How exactly does runrev for ipad/iphone work?

[Richard Gaskin]

Randall Reetz wrote:

 > This is an interesting Supreme Court subject.  I could write a
 > tight case that shows that code is content.  An executable program
 > is first amendment protected expressive content exactly the same
 > as is expected and enjoyed by a poet or a painter.
 >
 > So, build an ipad and iphone stack runner (using Apple's blessed IDE)
 > and be done with it.  Then the question is how to distribute runrev
 > generated stacks for the iphad?
 >
 > After that, the question is:  Does apple restrict the distribution of
 > ebooks, movies, sounds or other content as a function of origin,
 > protocol, or content?

If you want to publish your source code as prose or poetry in an ebook 
there's nothing stopping you.  Some reasonably good poems have been 
written in xTalk.

If you want to deploy that text as scripts along with an engine to 
interpret that text at runtime into executable statements, that's 
another thing.

This seems to be the inverse of the font copyright precedent, where the 
distinction between code and data were clearly established:  font 
designs as bitmaps are not afforded copyright protection because they 
are considered primarily "utilitarian" and "obvious", but when vector 
fonts like PostScript and TrueType came along they were afforded 
copyright protection as executable code, even as the glyphs they 
rendered were not protectable (which explains the thousands of 
knock-offs, fully allowable if the designs contain none of the original 
code).

With the distinction between data and executable code well established, 
I would not imagine it would be too hard for Apple's army of lawyers to 
draw on that to support a case where they've explicitly prohibited 
certain forms of executable code.

But that said, I'm no lawyer.

If you get this to the Supreme Court let us know how it works out for you.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
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