[bug-inetutils] Re: Non-FSF copyrighted files.

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   Taking a step back from this entire issue, a question pops up in my
   mind. Why do we have these files at all?  Is not Inetutils supposed
   to be GNU's own set of Internet tools? If yes, then why have the
   copyrights not been assigned to the FSF?

The BSD code is free software, it was used as a base for GNU inetutils
so that one wouldn't have to rewrite things from scratch.  Where the
original code came from has no bearing as to if it is supposed to be
GNU's networking utilities or not.

   Can we not re-write these files from scratch?

We could, and most things probobly require a rewrite anyway for other
reasons.  But it isn't worth while to do so just so we can remove the
old BSD derivative code.