[ros-kernel] Re: winecalc source available - no legal issues

[Robert Köpferl]

Yea,
copys also tend to become the original in peoples mind.
For example. If you ask someone, most serif free fonts ara of course 
"arial" while the've got other names as swiss or futura. Or look at the 
game "Big Harp" few people recognize a patience cardgame as this. They 
rather detect "Solitaire" wich is a categorized name. That's sad.
It's like naming a Typewriter "Typewriter" or "App"

that just sayd

Johannes Olofsson schrieb:

>  Hi James!
> 
> I don't doubt that in this case there is no need to worry about legal issues, that was more of a general note. My 
> main point was rather (which I admit wasn't that clear in my mail :-) that it is a pity not to give it a more 
> personal look, making it an application of it's own, not "just" (in peoples eyes) a "copy". People in general tend 
> to think that "copies" aren't just as good as the original.
> 
>  BTW I do like the application from what I could see att your website. Keep up the good work!
> 
> Best regards
> Johannes Olofsson
> 
> ------ Ursprungligt meddelande ------------------- 
> Från:  James Briggs  <james at ActionMessage.com> 
> Datum: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 17:15:07 -0800 
> Ämne: [ros-kernel] Re: winecalc source available - no legal issues 
> 
> 
>>Message: 3
>>Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 12:16:53 +0100
>>From: "Johannes Olofsson " 
>>Subject: Re: [ros-kernel] winecalc source available
>>
>>Hi!
>>Wouldn't it be better to not clone the look of MS Calculator in such a
> 
> detail. >IMO it is better to make a clone
> 
>>have obvious differencies from the original and focus on getting good
>>functionality (not least keeping you out
>>of unnecessary lawsuits for stealing somebody's design).
>>Regards
>>Johannes Olofsson 
> 
> 
> Hi Johannes (and list).
> 
> I'm a US programmer, so am fairly attuned to the legal situation here.
> I don't see any problems with this work.
> 
> 0) it's a rewrite, so there's no serious copyright issues.
>    I don't think enough UI design went into calc, a simple program,
>     to rise to the level of a Lotus 123/Excel-type legal dispute.
> 1) it's just a software calculator, so no patent issues
> 2) I'm not using MS brandnames, so no trademark issues
> 3) it wasn't reverse engineered beyond visual inspection
> 4) I am not using their resource files or help content.
> 
> The goals of the project were to evaluate the MS programmers
> who worked on calc, and to see how much difficulty I would have in
> writing it from only public domain API information. They did a good job,
> and I haven't needed anything beyond what's in Petzold. (Although they
> did use a special math library, since the current library that comes
> with MS VC++ 7 does not support some the inv hyp functions. And there
> is some odd window focus behavior with the stats box I can't duplicate.)
> 
> James.
> 
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