Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!cornell!oravax!fred
From: fred@oravax.UUCP (Charles Mills)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: ? Can I Use the DES from UNIX passwd Source code?
Message-ID: <635@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 21 Dec 88 20:26:48 GMT
References: <3600017@hpiacla.HP.COM> <8557@alice.UUCP>
Reply-To: fred@oravax.odyssey.UUCP (Charles Mills)
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca, New York
Lines: 16

In article <8557@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
>In article <3600017@hpiacla.HP.COM>, jimb@hpiacla.HP.COM (Jim Brandt) writes:
>> ... but if I used the algorithm from the source code of passwd in 
>> another product, do I need to worry about copyright?
>
>Yes you do.

Well, perhaps I'm just being picky, but it's my understanding that you
can't copyright an algorithm, only the `tangible' form (I think that's
the adjective they use) embodying the algorithm--- namely, the
source code itself.  The ideas are free.  If you use the actual source
code _verbatim_ then you are probably violating a copyright
(depending on what you use it for, what Unix you have, what license
you have, etc.).
-- 
  Fred the Pedant (...!cornell!oravax!fred)   --Picky, picky, picky--