Re: Early Software Free?
D. Starner wrote:
> Okay, I have an Algol68 compiler written at Oklahoma State University
> in 1971. (This is not a hypothetical - I have this code, and have
> considered porting it to a more modern system, say Fortran 77 targetting
> a VAX.) Is it clearly in the public domain?
No, the legal status of software was unclear in many countries. For
example, in Germany, trivial software wasn't copyrightable back in the
80s. I don't know the situation in the US, but I wouldn't be surprised
if the copyright issue depended on the particular piece of software you
were dealing with.
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