melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (12/12/90)
How far can one go in cloning Hypercard without getting sued? Can I write a Hypercard program for X-Windows that completely implements the Hypertalk language without having lawyers knocking at my door? Hypercard would be much more attactive development environment if its stacks worked across platforms. -Mike
phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Mark Phaedrus) (12/12/90)
In article <Frtnwbs3@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >How far can one go in cloning Hypercard without getting sued? Can I >write a Hypercard program for X-Windows that completely implements the >Hypertalk language without having lawyers knocking at my door? >Hypercard would be much more attactive development environment if its >stacks worked across platforms. Well, HyperTalk is a language, and languages cannot be copyrighted (since they're just mathematical algorithms). Therefore, I wouldn't see any legal problem in implementing HyperTalk on another platform. However, to get something that really acted like HyperCard, you'd have to duplicate a lot of user-interface features (menus, dialogs, the Home stack and so on), and given the current "look and feel" lawsuit craze, that's dangerous waters indeed. Also, I think you may be underestimating the sheer amount of work that would be required in duplicating something that big on a foreign platform. Getting HC2.0's fields to work properly, for instance, would basically require reimplementing Styled TextEdit. And even if you could do it, you'd have to do some fancy dancing to avoid violating Apple's copyrights and patents on the Mac operating system. (I know a limited version of the Mac OS has been legally(?) ported, so I'm not saying it's impossible; I'm just saying I wouldn't want to hold up my projects until your release date. :) ) -- Internet: phaedrus@u.washington.edu (University of Washington, Seattle) The views expressed here are not those of this station or its management. "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, consider an exciting career as a guillotine operator!"
akcs.bclark@vpnet.chi.il.us (Brian Clark) (12/21/90)
HyperCard will already run on one other platform... the Apple ][gs. The version that will be released from Apple for the GS is said to be equivalent to HyperCard 1.2.5 for the Mac.... with one extra... COLOR! There is also two HyperMover stacks (one for each the Mac and ][gs) that will disassemble a Mac stack into a text file and rebuild it to a GS stack. Though it won't support XCMDs for obviously 68000 code won't run on a GS 65816. I'm guessing that most Mac XCMDs will find an equivilant GS XCMD, as they get written on the GS.
pip@pro-freedom.cts.com (David Pipgras) (12/24/90)
In-Reply-To: message from akcs.bclark@vpnet.chi.il.us
Not to sure what you mean by cloning HyperCard, but Apple now holds both a
copyright and a PATENT on HyperCard. Try to clone it, and sell it, and end up
as one of the many law suits....
If this is not what you ment, never mind, just my $.02 worth....
Dave
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