Re: [NTLK] Launch, License or Liberate?! [was Re: OT: Steve and the Newton (Was: Money Making)]

From: Marcus Andree S. Magalhaes (marcus.magalhaes_at_vlinfo.com.br)
Date: Mon Mar 08 2004 - 10:13:37 PST


>
>>but we also know that the one thing we dont/wont have is permission
>> from apple to do it ourselves.
>>

Noone needs permission from Apple to do software emulation or
some reverse engineering.

You'll have problems if you decide to use Newton internal ROM to do
all the work. Once you create a new NOS-compatible software by yourself,
it's yours, not Apple's. I can bet Apple won't give a minimal legal
attention to a new, reverse engineered, Newton compatible device, if
some rules are followed:

 - don't use registered trademarks names, logos or symbols
 - keep a creative, independent design

If you're on the side of sofware emulation, it's even simpler: just
own a Newton. You can certainly backup your MessagePad ROM inside
an emulator ;-) That's what I did a couple years ago with my
good old HP-48 calculator. That's also similar to what the Samba team did
with Microsoft: created a SMB sharing program by reading specs and
watching bits over the wire itself.

Yes, they did it outside the U.S. But they _did it_ and _never_ got sued
by MS.

Also, there are a lot of emulators out there. Atari 2600, Nintendo, Amiga,
even MacOS emulators... Noone is being sued.

I'd really *love* to have a modern device that could, at least,
emulate a MP2100 with color screen, install and transfer pkg files...

-- 
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