[GNUz] Early examples of the GPL?

[Nick Rout]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:02:54 +1300
Jim Cheetham <jim@iNode.co.nz> wrote:

> I've just been reading a history of scientific conflict, and Sir Isaac 
> Newton's chapter reveals some interesting things ...
> 
> Basically, Newton thought that everyone should be happy to provide him 
> with data, so that he can publish the "meaning" of it. In the 1690s, he 
> asked John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, to provide him with 
> observation data, which was quickly provided, along with some 
> (erroneous) calculations.
> 
> Newton responded with insults, saying basically "send me only the data, 
> or I'll have to ask someone else".
> 
> Flamsteed thought that it his job to provide data freely to the nation, 
> and that going to someone else was not the proper thing to do. Newton 
> raised the stakes, offering money for the data. Flamsteed's response 
> seems to set the tone for some of RMS' thoughts :-
> 
> "All the return I can allow or ever expected from such persons with whom 
> I corresponded is only to have the result of their studies imparted as 
> freely as I afford them the effect of mine or my pains."
> 
> ( _The Correspondence of Isaac Newton_, ed. H.W.Turnbull et.al., 7 vols, 
> Cambridge University Press 1959-77, vol 4 p.58 )
> 
> -jim

excellent, once you get through the 17th century prose, its very GPL -
or its data equvalent!

> 
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-- 
Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz>