 15.4" widescreen display needed.

[Jim Cornette]

Rodd Clarkson wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-05-18 at 20:42 -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
> 
> 
>>Copyright has taken on the traits of limiting creativity, usability, 
>>improvements and the like.
> 
> 
> Copyright just protects the authors right to use their material how they
> deem fit.  It in no way limits creativity.  Usability and improvements
> may be hindered, not directly because of copyright, but because of other
> restrictions placed on the materials.
> 
> I, as a developer of GPL software use copyright to demand that anyone
> using my software adhere to the license I've imposed on it, in my case
> the GPL (or LGPL).  Without copyright, anyone could just take my
> software and use it any way they wished (including in proprietary
> software) regardless of whether I approved or not.  If I wanted this to
> be the case, then I could choose another license, but I like to think
> that if others want to benefit from my work then they should, but only
> if they will allow others to benefit from the work they have added to
> mine.  But this is all license related, and has nothing to do with
> copyright.
> 
> Don't blame copyright for limiting creativity - blame other factors -
> like licenses - that are imposed on the product in question.
> 
> 
> Rodd
> 

Just after reading the prior response to this thread, I checked another 
email account that pointed to the Red Hat Magazine. The topics were 
patents, copyrights, trademarks, automated tools for software compliance 
management.

I can't really argue about any of the topics that are not clearly 
understood. It is a shame that people fear a flock of lawyers coming 
after them for submitting things as simple as a funny picture or an 
information file.

It is wise to try to prevent things that you might have started the ball 
rolling to be used by others to demand money for something that you 
might freely want to share. It is also bad for one to have hardware and 
cannot get proper functionality because of trade secrets or whatever 
invention of discourse they created to cause disputes.

I belive we are not to far out of sync w/ ideals, just the water is far 
too muddy to ever come to a realistic conclusion.

Jim

-- 
<change_m2> Will LINUX ever overtake sliced bread as the #1 achievement
             of mankind?