Re: hangman goes to jail

[Info-Mac]

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From: info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac)
Newsgroups: fa.info-mac
Subject: Re: hangman goes to jail
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Date: Tue, 3-Jul-84 06:06:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.1039
Posted: Tue Jul 3 06:06:42 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Jul-84 03:32:29 EDT
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Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
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From: Lauren Weinstein
As I pointed out originally, the complexity of source exchanges between
some parties (including Berkeley and AT&T) has made it increasingly
difficult to accurately determine where code originated. I have at
least one version of hangman from a very old Unix release that appears to
share common code with the MAC version (the former was pre-graphics,
of course). This is similar to the problems with "vi," where chunks
of "ed" were (and still are, aren't they?) included in the Berkeley
code. But let's face it, the world hardly lives or dies based
on the ownership of a relatively simple game program.

In my original message about hangman, I stated that if there was
convincing evidence that the code in question (the particular
implementation of hangman) were non-ATT, then the port is clearly
OK. The dictionary presents a different problem. I don't believe that
simply deleting words from a work changes the original ownership
of the work! There is a court case pending now, I believe, regarding
a version of a spelling list that was modified from some public domain
spelling program, that turned out to have been based on a commercial
dictionary list from Random House or some such. It is unclear what
will happen in this case, since countersuits are apparently appearing
hot and heavy. The interesting thing is that the problem was brought
on by the public domain distribution of a modified word list that
was originally part of a copyrighted work. One can only hope that
something will be left by the time the lawyers are finished.

My biggest gripe is not with either commercial software nor public
domain software. It is with the "cavalier" attitude with which some
people seem to feel that when it comes to software, agreements
don't mean anything from a moral or ethical standpoint. Of course,
this doesn't apply just to software--this attitude pervades
our society in many ways and is a way of life for many.

I apologize for the editorializing. By the way, thanks much
for the info about disk drives and such. It looks like it's now
becoming possible to put enough extra equipment on the MAC
to make it truly useful. I still can't help but wish that it
had been somewhat more "richly" configured from the start, but
that's certainly water under the ol' bridge.

--Lauren--