rms@mit-prep (06/15/85)
From: Richard M. Stallman <rms@mit-prep> Karels@berkeley says that there is no restriction on distribution of anything in 4.2 except that some parts of it are subject to AT&T licensing because they contain AT&T code. Berkeley does not say anything about which parts those are. But Mark Linton, author of dbx, says that there is nothing in dbx that is copied from AT&T code. It follows that you can give the source of dbx to anyone, even though Berkeley won't officially promise this is true.
linton@Shasta.ARPA (06/17/85)
> From: Richard M. Stallman <rms@mit-prep> > Karels@berkeley says that there is no restriction on distribution > of anything in 4.2 except that some parts of it are subject to > AT&T licensing because they contain AT&T code. > > Berkeley does not say anything about which parts those are. > But Mark Linton, author of dbx, says that there is nothing in > dbx that is copied from AT&T code. It follows that you can > give the source of dbx to anyone, even though Berkeley won't > officially promise this is true. I did NOT say that. In fact, what I told Stallman a while back was that dbx does contain a small amount of code (less than 5%) that was derived from adb (e.g., instruction disassembling). "Derived" means the code was taken from adb and modified to fit my coding style. As far as I am concerned, dbx is dependent on the Berkeley license and should not be distributed to anyone other than Berkeley licensees. Of course, I am not a lawyer (neither are Karels or Stallman to my knowledge) so you shouldn't take my opinion seriously if you worry about such things. However, you can be assured that I do not claim that "there is nothing that is copied from AT&T code" in dbx. I don't even know the legal definition of "copying" with respect to software, and anyway my understanding is that AT&T code is covered by licensing, not copyrights. If other people want to claim that dbx is in the public domain, that is their business, but please do not attach my name to such statements. Mark