Re: New Arcadia/IRUS AFLEX-AYACC release

[newsflash.concordia.ca!nstn.ns.ca!dragon.acadiau.ca!841613t@uunet.uu.net (Don Tyzuk)]

firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:

>I forget but you can look it up.  The distributor was a pharmaceutical
>company that gave free sample of its products to doctors as a means
>of advertising them.  When one of them killed a patient, the company
>argued just that - there was no implied warranty because no sale.
>They lost.  The issue is not whether you charge for the product, but
>the fact that you distribute it.

I also do not play a lawyer on t.v.,  but I pretend I am one
in arguments that don't belong here anymore... :-)
But, that won't stop ME from adding to it!

The pharmaceutical company is in the business  of selling the
product.  There is a business relationship there, even if the
company gives away the sample.

The distribution of GNU (and similar work) is the publication
of an academic work.  If I write a paper on how to achieve
cold fusion in a snowbank, and you try it and it doesn't work:
then you are simply reading my shoddy research and trying to
replicate the results.

I would say that distribution of this software is simply
publication of academic work.
-- 
don.tyzuk@acadiau.ca