a bit more explanation
I, personally, will not put anything in the distribution if there is
any possibility to my knowledge that a CD maker who sold it could be
sued for doing so and lose the suit. I think we owe the CD makers that
much, though it is up to them to _make_sure_ that what they are selling
is indeed legal to sell. We can't make that warranty for them.
Although this is not the case with "compress", I'm also not willing to
go against an authors wishes regarding the distribution of their
software, and I think that is a very clear ethical issue. If someone doesn't
want it sold, you don't sell it. I've gone to the trouble of acquiring
special licenses for several software packages just to be sure.
Compress is a patent issue, and I think that software patents
are stupid but I don't want to put some small CD maker at the risk of a
Unisys suit. Unisys has more lawyers on salary than all Linux CD
distributors combined.
Other software distributors knowlingly insert software into their
distributions that infringes patents, is not licensed for sale, etc.
Let them. It's their problem. We should not, on the other hand, be
swayed by arguments of "everybody else is doing it".
Secondarily, as a CD-maker myself, I don't want to be sued. Valerie and
I could lose our home in such a suit, and other property such as our
cars, computers, my stock in Pixar, etc., which would not be nice, would
it?
You should thus understand if I'm resistant on the issue of software
that we don't have a clear right to distribute. In the case of compress,
the decision is clear. The program is obsolete and should die. The algorithm
is patented. A superior replacement exists, is free, and can be SOLD with
any system, just as long as you promise to deliver the source code for free
or for a copying fee. These are terms any manufacturer can live with. So,
why should we distribute "compress"?
I am, by the way, working to resolve the "bin86" issue. There seems to be
a GPL-ed version. I'm told the author no longer responds to correspondence
about it, so this may be difficult.
Thanks
Bruce
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