Path: utzoo!dciem!array!colin
From: colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: What's WRONG with Forth?
Message-ID: <1907@array.UUCP>
Date: 30 May 91 17:53:00 GMT
References: <2818.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Organization: Array Systems Computing, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 20

In article <2818.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us> ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) writes:
> This is particularly nasty because I would have Forth Inc.'s source code for
> CREATE and colon, just not the rights to use them (without royalty, that is). 
> A strong case could probably be made, since I have this source code and can't
> help but see it and use it, that I have been "influenced" by it .... i.e.,
> that I couldn't help borrowing bits of it for my own CREATE and colon.  It's
> arguments like this that bring money into Lotus and Apple.

Well, the one useful case (in the U.S.) I know of is the famous NEC-Intel
lawsuit.  The author of NEC's microcode had amde a detailed study of the
Intel microcode, but the Judge ruled that it was "background knowledge"
and the slight similarity in microcode sequences was not copyright infringement
(if Intel had a copyright, which he ruled it didn't, for failure to enforce).

The general principle here is that being familiar with copyrighted code does
not irrevocably taint you.

Share and enjoy.
-- 
	-Colin