Xref: utzoo sci.crypt:5309 comp.compression:875 misc.legal:27422
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!ts
From: ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,comp.compression,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Software Patents, Another Side
Message-ID: <43797@cup.portal.com>
Date: 29 Jun 91 02:17:27 GMT
References: <7792@cactus.org> <79617@brunix.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 23

< law not by patents.  Software has always been copyrightable.  That software
		       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Huh!?  First of all, what do you mean by "always"?  15 years ago in
the United States no one knew if software was copyrightable.  Until
Congress changed the copyright law to explicitly include software,
the copyrightability or lack thereof was being fought out in several
courts.

Second of all, what do you mean by "software"?  Source code?  Object
code?  Executable code in ROM?  Executable code on disk?  I believe
that all of these had to be hashed out in the courts.

One can make a good argument that copyright is *not* appropriate for
software other than source code.  Compare a ROM to a cake.  The source
code for the software for the ROM is much like the recipe for the cake.
You can copyright the source, just like you can copyright the recipe,
but you should not be able to copyright the ROM, just like you can't
copyright the cake itself.  By this argument, anyone should be free to
duplicate ROMs as long as they don't use a copy of the actual source
code as part of this process.

					Tim Smith