Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site orca.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!andrew
From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.apple
Subject: Re: Is there a micro vi?
Message-ID: <1569@orca.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Jun-85 05:15:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1569
Posted: Sun Jun 16 05:15:29 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 04:29:39 EDT
References: <1745@sunybcs.UUCP> <178@utastro.UUCP> <1561@orca.UUCP> <234@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 46
Xref: watmath net.micro:10799 net.micro.apple:1979

>> Jove has been touted lately as a public domain editor.  This is not so.
>> If you have the source code, take a look at "re.c", in which credit is
>> given to AT&T's "ed" editor for the regular expression pattern match
>> routines.
>
> Note that the original source is quoted as "ed.c" but extensive modifications
> have been made.  The "general algorithm" is the same, but an algorithm cannot
> be copyrighted -- only the specific realization of it.  It is far from clear
> to me that this constitutes software piracy in any form.

Copyright law includes the concept of a "derived work", which is a work
produced by taking a protected work and making changes in it.  The law
says that a derived work is owned by the owner of the original work.
It doesn't matter how much you change it.  You could eliminate all but
one comment line, write an entire new program under that line, and it
would still be the property of the owner of the original work.  To make
a work which is wholly your own, you must start from scratch.  In other
words, if you take an original source and make extensive modifications
to it, the result is still regarded as the property of the owner of the
original source.

The situation with regard to Unix code is made more complicated because
AT&T primarily uses trade secret protection, not copyright protection.
However, Unix is protected by copyright because all works are
considered to be copyrighted until they are published, even if they
contain no copyright notice, and Unix source has never been published.

Anyone who has access to Unix sources is supposed to have signed a form
promising to protect the trade secret.  A form signed by an employee
promising to abide by all his/her company's rules is sufficient to bind
the employee to the Unix trade secret contract.  The terms of the Unix
license also preclude taking a piece of Unix source, making extensive
modifications, and distributing to non-Unix sites.

Since I posted the original follow-up (double ">>"s above), I received
the following message which casts further light on the proprietary
nature of jove:

> The problem is not the re.c code (because it bears no resemblance
> whatsoever to the ed code, although algorithms - which are well known -
> are similar), but the low-level tempfile management which is stolen
> directly from vi (in io.c). That stuff needs to be rewritten before
> Jove can be distributed to non-unix source licence sites... supposedly.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (orca!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]