Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:5823 misc.legal:4047
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!unido!sbsvax!greim
From: greim@sbsvax.UUCP (Michael Greim)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,misc.legal
Subject: is there copyright on CURSES ?
Message-ID: <452@sbsvax.UUCP>
Date: 25 Feb 88 17:31:55 GMT
Organization: Universitaet des Saarlandes, D-6600 Saarbruecken, FRG
Lines: 59
Keywords: CURSES curses law legal copyright


I have a question concerning copyright.

In the course of a project I used curses for screen management. I got
so fed up with its bugs and inabilities that I decided to extend it.
This was no legal problem because we have a source license for
BSD 4.* for VAX.
When I finished I realized I had written a totally new product.

My question is : can I sell this new thing of mine ? Or does it
depend on any copyrights on curses and if so, whose ?

To clarify:
I call my product "CURRY". This reminds one of "CURSES" and also
suggests a certain "newness" and difference.
(And I couldn't come up with something better, and now
I am stuck with it. :-#   )

The library /usr/lib/curry has 79558 byte compared to original 35450
of /usr/lib/curses.

I have changed the window structure some, and extended the
functionality. With CURRY you can use up to 4 attributes to your
characters, you can take them from up to 4 character sets.
With new termcap entries you can specify those commands, you can
set graphic symbols to use in line drawing. I implemented
pull-up menus and a window manager which is part of the library.
The refresh routines work some terminal functions which
have not been used up-to-then, like 'change scrolling region',
'scroll up', 'scroll down' ...
I added error routines which give you sensible messages in addition
to the usual return values.
New functions are for instance :
	scrollup, scrolldown, wchange (to change an attribute on a region
	on the screen), wrectangle (which allows you to box a portion of
	your window), ...
And I removed some bugs from curses.
The core of CURRY is CURSES all right, but I made changes in almost 
every routine. And I kept some stuff just to be a little bit
compatible (ain't that like 'a little pregnant' ? :-).
CURRY is implemented and kicking (fully legally !) on VAX 4.3BSD, SUN and
a VAX running ULTRIX.

Any responses are welcome.

	Thanx in advance.

		Michael

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| UUCP:  ...!uunet!unido!sbsvax!greim   | Michael T. Greim                     |
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