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From: mjra...@gouldsd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp,comp.sources.d
Subject: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <480@gouldsd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Mar-87 08:37:47 EST
Article-I.D.: gouldsd.480
Posted: Fri Mar 20 08:37:47 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Mar-87 16:20:33 EST
Organization: Gould Electronics, Landover MD.
Lines: 47
Keywords: no copyright notices in all the uucp source I've ever seen.
The other day I happened upon something QUITE interesting that I
think might spark some discussion. (We have a source license here for Sun
UNIX, so don't bother having your lawyers call me). Anyhow, I noticed that
THE SOURCE FOR UUCP HAS NO COPYRIGHT NOTICES IN IT except for in some of
the more recent utilities such as uuencode and uudecode.
"Hmmm.... very funny, thinks I..."
I called one of my friends who has source license for a dual-port
OS, including AT&T source and BSD, and asked him the same question. Same
answer. Noplace (unless grep is broken) were the magic words 'copyright' to
be found. (again, except for the newer tools). uucico, uuxqt, and all those
goodies were dated but not copyrighted. In fact, I took a look at some old
old hardcopy another fellow I know has, and there were no copyright notices
in version 7 either.
I contacted the offices of AT&T (the email address fcp@alice) that
was given by the fellow from the licensing dept during the recent 'public
domain yacc' scandal. I asked them what the deal is. I got a note saying
that "we'll get back in touch with you". My questions are as follows, and
I invite all comments and answers from the net:
1) what *REALLY* is the copyright status of uucp ?
2) regardless of the answer to the above, what does a total lack of
copyright notices mean ?
3) can someone be held legally at fault for, in all good faith, assuming
that the global abscence of copyright information indicates that
the code is public-domain, and (for example) posting it to the net ?
The last comment there is playing the devil's advocate, but I think
you see my point. Those of us who frequent the grey areas of bulletin boards
know all to well the *REAL* status of anything that doesn't carry a copyright
notice. Why is uucp different other than the fact that AT&T's lawyers outnumber
the populace of Lichtenstien ?
I invite discussion of this, and encourage those of you who have
source licenses to check your sources and let me know what you find.
"Quick, Jeeves, my asbestos underwear !!"
--mjr();
--
"It is better to shred the bugger than to bugger the shredder."
-ancient doltic proverb.
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From: n...@seismo.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <43183@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Fri, 20-Mar-87 13:52:56 EST
Article-I.D.: beno.43183
Posted: Fri Mar 20 13:52:56 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Mar-87 20:08:22 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 18
Keywords: no copyright notices in all the uucp source I've ever seen.
Summary: Just because it doesn't have a copyright notice doesn't mean that it's public domain
UUCP (and the rest of the Unix sources) are LICENSED software from
ATT. When your site received your sources from ATT, they argeed in writing
to protect them as a valuable trade secret of ATT. The sources
remain the property of ATT and they have the right to revoke your
license to use them at any time if you do not take
proper precautions to safegaurd the files.
The licensing is a STRONGER protection than copyright. Your company would
probably go out of business (at least your division) if ATT revoked
your companies license because of you giving away ATT property.
Remember, your company did not buy UNIX source, they bought the right
to USE and RELICENSE UNIX. Unix remains the property of ATT.
---rick
(I am not an ATT employee, never was and probably never will be. I just
bothered to read our license agreement)
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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!schoet
From: sch...@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <17953@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 20-Mar-87 20:35:57 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.17953
Posted: Fri Mar 20 20:35:57 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Mar-87 23:42:25 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <43183@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Sender: use...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: sch...@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Steve Schoettler)
Distribution: comp.os.minix
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 28
Keywords: copyright uucp uucico
There's a method of "copying" another program that seems to have held
in court in the past:
Someone with access to the source of the program in question studies it
carefully and then writes up a description of protocols, interfaces, and
functional diagrams.
This is then handed to a programmer who does not have access to any of the
source and "blindly" produces a program that does the same thing.
The company who wrote the original program has no claim, so I'm told, to
the new program because it was not a copy of the original.
This may sound like splitting hairs, but I recall reading of occaisons
where this method has been used sucessfully and legally.
Of course I am not a legal expert and may have dreamed the whole thing up,
but I think I could dig up the source of the information if anyone's
interested.
Anyone out there with access to UUCICO care to do the first step? If you
did, and posted the result, you'd probably have an equivalent program
within a month.
