Heather Stern writes:
        
        My own autobiographical filksong is "The Programmer's Daughter" - to a
        tune which only filksingers would know, called "The Horsetamer's
        Daughter".  (The tune is good but the original lyrics were ...
        unpopular.  22 verses and not quite canon attitude towards Darkover.
        Mine is muuuuch shorter.)  

        These lyrics have also been published in Xenofilkia, but I'm the
        copyright holder.

        I've actually seen Windows apps with GPL notes on them in the last year
        or so.

===============================================================================
The Programmer's Daughter
Lyrics: Heather Stern
Tune: The HorseTamer's Daughter, as published in the filk songbook of the 
     same title


My father was a programmer when computers filled a room,
Sometime before the Xerox Star, Before PacMan and Doom;
But I always chose his terminal as my favorite place to play --
I would daydream long of my father's songs and the two word command to say.

  In a maze of twisty passages, in the DUNGEO dark and deep
  Give cyclops food and water jar, so that he will go to sleep.

Computers shrank as my world grew, and I learned to change the games
So they would cheat on my behalf if I was the player named.
But those were the days of BASIC, they were passed around as source
which usually had to be tweaked a bit before it could RUN its course.

  Computers shrank, and shrank again, now they fit within a hand
  But the programs grow to consume all space they can reach with their command.
  
The days, it seemed, had come and gone, when eager people shared
The games they wrote and the tools they wrote to do whate'er they dared
For the shrinkwrap came, and the marketers, to claim a greedy bite
of your well earned cash to get the flash they say is your only right.

  But we need the tools to work, you see, and too many far do not
  Our documents held hostage to the upgrades we have bought.

I know the shareware archives that have borne the treasure trove
that businesses ignored because of the web that the market wove;
More treasure is here than you've thought to find, and the wizards rise again,
to give us code that can bear the load of not just one app, but ten.

  Better yet, to keep, to share, to repair if needs must be.
  The open source and our open eyes and our keyboards keep us free.

I am the programmer's daughter, computers are my world
And I know a little penguin and cute devil have unfurled
An answer to the maerketers, the lawyers and the greed;
Let folks buy the programs just so long as the source is freed.

  Sell the people phone support, let us change the way it looks
  Save us the time of the download, then - let money flood your books.

