Subject: Re: SCCS
From: [email-masked] ("Henrik Geleff")

26 May 1997 16:25:59 -0700
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NO!!! 

I am saying that if you have a need for a "free" SCCS you can clone the
comercial one for personal or internal use, and as long as the change of
hands of the code does not involve payment or the like, AT&T will have a
ultra thin case against what is going on.

Secondly I am saying that I do not see the need for a free SCCS because RCS
is in existance and I still have to find a platform where it does not run.
Additionally there exist a tool that translates SCCS files to RCS files and
RCS files are binary compatible on all platforms finally any project
maintained using RCS is not restricted to AT&T supported platforms.

Regards

Henrik Geleff

> Are you saying that you don't think a person could sit with a purchased
> copy of sccs and reverse engineer sccs (which I think they could), or
that
> the process of doing so would cause the code to not be copyrightable by
> the author (which I am not sure of)? If so, what part of the process do
you
> believe to cause the result to not be copyrightable?
> thanks, tim.

----------
>> From: 	Henrik Geleff
>> Subject: 	Re: SCCS
>> 
>> There is a problem with a free SCCS, I tried to make one but I could not
>> find a description of the SCCS file format which did not come from AT&T
or
>> if it looked as a independent source, they contained one or more
paragraphs
>> which was word to word the same as the AT&T description. It is in my
>> opinion impossible to write a copylefted SCCS as it will always deal
with
>> the format of the SCCS file which is copyrighted by AT&T. 
>> 
>> The task of writing a clone of SCCS should be pretty easy, but it will
be a
>> clone and not white-roomed-code and therefore not copy-left-able.
>> 
>> FSF by the way is about developping tools that are equivalent or better
>> than the comercial tools; for version control the tool is called RCS,
and
>> it is better than SCCS and is even used as an engine in CVS and MKS
Source
>> Integrity to mention two.
>> 
>> I do not think the world needs a SCCS clone as free software, but if
>> anybody disagrees I could provide my design document, which never was
coded
>> as I came across RCS and did not see the need.
>> 
>> Regards
>> 
>> Henrik Geleff
>> 

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