i was wondering if anyone knew what a friend of mine was talking about
when he said he read that borland has the rights to your program if you
claim it as freeware.  is this true or does anyone know what borlands
means by that?

No borland does not own the rights.  If its "Freeware" that does not
mean you can not put a copyright on it.  It only means that people do
not have to pay for it.

Brien King
bk...@primenet.com

Borland's position on your distribution of code that was written using any of
their language products is clearly spelled out in their "No-Nonsense License
Statement for Development Products" enclosed in your Delphi package.  You
might have noticed the "Portions (c) Borland Intl" message that is embedded in
every program produced.  Forget what your friends say and read the actual
license.  :-/

/mr/

In article <4e3obm$...@ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>,
   troop...@ix.netcom.com (troopers) wrote:

I've never seen anything in the liscense agreement that would lead me to
believe anything like that.

-----------------------------------------------
Mike Chapin
Powder River
mcha...@vcn.com
http://www.vcn.com/server/netizens/mchapin/first.html
Gillette, WY

Not the end of the earth but you can see it from
there.
-----------------------------------------------

Question: If the copyright is valid, then why does netscape have to dole out their navigator with
an 'unlimited' trial period, rather than just make it freeware?  I read somewhere that is was due
to 'legal reasons'. I never did understand this.

Ken Robinson

The closest license agreement clause I can think of is that Borland requires
you to put a copyright declaration in your program.  This can declare
yourself as the copyright holder (as you already ARE by being the program's
author).

My interpretation has always been that Borland wants to make sure that
the various supporting binary code that they wrote has some legally
traceable copyright chain so that people don't just give away all
their utilities and sample programs without someone in the distribution
chain having bought a license to their development tool.

So, even though you are obliged to announce your copyright, you can also
proceed to announce that you give anyone in the world the right to
distribute and use your copyrighted work.  Thus, you CAN produce true
freeware.

-- Rick
--

(Rick Rutt is a system architect living and working in Midland, Michigan.)

I think that this is to protect Netscape's position if ever they wanted
to go 100% commercial and eliminate the trial period. Don't know whether
it's _necessary_ but it seems like the thing a cautious lawyer would
suggest...

John Nurick

e-mail: j.nur...@dial.pipex.com

voicemail: <+44|0> 191 281 1306

If I remember correctly, back around version 1.5 or 2.0 of Turbo C
there was a similar flap about copyrights that centered around
Borland's license agreement stating that you were required to put a
copyright notice in your program or the compiler would insert a
Borland copyright notice. People were claiming that Borland was trying
to grab anything written in Turbo C, while the _actual_ intent was
that compiled programs, which contain linked copyrighted code from the
link library, should protect Borland's copyright on the library code
even if the programmers didn't copyright the programs themselves.

--
Sean R. Malloy               | American Non Sequitur
    Naval Medical Center     |       Society
    San Diego, CA 92134-5000 |
mal...@cris.com              | "We may not make sense,
srmal...@snd10.med.navy.mil  |  but we do like pizza"

--------------------------------------

But be careful with software you may wish to put into the public domain. If
it is source code then it is usually Ok (If it is all yours), but if you want
to place object or executable code into the public domain you should contact
Borland first and find out what their policy is (your executable will contain
portions of code from the RTL and/or VCL library over which Borland can claim
copyright).

Reading Borland's "Additional License Terms for Development Products," I gotta
say they have some really good lawyers who have stated quite clearly what
their (very generous) terms are; did it in plain English too.  I suggest that
you read it and let it go at that.

Borland includes a copyright notice for their executable code because they
have to; it IS copyrighted and they MUST therefore give notice of same.  But
this does not give them title to your program developed using their product,
as their license makes perfectly clear.

Seriously, there are some great bits on copyright law -- on the Web, at
Borland's site, and in your local library -- that will dispel many doubts very
quickly.  Far better source of information than "what your friends say."

/mr/