Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!drutx!druwy!dlm
From: dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Shareware MAC
Message-ID: <4476@druwy.ATT.COM>
Date: 5 Dec 89 16:15:15 GMT
References: <3395@brazos.Rice.edu>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 61

in article <3395@brazos.Rice.edu>, bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) says:
> The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works
> like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This
> is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no
> Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet.
		^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ not true, there is an Amiga Mac emulator.
 
> It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? How does Phoenix et al. get
> away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike?

	The problem is partly technical and partly legal (or at least
lots of money for lawyers).

	To "legally clone" a BIOS (or ToolBox in Mac'ese) you need to
teams of programmers and some lawyers.  The first team studies the code
to be duplicated and generates a highly detailed description of the
code.  The description would include statements about register
contents, data structures passed, etc. for the various routines in the
BIOS.  It then states what the routine does including any side effects
(eg. global variables that are changed).  It should also document any
bugs in the code (ie. deviations from the published specifications for
the BIOS). This description is then sent to the lawyers who save copies
of everything (documentation for any suits that come up) and then send
a copy to the second programmer team.  The second progammer team has to
be made up of people who have NEVER looked at the actual code to be
duplicated (ie. they never used a debugger to look at the Mac ROMs or
the IBM PC BIOS or whatever).  They also can NOT talk to the first
programmer team except by having the lawyers forward messages (which
are filed just like everything else.)  They then use the descriptions
to write routines that do the exact same thing as the original.  They
may even clone the bugs, some of the 3rd party EGA cards for PC's have
the same bugs as IBM's EGA card.

	When you get done you have what should be a legal duplicate of
the first program's functionality.  There may be problems due to
copyrights on the visual appearance (look & feel) or patents on
algorithims, etc.  Hopefully the documentation the lawyers have will be
enough to prove that you did things legally (Phoenix pulled it off with
BIOS ROMs for PC's).

	The technical problems are really just time problems.  The Mac
ROMs are very complex (much more complicated than the TOS ROMs for
instance).  Given the large number of functions contained in the ROMs
it will take quite a while to duplicate them. And while they are
working to duplicate a given release of ROMs (eg. the 256K ROMs in the
Mac II) Apple will be working on new, improved ROMs with new features. 
So when you get done you may have something that is already obsolete.
This isn't a problem with cloning the BIOS ROMs in a PC, the functions
of those ROMs is pretty stable with very few changes over time.


	No company has decided that the time and expense (at least one
year, at least 10 or 20 programmers, plus lawyers, and Apple will
sue when you get done) is worth the expected return.



				Dan Moore
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Denver
				dlm@druwy.ATT.COM