Re: vogons vs turlettes

["Quantum_Cat" <anonymous@cotse.com>]

Hiya, Arkain.

 *>Quantum_Cat,

 *>    Your responses to Bob were reasonable and surprisingly 
quite civil given
 *>you posting record. Let me see if I can create a scenario 
that fit's the
 *>problem Bob is trying to describe. Note that although this 
scenario isn't
 *>specific to the A2 community, similar problems occur 
surrounding the
 *>"abandonware".

Uh.. Do you mean John?  I've been sort of snotty to Bob 
because he continues to "fabricate untruths" and generally 
act like a kid.

 *>You already know that in the PC industry there are devices 
marked "Windows
 *>Only" which are designed in such a way that the necessary 
components to make
 *>it work generically exist as software with which the 
holding company will
 *>only support Window. Many people would like to see these 
modems come with
 *>Linux drivers but the manufacturers refuse. This leaves 
the Linux user w/ a
 *>problem.

OK.  I'll just interject that when I was confronted with a 
modem purchase, I thought this was one of the stupidest 
things I'd ever heard of an spent more money for a real 
modem.  Works fine on a GS, Mac, PC, AND Linux.  ;)

But continue...

 *>Barring the options of a)buying a new modem (lack of 
funds) and b)moving
 *>back to Windows(do I even need to explain?) these are the 
only remaining
 *>options:

 *>1) Reverse engineer the Windows driver -
 *>    Lack of time and skill as well as copyright laws 
interfere with this
 *>option.

Oh?  Laser did Reverse Engineering on Apple's ROMS and it 
passed copyright.  Franklin didn't and got nailed of course.  
Still your other points may have merit.  Why spend hours of 
valuable time on programming a driver when you can go work 
for McDonalds for the equivalent time and earn enough for a 
GOOD modem.  ;)

 *>2) Coerce the company into releasing programming specs for 
the WinModem -
 *>    Yeah, right. WinModem ROM code specs are a closely 
guarded secret in
 *>these companies. Even if you did manage to garner the 
specs, you'd have to
 *>sign an NDA which means you can't distribute the driver 
you wrote, or you'd
 *>have to pay for it (no money, remember?).

 *>To make this relevant to the A2 abandonware condition, 
let's say that a
 *>commercial WinModem driver was created by the company for 
Linux, but the
 *>company a) doesn't support or sell the driver, b) the 
driver exists on their
 *>ftp site, but the downloaded copyright license states that 
the software
 *>license is incompatible with GPL and therefore cannot be 
used in conjunction
 *>with GPL code. Since a Linux kernel is GPL, you cannot use 
the driver you
 *>downloaded. Since you have the source code, you cannot 
make a "clean-room"
 *>driver since you've seen the code.

 *>You're basically left without a modem in Linux. There is 
no way around this.

OK.  I'm afraid I lost the thread there.  I don't see how 
this ties into copyright infringment of Apple II software.

 *>The A2 corollary is in that there does exist A2 software 
that has a "no
 *>resale" clause in it meaning that it is illegal to sell 
the software to a
 *>second party. Likewise it is illegal to be in posession of 
second-hand
 *>software. With this kind of condition in a commercial 
package that is no
 *>longer being sold or supported, then there is no legal 
means of attaining
 *>such software. Likewise, if this software provides some 
important function
 *>that is highly difficult to replicate, and there is no 
other software
 *>packages that can achieve the same desired results, then 
you're basically
 *>stuck.

Ah.  We've been talking about this on another thread.  My 
take on the matter is that such agreements are unenforcable.  
Feel free to buy used software.  ;)

 *>Fortunately, this doesn't happen in the A2 community very 
often, but it does
 *>happen. So how do you work around this?

I've never heard of an instance where it DID happen.  I hope 
you can clarify that.  As far as working around it, I'll  go 
with what most courts have decided, at least until the 
Supreme Court gets around to hearing the case.

 *>BTW: What do you do with abandonware when the company has 
collapsed and the
 *>authors have all died?

The Copyright Act stipulates that it falls to the heirs of 
the owner.

I'll refer you to:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/title17/

I've just noticed that there's been a change, in that there 
are now links to Text Format.  Cool!

 *>Arkain

Vogons For a Turlette Free Apple II Community!

Quantum_Cat