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Path: utzoo!utcsri!qucis!dalamb
From: dalamb@qucis.UUCP (David Lamb)
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Re: "Gosling-free" emacs and unipress
Message-ID: <123@qucis.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 02:30:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: qucis.123
Posted: Thu Aug  1 02:30:56 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 08:41:40 EDT
References: <3134@decwrl.UUCP> <3232@cornell.UUCP> <420@kontron.UUCP>
Reply-To: dalamb@qucis.UUCP (David Lamb)
Organization: Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
Lines: 12
Summary: 

If a piece of software is protected by "trade secret," then you could
be sued if you looked at the code, then wrote your own version.  This
is the way UNIX is protected, and why you have to have ATT UNIX licences
before using Berkeley UNIX.  It's also why RMS can't look at the ATT UNIX
code while writing GNU.

If software is protected by copyright, I find it hard to believe you could
be sued for writing your own after looking at the code -- but perhaps the
laws are sufficiently complicated that people would rather play it safe.
Perhaps you would have to trust a judge to be able to tell that your new
code was not a simple translation of the old code, and people are afraid
the courts would rule against them.