Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!psuvax1!vu-vlsi!guest
From: guest@vu-vlsi.UUCP (visitors)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PLANETS.COM
Message-ID: <1373@vu-vlsi.UUCP>
Date: 21 Feb 88 20:28:19 GMT
References: <4435@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: 164485913@excalibur.UUCP (Mark Schaffer)
Distribution: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Organization: Villanova Univ. EE Dept.
Lines: 37

In article <4435@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> tknight@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (T.Knight - Computing Services) writes:
>
>   A few days ago someone was asking for source to PLANETS.COM that was
>posted recently. I just ran PLANETS through CHK4BOMB and found a
>"Copyright 1985 Borland Inc." message in it. When you invoke PLANETS
>it displays the message "PLANETS V3.0 is a Public Domain Program". Looks
>like someone's doing a little piracy.
> 
>  Perhaps one of our virus experts could check it out to see if whoever
>removed the copyright message added a few undocumented features, like disk
>formats, etc. Anyway its definitely pirated software that's been altered
>so use at your own risk, both physical and moral !!.
> 
>Fred Widall
>DP70@WATDCS.NETNORTH
> 

What?

Do you mean that every program I have written with Turbo Pascal is pirated
every time it's compiled to a .com file?  :-)

No, it isn't!

It just so happens that Borland's compiler put "Copyright 1985 Borland Inc."
in the front end of the .com files it produces.  I don't recall the exact
details of Borland's licience, but I doubt Borland gets to own the programs
this way, so I guess that PLANETS.COM may indeed be in the public domain.

 
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