The story behind the license agreements
I don't write software to make money. The programs, fonts, images, and midi files I make available on the Internet are free for personal use because that is my way of at least partially paying back the online community for all the good things I have taken from it. Nevertheless, they are my intellectual property, and if others benefit financially from them, I expect them to share some small part of their good fortune with me. This serves several purposes:
- It keeps me from feeling like a chump.
- It increases the likelihood that I will continue to make software available.
- It satisfies, at a very small cost, the karmic obligation of those who gain from my work.
If I did make a living off these products, it would be no less important to respect my rights. It's really no different from hiring someone for contract work and then not paying them. In some circles it is fashionable to rip off "big faceless corporations", but people who do creative work have faces. Here's mine.
Last revision Sunday, May 28, 2000.