Re: System 6.02?

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <47vg3k$9as@wn1.sci.kun.nl>,
Doede Boomsma  <dboomsma@sci.kun.nl> wrote:
>CHEEZWHIZ@news.delphi.com (CHEEZWHIZ@DELPHI.COM) wrote:
>>goldbug@oanet.com@oanet.com   (Herbert Fung) writes:
>>
>>>Now somehow I seem to remember some European group posting that they were
>>>planning on customizing an update for the GS System 6.xx series. How far has
>>>this project come of late? Anyone here know? I wanna know!
>>
>>Last I heard was Apple's lawyers managed to change their minds...   but 
>>that was only a rumor, and I've seen nothing posted by any of the Brutal 
>>Deluxe members to indicate this...

>But why???? It was made as a patch and why is it forbidden to PATCH
>software? I use a patched version of Prodos and GS/OS! If they don't
>give a **** anymore about us, why do they do about GS/OS 6.01? The
>Washington Apple Pi hired a programmer to write a new OS for the Apple
>III, called BOSOS or something like that.

   Writing things from scratch is not forbidden. Nor is doing what you
want to your own copy of GS/OS or other pieces of software. (Yes, you
are perfectly withing your rights to take the copy of Windoze95,
GS/OS, or anything else you own and smash it with a hammer :) Also,
writing programs to patch certain bugs is also legal-- I've released
many inits that patch off problems, usually with the support of the
authors involved.

   But, what you can't do is disassemble something, tweak parts of it,
and release it wholesale as if it was anything like something else.
Here, the difference between a program patching something else (in
memory), and releaseing a whole OS is what is objectionable. GS/OS is
a copyrighted set of code by Apple computer. If someone was to turn
around an release a 6.0.2, 6.1, or somehting else, people would look
to Apple for support, and such. That would be a good way to piss off
the folks there no end. You could not rename the OS either; Apple's
already written 99% of it, so that would be very bad form, and against
the law.

   Bottom line: in memory patches are a perfectly good way of fixing
problems, and there are _known_, legitimate ways to add more
functionality to the toolbox that do not involve releasing a "new
System Sofware." If these people were halfway dedicated, they could
have released their stuff a long time ago, but this insistence on
doing things the braindead way has got to go.

Nathan Mates

-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in 
# parables" Mark 4:11, NRSV