Argh, did it again, sent to wrong address.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi,
On 8/13/10, Steven D'Aprano <steve_AT_pearwood_DOT_info> wrote:
But we're not discussing what "should be", but what *is*,
Even if we cared enough to find out (and apparently none of us do, or don't know who to ask), the way it *is* could change yet again by the time we finish GPC 2015. Besides, like I said, what if your country doesn't approve of such laws? It really pains me to hear that such and such is illegal (only) now or such and such a country doesn't follow this or that the U.S. is more strict, etc. Sure, if you think "all the world's U.S./Europe", it simplifies things, but it doesn't truly solve it.
and the legal reality is that works like P5, even without a copyright notice, *are* copyrighted and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
P5 is Scott's (heavy) modification. I don't know if it's enough to constitute a whole "new" work or just another derivative. He says his work is PD. So we'd only have to worry about the "old" P4 bits. And Pemberton publishes his book online for free now (though he didn't write P4 himself, right??). That should tell you something, even if it's not legally airtight. (Scott says several commercial compilers used P4 as a basis. So apparently they didn't mind!!)
That means that using such a work puts you in legal jeopardy unless you get an explicit licence to use it.
Right, but who to ask? I assume Pemberton, he should know better than any of us. But if even he didn't write it, how can we be sure who did?
If you, or somebody else, chooses to take that risk, then by all means do so. Just do so with full understanding that you *are* infringing copyright, and even if the author is happy to turn a blind eye, the copyright holder might not be.
I have no intention of screwing over anybody. But we're talking about something very small and old. Doesn't mean legal wars haven't been waged on similarly old or small stuff, but still ... it doesn't seem like it's THAT big a deal!
As for the rest of the debate... well, it's too long, too rambling, the analogies you make are strange, and none of it really matters.
Okay, so I ramble, and my analogies suck. Sue me. (Oh wait, that's not illegal.) ;-)
We're not designing our perfect copyright law, nor are we documenting all the crazy things people do. We're trying to help Frank decide what the future of gpc should be.
Clearly Scott (who is clearly intelligent) thinks P5 is worthwhile. Frank (also intelligent) would prefer to go another direction. That's his right. The point is that if we want a (classic / standard) Pascal written in Pascal, P5 would probably be a good starting point. Otherwise it might be better just to modify FPC to add an ISO 10206 mode.