Steve
ucbvax!schoet
The opinions above are mine alone, and are not posted on behalf of anybody.
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From: g...@hoptoad.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: cloning uucp by having somebody read it and tell you about it
Message-ID: <1911@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Sat, 21-Mar-87 03:11:28 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1911
Posted: Sat Mar 21 03:11:28 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Mar-87 20:31:10 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <43183@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <17953@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 36
sch...@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Schoettler) writes:
> Someone with access to the source of the program in question studies it
> carefully and then writes up a description of protocols, interfaces, and
> functional diagrams.
> This is then handed to a programmer who does not have access to any of the
> source and "blindly" produces a program that does the same thing.
> Anyone out there with access to UUCICO care to do the first step? If you
> did, and posted the result, you'd probably have an equivalent program
> within a month.
Happily for us, the author of the uucp packet protocol has already done
this, and released the document to the public. This document was
posted to comp.mail.uucp by me a month or more ago. Don't ask me to
send it to you; a copy will be included with the next uuslave
distribution. It was written years ago. Nobody got around to writing
a program for it until last year though, and it didn't actually work
until I hacked on it last month. For a week, hoptoad has been using
"uuslave" to talk with lll-crg, and it's been working without trouble
after I fixed the first day's bugs.
I sent Dr. Tanenbaum a copy of an earlier version of uuslave, but he
had trouble bringing it up under 4.1BSD because of include files and lack
of time, and Minix does not have a serial port driver yet, so it's kind of
useless to try to make it run under Minix. If you're all fired up to
get uucp going, write a serial port driver for Minix and post it to
net.sources. We probably have uucp well in hand.
By the way, the AT&T licensing division contacted me after I asked them
on the net whether uuslave was proprietary or not; I sent them a copy
a month ago; they left me a message yesterday, but I've been out of the
house for two days and haven't had a chance to call them for the
answer. The suspense is killing me. I'll keep you posted.
--
(C) Copyr 1987 John Gilmore; you can redistribute only if your recipients can.
(This is an effort to bend Stargate to work with Usenet, not against it.)
{sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucbvax}!hoptoad!gnu g...@ingres.berkeley.edu
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From: guy%gorod...@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <15443@sun.uucp>
Date: Sun, 22-Mar-87 19:08:15 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.15443
Posted: Sun Mar 22 19:08:15 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Mar-87 01:46:52 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <43183@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <17953@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <696@brl-sem.ARPA> <1920@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: n...@sun.uucp
Reply-To: g...@sun.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Distribution: comp.os.minix
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 8
Keywords: copyright uucp uucico
>AT&T has told me that the trade secret was not simply the code, but the
>algorithms. Bach has divulged the algorithms.
Hell, AT&T divulged some information about the internals of UNIX in
the first UNIX issue of the BSTJ. I do not believe that their
lawyers are stupid; I presume they have at least some reason to hold
the legal opinion that they can still protect UNIX as a trade secret
given that.
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From: j...@bnl.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <73@bnl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Mar-87 01:45:36 EST
Article-I.D.: bnl.73
Posted: Thu Mar 26 01:45:36 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Mar-87 11:35:46 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <694@brl-sem.ARPA>
Organization: Brookhaven National Lab. Upton, N.Y.
Lines: 17
>> ...THE SOURCE FOR UUCP HAS NO COPYRIGHT NOTICES IN IT...
>
> Up until very recently you never found a copyright notice in UNIX software.
> UNIX is not protected by copyright, but rather by trade secret. In your
> agreement with AT&T (or Western in the old days), you agreed not to
> divulge the UNIX source code nor information on how it operates. Despite
> the lack of copyright notices in UUCP, it is still AT&T proprietary.
What about people who have obtained UNIX sources without ever being bound
by an AT&T license agreement? The site they got them from is in trouble,
but what legal action can AT&T take against the individual? (not that
anybody in their right mind would want to be the test case; AT&T has more
lawyers than all the rest of us combined :-))
--
John McNamee j...@BNL.ARPA decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jpm
"Timesharing is the use of many people by a computer"
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From: s...@van-bc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <533@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Mar-87 03:08:33 EST
Article-I.D.: van-bc.533
Posted: Sun Mar 29 03:08:33 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Mar-87 18:42:19 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <694@brl-sem.ARPA> <73@bnl.UUCP>
Reply-To: s...@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne)
Organization: Public Access Network, Vancouver, BC.
