*BSD News Article 6484


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From: brtmac@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu (Brett McCoy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Question on Diamond Clock Synthesizer
Date: 13 Oct 1992 19:19:36 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <1bfp2oINNn4a@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
References: <1992Oct11.045446.1020@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <Bvy0H3.Lwq@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us> <1992Oct13.050754.4113@sinkhole.unf.edu> <1992Oct13.175214.19534@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: maverick.ksu.ksu.edu

In <1992Oct13.175214.19534@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes:

>Wrong reason.  The reason was legal.  There would be no more danger in a
>piece of code dealing with the video card than any other code dealing with
>a video card.  The warnings you remember were from another post for some
>alpha VGA code (not the "Batman" code).  Unfortunately, no one who has
>used the "Batman" code can sy whether or not there was a problem, since
>doing so could be admitting a violation of the trade secrets act if Diamond
>wanted to prosecute.

That's rediculous.  You can't be held liable for leaking a trade secret
if you never signed a non-disclosure agreement.  If I want to use that
code, or tell other people about that code, that is fine.  The original
author of the code could be held liable, but no one else.  I never signed
anything, so there isn't anything legal that they can do to me about it.

++Brett;