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Re: student survey



Peter B. Hirtle wrote:
> Archivists would do well to avoid completing surveys that have an
> implicit biased point of view.

I would add that licensing can mean many things.  Several of the questions ask about what you would do
with "licensed, copyrighted software."  Under the laws of the United States and many other countries,
every work of expression is automatically subject to copyright and thus carries with it certain
constraints on reuse.  Those constraints need not take the form of the specific shrink wrap agreement
of dominant vendors, though.  The numerous forms of open-source software licenses, for example, allow
creators to impose sets of constraints.

http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/ermlinks/oss_lic.htm

Rather than prohibiting the sharing or revision of the software's source code, however, they constrain
the ability to close it.

Under some business models and under current law, copying and altering software can constitute
stealing.  When this situation seems problematic to us (as archivists, it often should), it is
incumbent upon us to promote products based on different business models and advocate revisions to the
law.

=========================================================
 Cal Lee
 University of Michigan
 School of Information
 Phone: 734-647-0505
 http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/
 "The boundary is the best place for acquiring knowledge."
                                      - Paul Tillich, 1930

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