barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) (03/22/84)
Having heard from a friend that all of /usr/ucb except three programs was
public domain, I decided to look and see what was marked copyrighted and
what wasn't. I have also obtained a list from RMS@MIT-AI of software
in the 4.2BSD tape that is believed to be in the public domain.
According to the list, the three programs are ex, eyacc, and wc.c.
I also looked through /usr/local/bin (and the corresponding /usr/local/src)
to see what was and wasn't copyrighted. Some preliminary results on a
4.1 system:
CONTENTS OF /usr/ucb:
1kfix eyacc ls pxref vgrind
Mail f lsf reset vi
apl finger lsx rewind view
apropos fmt lxref rotate vmstat
biff fold man script vpq
ccat from mkstr see vpr
checknr gets more soelim vpr.nosoption
chfn grep msgs ssp vprint
chsh head newaliases strings vprm
clear help num symorder vtroff
colcrt iul page tra vwidth
colrm l pc trman w
compact last pi tset what
ctags leave pix u whatis
cxref lisp pmerge ul whereis
diffdir liszt print uncompact which
e lnall printenv unexpand whoami
edit lock prmail uptime xstr
error lpq pti users yes
ex lpr px uudecode
expand lprm pxp uuencode
I didn't check *all* these files, but here's the status of the ones I did
check:
source not found:
uptime
MH (and associated programs: comp,dist,folder,folders,forw,inc,
mh,mkprof,msg,next,prev,prompter,rmf,rmm,scan,show, sndmsg)
source access denied:
Mail uptime ex (& vi)
Marked copyright Regents of UC:
lisp liszt eyacc
Not marked:
checknr chsh clear colcrt
colrm compact ctags error
expand finger fold grep
head mkstr more msgs
num printenv soelim strings
tset ul uncompact unexpand
uudecode uuencode w wc
what whereis
CONTENTS OF /usr/local/bin:
MH e15 indent panout sfcopy
Pnews e15.help ined paragrep show
TrmTERM e17 ined.real pick sidel
a86 emacs intext pmail sidl
adduser emc intext2 pmail.old sidmdate
altacct emc.new istat pmail2 sidmdump
ar86 emc2 itp pmail2.old sidmload
bban etherwatch itpz prev sidmread
bug.ar fcopy itpz.xdict print1170 sidmwrite
c86 fd2 just prompter smail
calls file l pupechosend sndmsg
cchk file.mh l8086 pupechoserve sqzdir
cdb file.msg last pwd su
central find lastcomm qcalc sysline
charge fixlpr ld86 ranlib86 sysline.old
charges fixnews lgrep rcs sysversion
ci fixown localcmd rcsdiff talk
cn fjust lock rcsmerge teco
co folder mail.mh.testin rcssupport tfix
code folders makefont re trace
comp format mc recnews tymnet
copy fortune menu recover umodem
cost forw mh repl unpack
cost.awk fstodev mkprof report usage
cpdir ftp more rlog userlog
cpfont getfs msg rmail uurec
d9700 iconc netalias rmf v6run
d9700.old icont netnews rmm v7run
dbadd iconx netupd rn vanish
dbcreate id newacct rogue.noshesc vinodb
dblist idel newcmd roll vkbd
dbprint ident news rpl vsh
devf idl newsetup run wicomo
diracct idmboot newsetup.csh run.csh wicomo.real
dired idmdate newsgroups sc wm
dirstat idmdump newsinfo scan wmmore
dirtree idmload next scopy wmraw
dist idmread nm86 sdiracct wmscrn
dropme idmwrite old_emacs secure_csh wmshmon
dscript iidel out securesorry xlisp
dvi ilog page send xroff
e inajo page.old sendanews
e10 inc panin sendbnews
status of the files I checked:
source not found:
Pnews (local variant of inews)
cchk (c indentation checker)
menu
vkbd (virtual keyboard compiler for e15)
source access denied:
cdb (c debugger)
find
ci,co,ident,rcs,rcsdiff,rcsmerge,rlog
(part of Revision Control System - see below)
Marked copyright:
emacs copyright James Gosling
RCS source inaccessible, manuals say copyright
Walter F. Tichy
Marked proprietary
e15 proprietary Rand Corp.
