I scanned over some threads here and found no definitive answer, whats with the license for EhBASIC when someone wants to use it in a professional open source product?
Has some answer bubbled up or are we still in murky water when we want to use EhBASIC in something more than some homebrew project for our own amusement?

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Welcome!

I think it's clear enough that Lee licensed his work for non-commercial purposes, and relatively clear that EhBasic is a derived work of MSBasic.

If you want to be completely above board and legal, you can't proceed with a commercial re-use of it.

But you mention 'professional' and 'open source' so perhaps your intended use is not commercial, in which case it's up to you to worry about whether you care about Microsoft's rights, or can satisfy yourself that it's no concern. Other people's opinion isn't much help here, unless they are giving you legal advice (which I'm not doing.)

Well, in theory if you were to remove the code that was taken from MS Basic, you would not have to concern yourself about MS rights. But it would still need to be used according to Lee's license.

If you want to make a game based on it, I would think that its ok to make the game commercial as long as one states that the basic interpreter is opensource.

Yeah, but no. No more so than Lee followed MS's license.

No one is arguing that Lee did not improve in some way upon MS's effort. Just like I have improved on my KTM 450EXC motorcycle. However, Lee's contribution, like mine - without my bike, is virtually useless without the MS code. Lee's license does not take precedence over the MS license, and without the MS code, well, there is nothing. It could legally be argued that Lee's code would not/could not exist without MS's code and is therefore subject to MS licensing.

I also think it could be argued that MS has abandoned this code. If that case can be made, then all of it is in the public domain. Lee's contributions not withstanding.

If you want to use this for a commercial product, call up MS and ask them. They will likely realize that the cost of their legal teams to draw up contracts and enforce them would far outweigh their possible returns. It would be simpler and cheaper for them to relinquish the code to the public domain.

What Lee should have done is publish EhBASIC as an addendum, or patch, or add-on to MS BASIC. Then he could have licensed the nuts out of it.

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Bill

When two parties make creative contributions to a work, they both hold copyright on the work. There's no question as to whether one contribution is more fundamental, or larger.

And yes, EhBasic is a good lesson in what it means to choose a license, and what it means to be a joint contributor rather than a sole contributor, and a good lesson showing that a work may outlive the author.

Abandonment does not apply to Microsoft's possession of copyright in their works: they still exist, they have not explicitly declared a lack of interest. Copyright law is not like trademark law.

Of course, I agree that no-one is likely to feel that legal action is worthwhile, whether it's action to clarify, to create a new license, or to pursue a claim. The legal situation, I think, is clear, whereas the legal consequences of doing one thing or another are not clear. The moral position is, as ever, arguable.

Not so sure Ed. We'd have to analyze MS's original license to see if Lee's work amounts to a collaboration or a copyright infringement.

I'd think the latter is more likely, which would make any claim he had made to it null and void.

If , however he had published his work as something that is added to, or that modify's the MS code, then his portion of it, and only his portion of it, would be free for him to copyright.

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Bill

I don't think that's how it works. If I take your work and add to it, it doesn't matter whether I asked you or had a license: the result is a combination of my efforts and your efforts, and we both hold copyright. The resultant work would need permission from both of us to be distributed legitimately.

You are right of course, that if Lee's work can be teased apart from MS's original, then we could take the two pieces and say that one of them needed a license from MS and the other needed a license from Lee.

My usual (informal and unqualified) advice to anyone worried about including an MS basic in their project is to go ahead and not worry. It's not legal but there will probably not be consequences. If they were creating a business out of that, I'd advise much more caution, because they have more to lose, including reputation.

Anyone wanting to make use of Lee's work is also very unlikely, in my opinion, to be sued. But I think the moral hazard is much greater: Lee was a valued member of the community, and is no longer around to defend his position. He had made his position clear enough: that non-commercial use was OK.

Edit: I should add, although I feel pretty sure of my understanding, I accept that others may feel pretty sure of theirs too.

