[Coco] FPGA 63x09

[Jeff Teunissen]

jdaggett at gate.net wrote:
> Jeff 
> 
> This is not the time I choose to argue this point as for now nothing has been 
> done so it is mute point as to what you interpret as to what I interpret.

It was just a friendly warning against starting a project on the wrong
foundation (that is, one that isn't unlikely to screw you later) since in many
ways you wouldn't be able to switch without starting over, see below.

> Even if I were to use his code as a template, a 6309 code would be 
> radically enough different that copyright infrrengements will more than 
> likely be a mute point. I envision that half if not more of his code would 
> change. Also there are a few things that I would do slightly different to 
> make copyright issues a mute point. 

Sorry, the point is not moot. You can change EVERY single line and still
infringe copyright, _especially_ with such "template" use.

Copyright does not apply at all to the so-called "functional aspects" of a
program -- that is, the stuff that is required to perform a task. If any
particular job can be performed optimally only by a specific method, no code
that exactly implements that method is, or can be (at least in the US),
covered by copyright.

What IS subject to (and protected by) copyright is the parts of a program that
can be considered "speech"; the specifics of how it is put together, the style
in which the program's components are arranged, the comments (if any), all the
stuff that programmers can use to describe the programmer's intent and what
the code _means_ (as opposed to just what it _does_, which copyright doesn't
give a crap about).

By starting with someone else's design (even if you don't actually copy a damn
thing directly!), you open the door to copyright infringement, because the
meaning of the original code doesn't change when you add new code. Even if you
were to incrementally rewrite until nothing of the original code is left,
unless you completely change the design as well, it's still a derivative
work...and if you were going to do that, what was the point in using the
original code in the first place?

Some years back, George Harrison was sued for copyright infringement over a
song, "My Sweet Lord", that he had written on his own. Harrison was found by a
jury to have "unconsciously" copied a small part (just a few notes) of the
Shirelles' song "He's So Fine", because that song had been getting radio play
a short time before Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord".

It sucks, but that's also how it is with computers. Ironically, because of the
old programming languages, many of which were much less expressive than
today's funky stuff like Perl and Python, there's a lot of old code out there
with very little "speech" in it because all the programmer could do was tell
the compiler/interpreter what to do. With today's languages (Perl being an
extreme example), two programmers might do the same task in *radically*
different ways and both methods could well be optimal (or at least irreducible).

I understand that you might like the GM HC11 design better than some other
one, but if you are explicitly not allowed to distribute changes (and in GM's
case, you can't even give someone UNCHANGED source) you are the only guy
ALLOWED to work on the project...and the rest of us are basically screwed if
you got hit by a bus, because no one could take over for something like the
next 94 years.

And aside from you having been hit by a bus, that would really suck.