[OT] xTalk Legal Status

[Dan Shafer]

This is so off-topic I'm loath to respond but given that I have formal
training in intellectual property law, I can't resist. Sorry. Feel free to
ignore me.

While you are basically right, Jacque, the issue isn't as easy as it seems.
In part, that's because you're mixing patent and copyright language.
Copyright always only applies to a specific work. That work is not strictly
speaking an implementation of an idea. That is an accurate description of
one factor involved in determining patentability.

But the real problem is that it is difficult to address  the question of the
definition of "implementation." Does the implementation of the clearly
unprotectible idea of an xTalk language consist of the *vocabulary* (i.e.,
syntax) or the underlying code that makes that syntax behave in a specific
way? This issue has rattled around the IP world for a couple of decades at
least. Back in the 1970's when I was in the Marketing Communications
department at Intel, the company tried to copyright the instruction set for
the 8080 microprocessor specifically to prevent AMD from creating an
instruction-set compatible chip. It was unable to do so.

So I draw the (tentative) conclusion (with no research into recent case law
and a big caveat that I'm not a practicing attorney, just a law-trained
layman) that the xTalk *language* would not be subject to copyright but the
underlying programming code that makes that instrction set work would be.
Thus I can write an xTalk that is command-for-command identical with
Transcript as long as I use different code, algorithms, language, etc.,
underneath it all.

That, at least, is how I see it. And we've probably now narrowed the number
of people who actually give a shit to about 2.

On 7/22/06, J. Landman Gay <jacque at hyperactivesw.com> wrote:
>
> 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
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-- 
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Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
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