rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (11/17/88)
Gene Spafford:
Publishing the code is not illegal in any way...
Rahul Dhesi:
I suspect it is. The worm code is an unpublished work, and Robert
Morris is the copyright owner.
Gene Spafford:
You are correct. I meant to say "publishing any reverse-engineered code
is not illegal..."
I think you're still wrong. Decompiling an object file would be
considered a translation, and therefore still subject to copryight. Also
check out the flack with Phoenix/Microsoft/IBM and attempts to clone the
BIOS in the IBM-PC firmware.
HOWEVER, since there was no copyright in the code, and since it was NOT
distributed to a small number of sites, and since the perpetrator (whoever
it is) did not make any attempt to retrieve the copies but just stopped
further propogation, I believe that the author of the worm has effectively
relinquished the copyright on his or her program.
/rich $alz
--
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.ralph@laas.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) (11/25/88)
In article <1209@fig.bbn.com>, rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes: | HOWEVER, since there was no copyright in the code, and since it was NOT | distributed to a small number of sites, and since the perpetrator (whoever | it is) did not make any attempt to retrieve the copies but just stopped | further propogation, I believe that the author of the worm has effectively | relinquished the copyright on his or her program. So then it's effectively public domain! I don't want to reopen the dissemination question. -- Ralph P. Sobek Disclaimer: The above ruminations are my own. ralph@laas.laas.fr Addresses are ordered by importance. ralph@lasso.uucp, or ...!uunet!mcvax!lasso!ralph If all else fails, try: SOBEK@FRMOP11.BITNET sobek@eclair.Berkeley.EDU