[comp.lang.smalltalk] Image usage

jal@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu (Jyh-An Lee) (12/12/90)

I read the news about using image file of Digitalk's Smalltalk/V for $500 per
year.  It is horrible. 
I took a couple of months to trace down the definition of bytecodes of
Smalltalk/V.   
I intented to migrate the Smalltalk/V to HP-UX with X window. 
Hopefully, there are someone who know about law about this kind of
situation I got.

taylord@Software.Mitel.COM (Don Taylor) (12/14/90)

In article <1990Dec12.054903.21130@ecst.csuchico.edu> jal@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu (Jyh-An Lee) writes:
>I read the news about using image file of Digitalk's Smalltalk/V for $500 per
>year.  It is horrible. 
>I took a couple of months to trace down the definition of bytecodes of
>Smalltalk/V.   
>I intented to migrate the Smalltalk/V to HP-UX with X window. 
>Hopefully, there are someone who know about law about this kind of
>situation I got.

I think that you are in trouble on two counts:

Technically, there is a bit more too porting ST than implementing
the bytecodes.  

But, _perhaps_ more importantly, I don't think that Digitalk are going
to let you reverse engineer any code that they have not given you the
source to.  A couple of years ago, somebody reverse engineered the
compiler back to ST and announced that they were going to post it to the
net.  The lawyers came out and squashed it.  If I were you then I think
that I would call Digitalk myself, tell them what I plan to do and
why.  Maybe they will cooperate, if not then at least you know what
their position would be.  I may be wrong, but I believe that Digitalk
did let a group here at Carleton University (or was it Defense Research
Establishment, Ottawa?)  do a port for a special-pupose radar signal
processing multi-processor system.  This was reported in OOPSLA a couple
of years ago.

If you go ahead without their blessing, then in these sorts of
situations, the de facto legal situation seems to be that he who can
afford the most lawyers wins.  How many lawyers can you afford?


Good luck,


Don.
-- 
Don Taylor (613)-592-2122 x 3007	 mitel!taylord@uunet.uu.net
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