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It was a long time ago, and I can't find anything to corroborate this on internet searches, but:

Didn't Borland attempt to charge for the use of a c runtime module? They attempted to profit from software developed using their c compiler. So, not only would they make money selling the compiler, but anyone that used programs written with their compiler would have to pay also.

Somewhere around that time, they lost the whole c compiler market, I think.

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Not sure if it's the same thing you're talking about, but waaay back they did a license change for their language products that said something along the lines of anything produced with their compilers belonged to them. There was a huge outcry and pretty much right away they said "oops! our lawyers got a bit happy" and fixed it. I don't recall exactly when that was. Their Pascal was "Borland Pascal" at the time. I think that was an honest mistake, as I doubt anyone there at the time would have thought they'd get away with that.

Around 1991 timeframe, if I recall correctly.

Basically the EULA forbade the use of Borland C++ to write compilers.

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