Free Music License?

Alfred M. Szmidt ams at gnu.org
Wed Aug 17 12:12:12 UTC 2005


   The word "software" was first used in print in January 1958 in
   American Mathematical Monthly by John W Tukey as a sort-of opposite
   to "hardware" (the machine parts) for the situation when "stored
   program" did not cover all the things held in memory being
   described.

In 1958, a program was stored on cards, and then read into memory and
stored to be run (where it became `soft'ware).  Today everything is in
memory (a drive is a type of memory, but a slow one).

   It was used *because* it is not equivalent to programs.

In 1958 you had this distinction, today you don't have the same
distiniction.

   If you define software and programs as equivalent, then you lose
   detail and must start claiming that data can never be software!

Data is any type of information that can be expressed in binary.  So,
data is software. I fail to see how you could draw the opposite
conclusion.

   > You can use their expression, aslong as you don't change it.  You
   > can also quote pieces (fair use).

   The situation given was I need to adapt the idea to the audience,
   [...]

So use the idea, ideas aren't copyrighted.  I'm quite sure you can
come up with a expression that presents the idea in a good way.



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