Not marked:
calls code dvi fd2
mc more pmail talk
umodem vanish vsh
Special cases:
cchk was locally written and the author's home directory is
inaccessible
rn was locally written; the source is in the author's home directory
and not marked in any way.
The only indication that much of the stuff even comes from a given source
is an RCSID line at the beginning of most of the ucb stuff.
===========> FLAME ON <============
How are we poor innocent programmers to know what's copyrighted and what
isn't if BTL doesn't bother marking the stuff and there's non-copyrighted
stuff in the same directories?
I'm perfectly willing to respect everyone's copyright (even the "big bad
guys" like IBM and BTL), but I think I'm entitled to fair notice!!!
Don't you?
Awhile back a fellow netter called me to task for including the entire
text of dd.c along with a fix I was sending out to net.sources. I looked
back at it. NOT ONE WORD ABOUT COPYRIGHT appears anywhere in the
original source.
I'm going to wait awhile for answers, but unless somebody comes up with a
good reason to assume otherwise, I'm going to assume that anything
that doesn't have a copyright notice is available to port to my home
system and putz with--except for stuff like dd that I have other reasons
to expect to be BTL property.
My thanks go to James Gosling, Walter F. Tichy, and the authors of lisp
for taking the trouble to put notices in their programs. May the
Dark Trolls overtake BTL and anyone else who couldn't be bothered to
insert one measly comment with a notice at the start of their
proprietary programs.
For contrast, EVERY module of IBM's BSEPP program product starts out with:
**************************************************************
* *
* 5748-XX8 COPYRIGHT I B M CORPORATION 1979 *
* *
* LICENSED MATERIAL - PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M *
* *
**************************************************************
===========> FLAME OFF <============
How about it, you legal types out there? My layman's understanding of the
new copyright law is that publishing something without a notice doesn't
void the copyright (as the old law did), but definitely limits the
copyright holders recovery rights against innocent infringers
(those who weren't notified.)
And you other authors: anyone care to post your copyright notices where
people can see them?
Maybe we should have a non-expiring newsgroup to contain after-the-fact
copyright notices :-)
--
Barry Gold
usenet: {decvax!allegra|ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!ucla-s!lcc!barry
Arpanet: barry@BNLbarryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) (03/22/84)
Follow up on the copyright status of the Rand Editor (e15). The latest
distribution contains the notice:
#ifdef COMMENT
Copyright abandoned, 1983, The Rand Corporation
#endif
This distribution also includes a newer version, e17, with the same notice.
Additional thanks to the Rand Corporation for putting copyright notices in
their programs, and for keeping us up to date when the copyright was
abandoned.
--
Barry Gold
usenet: {decvax!allegra|ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!ucla-s!lcc!barry
Arpanet: barry@BNLguy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (03/23/84)
> source not found: > uptime > source access denied: > Mail uptime ex (& vi) Mail is not marked with any copyright notice, and "ex" is - copyright Regents of the U of Ca. The source to "uptime" is called "w.c" (ever notice how the output of "uptime" looks like the first line of "w"? There's a reason for that...) and has no copyright notice; if you're curious about that one ask mark@cbosgd.UUCP who wrote it. (Mail also appears in Bell's System V Release 2 under the pseudonym of "mailx".) > How are we poor innocent programmers to know what's copyrighted and what > isn't if BTL doesn't bother marking the stuff and there's non-copyrighted > stuff in the same directories? NONE OF BELL'S UNIX CODE IS COPYRIGHTED. IT IS PROTECTED BY TRADE SECRET PROTECTION, WHICH IS MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE WITH COPYRIGHTING. They don't "publish" their code in an unrestricted fashion. They make everybody who buys UNIX source sign a license agreement with a non-disclosure clause that says "I'm telling you a secret and you'd better not tell anyone else if you don't want our lawyers on your *ss." You can't blame Bell for not putting a copyright notice on their code; you can possibly blame your management for not explaining the terms of the UNIX license. Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (03/23/84)
The source to UNIX is not copyrighted. It is, however, covered by your UNIX license, which I suggest you read before you start making public distributions of UNIX source code. Basically, the license (which SDC has signed, or you would not have a copy of UNIX) says that the entire distribution is proprietary to Bell Labs, and you may not disclose it to anyone who does not have a similar UNIX license. If you, as an employee of SDC, choose to publish (by posting to Usenet) the source to UNIX, then SDC has violated their UNIX license, and I would expect one dilly of a lawsuit by AT&T against SDC. No doubt SDC would not take kindly to your position in this matter. In other words, don't do it.
karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry) (03/23/84)
Although you didn't mention it, I am almost sure that the language
compilers are copyrighted, or at least proprietary. ( What's the
difference? ) And I am closer to sure that `pc' and related
programs are.
( We recently got a TeX tape here, and while reading through
some of the files, as well as some of the old TeX newsletters, it
appears that the whole tape can't be sent to Unix sites with only a
binary license, because the tape includes a complete Pascal compiler.
Thus, it would appear to be protected. )
karl@dartmouth or {cornell,decvax,linus}!dartvax!karlmark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (03/23/84)
Yes, I wrote "w". That program (and of course uptime, which is just a link to w) are in the public domain, and not copyrighted. In general, any program which is in Berkeley UNIX which did not appear in UNIX/32V is almost certainly in the public domain. It says so in your Berkeley UNIX license. This includes Mail as well. It doesn't include ex or vi (also the same program) because they have the V6 ed command buried inside them, and ed is covered by the AT&T UNIX license. Berkeley and AT&T do not make any promises about any particular program falling into one category or another, although it is possible to ask for an opinion about the history of any particular program. So if you publish or freely distribute a program from Berkeley UNIX, you take the risk yourself - if AT&T claims that the program is part of UNIX/32V and sues you, you're on your own. Mark Horton
kiessig@idi.UUCP (Rick Kiessig) (03/23/84)
As Mark pointed out, UNIX is not covered by copyright,
but buy your license agreement with AT&T. This agreement uses
Trade Secret Laws as its basis, not copyright. I have always
been told that one of the catches behind trade secret laws is
that once the secret "gets out", everything involved becomes
public domain. This was one of the reasons for the large delay
in allowing UNIX into Mexico - I guess they don't support the
notion of trade secrets (everything belongs to the government,
or some such nonsense).
So does this mean that if someone were to post the UNIX
sources to Usenet that AT&T could no longer find legal protection
in existing signed license agreements, and that UNIX would totally
go into the public domain? Probably. Anyone willing to sacrifice
their careers for The Cause?
--
Rick Kiessig
{decvax, ucbvax}!sun!idi!kiessig
{akgua, allegra, amd70, cbosgd, harpo, ihnp4, ios, qubix}!idi!kiessigjhh@ihldt.UUCP (John Haller) (03/24/84)
A good place to ask about trade secret protection is cca!z, as he ran into that problem in that his emacs was derived from Montgomery's emacs, which is AT&T Bell Laboratories Proprietary, otherwise known as trade secret. How was AT&T able to force CCA to request that everyone that had a copy of CCA emacs to remove it? What if someone refused that request. Does AT&T have any means of forcing the receipients of that emacs to remove all copies of it? John Haller
gwyn@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (03/25/84)
UNIX sources from AT&T are not "published". They are provided UNDER LICENSE. If you read your agreement with AT&T (or Western Electric) you will see that you are not entitled to appropriate the software for use on an unlicensed CPU. Be careful, I suspect AT&T has better lawyers than you have.
dave@infopro.UUCP (David Fiedler) (03/25/84)
<munch!>
I may as well put my two cents' worth in. Something that's been bugging me
for awhile is this: let's say you work in various jobs where you have
access to UNIX (tm) source code, then find yourself in a new company with
binary license only. You are now in a quasi-legal limbo. You are not
allowed to go to any public seminars where a source license is a
prerequisite for attending, even though you might have done kernel hacks,
device drivers, and everything else at your old positions.
