Whose intellectual property is C++?

[PainterGuy]

Hello everyone,

The creator of C++ is Bjarne Stroustrup. It is his invention. Who really owns C++? Is it its inventor? It should be its inventor because he invented it so he should make money out of it like Microsoft does out of its Windows. Tell me please. Many thanks for every help!

Cheers

 

[jhae2.718]

I'm not sure. Bjarne Stroustrup was working at Bell Labs at the time, so I suppose they would own it, but given that it is essentially an international standard at the least it is royalty-free.

I suppose I could always ask him...

 

[jhae2.718]

Do you own C++?
No. If anyone "owns C++," it must be the ISO. AT&T gave the rights to the C++ manual that I wrote to the ISO. The ISO C++ Standard is copyrighted by ISO.

Compiler vendors do not pay royalties to me or to AT&T for C++, and ISO standards are specifications intended for royalty-free use by everyone (once they have paid the ISO or a national standard committee for their copy of the standard). The individual compilers are owned by their respective vendors/suppliers.

"But someone from SCO claimed that they own C++"; is that not so? It's complete rubbish. I saw that interview. The SCO guy clearly had no clue what C++ was, referring to it as "the C++ languages". At most, SCO may own a 15-year old and seriously outdated version of Cfront - my original C++ compiler. I was careful not to patent or trademark anything to do with C++. That's one reason we write plain "C++" and not "C++(tm)". The C++ standard is unencumbered of patents - the committee carefully checked that also.

http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq.html#revenues

...like Microsoft does out its Windows.

Windows should be thrown into the garbage collector of history.