Date   : Thu, 05 Dec 2002 02:16:58 -0000
From   : "Richard Gellman" <splodge@...>
Subject: Domesday Legalities

Ill clear up this legality issue concerning the Domesday Emulator :)

In terms of functional use, the "Domesday Emulator" (internally referred to
as the "beebem domesday emulator thing") is entirely separate to BeebEm, or
indeed any other BBC Micro/Master/Electron emulator. Specifically, people
should be aware that due to an interesting bug in the VFS ROM (although this
may actually be bug in my emulation core that just LOOKS like a bug in the
VFS ROM) a lot of standard BBC Micro stuff doesnt work, even with the second
processor board turned off.

Plus, in the interests of optimisation/future-proofing, any undeed hardware
emulation has been removed. This includes the A-D convertor, the 8271,
6502-specific emulation, etc. In short, what you have here is simply an
emulation of the hardware needed to run Domesday.

What this means is, the only ROMs in _absolute_ concern are:

Acorn MOS 3.20
Acorn Terminal (contains part of the MOS)
Acorn BASIC 4
Acorn VFS
Acorn 65C102 Co-Processor OS

The ROMs that *may* (but probably wont) be of concern, are those that are
part of the Domesday hardware, but not actually essential to its running:

Acorn VIEW, ViewSheet, Edit, 1770 DFS (Master 128 versions), ADFS (Master
128 Versions)

So, none of this concerns emulation of the Model B, and only partly concerns
emulation of the Master 128.

Now, if I remember the many discussions with Paul, somebody from the legal
sector was brought in to ensure public usage of the Domesday Emulator was
legal, or at least the appropriate legal permissions to do so were obtained.

This (iirc) is only in terms of the copyright holders of the data contained
on the Domesday Discs, i.e. all the people who contributed information,
although it does include those who are responsible for the Philips LV-ROM
firmware, and the VFS ROM (program files are included in the term "disc
data").

As far as I am aware (dont quote me), the Domesday Emulator is not up for
sale, at least not in a normal sense, i.e. a charge *may* be made by a
supplier for getting the software there, but no actual charge for the
software itself. I believe the plan is to deploy it to public information
centres (namely the public records office, although I did hear mention that
places such as libraries may also acquire it. again, dont quote me) without
any actual software cost, but under the legal understanding that its not for
distribution.

What this means is, there wont be a day when you can go into your local
software shop and ask for a copy, or find a website hosting it (although im
sure a copy will probably leak onto a warez site inevitably), but at the
same time there wont be anybody making a profit from it.

To sum up:

Creation of the Domesday Emulator is unlikely to affect mainstream BBC
emulation. I would be very surprised if Pace were to suddenly retract the
"liberty" clause of copyright they are currently giving for the BBC ROMs on
the grounds that the Domesday Emulator even exists.

The Domesday Emulator is not (at least not at present) available for
anybody. The program, and all source code remain secured at Leeds + Michigan
universities (and most likely, the homes of anybody working on the project),
and the program is to be deposited at the Public Records Office in Richmond,
London (initially at least, I dont have final details on any other
locations).

-- Richard Gellman

I apologise if anything above is inaccurate.