Re: Question about licensing
On Sun, Jun 13, 1999 at 03:34:38PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> From: Brian Ristuccia <brianr@osiris.978.org>
> > What about folks developing Microsoft Windows apps with djgpp or cygwin32?
>
> Microsoft's application license explicitly prohibits you from running their
> applications on a non-Microsoft operating system.
>
> If they wanted to prohibit certain classes of applications from being run on
> their operating system, they might run afoul of anti-monopoly provisions of
> U.S. law, but not copyright or contract law. The only reason people can run
> djgpp and cygwin32 applications on top of MS windows is because MS allows it.
>
This doesn't quite seem right. In fact, I think a precident has been set to
the contrary. I remember a while back Nintendo, a company that manufactured
console game machines sued another company that made a hardware device to
patch video games as they were being played. The gadget was called Game
Master or Game Shark, or something to that effect. The intent of the device
was to adjust the game code and data in ways that allowed the user to cheat,
reach special levels, and restart play from different points in the game in
ways that weren't normally allowed.
I'm pretty sure the device executed code in the copyrighted ROM in the
console unit. It also patched (using non-context patches) copyrighted game
software.
AFIK, the manufacturer of the "cheat" device won the lawsuit. This would
seem to indicate that 1. non-context patches are not derivative, and 2.
programs that make use of other programs by executing their code are not
derivative.
--
Brian Ristuccia
brianr@osiris.978.org
bristucc@nortelnetworks.com
bristucc@cs.uml.edu
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