9 Feb
2017
9 Feb
'17
8:45 a.m.
On 9 February 2017 at 18:37, Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
I wish I had the opposite problem. This whole
hypothetical emulation from hypothetical zilch business is a hypothetical pain in the
hypothetical ass.
AIUI they are rather complex machines, yes.
Well, unless I?m missing something, that might make MY
use of it legal but it wouldn?t help anyone else.
True. But these are the terms that most retro emulators are distributed on:
"Here's the code. To use it, you'll need ROM images and images of
software. These are not provided and won't be, so don't ask. Get your
own and it is your problem to ensure that you are legal."
Hypothetically I might have and run an assortment of so-called
"abandonware" from multiple places around the Internet and of this
hypothetical software, very little of it has actual legal dispensation
for distribution.
Before it went mad, Caldera and its subsidiary Lineo was good about
GPLing source and publishing it. So real official CP/M, GEM and DR-DOS
7.01 are now GPL FOSS, among many other things.
Quarterdeck owners Symantec say they don't have source for most of
QD's DOS-era stuff and since it doesn't sell it it doesn't care, but
this doesn't cover anything with modern successor versions -- e.g.
Norton products.
I have a VM with actual IBM PC-DOS in it, downloaded for free from
IBM's website, and MS Word 5.5 for DOS, downloaded from MS' website.
I asked for permission to redistribute the VM and as I expected, IBM's
response was "we have PC DOS for free download? What? Where?!"
--
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