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Public Domain Python

choffman at dvcorp.com choffman at dvcorp.com
Thu Sep 14 13:52:32 EDT 2000 
In article <LNBBLJKPBEHFEDALKOLCEEDGHFAA.tim_one at email.msn.com>,
  "Tim Peters" <tim_one at email.msn.com> wrote:
> [Alex Martelli]

> > I thought only Java and ADA were popular languages undergoing that
> > level of 'protection'.
>
> I believe that's based on trademark law rather than copyright law.
That is,
> nobody can stop you from reimplementing Java, but Sun can stop you
from
> *calling* it "Java" (or any "similar" name).


This is definitely the case for Ada. The the name "Ada" is a
registered trademark of the US Government-Ada Joint Program Office. They
will only allow your compiler to be called an Ada compiler if it passes
a set of very strict verification tests and has no extensions to the
language. The DOD didn't want it to be possible to have various flavors
of Ada differing in small (or worse, unknown) ways from each other, as
happened with C, Pascal, and now Java/J++. There's nothing stopping you
from implementing a language almost-but-not-quite like Ada, as long as
you don't call it Ada. You can even create a language exactly Ada, but
you can't call it Ada unless the government grants you that right.

As for Java, the case is slightly more complex as I think there was some
form of legal agreement between Sun and the evil empire, possibly
involving transfer or use of copyrighted material from Sun under certain
restrictions.

Chris


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