[fpc-pascal] FPC clean room project

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

On 07/01/17 19:30, Lars wrote:
> On Fri, January 6, 2017 12:51 pm, Sven Barth wrote:
>
>> Ehm... Delphi's compiler is written in C++, not Delphi as far as we
>> know. Also their NEXTGEN compiler is utilizing LLVM, something we won't
>> purely do.
>
>
> Yes the exe signature was c/c++
>
> That does not forgive copyright just because different language is used..
>
> Any fpc code can be easily converted to C code
>
> In fact that hides copyright violations a bit as it masks them by
> converting to a new language.

I don't think that copyright would survive translation. A patent of the 
algorithms would, but that is opening a whole new can of worms.

Whoever owns Delphi these days might be able to claim a "look and feel" 
violation, but ultimately Delphi used ideas which had previously been 
demonstrated viable by MS VB, even if Borland's implementation was 
vastly improved.

So I don't think we need to give anonymous trolls a platform.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]