Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 15:21:00 -0500 (CDT) From: Jim Bryant <jbryant@argus.tfs.net> To: kris@hub.freebsd.org (Kris Kennaway) Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: trek73 Message-ID: <199910252021.PAA58999@argus.tfs.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910251228510.31771-100000@hub.freebsd.org> from Kris Kennaway at "Oct 25, 99 12:33:55 pm"
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In reply: > On Sat, 23 Oct 1999, Matthew Dillon wrote: > > > I found a copy of the C version of trek73 in my Amiga archives. This > > is the trek73 originally written in HP-2000 Basic that was rewritten > > by Dave Pare and Chris Williams in C and seriously enhanced by a bunch > > of people including me in my early college years circa 1985. > > > > I don't think any of the authors would mind if it went into /usr/games, > > but tracking them down is close to impossible since ucbvax no longer > > exists. If nobody knows different, I would like to clean it up (fairly > > easy since it's already in C) and commit it in. > > Is it worth worrying about trademark issues [1]? We still have trek in the > base system, but adding a second version might wake the lawyers. > > Kris > > [1] See boggle(6) Gimme a break... If Paramount wanted to go after "unauthorized" trek paraphenalia, they have much larger fish to fry than a CLASSIC public-domain trek game distributed with a FREE operating system that tens or even hundreds of thousands of people have played over a period of nearly 30 years. I believe I have even heard Shatner himself in interviews credit such "unauthorized" things for keeping Trek alive in the first place... If it came out that Paramount ever tried litigation over such things, they would lose a LOT of fans, and the money in their pockets! What would come next? Sueing people at conventions for getting the uniforms wrong? The boggle(6) incident has probably cost it's manufacturer lost sales, because they played the incident like jerks. I cheered when they were named in the Toys-R-Us class-action lawsuit, because they were such jerks here. Bottom line: such games do not hurt the sales of any commercial product. Litigation against such games only hurt the reputation of the one bringing or threatening the litigation in the first place, and tends to make them look like assholes in the eyes of the public. [1] See boggle(6), which by the way compiles fine from the net(n) distributions, plus all of the 4.4 distributions. To hell with Hasbro. The BSD game would have survived patent infringement suit, it was not an EXACT duplicate, it actually had improvements over the dice game. Improve a patented item, and you can do anything you want. I cannot say that Paramount wouldn't do it, but I can say that if it did, it would detrimentally effect the entire Trek sub-culture; and they are perfectly aware of this fact, such things have been mentioned in interviews with the stars and producers in a POSITIVE light time and time again. I can probably arrange a statement from at least three of the stars of the original series to this effect. I may just do that, maybe I can get a statement from all of the surviving members of the original cast. The have made it clear in the past that they credit their ongoing fame to such underground paraphenalia. jim -- All opinions expressed are mine, if you | "I will not be pushed, stamped, think otherwise, then go jump into turbid | briefed, debriefed, indexed, or radioactive waters and yell WAHOO !!! | numbered!" - #1, "The Prisoner" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ jbryant@tfs.net - KC5VDJ HF to 23cm grid: EM28pw - http://www.tfs.net/~jbryant ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IC-706MkII - IC-T81A - HTX-202 - HTX-212 - HTX-404 - KPC3+ - PK-232MBX/DSP To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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