Inclusion of ROM images - copyright
The VICE source currently contains:
a) some ROMs as separate files
b) some ROMs defined as C arrays
The things in a) are hopefully going to moved out of the source at
some point. However, the things in b) include character definitions
for the textmode (which were in a ROM on the circuit board of the C64)
and character definitions for Commodore's dox matrix printer (whee!).
Personally I am going to make an effort to get these two items into
files where I feel they belong and thence out of the VICE source, but
how do other people feel - is there any point expending effort is this
direction?
Taking things one step further... imagine if the RGB levels for the 16
colours of the VIC II chip are held internally in some sort of ROM
lookup table (I think they are) - does this mean they are also subject
to copyright and cannot be compiled in? As it happens VICE is using
RGB values determined empirically (but let's not get into a discussion
of the gammas of 1981's colour TVs vs. today's colour monitors).
What about manifest constants that are used to simulate the workings
of SID (the sound chip) - how do we even know that there is no
occurance of these values in ROM in the chip itself?
Once all proprietory matter (subject to definition) is removed from
the source tarball, VICE will be legally part of contrib. At the
moment it is only sort of OK (I will remove the ROM image files
manually from the source).
I have cc.ed this to the VICE mailing list. If you feel your reply
is of relevance to them you might want to do the same.
Giuliano.
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