Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!sdcc6!sdcc10!cs163afu
From: cs163afu@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU (Some call me...Tim)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ROM
Summary: Internals has the ROMs disassembled!
Message-ID: <112@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU>
Date: 23 May 89 00:04:10 GMT
References: <8905171833.AA01200@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu> <375@nixpbe.UUCP>
Reply-To: cs163afu@sdcc10.ucsd.edu.UUCP (Some call me...Tim)
Organization: University of California, San Diego
Lines: 50

In article <375@nixpbe.UUCP> mboen@nixpbe.UUCP (Martin Boening) writes:
>
>What?? Disassembling the ROMS ILLEGAL?. Well, then there's a very illegal
>book around over here in Germany...

The publisher of that book I'm sure has a license to print those,
as otherwise they are making copies of the ROMs without compensating
Atari.  ABACUS Internals also has a disassembly of the ROMs in it,
by the way.

As far as modifying TOS is concerned:

Here is a piece of a file I downloaded from the net a while ago.
It was written by an attorney who practices computer and copyright
law, Jordan J. Breslow.  I can send the entire article to anyone
who's interested.

|    0.9  Now, you're a clever programmer, and you know the program could
|run faster with some modifications.  You could also add graphics and an
|interactive mode and lots of other stuff.  What does copyright law say
|about your plans?  Well... several different things, actually.  First,
|recall that the copyright owner has the exclusive right to make derivative
|works.  A derivative work is a work based on one or more preexisting works.
|It's easy to recognize derivative works when you think about music or
|books.  If a book is copyrighted, derivative works could include a
|screenplay, an abridged edition, or a translation into another language.
|Derivative works of songs might be new arrangements (like the jazz version
|of Love Potion Number 9), a movie soundtrack, or a written transcription,
|or a "long version," (such as the fifteen minute version of "Wipe Out" with
|an extended drum solo for dance parties).  In my opinion, you are making a
|derivative work when you take the store-bought word processor and modify it
|to perform differently.  The same would be true if you "translated" a COBOL
|program into BASIC.  Those are copyright infringements -- you've horned in
|on the copyright owner's exclusive right to make derivative works.  There
|is, however, some breathing room.  The Software Act generously allows you
|to "adapt" the code if the adaptation "is created as an essential step in
|the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine ..."
|For example, you might have to modify the code to make it compatible with
|your machine.

From this I would say that strict bug fixes are OK, as that could
be viewed as an "essential step in the utilization" etc., but any
other changes would, in a strict sense, be illegal.  I don't see why
Atari would particularly care if someone in the privacy of their
home changed TOS to do whatever, as long as it was never
distributed, however...

--------------
Tim Mensch
tmensch@ucsd.edu