In article <4a8098c0@news.povray.org>,
Warp wrote:

> Daniel Bastos <dbastos+0### [at] toledocom> wrote:
>> How much non-gnu must a system be to be non-gnu? I think the answer
>> here is all BSD systems which were free.
>
>   Which compiler they used to compile themselves, if not gcc?
> (I'm just being curious here, because I don't know.)

Dunno. But I think that is not as relevant as it might seem. You can
run a system without a compiler. You can run a BSD system, without
GCC, even though you might have used it GCC to compile the system.
Obviously, if your system lacks a compiler, that is a serious
handicap. 

Just a thought.

>> The BSD license is the most ridiculous one around. It can be called
>> the superfluous-egotistical-public-domain-license. 
>
>   I don't think using the term "public domain" with the BSD license is
> correct. The license doesn't remove copyright, which is what "public
> domain" means.

True. Let us see the implications, however. Public domain means it's
yours, as your neighbor's. Do whatever you want with it. BSD means
it's the author's, but you can do whatever you want with it, just like
as if it was yours, except of course that you cannot claim it's yours. 

So, take all my money and do whatever you want it, including buy a
house for your to live your entire life and the life of the next
generations. Just always keep a paper in the house saying that the
initial money used was mine. 

Everybody knows the Americas belonged to the people living there
before Europeans came on over. (And they didn't slap a BSD type of
license on it.)

>   (In fact, most western legal systems don't support the concept of
> "removing copyright" from a work at all. In other words, the idea of
> publishing something "into the public domain" is not supported by law.
> There is no legal mechanism to do that in most countries, AFAIK. Copyright
> is not only automatic, it's in fact inevitable. You can't get rid of it.

This appears to be false. See Hampton versus Paramount Pictures, 1960.

  19 Rights gained under the Copyright Law, 17 U.S.C. 1 et seq., may be
  abandoned. Abandonment of such rights, however, must be manifested by
  some overt act indicative of a purpose to surrender the rights and
  allow the public to copy. National Comics Publications v. Fawcett
  Publications, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 594, 598.  A. 

http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/812127

[...]

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Daniel Bastos <dbastos+0### [at] toledocom> wrote:
> Dunno. But I think that is not as relevant as it might seem. You can
> run a system without a compiler.

  But without a compiler you can't create the system in the first place.
And when we are talking about Unix, the language must basically be C, else
you will have a completely crippled system with no support for any third-party
tools.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Daniel Bastos wrote:
> Everybody knows the Americas belonged to the people living there
> before Europeans came on over.

Technically not. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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