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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Public Domain Yacc (Important)
Message-ID: <475@ima.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Feb-87 10:20:41 EST
Article-I.D.: ima.475
Posted: Thu Feb  5 10:20:41 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Feb-87 11:17:43 EST
References: <142@ems.UUCP> <1170@husc6.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Distribution: world
Organization: Javelin Software Corporation
Lines: 27

In article <1170@husc6.UUCP> ddl@husc6.UUCP (Dan Lanciani) writes:
>In article <142@ems.UUCP>, mark@ems.UUCP (Mark H. Colburn) writes:
>> 	... I got a message from an individual on the net who compared the
>> 	source to the AT&T distribution.  He said that the code looked 
>> 	a lot like the AT&T version.  I decided that I had best make 
>> 	sure that the source was or was not AT&T proprietary.
>
>	Just because it looks like the AT&T source doesn't mean it is
>a derivative work.  It was my impression that there was a public domain
>yacc which was derived from the same source as the AT&T yacc--but not
>FROM the AT&T yacc.  This yacc (and a lex) are being sold for the IBM
>PC by some small company and the code also looks a lot like AT&T yacc.

Not possible.  Yacc and lex were written at Bell Labs by Bell Labs
employees.  All versions of them back to the very first belong to AT&T.
If some small company is selling a version of yacc that looks a lot like
AT&T's, they will probably be in trouble when AT&T notices them.

John Levine

PS:  If somebody really has legally reimplemented them, I'd love to hear
about it.  The description of the algorithms in the Dragon Book would be
a good place to start.
-- 
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something
Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him?