While I don't advocate that people carry copies of source from job to job
(which is patently illegal or at least dangerous), there could be some
mechanism set up so that people in this position won't have to find
themselves out in the cold: a guru one day, and an outcast the next.
"That's the biz, sweetheart..."
Dave Fiedler
{harpo,astrovax,philabs}!infopro!davegeoff@callan.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) (03/27/84)
BTL UNIX is not copyrighted, it is protected as a trade secret. This means that copyright notices are not only not required, they could be interpreted as voiding the trade secrecy. If you read the standard Bell contract for UNIX (if you don't have a copy, it can be found in "The Software Legal Book" by Paul Hoffman), you will discover that it clearly states that ALL source code distributed by Bell Labs as a part of UNIX is a trade secret of Bell Labs. Further, there is a very long list of EVERY program and file that is covered under the contract. Now, trade-secret protection is a very tricky think. It can be lost simply by having the object of the secret be published. For example, if I find out the secret of Coca-Cola and print it in the LA Times, Coke Corp. can prosecute me for the billions of dollars of damages I have done them. But the secrecy has been lost, and ANYONE else can use the formula without any liability whatsoever. This means to me that Bell cannot protect any shell script or other world- readable ASCII file, regardless of what their contract says. (Note that this includes /usr/dict/words). They also cannot protect anything against programs such as "strings", or for that matter against disassembly. They CAN prosecute you for posting "dd.c" to net.sources--but, as I see it, once you have done so, they cannot prosecute anyone else for making use of that source file. There are two caveats to this last statement: first, don't get the bright idea of posting /usr/src to the net. In that kind of case, since everyone on the net is *WELL* aware that the sources are actually a trade secret, I could easily see a court deciding that anyone who made use of those sources was civilly liable for damages. Second, remember that when you post any source to the net illegally, your institution as well as yourself is liable for damages (because they are the holders of the license and are responsible for making sure you don't misuse sources). So if you want to bankrupt your employer or your university, just post /usr/src to the net and make sure Bell notices... Final caveat: I am not a lawyer or legally trained. Believe the foregoing at your own risk! Geoff Kuenning Callan Data Systems ...!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!trwrb!wlbr!callan!geoff
gwyn@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (03/27/84)
This one's easy: Insist that your new employer have or get a UNIX source code license as a condition of your employment.
richard@sequent.UUCP (03/27/84)
>> So does this mean that if someone were to post the >> UNIX sources to Usenet that AT&T could no longer find legal >> protection in existing signed license agreements, and that >> UNIX would totally go into the public domain? Probably. >> Anyone willing to sacrifice their careers for The Cause? I certainly hope no one martyrs themself for "The Cause" since the publication of Unix kernel would essentially remove all incentive for anyone to maintain it. ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It is solely the belief... from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard
phipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (03/29/84)
In a related matter, I remember hearing a while back
that all of IBM's OS/360 source code is now "public domain".
I vaguely recall that this applied to OS/360 tools such as the compilers.
IBM's OS/360 source code and internal documentation all bore the legend:
"Licensed Material -- Property of IBM", along with a copyright notice.
No flames, please, this is not to say that you'd really want to use it
(and certainly not JCL; perhaps some UNIX-like shell could be hacked in ?),
but the legal questions may be very similar.
I wonder what this means for owners of the S/370-compatible
(except for io architecture) IBM XT/370 ?
Why be required to be part of a mainframe installation (for megabucks)
that licenses VM to you when you can use OS/360 for free ?
Remember, it's multitasking in its MVT incarnation,
and many 1 MIPS IBM mainframes did a lot with only 1 MB of memory.
The resident part of the OS was about 96KB on a S/360-65, as I recall,
and the standard 2314 14-inch disk was only 40MB back then !
Of course, there is the fundamental problem that to OS/360,
an interactive task was just a high priority batch job.
Any legal eagles out there who can explain why UNIX will not also
become "public domain" in the future ?
