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Re: What are the chances of a Replica II project?

mdj wrote:

Michael J. Mahon wrote:



But there is still the issue of whether Apple would consider
the use of Apple II ROMs in any other equipment than an
Apple II to be OK.  I'd be surprised if the licensing terms
with Microsoft even allowed such a use.



Unless the license explicitly stated otherwise, what they consider is
probably irrelevant. Using a ROM the way I intend means you have to
pull it from a board to use it which ensures you're only using one copy
of the software at a time.


But many software licenses (like firmware) are restricted as to the
class of hardware they can be used on.  For example, software licensed
to be used on a 1MHz machine might be regarded as worthy of a higher
licensing fee or as competing in a different market against other
software offered by the licensor if it were run on a machine 1000 times
faster.  A common case was the requirement for a different (more costly)
license for running software on an MP vs. a uniprocessor.

You may recall that Apple licensed DOS and ProDOS for distribution on
third party disks *only* to be booted on an Apple II machine, and not
to be copied onto another disk or otherwise further distributed!  Gad!


From a legality perspective, it's a lot sounder that emulators are, and

since there has been more than one commercial emulator product, I think
it's pretty safe.


"Close" only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons.  ;-)  In the eyes
of the "law" it's completely black or white.

All of this gab is about legal technicalities, since no one will ever
care unless the topic develops a significant "profile" on the radars
of Apple's or Microsoft's legal staffs.

Better just to forget any dream of "commercial use" and instead keep a
low-profile and defensibly "fair use" posture.

-michael

New, faster SUDOKU v2.0 solver for Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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