

SAS clone maker World Programming "wins" decision in copyright case against SAS - macmac
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2010/1829.html

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teilo
SAS tried to claim that SAS was _not_ a programming language, because the PROC
steps are not Turing complete. They knew that a programming language was not
copyrightable.

The judge called BS, ruling that the ability of a programming language to call
out to external procedures doesn't make it NOT a programming language:

>55\. Based on this evidence, counsel for SAS Institute accepted that the DATA
steps were a programming language, but submitted that the PROCS were not since
the procedures were complex programs. In my view this submission confuses the
PROC steps in the SAS Language with the programs in the C language which are
invoked by them. The PROC steps are commands issued by the user to the
computer expressed in a particular language which is parsed by the SAS System.
Accordingly, the SAS Language as a whole, including the PROC steps, satisfies
the IEEE definition of a programming language.

Awesome judge.

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grails4life
Im glad to see SAS Inc admitting that SAS by in large inst a programming
language, unlike R, which is 100% a programming language.

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macmac
It's important to note that the decision while encouraging defers the
questions of whether or not programming languages, interfaces and software
functionality are copyrightable to the European Court of Justice for guidance.

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grails4life
great news!! Thanks for posting this, I never heard of WP before.

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macmac
Hopefully this will give them some publicity and encourage SAS customers to
seriously consider them as an alternative.

