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@BNL
barryg@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@BNL
guy@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!karl
mark@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!kiessig
jhh@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!dave
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!phipps
rcd@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!rcd
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) 255-7796
kiessig@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!kiessig
lcc.csk@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA (04/24/84)
From: Charley Kline <lcc.csk@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA> Having recently asked my computer lawyers the same questions, changing all the nouns in a program or all the for loops to while loops would still be an infringement of copyright. If you write a book and copyright it and I reset it in type so that it is formatted differently, it is an infringement. If I write a book and take a section from your book, that is an infringement. However, if you use the phrase "I went to the store" and I also happen to use that phrase, that is not an infringement since this phrase is too general to copyright. Thus, determining when your work infringes upon another's is up to the courts to decide on a case by case basis. Obviously they take into account such things as whether the way you wrote code is the only way to do the particular function and things like that. By the way, unlike patent law, in which you own the invention, copyright law does not protect independent recreation of the same work. (If you went off into the desert and wrote War and Peace all by yourself, this would not be a copyright infringement, but, obviously, no one would believe you did that and you would almost certainly lose in court.)