[Coco] Virtual Program Paks

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Aaron, I'm not using his actual code, as that would never work in Os9 anyway. Just using it to see how he aquired the frequencies from a 1 bit source. My actual code would be far from what Steve did as I plan to do it from both the cassette port (1-bit) & the joystick port (6-bit). I will also use the either the Hi-Rez graphics screens or the 80 column text screem where Steve used the Semi-Graphics screen... which the Coco 3 doesn't even have. In fact, there's only so much of "Audio Spectrum Analyzer" that will run on a Coco 3 before it crashes the machine. This is the very reason I would like to make a new one as the old one is useless unless run on a coco 1 or 2.
>
> If I remember right, the main reason Steve was holding on to his stuff was due to contracts with Tandy, Sega and others. I know Sega released all writers from their contracts when the Owner/CEO passed away and they dissolved the company and give them the freedom to republish their games with other companies.
> Tandy on the other hand... we won't even get into that ball of wax... but who pays them any mind anymore anyway. Just look at the archives... and your website, all the "Owner's Manuals" and a lot of the others are either copyrighted by MicroWare & published by Tandy, or just owned by Tandy alltogether.
>

Yes, most of the copyright holders either have explicitly released any
claims or seem to show no interest in the CoCo material.  Some of the
material on my site was sent to me by it's author for the express
purpose of sharing it, but that is the ideal case.   In others I tend
to take the stance of "easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission"
when there is no well known stance by the author and no money at stake
by anyone (to sell the content I currently provide for free on the
website would be 'wrong' imho, but since the owners don't sell it and
I don't sell it..  no harm done until somebody calls foul).

However, Steve has specifically made his desire to retain all rights
very clear, so you will not find anything of his on any of my sites.
If anyone else expresses the same desire, I would immediately remove
anything by them as well.  I don't want to put any words into Steve's
mouth so all I'll say is that (for me) as far as Steve's stuff goes,
it's "hands off".  That's why I suggest communicating with him
directly if you wish to use any of his code in any way.  For me at
least its about respecting someone's wishes more than any legal
nonsense.   Whether using it as an example as you describe is within
the realm of needing permission is your call, don't mean to cause any
trouble just a heads up that code from Steve is a special case :)

-Aaron