[DB-SIG] Standardized Date-Time class

[Magnus Lycka]

At 14:10 1997-12-10 +0200, Hannu Krosing wrote:
>> From my point of view they are worthless if I can't use them commercially.
>> I need the revenue from my programming to pay my rent and food. I suggest
>> we forget the professor and reinvent the wheel, if the old wheel won't be
>> allowed to roll freely...
>
>Correct,
>
>But unless they come with a license that prohibits any and all commercial
programming
>after looking at them ;), we may use them to get some good ideas for our
own date
>class.

Hm... I think you have to learn to respect copyrights in Estonia
if we are to take you in to the European Community. ;-)

This is really a tricky legal question, and it's naturally difficult
to _catch_ you if you change a reasonable amount of code. Still, if you 
have seen someone elses code, thought, 'Aha!' and then written your own
similar program, it could certainly be argued that your work is derived
from the program you saw, and thus a violation. If you never saw the other
program that can hardly be claimed.

Since it is the source code that is copyrighted it's probably not possible
to claim any legal complaints if you only se a program executing and then
copy it's function based on percieved behaviour. That's unless you copy a 
screen layout that is considered to be a work of art I guess...

If it's patented, not seeing the original is irrelevant, it's still a 
violation, but if we are talking about copyrights it is my understanding
that 'inspiration' from reading (or watching) someone elses literary work,
be it a book, a movie or a source listing, can mean that you end up in a
situation where you can suddenly be in a legal jam if you create this 
thing that you might well have written anyway... Knowledge isn't always 
beneficial...


	Magnus

P.S. I have no legal education, and regardless of the Berne convention
copyright regulations differ between countries, so don't trust me as a
legal authority. I just wanted to make you aware that the problem exists.

--
Magnus Lycka, S/W Engineer, M.Sc.E.E; Folktrov. 6C, 907 51 Umea, Sweden
Tel: +46(0)90 198 498, GSM: +46(0)70 582 80 65, Fax: +46(0)70 612 80 65
<mailto:magnus.lycka@tripnet.se>         <http://www1.tripnet.se/~mly/>


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