Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!granite.pa.dec.com!mwm From: mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Latest code-copying decision Message-ID: Date: 12 Sep 90 21:58:16 GMT References: <1990Sep11.185105.14201@kodak.kodak.com> <1990Sep12.123323.1760@uncecs.edu> <9496@skinner.nprdc.arpa> <9504@skinner.nprdc.arpa> Sender: news@wrl.dec.com (News) Distribution: na Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 41 In-Reply-To: malloy@nprdc.arpa's message of 12 Sep 90 18:25:33 GMT In article <9504@skinner.nprdc.arpa> malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) writes: >My understanding (from reading the article in the SJMN) is that the >the "improvements" included taking a multi-processors IBM mainframe >and turning it into a network of uniprocessor machines, including >copying the microcode needed to make this happen. This was not apparent from the description of the situation as posted, which only described the company as going in and hacking the microcode. It still seems to me like a nonissue, though; all the microcode, regardless of how hacked it was, is still being used by the processors that ran it before it was modified. Yes, it wasn't apparent from the posted article. That's why I pointed out the other source of information I was using. I don't know enough about multi-processor IBM systems, but I can see two situations that would invole violations of the existing copyright laws: 1) The microcode only existed on one machine, and was run on the others by crossloading or shared memory. 2) The mp implementation is non-symmetric, and only the master ran the microcode in the first place. Either case involves creating new copies of the microcode, which is clearly a violation of the existing copyright laws (though may be considered to be fair use). I'm not saying that either of these cases it true, or that the decision was "right" in some sense. I'm trying to point out that there isn't enough information available to us here to decide if this is as silly as some of the other cases that have been decided in the recent past.