Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 4th Apr 2007 21:29 UTC

Thread beginning with comment 228871
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2007-04-08
LuYu stated:
I agree, although not necessarily with your total solution. At very least, Access could legitimize the use and distribution of the leaked BeOS 5.1d0 "Dano" edition, the Bone 7a package - available freely to developers prior to Be, Inc. going belly-up - and BeIA 2.5 packages. All were available on the internet for many years.
This is no path to riches for anyone. Magnussoft are a mere distributor, not a software house. The function of extending BeOS was performed by Bernd and his team. And this has ethical issues, since it would bypass Bernd's efforts at establishing distribution through them.
Emotional, yet salient. Lefty has pointed out the problems of separating the licensed (i.e. non-distributable) code from the creations of Be, Inc. and lawyers will be lawyers. Effectively the only person who could be given access (no pun intended here) to the codebase at this point would be an employee of Access, covered by full NDA. Failing that - and as has been pointed out, all qualified employees have moved on - it would be a mighty stretch of trust for the company to deputize an outsider to sift through the detritus and extract gems worthy of distribution.
Bernd couldn't make enough money from it, so it would need to be a labour of love for someone. The bits that still have value are the unreleased portions, which formed part of the latest version. Even Haiku hasn't targeted that for release, instead aiming for BeOS 5.0.3 compatibility for the purpose of maintaining legitimacy. They would not want to be seen as having copies of Dano at this point, after all.
As to Bernd-Thorsen's announcements and the timing of the response from Access, it all looked too well synchronised to me. He did not propose to release any code which did not belong to his team's efforts, after all. To what purpose Access has decided to move within days to block him is anyone's guess. However, since Bernd did have the sources to 5.0.3 (at least) - a unique situation - one presumes that some agreement existed with Be, Inc and the fact that Palm did nothing about it for years indicates continued tacit consent for his operation. Regardless of the existence of documented agreements, Access will have to show that he obtained this code illegaly before much of a case will stick against him.
Very unlikely.
haiqu