Rouge Wave Library Port

[nkprajapati]

Hi All,

I am using off the shelf Rouge Wave library. But now I
want to move to Open Source. Anybody aware of Open Source port of Rouge
Wave Library ?

These are some heavily used Rouge Wave classe :

RWFile
RWFileManager
RWBTreeOnDisk
RWCSting
RWCWSting
RWCTokenizer
RWCollectable
RWMutextLock
RWCMutextLock
RWDate
RWTime
RWSocket
RWZone
RWPtrMap
RWTVMultiMap
RWSoartedVector


Thanks,
Naresh Prajapati

 

[Victor Bazarov]

[..] Anybody aware of Open Source port of
Rouge Wave Library ?

You mean "Rogue Wave"?

Wouldn't it be a copyright violation? I mean they designed it,
so they hold the rights to the design itself, no?

What you might want to look into is using another library whose
design is similar to that of Rogue Wave, and port *your code*.

[..]

V

 

[Ivan Vecerina]

: (e-mail address removed) wrote:
: > [..] Anybody aware of Open Source port of
: > Rouge Wave Library ?
:
: You mean "Rogue Wave"?
:
: Wouldn't it be a copyright violation?

IANAL, but not necessarily.

: I mean they designed it,
: so they hold the rights to the design itself, no?

The design itself is not protected by copyright.
The specific implementation is.

It would probably be possible to make a "clean room"
reimplementation of the libraries from a spec of the
libraries (class interfaces, func names+parameters).


: What you might want to look into is using another library whose
: design is similar to that of Rogue Wave, and port *your code*.

This approach probably should be preferred anyway.
Most of the classes listed by the OP seem to have an
equivalent in the standard library or boost.org

Cheers,
Ivan

 

[Victor Bazarov]

The design itself is not protected by copyright.

Any proof of that? Thanks.

V

 

[Philip Potter]

Any proof of that? Thanks.

It's easy to prove that it's not protected by copyright on, say, Saturn,
where there is no copyright law in effect. You'll have to specify the
jurisdiction you want proof within.

In British law, ideas cannot be copyrighted, only concrete "works". The
types of work eligible for protection are literary, dramatic, artistic or
musical works, the typographical arrangement of a published edition, a sound
recording, a film or a broadcast. Even if the document the design comes from
is copyrighted, you are free to take the idea and write it down in a
different form, since you have not duplicated the copyrighted work.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_2.htm#mdiv1

This is why there are other forms of intellectual property law such as trade
secrets and patents.

Philip

 

[Victor Bazarov]

It's easy to prove that it's not protected by copyright on, say,
Saturn, where there is no copyright law in effect. You'll have to
specify the jurisdiction you want proof within.

In British law, ideas cannot be copyrighted, only concrete "works".
The types of work eligible for protection are literary, dramatic,
artistic or musical works, the typographical arrangement of a
published edition, a sound recording, a film or a broadcast. Even if
the document the design comes from is copyrighted, you are free to
take the idea and write it down in a different form, since you have
not duplicated the copyrighted work.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_2.htm#mdiv1

This is why there are other forms of intellectual property law such
as trade secrets and patents.

Thanks Philip, that makes sense. So, I can probably extend my question
to the OP to read, "Wouldn't it be a violation of a copyright law or
a patent infringement?" I do not know, of course, whether Rogue Wave
has patented their library design, but before embarking on copying it,
I'd probably think thrice.

V

 

[Jerry Coffin]

[ ... ]

Thanks Philip, that makes sense. So, I can probably extend my question
to the OP to read, "Wouldn't it be a violation of a copyright law or
a patent infringement?" I do not know, of course, whether Rogue Wave
has patented their library design, but before embarking on copying it,
I'd probably think thrice.

At least in the US, Rogue Wave has only one patent, and it's not on the
design of a library. They currently have no published patent
applications. It's possible they have applied for a patent, but declined
to have it published -- but I'd consider that somewhat doubtful (you
can't collect damages from before it was published, as I understand it).

 

[nkprajapati]

There is no question of Patent violation. If software design would have
been patentted, then you would not have web based mail, web site, and
lots other stuff.

[ ... ]

Thanks Philip, that makes sense. So, I can probably extend my question
to the OP to read, "Wouldn't it be a violation of a copyright law or
a patent infringement?" I do not know, of course, whether Rogue Wave
has patented their library design, but before embarking on copying it,
I'd probably think thrice.

At least in the US, Rogue Wave has only one patent, and it's not on the
design of a library. They currently have no published patent
applications. It's possible they have applied for a patent, but declined
to have it published -- but I'd consider that somewhat doubtful (you
can't collect damages from before it was published, as I understand it).

--
Later,
Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

 

[Roland Pibinger]

Hi All,
I am using off the shelf Rouge Wave library. But now I
want to move to Open Source. Anybody aware of Open Source port of Rouge
Wave Library ?

These are some heavily used Rouge Wave classe :

RWFile RWFileManager RWBTreeOnDisk RWCSting RWCWSting RWCTokenizer
RWCollectable RWMutextLock RWCMutextLock RWDate RWTime RWSocket RWZone
RWPtrMap RWTVMultiMap RWSoartedVector

AFAIK, there is no OS 'port' (re-write) of RW libraries (which would
be a great replacement for the C++ Standard library).
You have 2 alternatives:
1. Rewrite your code using an OS library with similar functional scope
(eg. http://appinf.com/poco/info/index.html).
2. You can find OS code for most of the above classes. Write
wrappers/adapters for them that emulate the RW interfaces (at least
the parts you use).

Best wishes,
Roland Pibinger

 

[Jerry Coffin]

There is no question of Patent violation. If software design would have
been patentted, then you would not have web based mail, web site, and
lots other stuff.

I'm not at all sure what you think you're talking about. In 1981, the US
supreme court decided the case of Diamond V Diehr. To make a long story
short, they ruled that the mere fact that all or part of an invention
might be realized in software did not render it unpatentable material.


Software patents in general

The are some requirements that may immediately sound somewhat strange:
patent law requires (among other things) that the invention be realized
in some tangible form, so a patent rarely applies directly to the
software itself -- instead, it applies to something like "A method of
operating a computer [...]" or "A storage medium containing [...]" or
something on that order.

Nonetheless, within the other basic rules of what's patentable, you can
certainly apply for and receive patents that apply to software.

It's worth noting, however, that this varies throughout the world --
European rules are different from those in the US. Japanese rules are
somewhat different from those in either the US or Europe. Other
countries, of course, differ from any of the above.

It should also be noted that patents on software did not come about
quickly or easily. There was a long and rather tortuous set of decisions
before the 1981 decision. One that makes interesting reading is the
decision on Gottschalk V. Benson.


Coverage of specific applications such as Web-based mail

Though it's arguable that the standards in these regards are too low,
there's at least the general idea that to patent something, it has to be
new, useful and novel. To use yoru example, I doubt that web-based mail
meets even one of these requirements, not to mention all of them.


References

Diamond V. Diehr: http://tinyurl.com/537rp
Gottschalk V. Benson: http://tinyurl.com/zlr8h
US patent law [pdf] http://tinyurl.com/pjsg3