License issue with our customer]

Rick Moen scripsit:

> o  the work falls into one of nine statutory
categories, _and_, there was a
>    written agreement to consider it a "work for
hire".
> 
> Those categories are:
> 
>   (1) a translation, (2) a contribution to a motion
picture or other
>   audiovisual work, (3) a contribution to a collective
work (such as a
>   magazine), (4) as an atlas, (5) as a compilation, (6)
as an
>   instructional text, (7) as a test, (8) as answer
material for a test,
>   (9) or a supplementary work (i.e., "a secondary
adjunct to a work by
>   another author" such as a foreword, afterword,
chart, illustration,
>   editorial note, bibliography, appendix and index). 
> 
> You'll note that software is NOT anywhere in that
list.

A translation of software from one programming language to
another (where
the first might be UML or flowcharts), however, might fall
under #1.

IANAL, TINLA.

-- 
Babies are born as a result of the              John Cowan
mating between men and women, and most          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

men and women enjoy mating.                     cowanccil.org
    --Isaac Asimov in Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship

Quoting John Cowan (cowanccil.org):

> A translation of software from one programming language
to another
> (where the first might be UML or flowcharts), however,
might fall
> under #1.

ObReminder:  The law is not a Turing machine:  Judges
interpret terms
like "translation" in light of precedent and
their own common sense.
They don't seek out weird edge cases and twist them
strangely through 
geek logic filters.

Ergo, I'd be thunderstruck of "translation" in
17 U.S.C. 101 means 
anything other than what the man in the street assumes it
does.