Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 00:32:07 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, Dom.Mitchell@palmerharvey.co.uk, desar@club-internet.fr, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: UNIX license issues (was: Searching an "old" BSD stdio) Message-ID: <199902210032.RAA22703@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19990221104149.U93492@lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Feb 21, 99 10:41:49 am
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> > The settlement agreement between UCB and USL, the terms of which > > are not permitted to be disclosed, made the Net and Net/2 > > distribution supposedly "illegal". > > No, it meant that you still required a license. From AT&T, which meant the the net distribution of the code was illegal, since it didn't meet the criteria for a "select group". Remember that the AT&T claims were Trade Secret claims, not Patent or Copyright claims. > > Since you can't revoke a license granted in perpetuity (which is why > > Apple still has a valid license for the UCSD P system that they used > > to implement the original "QuickDraw"), DEC has declined to remove > > it from their gatekeeper.dec.com archive, as have hundreds of other > > licensees (even some institutions with more money than Bill Gates). > > Having a license doesn't normally mean you can put it on an ftp site > for all comers. DEC disputes the legality of the revocation. So does MIT. MIT has more money and patents than God. If you piss of MIT, you are pretty much screwed on licensing for derivative works of their patents. With the new patent law gone to 20 years from date of filing (supposedly to stop submerged patents, but really to extend their length), you'd have a hard time using any post 1984 technology in a product without MIT's permission, or at least indifference. That was one of the reasons it was so damn annoying when UCB settled instead of taking MIT's public offer of backing. > > Net was BSD 4.2, and Net/2 was BSD 4.3. > > You're a long way out. 4.3BSD came out in 1986. Net/1 came after > 4.3BSD Tahoe, in 1989. Net/2 came after 4.3BSD Reno, in 1991. Sorry; I was relating it to the relative release dates of Ultrix vs. Net/1. My bad. > Kirk sells a 4 CD-ROM > set titled ``The CSRG archives''. The first CD contains 1BSD, 2BSD, > 3BSD and 4BSD up to 4.3BSD. The second CD contains the remaining > 4.3BSD flavours and 4.4BSD-Lite 1. The third CD contains 4.4BSD and > 4.4BSD Lite 2, and the fourth contains the SCCS files of the /usr/src > hierarchy. They leave off just about where the FreeBSD repository > starts. > > > If he sells others, it's only with proof of a Western Electric or > > later UNIX source license, to keep himself out of hot water. > > Correct, you need a source license. The easiest way is to get the SCO > license, which will cost you $100. See > http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/getlicense.html for further details. I already have two transferable SVR3 source licenses: one for my Amiga, and one for a Televideo terminal I bought from the local (at the time) University. The equipment serial numbers are on the source licensed machine manifest for the college, and the terminal is a "class B computing device". Actually, there are a heck of a lot of people from that era who also have source licenses for their own stuff, if they got a correct transfer document at sale time. I know of at least two other people. Wes may or may not have been there for "serial number day", when we wnt through all the equipment looking for class A or class B FCC certs and serial numbers all over campus to bloat the number of licenses. Unfortunately, I didn't get an SVR4 license; they changed the way they licensed to "by site" instead of "by machine". Also unfortunately, I don't have media, and I think media costs on SVR3 still exceed $100. 8-(. Does the republished Lyons V7 book count? That could be a cheaper alternative... plus you'd get a book. ;-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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