[svlug] Fedora or Ubuntu for novis

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alan DuBoff (aland at softorchestra.com):

> >Bubelah, if I weren't approaching this entire freakin' mailing list,
> 
> You have a choice to:
> 
> 1) not respond
> 
> 2) respond privately if you wish.
> 
> I sense some tension Rick, do yourself a favor, shake it off, 
> grab a cold one, and enjoy life.

Nah, that's actually one of the problems with e-mail as a discussion
medium; my sense of humour's arid enough that people often miss the 
overtone of amusement and raillery.

Anyway, the main point I wanted to get across was the same one that
Dan Bernstein apparently missed when he "public domained" a bunch of his
software and then wrote a basically non-sequitur attack on the people
(qualified legal authorities, not just yr. humble correspondent) who'd
said that doesn't really work:  Walking away from your copyrighted works, 
including writing formal I'm-walking-away-from-this-property statements
such as CC's "public domain dedication", is not sufficient to put it
into the public domain.  It just isn't.  That's just abandonment of
property, same as with any other property -- or, at minimum, might well
be ruled to be that.

> Yeah, our system is screwed up, much of it was put in place for a
> world that existed a long, long time ago...change is inevitable.

The fact is, we live in a legal environment where copyright
arises automatically and persists whether you want it to or not, because
a strong consensus around the world made it that way (the Berne treaty),
starting many decades ago.  That's just base reality, and it's _really_
easy to work with, e.g., with a one-line licence statement -- as long as
you don't try instead to ignore it, which may (or may not, depending on
the judge and jurisdiction) shoot you and your users in the foot.

> Some licenses are changing like folks change their underwear, 
> yet these same laws existed before those licenses arouse.

Actually, the US adopted the Berne treaty _while_ we were growing up, so
I'm pretty sure part of the problem is people continuing to think in
pre-Berne terms, e.g., "If I upload my code with no copyright statement
or licence, that will put it in the public domain."

Pre-Berne, yes, that was a half-assed method that _could_ result in
nullifying one's copyright title.  (You could lose ownership, and have
your work pass into the public domain.)  Under the Berne regime, though,
no.  Not at all.