Bruce Toback writes after Richard Gambrell,

> Richard Gambrell writes:
>
> >Someone could develop a PH emulator, but that would incur
> all the same legal
> >challenges.  For conversion to Cobol, at least for quick, I
> would expect you
> >would need emulator functions that would amount to the same
> legal problems as
> >any other type of emulator.  Quiz and QTP, I would guess,
> could be converted much more easily.
>
> Cognos's legal position, explained to me in no uncertain
> terms, is that
> they own every line of source code ever written in a
> Powerhouse language.
> So even if some such emulator or converter appeared by magic,
> Powerhouse
> licensees would still need Cognos's permission to use it --
> because even
> though you wrote the code, Cognos owns it.

This is not directed at Bruce - but to express my utter disbelief if what
Bruce writes is true...

Pardon me?!?  If, let's say I write an application for sale, and I happen to
select Powerhouse or Axiant (Heaven Forbid, but for grins in this case), you
mean that Cognos takes the position that THEY own MY code?

I DON'T THINK SO!

... and if a company licenses Powerhouse, and writes all of their internal
systems with Powerhouse, that Cognos owns THAT code?

I DON'T THINK SO!

Thank goodness CSILLC dosen't license anything from them, because if this is
the case, Cognos and CSILLC would be having some legal battles of our own!
If we chose to write using Powerhouse, and our contract states that we own
the rights to the code, WE, not Cognos, own the rights to the code, and it
would be a LONG DAY IN HADES before Cognos ever got the rights or title to
anything we produced.

Yeah - they own Powerhouse, and Powerhouse is required to run that code -
that I'll grant - but to own the source to anything produced with
Powerhouse?  That means that they think they own quite a bit of code out
there.

I would really like to see them assert those rights... I really would.

Happy Friday,
Joe