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What is MBBSEmu?

MBBSEmu is an open-source effort to develop a quality runtime environment that is compatible with Galacticomm's The Major BBS and Worldgroup applications.

Is MBBSEmu based on Galacticomm's The MajorBBS or Worldgroup original source code?

No. MBBSEmu consists only of clean-room engineered MIT License and MIT License compatible source code written in C#.

Yes. MBBSEmu is fully legal.

Developers have not looked at The Major BBS, Worldgroup, or Btrieve source code (as it is not public). They have used the public documentation of Galacticomm, Microsoft, Actian/Pervasive/Novell, and Intel. They have also made many tests and test applications to understand how The MajorBBS & Worldgroup works. In fact, MBBSEmu does the same things that The MajorBBS & Worldgroup does but it does it differently as we don't have the same source code and it is all programmed by different developers. All code in MBBSEmu is released under the MIT License.

A Copyright violation for software would be copying source code for the purpose of recreating a given work. Emulators do not violate Copyright as long as their source code hasn't been copied from the original software or distribute unauthorized copies of a given original software.

For prior cases related to the legality of Emulators in relation to Copyright law, please see:

legal.1605491951.txt · Last modified: 2023/10/06 23:38 (external edit)