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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!qns3.qns.com!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!nntp.coast.net!lll-winken.llnl.gov!uwm.edu!homer.alpha.net!jcarr.inxpress.net!user From: jcarr@wit.org (jcarr) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 20:54:59 +0100 Organization: Alpha.net -- Milwaukee, WI Lines: 49 Message-ID: <jcarr-3103962054590001@jcarr.inxpress.net> References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j3muv$34m@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <4j3v64$1rq@virtech.aib.com> <4j53m9$lv1@news1.halcyon.com> <4j72or$lcv@sol.towson.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: jcarr.inxpress.net X-Newsreader: Value-Added NewsWatcher 2.0b24.0+ Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:13800 comp.os.linux.development.system:20227 comp.os.linux.x:27914 comp.os.linux.hardware:34705 comp.os.linux.setup:47800 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:345 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2844 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2624 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16218 This is great really. Fabulous analogy but completely wrong I think. After reading this you have given me perfect drive believe 100% that To reverse engineer a driver for a piece of hardware is completely legal in every way. For these reasons: You state that you can not give a performance consisting of reading the material. Well, this is completely false. You can give a performance to yourself whenever you want and this is exactly what you would be doing with a matrox card. Running some software that you have to make it work. This is the most insane conversation ever I think. I'm having a great time reading this thread. You can do whatever you want to yourself and what you read. If you dis asseble then re-assemble code thats absolutely legal and has always been so. I can re arrange shakespeare if I want. I can re-write the constitution. I can cut apart and past together the works of L.R. Hubbard in any order and all of that is completely legal. All of you that own a matrox card legally own the use of the drivers. If pieces of the code for the drivers are used in any way that that is legal too. I'm not saying it's legal to use the software with a non-matrox card but you have legal use of a copy of the code. Only a section of the code is ever used at one time - these are turring machines we have - thus can't it be argued that using the code in any order is also legal? Isn't that what re-engineering would be? The greatest part of this is that you DONT have to worry about plagorizism! You can copy parts of the code you want all you want - You already own a copy - mutilate it all you want. Now of course you are down to the problem of sending this plagorized/ re-engineered code to your friends to also use on thier cards. Well, that might be more diffucult as then it might be argued as Richard states that you are "preforming". Surely there must be some legal way of describing the changes to the code that must be done without using any of the words or actual code itself. Thus making this entire problem inconsiquential. Well, may nothing stand in the way of the free flow of thought and communication among friends of new ideas. jcarr I'm obviosly no lawyer. In article <4j72or$lcv@sol.towson.edu>, brown@midget.towson.edu (Richard Brown) wrote: > Relating ownership of a book is not exactly like ownership of software. > If you own a book, you may do as you wish with the physical object, but > you are sitll limited to what you may do with it's content. You may not, > for example, give a performance consisting of reading the material. A > separate license is required to use the intelectual content of the book. > .....