Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!umd5!brett
From: brett@umd5.umd.edu (Brett Bourbin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Ethics in programming....
Message-ID: <5086@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 12 Jul 89 16:01:47 GMT
References: <20338@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: brett@umd5.umd.edu (Brett Bourbin)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 33

In article <20338@cup.portal.com> Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes) writes:
>
>  I have a question for all the folks out there on the net.  This is a very 
>broad question, but since I couldn't find a specific newsgroup to deal with it
>I decided to post it here since it deals with the Atari 8-bit.
>
>  I want to know the ethical [and legal if there are any copyright lawyers out
>there] rules [laws, scriptures, traditions] of posting/destributing the source
>code of a copyrighted program.  In particular I am speaking of TEXTPRO3.2R.  I
>have been unsuccessful in my quest to locate the authors, so I have 
>disassembled the object code and I am in the process of commenting it.
>  After I finish I want to distribute it [for free] to anyone who asks.  Now,
>how about some comments on what I want to do?  Please, no flames, I won't take
>a single point you raise seriously if you put it in a flame.

	Well, I hope you take the points I raise seriously, for you could get 
yourself in big trouble.  First, if a program is copyrighted, that means the
author of the work owns the rights to it.  He/she can do with it what they wish.

	If you disassemble the binaries, comment them and then turn around and
distribute them, you are violating the copyright.  There might be a good reason
the source is not in the PD and I could go through and list many reasons, but I
don't wish to waste bandwidth.

	The end result - unless you have the authors permission, DON'T distribute
disassembled code and place it in the PD.
    
>Charles Hughes
>@cup.portal.com

--Brett S Bourbin, Instructional Computing Programs -- Univ of Maryland
            Computer Science Center, College Park, MD 20742
       INTERNET: brett@umd5.umd.edu  BIX: brettb  DELPHI: brettb