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivativ ... equirement

Well well well - any idea if that is true everywhere, or anywhere outside US?

This is not necessarily true. Derivative works may include no actual text from the original work, such as in the case of a translation, yet still be derivative works and require permission from the original copyright owner for redistribution.


Certainly not in any of the 179 countries that that subscribe to the Berne convention, which has no concept of "abandonment." In many countries, it's not even possible to put works into the public domain even if you're the author; you must wait for copyright to expire for that. (You can, of course, freely licence it.)


There is no such thing in the Berne convention as an "addendum" or "patch" or "add-on"; just derived works, and derived works are subject to a considerable degree of control by the owner of the work from which the new work is derived.


Yes, and just to be really, really clear about this, since this is one of the few things that is clear in current copyright conventions, there is no such thing as "abandonment" that can terminate copyright. Even if you phone up MS right now, ask about distributing their BASIC, and they say, "sure, whatever," they can still come back in 2050 and sue you for copyright violation, and your only recourse would be to argue that they gave you a license. (That's why it would be a good idea to get a written license describing in great detail what you are and aren't allowed to do with their work, and for how long.)


If you want to make absolutely sure that you're in the clear when re-using others' work, there are really only two options. One is to wait until the copyright expires (which may be longer than you think; copyright is regularly extended). The other is to get an explicit license, after doing due dilligence to ensure that you are getting a license from someone authorized to give you one. Fair use is always a gamble; this is why in the entertainment industry it's standard to license things even when a fair use argument could be made: in the long run that's generally judged to be cheaper than risking litigation (and when your use it looks like fair use, you'll often get pretty good terms for the license).

When the owner doesn't care to do the work to give you a license or, worse yet, you can't even make a clear determination of who the owner is, you're just stuck. And if you think that sucks, I'm in total agreement with you there. But that's the way our copyright conventions and laws work right now. And, sadly, that seems to leave EHBASIC out in the cold, essentially unusable for commericial work unless you're willing to risk a potentially very expensive legal battle.

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Curt J. Sampson - github.com/0cjs

Read sections 106 through 122 of this: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

Even though EhBASIC was written in England, it was based on MS BASIC which would be covered on US copyright law. It's not a lot of reading.

Basically, without MS's permission, Lee's work in it's current form is illegal and he couldn't copyright it.

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Bill

Misunderstanding ... by abandoned I meant they probably couldn't give a rat's posterior. It might be fairly easy to get permission to create derived works if you got to talk with the right person.



Again, I think you misunderstood ... or more likely I did not make myself clear. I agree that derived works are under control of the creator of the work being derived. But what I mean by patch or add-on is not to modify the original work. For instance, Pioneer (I think that's what they were called) created ROMS that added functionality to MS BASIC on the OSI platform without altering the MS BASIC at all. When invoked they altered some of the RAM stored vectors to intercept command and function processing and inserting alternate or additional functionality without stapling, spindling or mutilating the MS code. They were therefore not a derived work, but just a new and different work that co-existed with MS BASIC. Addendum, patch and add-on are likely not in copyright law or the Berne convention precisely because the terms do not imply a derivation.

The net net is, MS owns the rights to EhBASIC, not Lee. So, anyone wanting to use it for commercial purposes needs to deal with MS, not with Lee's family.

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Bill

MS BASIC is covered by the copyright laws of the country in which you are making a copy. This is why the exact same work can be in public domain in one country and under copyright in a different one. Or why you can put a work into the public domain in some countries but not others.


Speaking in general terms, without being country-specific, that's probably the best way to look at it until at least one court case somewhere has decided things differently.


Well, in the general case it may not be easy because it's a bunch of work (and probably money for lawers on the grantor's side, if you're going to do it reliably). That said, for this particular case, given that Microsoft is spending significant money to preserve software, you'd think that they'd make the effort to properly license MSBASIC as open source rather than leave it to languish in a semi-orphan state. But that probably wouldn't help with EHBASIC without help from the current potential owner of that, whomever he/she/they might be.


