4 ms·

>You can legally get and run WordPerfect for free According to your own link, the only version you can get for free is the last Mac version, and you can't run

by Jiro 5y ago

>You can legally get and run WordPerfect for free According to your own link, the only version you can get for free is the last Mac version, and you can't run that without emulating the Mac, and you can't do that without a copy of MacOS 9 which isn't free. The Linux version of 8.0 was available once as a free download, but it didn't come with redistribution rights. Just because something was once available for download for free doesn't mean you're allowed to keep making copies of it. Nobody's going to come after you if you pirate the formerly free download, of course, but nobody's probably going to come after you if you pirate it, period.

grishka 5y ago
> without a copy of MacOS 9 which isn't free. Is it? I don't think Apple would sell you one right now. I kinda wish someone got sued over pirating abandonware, the company would most likely lose, and that would set a great precedent once and for all.
- spr93 5y ago
  If that "company" owned the copyright, they would almost certainly win, but damages could be low or negligible negligible as long as the distributor wasn't selling the abandonware and as long as the suit was only for one copyrighted work. Attorneys' fees and costs could be a problem however. (US law, statutory damages, assuming the plaintiff couldn't get the jury outraged about giving away something that would otherwise bit rot.) I'm a lawyer, but this is my meaningless drivel. It's not legal advice. You shouldn't listen to me. In fact, you shouldn't listen to anyone on HN about legal issues, ever. The copyright discussions here quickly devolve into complete nonsense. I've done software copyright for a long time, but I sometimes have to read posts five times to kind-of-sort-of-think I know what they're trying to argue. And it's almost always wrong. (grishka, this is not an attack on you at all. Your post is fine.)
  - grishka 5y ago
    Just a curious question. What are you supposed to do, legally, if you need a piece of software that is no longer sold by its developer? And you need a particular old version because that's what your hardware is capable of running. Are you supposed to just pretend that artificial scarcity is a thing and accept "you can't get it" as the answer? And can Apple really accuse you of pirating OS9 because you're supposed to download macOS Big Sur instead? (I'm not from US, and I only have a very vague idea about how the US legal system works)
    - fsflover 5y ago
      You are probably out of luck, which is why free software was invented: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html.
    - gattilorenz 5y ago
      > What are you supposed to do, legally, if you need a piece of software that is no longer sold by its developer? Buy it second hand on eBay or craigslist or whatever, I guess. Or reimplement it. Of course neither of these are good options, just the "technically legal" way.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      "Artificial scarcity" is indeed a thing - the author of software or a book or whatever has exclusive rights to authorize making copies, and if they choose not to authorize any (more) copies, then the legal answer is indeed that you can't get it. They can make a limited print run, they can make a time-limited offer, and they're also free to authorize just one or ten or no copies ever, and that's their right to choose so. Compensation to authors is essentially just a side-effect, the core copy-right is the right to control most (there are exceptions) making of copies. But that's not really related to US legal system or 'western countries', the core principles of copyright are the same almost universally across the globe - here's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#/media/File:Berne_Convention_signatories.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#/media/File:B... a map of Berne convention signatories, there are just a few countries where that doesn't apply. The strictness and likelihood of enforcement of those laws varies a lot, though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- boondaburrah 5y ago
  7.5.3 used to be downloadable from apple for free as abandonware, so you may be in luck. The website is gone, but wayback has the URLs. Start with [0] and edit the XXofYY for the rest. Getting a legal copy of the Macintosh ROM is what'll get ya. [0] https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_01of19.smi.bin https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...
  - Jiro 5y ago
    If someone mirrors a company's free download page, you can't legally download from the mirror, unless they have redistribution rights, which they don't. A free download from a company means that you are permitted to download from the company, not from anyone else who has a copy, not even a mirror. Again, probably nobody will arrest you for this, but nobody's likely to arrest you for conventional piracy either.
    - boondaburrah 5y ago
      This is not a mirror. This is apple's actual official download location for this software. Sorry I should've been more clear. Unfortunately as a result, they're packaged in self mounting Disk Copy images, so you'll need an old mac to unpack them. It's possible someone has developed a tool to extract regular disk images from these files by now.
phire 5y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to make a "WINE for MacOS 9" that had just enough functionality to run word perfect.
- anthk 5y ago
  https://github.com/autc04/executor https://github.com/autc04/executor
lproven 5y ago
Hi. Article author here. May I suggest that you read to the end of something before you comment? To address your point about the Linux version: I do not think that you are correct. Corel Corp, which is still alive and well, explicitly made a free version of the app and released it, along with a press release (which I link to). This has not been revoked or cancelled subsequently; the Linux version of the product was discontinued. If someone makes a piece of software available for free, even if it's just a binary, then it remains free unless or until the company revokes that status. Corel has not revoked its status. Ergo, it remains freeware.
- wila 5y ago
  Easy to miss this bit: " Corel offered both a free edition with fewer bundled fonts, as well as a paid version." as it is at the end of a paragraph. Maybe put this either on a new line to draw more attention to it or add a title just underneath it? Like: "That's right, Corel released a FREE edition"
  - lproven 5y ago
    OK, fair point. Thanks for the suggestion. I've added that at the start, and clarified why Corel got out of Linux, and added a PS about where you can get a good free legal DOS wordprocessor.
  - Jiro 5y ago
    The "free edition" was free to download directly from Corel. You can no longer download it from Corel for free, and downloading it from someone else is not permitted by copyright law.
- Jiro 5y ago
  >If someone makes a piece of software available for free, even if it's just a binary, then it remains free unless or until the company revokes that status. This is not in accordance with copyright law. Corel granted permission to get copies from Corel. If you already have a copy from Corel, it remains free. But this isn't GPL; you don't have permission to make further copies of one of the free copies. If you get a copy from one of the third parties that still has it available for download, you're violating copyright, even if the third party themselves got their own copy for free.

