Copyright and License

[Gordon McMillan]

Bernhard Reiter <breiter at usf.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE> wrote:

>Tim, you are correct, something in the publich domain stays in 
the
>public domain, and you can still go on and reimplement what 
other
>added to your software. But you have no saying over what they 
do
>with it.

At least where I come from, "free" and "control" are 
antithetical notions.

>The GPL is among the savest Free Software licenses you can 
get.
>It is a bit complicated, but the complexity crawles in because
>copyright law is so complicated and not because the intention 
was
>unclear.

Nah. It's complicated because it's conflicted.

>This sentences are flawed. If you do not use a strong Free 
Software
>license other Companies might lock up your code and make 
money from 
>your work. 

Horrors!

>They might even gain a monopoly and you do not have a word 
>to say about it.  

If they do that, then I guess you're not capable of producing 
a functional equivalent. So it's safe to say that your code is
an incidental part of their product.