-- Clay Phipps
--
{amd70 cbosgd decwrl!amd70 harpo hplabs!hpda ihnp4
megatest nsc oliveb sri-unix ucbvax!amd70 varian allegra}
!fortune!phippsrcd@opus.UUCP (03/30/84)
<>
The copyright notice for UNIX (a trademark of Bell Laboratories), and
appurtenant legal ramifications of it, are contained in the license
agreement. If your site is licensed to have source code, and if you are
permitted access to that source code, you should have been made aware of
the legal implications of that access. If you haven't, it's the fault of
the administrator or other responsible party at your site. If you're
trying to get your site administrator in deep trouble by claiming that you
don't know about the restrictions on UNIX source code, I suspect you're off
to a good start, since notifying you is his responsibility.
Why is this posted to net.flame as well??? <<FLAME ON>> Why do a few
people insist on trying to dodge the various protections of copyright,
trademark, patent, etc.? Is it so galling to respect someone's (or some
organization's) right to his(their) discoveries/inventions/creations? Are
you so jealous of the creative/active people? I think that it would be
nice if we could at least realize that the base of the software that 95+%
of us are running in order to exchange these views wouldn't be out in the
big world if somebody couldn't make enough money on it to make the
distribution worthwhile. Unless you've ever had to write a PROCEDURE DIVISION
or type a long string of DD statements as part of making your living, you
probably can't appreciate just how big a step UNIX really is. <<FLAME
OFF>>
More basically, it would have been reasonable to ask, "Why don't I see the
copyright notice on UNIX source code modules?" instead of claiming that,
since the notice isn't there, no copyright protection should exist.
--
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcdseifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (03/30/84)
> Now, trade-secret protection is a very tricky think. It can be lost > simply by having the object of the secret be published. For example, > if I find out the secret of Coca-Cola and print it in the LA Times, > Coke Corp. can prosecute me for the billions of dollars of damages > I have done them. But the secrecy has been lost, and ANYONE else > can use the formula without any liability whatsoever. Depends on how you find out what the secret of Coca-Cola is. There are only three people in the world who know this secret. They thus take precautions such as not flying on the same plane together (in case it crashes). If you get the secret from Coca-cola, (ha!) sign a non-disclosure agreement, and then publish the info, yes Coca-cola can sue you. If however, you buy a bottle of Coke(tm) at your friendly neighborhood vending machine (no document signed!), and "reverse engineer" it by chemical analysis, there's nothing they can do about it. Their secret depends on you not being able to reverse engineer their product. That's what *secret* means. Surely with modern technology it would be possible to reverse engineer Coke. Appariently(sp) noone thinks it's worth the trouble, they'd rather market a slightly different taste and hope the the public likes it. UNIX(tm) is a little different. AT&T will not sell it to you unless you sign the document saying you promise not to tell. Thus if you have a legal copy of UNIX to reverse engineer, you have promised not to tell. (If you have the source, you wouldn't have to reverse engineer it...) Hmmm... what happens when UNIX becomes so popular that virtually all computer people have (legal) access to it. Not much of a "secret" anymore, eh? as if you didn't know, UNIX is a trademark of AT&T-BL, and Coke is a trademark of the Coca-Cola Company. -- _____ /_____\ I taught Walter Mitty everything he knows! /_______\ Snoopy |___| ____|___|_____ ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
mcdermot@unmvax.UUCP (03/30/84)
<garbage>
Does all this discussion about trade secrets and publication imply that the
publication of the V6 kernel by (I believe) the University of New South Wales
made V6 public domain? Could I type in the code and sell it without paying
Bell?
--
John McDermott {gatech|ucbvax|convex}!mcdermot
Univ of NM W (505) 277-4650 |...was parsec
Albuquerque, NM 87131 H (505) 255-7796kiessig@idi.UUCP (Rick Kiessig) (04/01/84)
Actually, the Lyons books were published with very stiff
copyright/licensing restrictions. The front of all of the books
say something like "This document may contain information covered
by one or more licenses, copyrights and non-disclosure agreements.
