In an earlier thread Richard Owlette wrote:
<< Yeah *BUT*
Doty and Coughlin demand source be published if it is claimed that Forth
code is "shareable". That code is proprietary is irrelevant to them. The
exist in an academic fantasy land. Lots of programmers publish code in
XYZ because their goal is proving a point and publi****ng allows others
to *DUPLICATE* their work. Seems Forth gets used where goal is
COMPETITIVE COMMERCIAL advantage. >>
While I can certainly see sharing code to be generally advantageous to the
Forth (or any other language)programming community, notwithstanding
examples
like Linux, I have some difficulty seeing how it could work well in
practice. The problem with copyright is that , thanks in part to Disney,
copyright (which costs the holder nothing) now extends to the heirs and
succesors of the original copyright holder for something like 70 years.
Compare that to a patent that can cost tens of thousands of dollars (in
each
jurisdiction) and lasts for only 20 years from date of application.
One problem I see is owner****p. Where the code is written by a hobbiest,
there is clearly no issue with owner****p of the code being copylefted.
However, most software is written either by wage-slaves or under contract.
Under copyright law work done for hire is the property of the employer. No
business is likely to have close enough supervision to ensure that the
individual programmer who created some brilliant algorithm doesn't release
it under a copyleft license. Since, unlike a patent, there is no apparent
burden of proof of either originality or owner****p, one wonders how much
of
what currently released under copyleft license never actually belonged to
the copyleft holder in the first place? And following from that, how
would
a genuine author of copylefted material claim compensation for any
subsequent commercial use - if he was even able do identify such?
It seems to me that the only workable alternatives are either to keep code
secret and proprietary - probably difficult to impossible in the internet
era - or to release it to the public domain. I suspect most businesses,
having paid to have the code produced, will chose to attempt the former.
Bob
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