[OT] xTalk Legal Status

[J. Landman Gay]

Richmond Mathewson wrote:

> This needs a much more detailed explanation as what is and what is not
> free/copyright/otherwise.

It isn't that hard to understand. You can copyright your implementation 
of something but you can't copyright an idea.

The idea of an xtalk language is not copyrightable. Apple's 
implementation of it in HyperTalk is. Runtime's implementation of in 
Transcript is. Scott Raney did not consult Apple when building MetaTalk; 
he wrote all the code from scratch using the ideas that Apple formulated 
in HyperCard. That is perfectly legal, and now Scott's implementation is 
copyrighted (and currently owned by Runtime.)

If you write a story, the story is copyrighted. The idea the story tells 
is not. I can write the same story in my own words, and my copy is 
copyrighted too.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com