It seems that some readers of this magazine took offense at my liberal use of copyright notices on the code I present in my column Standard C. After a bit of thought, I decided to discontinue the display of such notices. I feel obliged to tell you, however, that my decision doesn't change the status of the code one whit.

That habit I formed was spurred by legal advice. In those days, few lawyers (or anybody else for that matter) were knowledgeable about how best to protect software. Prudent lawyers suggested conservative practices. Put copyright notices on all your source files, but don't disclose their contents by registering the copyrights. Demand onerous licenses of your customers and maintain your code as a trade secret. Try to patent your really bright software innovations.

Since those days, the software industry has blossomed. Congress has amended the copyright law to address software explicitly. International trade has brought many piratical countries into the civilized world that honors intellectual property. More important, major software vendors have settled on practices that they trust to protect their interests. The rest of us have models to imitate.

I am now quite content to rely on copyright law to protect the words and code I generate. I am a writer first, a software vendor a distant second. I no longer traffic in trade secrets. You can take my ideas and run with them with my blessing. One reason I write, in fact, is in the hope that I will inspire others.

But if you want to make use of the way I express ideas, I expect to have some say in the matter. That's how we writers earn our keep. The law supports us in this expectation, whether or not we sprinkle copyright notices about. And it covers ideas captured either in words or in executable C code.

I suspect the grumblers confuse disclosing ideas with putting them in the public domain. Many who write for this magazine yield their software rights explicitly. Some produce shareware, relying on the kindness of strangers for some small compensation. A few follow the "copyleft" model pioneered by the Free Software Foundation. I respect all of these approaches, but I don't regard them as particularly virtuous.

The C Users Journal, like other magazines, is a forum for sharing ideas. At its best, it is also a vehicle for airing diverse world views. To do either, we all need to stop reminding each other of our rights and our wrongs.

P.J. Plauger
pjp@plauger.uunet.com