Hi, Rjack, In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... > "In Baystate Technologies, Inc. v. Bentley Systems, Inc., 946 F. Supp. > 1079 (D. Mass. 1996), decided December 6, 1996, the district court of > Massachusetts held that the data structure names and the > organization of data structures of a mechanical computer aided design > program are not copyrightable. The program elements at stake in > Baystate are in important respects indistinguishable from the larger > class comprised of names that must be used and parameters, formats > and structures that must be employed in order to invoke the > functionality of particular proprietary microprocessors, operating > systems, computer languages and application programs. The Baystate > decision therefore supports the broader conclusion that ?using? or > ?copying? such labels and structures in order to create compatible > works is lawful under the Copyright Act." > http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/Publications/IP/IP_Articles/Baystate_Holding.pdf Thanks for that. It's a different scenario from the GCC/new code generator one. The above case states that the information needed to USE the CAD system must be made available - that is, the _external_ interfaces to the OS, and so on, thus allowing the owners of the CAD system to write their own programs for it. It's analogous to compelling the writers of a compiler to document all the ways of calling it, the meanings of all the option flags, all the error messages, and so on. What that case didn't insist on was that the _internal_ OS details had to be disclosed and given unrestricted to anybody wishing to build a competitive OS incorporating parts of the original OS. That would be analogous to insisting that somebody should be allowed unrestricted use of the internal data formats of GCC to write a new code generator, thus creating a competitive proprietary compiler incorporating the bulk of GCC. > Sincerely, > Rjack :) -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
