Oh, I also forgot to mention the concept of "clean room reverse engineering", which is used by some to recreate the functionality of a system in such a way as to avoid any taint of "copying". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering One of the best known was the Phoenix BIOS for the IBM PC, back when it came out. It enabled PC clones to run MS-DOS.
But none of this applies in this case. It would be like whomever first thought up the bubble sort technique and wrote some English description, claiming that anybody who actually implemented this type of sort violated their copyright. That would be a patent. If you could patent the bubble sort, then anybody who implemented it would need a license to write a program, even from scratch, which implements it. I thought of this specifically because some parts of DFSORT are patented. And perhaps parts of z/OS are as well. Which would be one reason why nobody has tried to make a "work alike" of z/OS (yes, I've read about Fujitsu's MSP) -- John McKown Systems Engineer IV IT Administrative Services Group HealthMarkets(r) 9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010 (817) 255-3225 phone * [email protected] * www.HealthMarkets.com Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message may contain confidential or proprietary information. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. HealthMarkets(r) is the brand name for products underwritten and issued by the insurance subsidiaries of HealthMarkets, Inc. -The Chesapeake Life Insurance Company(r), Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of TennesseeSM and The MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company.SM > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of McKown, John > Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 7:49 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Programming languages can't have copyright > protection, EU court rules > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List > > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Scott Ford > > Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 9:33 PM > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: Programming languages can't have copyright > > protection, EU court rules > > > > All, > > > > So how do you protect code, whatever language you have > > written in , in business ? > > Without copyright, doesn't it imply , people can take you > > source and change it and resell it ...if the gave your source > > , right ? > > > > > > Scott Ford > > Senior Systems Engineer > > www.identityforge.com > > No, copyright stops people from taking the source and simply > making minor modifications (such as changing variable names), > then calling it theirs. There is a concept called a > "derivative work". > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work . The concept of > "taking the source, change it, and resell it" is the major > distinctions in many of the "open source" licenses, such as > Apache, MIT, *BSD, and my favorite GPL. The GPL license is > specifically written to stop just such an occurrence. And it > has been enforced in some lawsuits. And, to my knowledge, has > never failed in a copyright lawsuit. > > <quote> > In United States copyright law, a derivative work is an > expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected > elements of an original, previously created first work (the > underlying work). > </quote> > > But it does not prevent using the __ideas__ in the work in an > independent work (think POSIX compliance in UNIX!). That's > why there can be, and are, so many of the beloved "Harlequin > Romance" type novels. <grin/> > > IMO, Groklaw is a good source for learning about some of > these things. > > -- > John McKown > Systems Engineer IV > IT > > Administrative Services Group > > HealthMarkets(r) > > 9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010 > (817) 255-3225 phone * > [email protected] * www.HealthMarkets.com > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message may contain > confidential or proprietary information. If you are not the > intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail > and destroy all copies of the original message. > HealthMarkets(r) is the brand name for products underwritten > and issued by the insurance subsidiaries of HealthMarkets, > Inc. -The Chesapeake Life Insurance Company(r), Mid-West > National Life Insurance Company of TennesseeSM and The MEGA > Life and Health Insurance Company.SM > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
