Pete's QBASIC Site

Your site claims that QBASIC is shareware. But I can't find any indication of that in your downloadable copy of QBASIC. It appears to be Microsoft's original Windows 95/98 QBASIC executable, with no statements to the contrary and no license document or shareware notice.

It's hard to imagine Microsoft releasing "pay after 30 days if you want" shareware. Is it really legal to distribute this software for use on versions of Windows with which it was not sold?

Thanks for any available information.

QBASIC, the interpreter only is free to share and use as long as you dont make any profit from the interpreter itself.

QBASIC the compiler (BC.EXE) you are not allowed to share.

It's pretty confusing and all that, basically, if you're really concerned about licenses, change to FreeBAIC, that way you'll be absolutely sure what rules apply. Unlike when using QBASIC

Microsoft still owns the copyrights for qbasic.
QBasic is not shareware, it's abandonware! as for freebasic, it is shareware and you don't have to move to it, I would recommend C.

As for copyright.... They still might have it, but:

http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?14000000036569 wrote:About the copyright: As Microsoft no longer supports QuickBASIC (4.5), it is now a
freeware product that is not available for free download at its developers website.
For additional copyright information, please contact Microsoft.

The American laws states the following on copyright (exerp):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law wrote:The need for renewal was eliminated in 1992, but works that had already entered the public domain by non-renewal did not regain copyright protection. Therefore, works published before 1964 that were not renewed are in the public domain. No additional copyrights will expire (thus entering the public domain) until at least 2019 due to changes in the applicable laws.

(if you can't read the quote, its on United*underscore*States*underscore*copyright*underscore*law)

Grtz

boutell wrote: It's hard to imagine Microsoft releasing "pay after 30 days if you want" shareware. Is it really legal to distribute this software for use on versions of Windows with which it was not sold?

I'm thinking because it came with MS operating systems from Dos 5.0+ to Win 9x that MS didn't feel it was necessary to add a copyright license file or documentation. Just like there's nothing on MS-Edit either. Idk if that makes it illegal to use on other OS platforms though...

...just an idea.