oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) (06/17/88)
| Message-ID: <804@ast.cs.vu.nl> | Date: 14 Jun 88 09:19:32 GMT | References: <499@yunexus.UUCP> | Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) | In article <499@yunexus.UUCP> oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) writes: | >Is the shell included with Minix distribution PD ?? | | None of MINIX is PD. The whole is copyright by P-H, and some of the parts | are copyright by others (like an anthology of science fiction stories). This, I knew already. It is amusing however, that all the PD software people sent you when you requested it couple of years ago is all of a sudden distribution-restricted. Did they know this at the time ?? Wouldn't it have been better to seperate the USER CONTRIBUTIONS from the rest, and keep those contributions out of blanket-P-H-copyright ?? | The shell, in particular, was written by Charles Forsyth of the University | of York (UK) and you need his permission to distribute it further. In any | event, it is not PD. | | Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl) | Actually, the shell appearently originated at UofWaterloo first, and tarted up/re-worked by Forsyth. [So I am told.] I will assume the shell is PD unless I am told otherwise by Forsyth. [If anybody has Forsyth's e-mail address, please forward it to me, so I can contact him.] oz -- The DeathStar rotated slowly, | Usenet: ...!utzoo!yunexus!oz towards its target, and sparked | ....!uunet!mnetor!yunexus!oz an intense SUNbeam. The green world | Bitnet: oz@[yulibra|yuyetti] of unics evaporated instantly... | Phonet: +1 416 736-5257x3976
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (06/22/88)
In article <521@yunexus.UUCP> oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) writes: >This, I knew already. It is amusing however, that all the PD software >people sent you when you requested it couple of years ago is all of >a sudden distribution-restricted. Did they know this at the time ?? Some of that software was PD and some was copyright. Where someone has copyright something, I have always asked explicit permission and have used nothing for which permission was denied. While it is true that the shell may have originated in Canada, the heavy changes made at York would constitute new grounds for copyrighting it, even if the original was PD. All I was (and am) trying to do is protect Forsyth's rights. He was nice enough to let me use it, and I am not about to turn around and tell everyone it is PD unless that is his opinion. In the U.K., as in Canada and every other country that has signed the Berne convention (essentially the entire world minus the U.S. and China), a work is automatically copyrighted when it is created. No copyright notice is required. As to P-H's "blanket copyright" if a work was originally public domain, then it remains so, even if it is included in a copyrighted anthology like MINIX. P-H's publication does not supersede any existing rights or take things out of the public domain. IEEE publishes many books of reprints, for example, and their "global" copyright does not affect the "local" (non)copyrights of the individual papers. There is an Algol-like scope mechanism at work here. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl) -- Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)