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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 07 2012 @ 11:23 PM EDT |
I still think it is a bogus claim: there is still an implied licence to use the
compiler as intended (you are not copying the compiler, the compiler's purpose
is to transform YOUR work into an executable format). Unless it is made
absolutely crystal clear that you are contracting to pay royalties on the output
of the compiler (not that they are required by copyright law), then you are in
the clear.
Whether or not the helper functions (or microcode in general) are copyrightable
is an interesting question in and of itself. If its an implementation of a
well-known mathematical algorithm that can only be expressed in a few ways in
processor instructions, then merger would definitely apply if it is held to be
copyrightable subject matter at all (it being math and all).
What one vendor or another might have claimed at some time in the past doesn't
really matter, although I know that US copyright law was significantly different
at the time in question. In the 1970s there was no copyright on computer
programs in the US anyway, that only came into effect in 1980.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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