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Subject: Re: Review of ALEXS by Larry Kaufman

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 17:03:59 02/18/99

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On February 18, 1999 at 19:26:29, James B. Shearer wrote:
[snip]
>          The copyright statement in the source (in main.c) of crafty 11.19 (it
>may be different in different versions) states:
>
>          "Crafty, copyrighted 1996 by Robert M. Hyatt, Ph.D., Associate
>Professor of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at
>Birmingham."
>
>          "All rights reserved.  No part of this program may be reproduced in
>any form or by any means, for any commercial (for profit/sale) reasons.  This
>program may be freely distributed, used, and modified, so long as such use does
>not in any way result in the sale of all or any part of the source, the
>executables, or other distributed materials that are a part of this package."
>
>           The last sentence waives some rights Dr. Hyatt would otherwise have
>under copyright law to control redistribution and modification of his work.  I
>am not sure Dr. Hyatt ever had any rights to control use but if he did this
>clause waives them.
>                                James B. Shearer

Winning a contest is a "profit" reason [if any sort of prize is involved].  I
suppose if the entrant waived any prize awards and the contest did not mind
clones that would be conceivable -- for version 11.19.  However, any of the
newer code (e.g. SMP stuff that is in *both* of the current programs under fire)
is under the new copyright arrangement.

In other words, it may be possible to modify 11.19, and as long as you never
make a cent on it and make known the oringinator of the copyright, you may be
legal.  But any of the newer versions with the stronger copyright (which clearly
covers all of his new extensions) cannot be used without making public
disclosure of *your* source code.

Your point is well taken, but moot in the case of both currently discussed
possible violations.



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