kolling@decwrl.UUCP (Karen Kolling) (07/16/85)
Since the original version of GNUEmacs was announced as being in the
public domain, and that later turned out to be questionable, I thought it
prudent to ask Unipress their position on the new "Gosling-free"
GNUEmacs before getting a copy of it. Unipress told me that they would
not give our site anything in writing allowing us to use GNUEmacs (even
though we've already paid the Unipress emacs fees) and are
"reserving the right to sue if people use this version, because Stallman
wrote it looking at Gosling's code." Unipress has in the past told me
that they own all the Gosling emacs code; during this phone conversation,
however, they said that Gosling could issue a release for people to use
this new version of emacs. I sent mail to Gosling, but didn't get a reply.
Since Unipress used net.emacs to make their position clear about the previous
versions of GNUEmacs, I believe it's appropriate for them or Gosling to use
it to make their position clear on the present version.
Karen (kolling@decwrl.arpa or {decvax, ihnp4}!decwrl!kolling)jqj@cornell.UUCP (J Q Johnson) (07/18/85)
In article <3134@decwrl.UUCP> kolling@decwrl.UUCP (Karen Kolling) writes: > > Unipress told me that they . . . are >"reserving the right to sue if people use this version, because Stallman >wrote it looking at Gosling's code." Note that copyright law provides NO protection for the algorithms or ideas contained in a block of code, but only for the instantiation. Thus, the fact that RMS looked at any copyrighted code is totally irrelevant; the only question is whether any of code (possibly modified by some mechanical translation process like reformatting or identifier substitution) from the Gosling version and not available from any public domain source was included. Trade secrets are different, of course, but noone has claimed trade secret protection for the Gosling code. Given the legal problems that have come up in this discussion, I am very leary of purchasing ANY programs from Unipress or James Gosling, for fear of future legal action based on claims that I have illegally incorporated code from the packages I bought in other software developed here. Whether such action would succeed in court is irrelevant since I want to avoid the hassles. If other sites feel as I do, the whole issue could result in a substantial loss of business for Unipress.
cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (07/27/85)
> In article <3134@decwrl.UUCP> kolling@decwrl.UUCP (Karen Kolling) writes: > > > > Unipress told me that they . . . are > >"reserving the right to sue if people use this version, because Stallman > >wrote it looking at Gosling's code." > > Note that copyright law provides NO protection for the algorithms or ideas > contained in a block of code, but only for the instantiation. Thus, the > fact that RMS looked at any copyrighted code is totally irrelevant; the only > question is whether any of code (possibly modified by some mechanical > translation process like reformatting or identifier substitution) from the > Gosling version and not available from any public domain source was included. > Trade secrets are different, of course, but noone has claimed trade secret > protection for the Gosling code. > My understanding of the copyright law is substantially in agreement with the above statement; I wonder why it is that many software developers are concerned about the issue of "Did Mr. A look at Mr. B's code?" I attended a GEM ISV Seminar at Digital Research some months back, and the software developers mentioned that they were told specifically to avoid looking at *ANYTHING* related to the Macintosh code; I assumed that this was to avoid legal problems. A few months back, IBM sued one of the compatible makers (I think it was Tava) over BIOS ROM copyright infringement. Part of the agreement that settled the suit was that the new BIOS for the compatible would be written by software engineers who had not looked at the IBM BIOS. Anyone know why everyone is so concerned about code written after inspecting someone else's code?
dalamb@qucis.UUCP (David Lamb) (08/01/85)
If a piece of software is protected by "trade secret," then you could be sued if you looked at the code, then wrote your own version. This is the way UNIX is protected, and why you have to have ATT UNIX licences before using Berkeley UNIX. It's also why RMS can't look at the ATT UNIX code while writing GNU. If software is protected by copyright, I find it hard to believe you could be sued for writing your own after looking at the code -- but perhaps the laws are sufficiently complicated that people would rather play it safe. Perhaps you would have to trust a judge to be able to tell that your new code was not a simple translation of the old code, and people are afraid the courts would rule against them.
matt@gargoyle.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (08/05/85)
In article <> dalamb@qucis.UUCP (David Lamb) writes: >If a piece of software is protected by "trade secret," then you could >be sued if you looked at the code, then wrote your own version. ("I never thought I'd get involved in this discussion" -- another other different USENET motto.) If a software is protected as a trade secret then nobody should have ever shown it to you or let you access it unless you first signed an agreement not to reveal the secret. If you see the code and you haven't signed such an agreement then you can blab and cause trouble for your company or university because THEY have broken THEIR promise not to reveal it. IF the owner of the code can establish that they took reasonable measures to preserve the secrecy, they can win a suit against YOU and those to whom you have revealed the secrets. [I-am-not-a-lawyer-beep.--But-I-read-a-lot-beep.--This-is-a-recording.] Matt Crawford