Stefan's headers [was:Names and identifiers]

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Peter J. Holzer <hjp-python at hjp.at> wrote:
> But with online distribution (not necessarily github) the boundaries
> become very fluid. When Debian still contained the Roxen webserver, it
> comprised over 100 packages: The maintainer had put every plugin into a
> separate package. I did something similar with my qpsmtpd plugins: Each
> is in a separate .deb or .rpm file.

Python has long been distributed as a single .msi file on Windows, but
as many separate .deb packages on Debian Linux. One work or many?

Back in the 90s, my family sold books, many of them imported and/or
exported. We had a few books by Earl Rodd, all looking like books and
behaving like books. And we also had the "Rodd Papers", which are
individual photocopied leaflets (A5, maybe 20-32 pages tops). They're
also copyrightable, right? Well here's the thing. One of the books was
simply a published compilation of a large number of the papers. So
what is the "work"? Is the book a brand-new work? If you cease to
register the papers and start registering the book (one work, not
dozens, and also a new work so the stupid exponentiation resets),
people can't copy the papers either, because they're entirely
contained within the book.

So... all you have to do is, every couple of years, gather everything
you've ever written into a brand new book and register it.

>> >  * Every worthwhile creation is worth $1,000 for ten years.
>>
>> Not true by a long shot, and if you don't believe me, you can pay me
>> $1000 right now for ten years' use of any of my free software.
>
> I think he meant it the other way around: If you can sell your software
> for 10 years, you can affort $1000 to have your monopoly protected.

Except that I'm not selling it. What if I want to give it away, but
with the proviso that the document credits me properly? "Go ahead, use
it, publish it, but keep my name on it" is a common thing for people
to request. And it's toothless [1] without copyright; so if you have
to pay money for the right to be credited, there's going to be a lot
of corporate bullying.

ChrisA

[1] No, it's not a dragon. I can't imagine why you would think that.