Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:49813 comp.sys.mac.programmer:12858
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!hub!henri!doner
From: doner@henri.ucsb.edu (John Doner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: mac emulation
Message-ID: <4153@hub.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 90 22:43:33 GMT
References: <940@uvicctr.UVic.CA.UUCP> <1990Mar3.190730.15647@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@hub.UUCP
Reply-To: doner@henri.UUCP (John Doner)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara
Lines: 21

In article <1990Mar3.190730.15647@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> dbplass@apple-juice.UUCP (David Plass) writes:
>Whoa!  I just read a posting of a news release on comp.newprod that
>announced a product for X/Unix computers that allow them to emulate
>a Macintosh in software.  They did this by implementing the Toolbox ROMs in
>software, and have included just about every Toolbox trap as documented in IM.
>
>The problem I have with this is: if Abacus (the company who announced the product)
>can "copy" the Mac Toolkit in this way, why aren't there any Mac "clones?"
>Did Apple give premission to Abacus to copy the Toolbox ROMs? 

It's illegal to just copy the ROMs.  It's not illegal to write new
code with the same functionality.  This is difficult of course,
because you have to determine what the functionality actually is, very
carefully.  Even if you do that, you may still have a hard time in
court proving that you did NOT copy, that any similarities are purely
the result of "only one natural way to do [a given task]"

John E. Doner	       | "The beginner...should not be discouraged if...he
Mathematics, UCSB      | finds that he does not have the prerequisites for
Santa Barbara, CA 93106| reading the prerequisites."
doner@henri.ucsb.edu   |      --Paul Halmos, Measure Theory