Circulation of this document is restricted to holders of a license
for the UNIX Software System from Western Electric. All other
circulation or reproduction is prohibited." I remember back when
they first came out we had to write to Lyons and ask special
permission to reproduce the documents - at that time (1977) what he
said was that we could make ONE copy only per original - and
we only one original. Something tells me lots of people didn't
afford him that courtesy.
So, no, just because someone published the source code
already doesn't mean you could type it in and resell it - that
publication is covered under license just like everything else.
--
Rick Kiessig
{decvax, ucbvax}!sun!idi!kiessig
{akgua, allegra, amd70, cbosgd, harpo, ihnp4, ios, qubix}!idi!kiessiggeoff@callan.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) (04/07/84)
> Surely with modern technology it would be possible to reverse > engineer Coke. Apparently no one thinks it's worth the trouble, > they'd rather market a slightly different taste and hope the > the public likes it. -- D.A. Seifert Actually, I have heard that modern technology still isn't good enough. You can find out what the ingredients are, but you cannot figure out what order the process steps were done in, and apparently this makes a difference in the taste. (I only know what I am told). > UNIX(tm) is a little different. AT&T will not sell it to you > unless you sign the document saying you promise not to tell. > Thus if you have a legal copy of UNIX to reverse engineer, > you have promised not to tell. (If you have the source, you > wouldn't have to reverse engineer it...) Actually, this is no longer true. It is very easy to get a UNIX binary without ever signing a license. It is also possible to dial up to a public-access UNIX system (e.g., any university) and disassemble /bin and possibly the kernel. Bell (okay, AT&T since Jan 1, but I still think of them as Bell) might be able to sue the operator of that system because it is possible to run a public-access UNIX with very limited read permissions on /unix and /bin, but many people don't. Bell would probably have a problem proving *which* public-access system was the source of the disassembly (so to speak). And, of course, anybody can "disassemble" a shell script. >> Does all this discussion about trade secrets and publication imply >> that the publication of the V6 kernel by (I believe) the University >> of New South Wales made V6 public domain? Could I type in the code >> and sell it without paying Bell? > No, because you had to prove you had a UNIX source license before > getting the NSW UNIX books - i.e., if you had the books, you already > 1) paid Bell and 2) agreed not to distribute the code. - Guy Harris Not me! I got the UNIX books as a gift (I certainly won't tell who) and probably illegally, since they were Xeroxed (which doesn't affect their effect on the trade-secret issue). Furthermore, I know for a fact that at least some universities have used the Lyons books in courses and allowed the students to keep them. This would also seem to make the trade secrets nonsecret, since (1) one doubts the students were required to sign nondisclosure agreements, and (2) as I understand it, trade-secret law requires that the books be turned in when the students leave the organization with the UNIX license. Furthermore, for whatever reason, many people out there have illegitimate copies of the source tapes. I have personally seen illegal copies of V7 and System III (not mine!). Most universities have student employees who, in practice, have access to system consoles and 'root' accounts; many of these people have made tapes themselves in the wee hours of the night, often in the spring of their senior year. The same applies to commercial organizations. The 'secret' has leaked in many ways, and it would be very hard for Bell to prove who was the source of the leak in the general case. Again, in any case, all that affects is who gets sued, not the validity of the trade secret. BTW, I for one am not motivated by unhappiness with Bell's pricing to void the secret. I *would* like to see decent support by an organization which gets a large fraction of its revenue from UNIX (i.e., has a financial incentive to care about us little guys). If that happens by having UNIX wind up in the public domain, great. But in general I think that the negative effects of a public-domain UNIX (mainly loss of Bell-enforced standardization) far exceed the positive effects. And I also think Bell deserves a profit on a successful product that they have spent millions developing (I am refering to the salaries of all those "research" types who spent time writing utilities instead of inventing new flavors of transistor). Geoff Kuenning Callan Data Systems ...!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!trwrb!wlbr!callan!geoff Lawyer? Me? I can't even spell "Jeff" right!