Re: AppleWorks GS and reclassification

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 20:50:20 +1000, Willie Yeo <willie@ssc.qld.edu.au>
wrote:

>    In my stand, DiversiTune is not a 'reclassified' software as such.
>'reclassified software' by definition is a change of status from 'commercial'
>to 'shareware/freeware' or 'public domain'. DiversiTune does not fall into that
>category.

If that is the only criteria for reclassification then the fact that
DiversiTune was not changed from being a commercial product to
something else means it remains commercial and you shouldn't be
distributing it.

However, something did change which makes it possible for others to
distribute it even though it remains a commercial product.  You need
to take that into account.  One way you can think about it is that
there are three things involved:  the product's status, the
copyright's status and the distribution methods allowed.  All these
things make up the classification of the software in my mind.

The product's status is kind of a general description of the
classification of the product (ie. commercial, shareware, freeware,
public domain, et al).  The copyright status is whether the product is
still copyrighted or not.  The distribution methods are how the
product can legally be distributed (commercially, on user group disks,
from ftp or web sites, et al).

If a product is reclassified then one or more of these is changed.  If
the allowable distribution methods have changed but the product status
and copyright status don't, this would still be a reclassification the
way I think about it.

In the case of DiversiTune it appears that the product's status and
copyright status remained the same but the distribution methods
changed.

In the case of Animasia, the product's status changed from commercial
to shareware, the copyright status remained the same and the
distribution methods were changed.

In the case of the Beagle Compiler, the product's status was changed
from commercial to freeware, the copyright status remained the same
and the distribution methods were changed.

In the case of ProSel, the product's status was changed from
commercial to public domain, the copyright was removed and the
distributions restrictions were removed.

I'm not sure if others agree with this concept or not but it seems to
me that it covers everything pretty well.

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