oz@yetti.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) (09/26/87)
I have been following, with great interest, the recent chatter surrounding the C implementation (Ctex) of tex. Many institutions may have now discovered that the copies of Ctex obtained from Texas A&M is not (somehow) legal, as indicated by Tomas Rokiki, who has a copyright notice on Ctex sources. I would like to suggest that there has possibly been an abuse of the US copyright laws, and both Ctex and CommonTex cannot, in fact, carry anyone else's copyright except that of Don Knuth, and hence, carry the same distribution rights/restrictions [if any] of the original TeX. Why: If I am not mistaken, US copyright laws suggest that a translation of an originally copyrighted work carries the same copyright of the original - in other words, mechanical and/or hand translation does not obliterate the original copyright. Here is the header of tex.web: % This program is copyright (C) 1982 by D. E. Knuth; all rights are reserved. % Copying of this file is authorized only if (1) you are D. E. Knuth, or if % (2) you make absolutely no changes to your copy. (The WEB system provides % for alterations via an auxiliary file; the master file should stay intact.) One lawyer, Jordan J. Breslow, did address the issue of "derivative works" in his most enlightening paper [may be found under the doc directory of news 2.11 distribution]. He indicates that the translation of, say a copyrighted COBOL program to BASIC would be the infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive right to make derivative works. Is there something missing ?? Did Don Knuth drop his copyright on TeX ?? Now, it is possible that there exists a license arrangement between Tomas Rokiki and Don Knuth, which allows Tomas to claim copyright on Ctex. If such is the case, I would like to know about it, so that I can understand a request to flush all binaries and sources of Ctex obtained from Texas A&M. Same issue, of course, applies to the "copyleft" notice of Pat Monardo, for the CommonTex implementation. NOTE: This article is not meant to insult the authors of Ctex and CommonTex, and does not in any way meant to invalidate the appreciation they deserve for the substential amount of work to generate C versions of TeX. It is merely meant to encourage a discussion and/or clarification of the legal statues of such implementations, and to hopefully produce a better understanding of the copyright issues with regards to "derivative" works. Hence, any flames should be directed to /dev/null. oz
allbery@ncoast.UUCP (09/28/87)
As quoted from <167@yetti.UUCP> by oz@yetti.UUCP (Ozan Yigit): +--------------- | % This program is copyright (C) 1982 by D. E. Knuth; all rights are reserved. | % Copying of this file is authorized only if (1) you are D. E. Knuth, or if | % (2) you make absolutely no changes to your copy. (The WEB system provides | % for alterations via an auxiliary file; the master file should stay intact.) | | One lawyer, Jordan J. Breslow, did address the issue of "derivative works" | in his most enlightening paper [may be found under the doc directory of news | 2.11 distribution]. He indicates that the translation of, say a copyrighted | COBOL program to BASIC would be the infringement of the copyright owner's | exclusive right to make derivative works. +--------------- As I read this, this means that I cannot get a copy of TeX from the U. of Washington (presumably the original Pascal version straqight from Don Knuth) and run it through p2c, even for my own use. Is this correct? Must I either (a) try to find a Pascal compiler for my 3B1 (ha ha good luck sucker) or (b) be stuck with nroff for the rest of my life (AAAAAARRRRGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!)? Or is Knuth willing to "authorize" a C translation and right to port (i.e. from the inevitable BSD-only first version to my System V)? Or am I just plain screwed? -- Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc {{harvard,mit-eddie}!necntc,well!hoptoad,sun!mandrill!hal}!ncoast!allbery ARPA: necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu Fido: 157/502 MCI: BALLBERY <<ncoast Public Access UNIX: +1 216 781 6201 24hrs. 300/1200/2400 baud>> "Mummy, what's an opinion?"