Re: On the difference between software and normal goods

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Article #72700

#72700

From: Noah Friedman
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1992 22:56

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In article <46537@mimsy.umd.edu> leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) writes:
>[mib writes:]
>>When a plumber fixes my bathroom, I am free to watch, to take notes,
>>to write books explaining the procedure, to tell all my friends how to
>>do it, and even to go into competition.
>>
>>When I buy a floppy from Microsoft to "instruct" my computer, I don't
>>get to do any of these things.
>
>Well... not so.  You may reverse engineer any program, at least up to
>the look and feel business, and sell it... undoubtedly this is where
>all spreadsheets other than Visicalc came from, for instance.


   Some software licenses claim that you may not disassemble the program.
"Reverse-engineering" a program does not include simply rewriting it based
on the look&feel of the interface (but I don't think interfaces should be
copyrightable anyway)






--Noah

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From: friedman@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: On the difference between software and normal goods
Message-ID: <FRIEDMAN.92Jan14175630@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 92 22:56:30 GMT
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