Discontinued Software, The Law, Morals and Hypercard

[Mathewson]

Recently I had an interesting correspondence with a lawyer
in the US stimulated by my earlier posting re Apple and
Hypercard.

The reasons behind my previous posting were:

1. Hypercard is an excellent 'starter tool' / intro to RR.

2. Silly Apple, as well as stopping further development of
HC, have discontinued it. The latter silliness is extremely
silly, as had they made HC available for a minimal fee they
would have gained some revenue, and made messages/offers
like this redundant.

3. Apple have given no indication that they are prepared to
release copyright control of HC.

4. The US lawyer indicated (hedged about with all sorts of
legal disclaimers that look a bit odd from a Bulgarian
perspective) that were I to make HC available via a
web-download Apple would 'have me for lunch' (my turn of
phrase, not his).

5. HOWEVER, were I to send a copy to a 'friend' on an
informal basis, Apple would not be bothered.

6. I have seen a number of postings from people trying to
lay their hands on copies of HC to check/review old stacks
prior to attempting to port them to MC/RR.

SO: while this should not be taken as an endless flood of
free downloads: I do have a licensed copy of HC 2.2.1 which
I use on quite a regualr basis. I am willing to send zipped
copies of it to people who have previously owned HC, have a
bunch of old stacks mouldering in the vaults, and, having
lost their copies of HC, wish to examine them with a view
to porting them to MC/RR. AND have no intention of using HC
in itself to develop commercial software. I will NOT
include the STANDALONE bit that goes in the extensions
folder of Mac Classic.

I came to RR via HC, and, just as my 2 sons have had to
suffer Father's sliderules, I believe that while total
reiteration of the past is unnecessary, HC is a step which
new xTalkers would profit by examining. I, for one, would
be extremely happy, and grateful, if Uncle Steve could see
his way clear to making HC available as a FREE download via
the Apple website. BUT, Uncle Steve does not listen to me!

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson
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See Mathewson's software at:

http://members.maclaunch.com/richmond/default.html
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