wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) (06/19/88)
In article <521@yunexus.UUCP> oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) writes: >| 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 ?? As I understand it (and a correction by someone who really KNOWS would be welcome), MINIX -- the complete distribution -- is covered by a copyright held by Prentice-Hall. However, this does not affect the copyright of the authors of individual components, thus it does not affect the PD software contributed by users, except in the context of this particular collection called MINIX. That is why AST in the posting partially quoted above says that you have to check with Charles Forsyth about redistributing the MINIX shell -- P-H has nothing to do with it except in the context of the entire MINIX distri- bution. The only thing P-H's copyright affects is redistribution of the complete MINIX package itself, which is not possible anyway because all of the code written by AST is individually covered by P-H's copyright. So, conceivably, if you wrote another UNIX lookalike, it could include all of the user-contributed stuff without being affected by P-H's copyright, as long as the kernel, etc., were non-MINIX. -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: killer!dcs!wnp ESL: 62832882 DOMAIN: wnp@dcs.UUCP TLX: 910-380-0585 EES PLANO UD