An interesting thread.
While following it , my thoughts are with Richard Stallman and his Free
Software Foundation and subsequent development of the Linux Operating
System under the GPL = General Public Licence........and the many
software developers (world wide), who continue with providing Society
with a ever improving free Operating System with umpteen excellent free
applications.
I am currently using one ,typing/sending this message : SeaMonkey
(Mozilla Foundation)

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

===================================

Joel Kolstad wrote:
Hi Len,

wrote in message

Unrelated "rationalizations." Breaking a law or rules or other
directives is still BREAKING something, purloining someone's
original work. Stealing.

I agree, I'm just saying that -- being human -- I'm willing to turn a
blind-eye towards some violations of various laws, just as real law
enforcement officers do every single day. Now if my job is to enforce, e.g.,
copyright law and somebody makes me _aware_ of a particular violation, clearly
I have to go ahead and prosecute, regardless of what my "blind eye" might do
otherwise. (Similarly, I don't in any way buy the excuse of the current crop
of phramecists who'll refuse to dispense, e.g., "day after" pills because
doing so goes against their moral convictions!)

In Roy's case on EZNEC, he put in a lot of work in translation
of (totally copyable by law) U.S. government work into a useful
program of antenna analysis.

Given that Roy is alive and well (I saw him walking around in Rickreal on
Saturday!) and supporting/selling his product, I can think of no
rationalization whatsoever whereby pirating EZNEC could be considered
"acceptable." Now, 40 years from now when the situation has changed, I may
feel quite differently.

Rationalizations are as diverse and original as fertile minds can create.
The ultimate result will be that eventually, nobody will bother creating
anything original.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE!

Only in some sort of idealist world. In the real world, original creations
will be generated so long as doing so puts bread on the table.
THIS is the real world. There's no "special case" that justifies
that idealistic rationalization you made...it is circular logic in
itself...in the real world.

Huh? My point was only that -- regardless of what I or others may rationalize
and therefore use to relieve our consciouses while we break some law --
original works will continue to be generated so long as there's some sort of
income to be derived in doing so. I do agree that there's less and less
income to be derived if more and more people go around rationalizing
piracy/stealing/etc. in general, and I personally find it a very distrubing
trend that so many people today don't think twice about copying
software/music/movies/etc.

EZNEC is an example that applies here. The work that Roy did on
translation of (free) code, cleaning it up, making it presentable
in a meaningful manner to users, was considerable, much more so
than just getting the original program code to work. Why should
Roy give away such effort?

I don't see any reason he should, unless he chooses too. Although it's
interesting to contemplate that EZNEC probably wouldn't exist if it weren't
for the NEC core that was developed with taxpayer dollars... perhaps the
ultimate outcome of piracy running rampant will be that software development
will then only be performed by government-employed programmers? Or hobbyists
with no expectation whatsoever of monetary gain from their efforts? I think
that'd be a horrible situation, although there are plenty of people out there
who firmly believe that most all software should be produced under such a
model. :-(

What it does NOT have for free
is a way of showing the results in anything but tabular form, no
graphics to instantly show the antenna patterns, VSWR of feed
point, RF currents, etc.

Not to discount Roy's work -- since, again, he's a talented programmer and his
software is clearly worth paying for -- but I do find it disappointing that
(in stark constrast to the anecdote in the preceeding paragraph) very little
new software comes out of the government today. Why is it that software like
OpenOffice has to be developed by 100% volunteers rather than by our
government? If you look at universities today, most of the EDA software they
use is commercial in nature (donated or provided at a substantially reduced
price by the manufacturer) rather than anything written in-house. Heck, back
when Roy worked at Tektronix, my understanding was that TekSPICE was the
simulation program of the day, whereas now Tek has also switched to commercial
SPICE simulators and is very close to completely phasing out the usage of
TekSPICE... kinda sad, in a way.

Without the protection of the copyright law, Microsoft could
never have made that Big Break that started their humongous
incoming cash flow.

I think that's somewhat speculative. :-) ...but I don't really know enough of
Microsoft's history to say for certain.

Thanks for your input, Len!

---Joel