Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ogicse!milton!phaedrus From: phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Mark Phaedrus) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard Subject: Re: Can I Clone Hypercard? Message-ID: <12846@milton.u.washington.edu> Date: 12 Dec 90 05:54:50 GMT References: Distribution: comp Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 26 In article melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >How far can one go in cloning Hypercard without getting sued? Can I >write a Hypercard program for X-Windows that completely implements the >Hypertalk language without having lawyers knocking at my door? >Hypercard would be much more attactive development environment if its >stacks worked across platforms. Well, HyperTalk is a language, and languages cannot be copyrighted (since they're just mathematical algorithms). Therefore, I wouldn't see any legal problem in implementing HyperTalk on another platform. However, to get something that really acted like HyperCard, you'd have to duplicate a lot of user-interface features (menus, dialogs, the Home stack and so on), and given the current "look and feel" lawsuit craze, that's dangerous waters indeed. Also, I think you may be underestimating the sheer amount of work that would be required in duplicating something that big on a foreign platform. Getting HC2.0's fields to work properly, for instance, would basically require reimplementing Styled TextEdit. And even if you could do it, you'd have to do some fancy dancing to avoid violating Apple's copyrights and patents on the Mac operating system. (I know a limited version of the Mac OS has been legally(?) ported, so I'm not saying it's impossible; I'm just saying I wouldn't want to hold up my projects until your release date. :) ) -- Internet: phaedrus@u.washington.edu (University of Washington, Seattle) The views expressed here are not those of this station or its management. "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, consider an exciting career as a guillotine operator!"