>> Note that I am not talking about _using_ an emulator to run >> copyrighted code. If that's what you were talking about, then I >> misunderstood, and I retract my question.
> Yeah, I should have clarified - Using an emulator to run copyrighted code. I$ > However, doesnâ??t developing the emulator make you an accessory to the viol$ That would be jurisdiction-specific, probably to be settled by case law in most jurisdictions. However, there are people (and companies) with legitimate copies of the protected code; an emulator is a useful thing for them (for example, if I had a machine and it broke, I may want to continue running software written for it). I suspect (though it is a non-lawyer's guess) that any such case would hinge on how provable intent-to-infringe was. To pick an analogy, I have been working on a MicroVAX-II emulator. For it to be useful, you need the ROM image from the board. That software is copyrighted - but I own a KA-630 and thus have a legitimate copy of it. (The emulator is nevertheless useful to me, since I lack other hardware to surround the KA-630 with to make a useful system, notably disks.) Consider also MAME. As for a LispM emulator, personally, what I'd like to do (but don't have the resources to do and have other things I'd prefer to put my time into) would be to develop an emulator - with a legitimate copy of the software to test it against - then work on developing an alternative, open, system to run on it. (I've used (Symbolics) Lisp Machines, and, as much as I like them, there are numerous things I would prefer the OS did differently.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