Lines: 33
In article <7...@bnl.UUCP> j...@bnl.UUCP (John McNamee) writes:
>>> ...THE SOURCE FOR UUCP HAS NO COPYRIGHT NOTICES IN IT...
>>
>> Up until very recently you never found a copyright notice in UNIX software.
>> UNIX is not protected by copyright, but rather by trade secret. In your
>> agreement with AT&T (or Western in the old days), you agreed not to
>> divulge the UNIX source code nor information on how it operates. Despite
>> the lack of copyright notices in UUCP, it is still AT&T proprietary.
>
>What about people who have obtained UNIX sources without ever being bound
>by an AT&T license agreement? The site they got them from is in trouble,
The sources I've seen contained no copyrights, but also contained no
markings of any sort to indicate which of the thousands of AT&T Licenses
they may have come from.
Does AT&T have some insidious method of permuting each source file in an
identifiable manner so that they can track down which sites have been
careless about source control :-).
What about those licenses that are no longer in business, the receiver comes
in and auctions off all of those tapes at about $.50 each? He doesn't
give a damm about what's on them.
So I find it hard to beleive that AT&T is going to be able in most cases to
do anything even if they do track down someone who has a copy.
Just how many grad students do you know who have complete version 7, or BSD,
or System III/V source tapes hidden away? Some trade secret huh.
--
Stuart Lynne ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!van-bc!sl Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
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Path: utzoo!henry
From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <7865@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 02:18:04 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7865
Posted: Sat Apr 4 02:18:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 02:18:04 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <694@brl-sem.ARPA> <73@bnl.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 21
> What about people who have obtained UNIX sources without ever being bound
> by an AT&T license agreement? The site they got them from is in trouble,
> but what legal action can AT&T take against the individual? (not that
> anybody in their right mind would want to be the test case...
My understanding [BEWARE, I am not a lawyer, consult an expert before doing
anything rash!] is that much depends on how such a person came by those
Unix sources. If he knew it was AT&T proprietary material, or if the
proverbial "reasonable man" should have known this in his situation, he is
in just as much trouble as the site he got it from. If he truly and
reasonably thought the stuff wasn't proprietary -- hard to imagine for Unix
stuff -- then he is theoretically blameless. (This doesn't mean he can't
be sued, of course. It doesn't even mean that such a suit would fail.
And even successfully fighting off an AT&T lawsuit would probably bankrupt
most anyone.)
I caution people once again to get professional advice before taking any
action on the above informal amateur commentary. You're playing with fire.
--
"We must choose: the stars or Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the dust. Which shall it be?" {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <7866@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 02:19:49 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7866
Posted: Sat Apr 4 02:19:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 02:19:49 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP> <694@brl-sem.ARPA> <73@bnl.UUCP> <533@van-bc.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 32
> Does AT&T have some insidious method of permuting each source file in an
> identifiable manner so that they can track down which sites have been
> careless about source control :-).
Don't laugh, I can think of some really insidious ways of doing this that
nobody is ever likely to notice. Not on a file-by-file basis, but enough
to trace an entire distribution or a major portion thereof.
> What about those licenses that are no longer in business, the receiver comes
> in and auctions off all of those tapes at about $.50 each? ...
I think that if you look at your license, you will probably find clauses
explicitly covering failure of business. Auctioning off those tapes without
paying attention to the possibility of them containing proprietary software
would be a rather dangerous thing to do. (Also a rather stupid thing --
stuff like customer lists can be very valuable, and don't think the creditors
don't know it.)
> Just how many grad students do you know who have complete version 7, or BSD,
> or System III/V source tapes hidden away? Some trade secret huh.
There are undoubtedly a *lot* of unauthorized copies of Unix stuff and even
entire Unix distributions floating about. It just might be possible to win
a court battle on the claim that AT&T has taken inadequate precautions and
can no longer realistically class Unix as a secret. (Trade secret protection
does require you to really treat the stuff as a secret, and take reasonable
precautions to protect it.) However, I doubt that anybody short of IBM could
possibly finance such a battle, since AT&T would almost certainly take a
cost-is-no-object victory-at-any-price attitude to such a situation.
--
"We must choose: the stars or Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the dust. Which shall it be?" {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry