hobie@sq.UUCP (09/09/87)
I've been on vacation for a few weeks and when I arrive home I hear
weasels whispering that the PD Ogre port I did for the Amiga has been yanked
from circulation. Would someone care to give me the story on this? Thanks.
Hobie Orris |
guest of SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Ont. |"There'll be no more giant leeches
{ihnp4 | decvax | ? }!utzoo!sq!hobie | When you find the good Lord Jesus"fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish) (09/09/87)
In article <1987Sep9.034616.24974@sq.uucp> hobie@sq.uucp (Hobie Orris) writes: > I've been on vacation for a few weeks and when I arrive home I hear >weasels whispering that the PD Ogre port I did for the Amiga has been yanked >from circulation. Would someone care to give me the story on this? Thanks. Since this is probably of general interest to the Amiga community I've decided to post a reply explaining why I've removed the Ogre game from my library of freely redistributable software. Several weeks ago a discussion started in the newsgroup that indicated that there might be some copyright and/or trademark problems with the "PD Ogre". There was no allegation that the code itself was involved in any copyright improprieties, just that the general "look and feel" of the game was too close to that of a game of the same name written and distributed by Steve Jackson Games of Austin, Texas. Some people who had seen both, commented that the instructions were almost identical. In addition, the name "Ogre" is reportedly a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. I was finally able to get in touch with Steve Jackson Games, thanks to several people who responded to a public request for contact information, and had a nice long chat with Mr. Jackson. I had also previously sent him copies of the text files accompanying the games for his review. Based on that conversation (of which the details really aren't important) I decided to do the prudent thing and remove this material from my library. Until some reasonably high court of this land renders some sort of intelligent decision about this "look and feel" issue, cases will probably continue to be decided on an individual basis. I have better things to do than to probe at the boundries of this legal issue. -Fred -- = Drug tests; just say *NO*! = Fred Fish Motorola Computer Division, 3013 S 52nd St, Tempe, Az 85282 USA = seismo!noao!mcdsun!fnf (602) 438-3614