by Jiro 5y ago

grishka 5y ago

> without a copy of MacOS 9 which isn't free. Is it? I don't think Apple would sell you one right now. I kinda wish someone got sued over pirating abandonware, the company would most likely lose, and that would set a great precedent once and for all.

spr93 5y ago
If that "company" owned the copyright, they would almost certainly win, but damages could be low or negligible negligible as long as the distributor wasn't selling the abandonware and as long as the suit was only for one copyrighted work. Attorneys' fees and costs could be a problem however. (US law, statutory damages, assuming the plaintiff couldn't get the jury outraged about giving away something that would otherwise bit rot.) I'm a lawyer, but this is my meaningless drivel. It's not legal advice. You shouldn't listen to me. In fact, you shouldn't listen to anyone on HN about legal issues, ever. The copyright discussions here quickly devolve into complete nonsense. I've done software copyright for a long time, but I sometimes have to read posts five times to kind-of-sort-of-think I know what they're trying to argue. And it's almost always wrong. (grishka, this is not an attack on you at all. Your post is fine.)
- grishka 5y ago
  Just a curious question. What are you supposed to do, legally, if you need a piece of software that is no longer sold by its developer? And you need a particular old version because that's what your hardware is capable of running. Are you supposed to just pretend that artificial scarcity is a thing and accept "you can't get it" as the answer? And can Apple really accuse you of pirating OS9 because you're supposed to download macOS Big Sur instead? (I'm not from US, and I only have a very vague idea about how the US legal system works)
  - fsflover 5y ago
    You are probably out of luck, which is why free software was invented: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html.
  - gattilorenz 5y ago
    > What are you supposed to do, legally, if you need a piece of software that is no longer sold by its developer? Buy it second hand on eBay or craigslist or whatever, I guess. Or reimplement it. Of course neither of these are good options, just the "technically legal" way.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    "Artificial scarcity" is indeed a thing - the author of software or a book or whatever has exclusive rights to authorize making copies, and if they choose not to authorize any (more) copies, then the legal answer is indeed that you can't get it. They can make a limited print run, they can make a time-limited offer, and they're also free to authorize just one or ten or no copies ever, and that's their right to choose so. Compensation to authors is essentially just a side-effect, the core copy-right is the right to control most (there are exceptions) making of copies. But that's not really related to US legal system or 'western countries', the core principles of copyright are the same almost universally across the globe - here's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#/media/File:Berne_Convention_signatories.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#/media/File:B... a map of Berne convention signatories, there are just a few countries where that doesn't apply. The strictness and likelihood of enforcement of those laws varies a lot, though.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
boondaburrah 5y ago
7.5.3 used to be downloadable from apple for free as abandonware, so you may be in luck. The website is gone, but wayback has the URLs. Start with [0] and edit the XXofYY for the rest. Getting a legal copy of the Macintosh ROM is what'll get ya. [0] https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_01of19.smi.bin https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...
- Jiro 5y ago
  If someone mirrors a company's free download page, you can't legally download from the mirror, unless they have redistribution rights, which they don't. A free download from a company means that you are permitted to download from the company, not from anyone else who has a copy, not even a mirror. Again, probably nobody will arrest you for this, but nobody's likely to arrest you for conventional piracy either.
  - boondaburrah 5y ago
    This is not a mirror. This is apple's actual official download location for this software. Sorry I should've been more clear. Unfortunately as a result, they're packaged in self mounting Disk Copy images, so you'll need an old mac to unpack them. It's possible someone has developed a tool to extract regular disk images from these files by now.

phire 5y ago

I wonder how hard it would be to make a "WINE for MacOS 9" that had just enough functionality to run word perfect.

anthk 5y ago
https://github.com/autc04/executor https://github.com/autc04/executor

lproven 5y ago

Hi. Article author here. May I suggest that you read to the end of something before you comment? To address your point about the Linux version: I do not think that you are correct. Corel Corp, which is still alive and well, explicitly made a free version of the app and released it, along with a press release (which I link to). This has not been revoked or cancelled subsequently; the Linux version of the product was discontinued. If someone makes a piece of software available for free, even if it's just a binary, then it remains free unless or until the company revokes that status. Corel has not revoked its status. Ergo, it remains freeware.

wila 5y ago
Easy to miss this bit: " Corel offered both a free edition with fewer bundled fonts, as well as a paid version." as it is at the end of a paragraph. Maybe put this either on a new line to draw more attention to it or add a title just underneath it? Like: "That's right, Corel released a FREE edition"
- lproven 5y ago
  OK, fair point. Thanks for the suggestion. I've added that at the start, and clarified why Corel got out of Linux, and added a PS about where you can get a good free legal DOS wordprocessor.
- Jiro 5y ago
  The "free edition" was free to download directly from Corel. You can no longer download it from Corel for free, and downloading it from someone else is not permitted by copyright law.
Jiro 5y ago
>If someone makes a piece of software available for free, even if it's just a binary, then it remains free unless or until the company revokes that status. This is not in accordance with copyright law. Corel granted permission to get copies from Corel. If you already have a copy from Corel, it remains free. But this isn't GPL; you don't have permission to make further copies of one of the free copies. If you get a copy from one of the third parties that still has it available for download, you're violating copyright, even if the third party themselves got their own copy for free.