joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) (08/10/89)
I was given a copy of mailx by someone who said they got it from someone who said it was public domain. The only Copyright notice I found in the entire distribution was on a support program called "xstr" -- "Copyright 1979 the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley". No mention at all if it can legally be redistributed. Can someone tell me if it's okay to redistribute this? I've made some changes some people may like. I figure I'm covered, legally, but if it isn't supposed to be PD (ie: someone stripped the rest of the copyright notices before I got it), I don't want to step on toes. -Joe -- Life is a cabaret (old chum). UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe (Picts 1-13 are DHDSC - Joe Larson/MIS 1060 ATT : (612) 375-3537 now ready.) 700 on the Mall, Mpls, Mn. 55402
jad@dayton.UUCP (J. Deters) (08/10/89)
In article <6703@dayton.UUCP> joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes: > i> n>I was given a copy of mailx by someone who said they got it from someone e>who said it was public domain. The only Copyright notice I found in the w>entire distribution was on a support program called "xstr" -- "Copyright s>1979 the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley". No mention >at all if it can legally be redistributed. f> i>Can someone tell me if it's okay to redistribute this? I've made some l>changes some people may like. I figure I'm covered, legally, but if it k>isn't supposed to be PD (ie: someone stripped the rest of the copyright >notices before I got it), I don't want to step on toes. > >-Joe It's always* ok to post diff's to a source. All you have to do is assume that the receipient is patching the same level of source you are sending him diffs for. :) Technically, of course, your 'diffs' are not allowed to contain the source lines. They should only contain offsets into the file to remain perfectly legal. -j -- J. Deters - jad@dayton.DHDSC.MN.ORG john@jaded.DHDSC.MN.ORG
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/10/89)
In article <6703@dayton.UUCP> joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes: >...I figure I'm covered, legally, but if it >isn't supposed to be PD (ie: someone stripped the rest of the copyright >notices before I got it), I don't want to step on toes. It's not safe to assume that the absence of copyright notices means it's okay to redistribute. It may be covered by trade secret agreements, like the AT&T Unix sources. (In which case you should not have been given access to it, but that's a separate issue.) Some of the Berkeley stuff is AT&T-derived and hence covered by Unix licensing; some is not. It can be a bit hard to tell. -- V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (08/11/89)
In <6703@dayton.UUCP> joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes: >I was given a copy of mailx by someone who said they got it from someone >who said it was public domain. ... Up until 4.3Tahoe, UCB did not go to the trouble of individually copyrighting every single file in their source tree. This was done because it was impossible for UCB to separate their code from ATT code, so they had to treat the entire BSD distribution as if it were protected by ATT's licensing arrangements. This is probably the version that you got. In the 4.3Tahoe release, Keith Bostic (and, apparently, Kirk McKusick, but I've only had contact with Keith) did a great deal of work in getting large portions of UCB code certified as being free of ATT code, and therefore not subject to ATT licensing restrictions. John Gilmore helped, and Rick Adams did the grunt work of creating a release tape that has no non-free code (I believe; maybe Keith did that, too). With that the UCB Mail program, called mailx when ATT started to provide it with their releases, had a UCB Copyright on it. The UCB Copyright is basically "a freely-redistribute, don't use our name to sell it, don't blame us if it causes you any harm" copyright. The upshot is, the version you have is probably illegal, either it's covered by ATT license or someone stripped out the UCB Copyright. You can get a more current version on UUNET or by buying a tape from FSF, or by asking someone with access to either of those, or a 4.3Tahoe source tape. Apologies to anyone I might have slighted in my "who did what" summary, above. /r$ -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net. Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.
allbery@nc386.uucp (Brandon S. Allbery) (08/12/89)
As quoted from <6707@dayton.UUCP> by jad@dayton.UUCP (J. Deters): +--------------- | In article <6703@dayton.UUCP> joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes: | n>I was given a copy of mailx by someone who said they got it from someone | e>who said it was public domain. The only Copyright notice I found in the | w>entire distribution was on a support program called "xstr" -- "Copyright | s>1979 the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley". No mention | >at all if it can legally be redistributed. | | It's always* ok to post diff's to a source. All you have to do is | assume that the receipient is patching the same level of source you | are sending him diffs for. :) +--------------- The only problem here, assuming the source is for /usr/ucb/Mail and not AT&T's mailx, is the missing copyright notices. Berkeley Mail has been certified "AT&T-free" and is available in a number of places, notably UUNET. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc allbery@NCoast.ORG uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu "Why do trans-atlantic transfers take so long?" "Electrons don't swim very fast." -john@minster.york.ac.uk and whh@PacBell.COM