Why isn't C proprietary ?

[Spiros Bousbouras]

Why isn't C proprietary ?

Given the way it was started wasn't it by default the
intellectual property of AT&T ? So how come it's
not proprietary now ?

 

[T.M. Sommers]

Why isn't C proprietary ?

Given the way it was started wasn't it by default the
intellectual property of AT&T ? So how come it's
not proprietary now ?

The original implementations were the intellectual property of
AT&T, but not the language itself. Anyone can implement any
language, as long as they do it on their own. There are, for
instance, implementations of Java that do not come from Sun.

 

[Mark McIntyre]

Why isn't C proprietary ?

Given the way it was started wasn't it by default the
intellectual property of AT&T ? So how come it's
not proprietary now ?

Because a decision was taken, presumably by AT&T, to offer the
langauge definition up to ISO for standardization.

--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Mark McIntyre]

Because a decision was taken, presumably by AT&T, to offer the
langauge definition up to ISO for standardization.

.... and to follow up my own post. Dennis Ritchie's website has more
detail in the "development of C" section, which is an interesting read
in itself.
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html
--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Richard Tobin]

The original implementations were the intellectual property of
AT&T, but not the language itself. Anyone can implement any
language, as long as they do it on their own. There are, for
instance, implementations of Java that do not come from Sun.

Generally companies that want to control a language do so by
trademarking the name, as Sun have done with Java. They can't stop
you writing a compatible compiler, but they can stop you calling it by
their name (at least for commercial implementations).

-- Richard