No. Copyright law says that only the author of a work is allowed to make copies, and a few other things such as make a public performance, etc. For you to be allowed to make a copy, change the code, transforming it (as in compiling it), you need permission from that author to do that. Another word for “permission” is “license”. That’s it; that’s how it works.
I don't think there's a judge in the country that wouldn't let it slide if you present this piece of evidence:
"for historical reasons I have released full code to the once shareware version of Raster Master. This includes the additional
utilities included with registered version(screen clip and command line converter). Updated code to work properly in 256
color mode when in DosBox. also added Bin2Bsv."
Judges aren't law-applying machines. They understand nuance and intent.
Agreed, but the exact written word does matter. Technicalities have consequences, sometimes regardless of intent. You seem to be arguing that it was pointless to even give a license to the code, since it was somehow obvious what he meant? Well, the author has now added an MIT license to the code, so the point is moot.
Your confusion is understandable, and, regrettably, quite common.
Many license documents you are likely to encounter are written as if they were a list of things you can not do; as if they were some sort of contract which you agree to (somehow without signing it). This is very misleading, since a license is a list of permissions, not prohibitions. However, is in the interest of most license writers to mislead you in this way, so that they can keep the maximum rights for themselves and scare you into thinking you have as few rights as possible. The frequently-used term “license agreement” is a symptom of this; it is misleading because a license is not an agreement. It is also often the case that such documents prohibit many things which you have the right to do, but which a license (being a list of permissions and not a contract) can not deprive you of.
Finally, some licenses, such as the GPL, may seem to follow this pattern superficially, but what they list are instead conditions which you must uphold if you are to recieve the permissions granted by the license. Crucially, the document does not try to prohibit you from doing anything which is your right even if you do not comply with the conditions set by the license.