Yes, I understand what you mean by that, but I'm not convinced that doing this sort of thing is so clear-cut that it couldn't get you sued. Which for most of us is the real problem: it's not about whether you're right or not, but whether you can afford a court case to prove you're right. My only good advice for situations like this would be to talk to a lawyer about your particular situation if you don't feel comfortable working in the grey area.


While it seems reasonably clear that MS has to be involved, I don't think it's quite so clear that EhBASIC is not a legal derivative, particularly in outside the US. There seems almost certainly a grey area big enough to tie up people in lawsuits, and defending a suite from the EhBASIC potential copyright owners might even need to involve MS, who might not be willing to get involved. Sadly, it seems a typical mess brought out by our current copyright regime.

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Curt J. Sampson - github.com/0cjs

I'm sort of wondering/thinking out loud why this (EhBASIC licensing) is an issue right now - unless there is a commercial product planned?

For personal use I really don't see that there is an issue.

I know of at least one commercial product that was sold recently with EhBASIC in ROM - I have one - it was the VCF 6502 Badge: http://sunrise-ev.com/6502.htm

(I also think it was sold after Lee's death in 2013, so could never have had his consent or a license - and it now looks like there is an update with a new board, etc. too - still containing EhBASIC in ROM)

And there is one other commercial product that's shipping with what appears to be MS/Commodore Basic on ROM: https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/mini-pet.html

The various C64 clone/look-a-likes do appear to have a license from Cloanto https://cloanto.com/ who hold the rights to Commodore Basic/Kernal

So other than a "pure" MS Basic from their recently published sources (and I've successfully ran the commodore BASIC 2.0 variant, that as well as Applesoft and Woz Integer BASIC on my Ruby board) what else is there?

BBC Basic - the rights to that appear to have been lost and after a long trail, really lost (or at least any physical assets) with the destruction of the twin towers in 2001. That's harder to get going on an SBC, but not impossible - it's currently my "go to" Basic on my Ruby system.

So who's up for writing a new BASIC? (and releasing it under an appropriate license)

My suspicions is: No-one. Mostly because people want their old BASIC, warts, bugs, weird FOR loop behaviour, etc.

Some 10 years ago I wrote my own BASIC - it was based on my favourite BASICs - Applesoft and BBC Basic. However I wrote it in C for a modern Unix or Unix-like system. It would not port to an 8-bit micro without what might be a total re-write (and I've tried to compile it with cc65 - nope!)

So that leaves us with the old BASICs - and even now there appears to be 2 forks of EhBASIC - one for the 65C02 (floobydust) and the original maintained by Klaus. It's somewhat harder to fragment BBC Basic as while there are disassemblys the ROM images are all over the place and very few people (just me that I know of but I'm sure there are 1 or 2 others) have made the ROM work in a non-BBC Micro.

So if there are commercial products in the making or planned, I'm all ears ... Existing ones appear to be getting away with it - for now - the big public facing ones (Commander X16, Mega65) do appear to have licenses, but small-run Tindie type stuff? Tricky.

-Gordon

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Gordon Henderson.
See my Ruby 6502 and 65816 SBC projects here: https://projects.drogon.net/ruby/

The way I read the head post, new user bastetfurry has in mind a commercial product. You're right of course, other basics are available, each one has a slightly different situation. And a new Basic isn't impossibly difficult, it's mostly a question of motivation, time, and application - a combination which could come together, but might well not.

I'm all in favour of BBC Basic, of course! TinyBasic has some merit too. Apple Integer Basic might be an interesting choice. And there are other small interpreters for simple languages.

The funny thing about EhBasic is that it's not a historical Basic, so one wouldn't choose it for strict nostalgia. One might choose it thinking it's unencumbered, but that seems now not to be correct.