Way back before Free Software, then Open Source were the phenomenon they have become, it was a very different world. Public domain, shareware, home brew computing... software licensing was alien to hobbyests. We relied on vague ownership concepts that didn't even have standing in international law. The
#gpl,
#free software, later
#oss, this was all part of growing up, the result of many iterations of an attempt to control in some ways while sharing in others.