Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site sdcrdcf.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!barryg From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) Newsgroups: net.flame,net.unix,net.unix-wizards,net.legal Subject: Where's the (c) on unix? Message-ID: <933@sdcrdcf.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Mar-84 18:41:16 EST Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.933 Posted: Wed Mar 21 18:41:16 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Mar-84 21:02:07 EST Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) Organization: System Development Corporation, Santa Monica Lines: 200 Having heard from a friend that all of /usr/ucb except three programs was public domain, I decided to look and see what was marked copyrighted and what wasn't. I have also obtained a list from RMS@MIT-AI of software in the 4.2BSD tape that is believed to be in the public domain. According to the list, the three programs are ex, eyacc, and wc.c. I also looked through /usr/local/bin (and the corresponding /usr/local/src) to see what was and wasn't copyrighted. Some preliminary results on a 4.1 system: CONTENTS OF /usr/ucb: 1kfix eyacc ls pxref vgrind Mail f lsf reset vi apl finger lsx rewind view apropos fmt lxref rotate vmstat biff fold man script vpq ccat from mkstr see vpr checknr gets more soelim vpr.nosoption chfn grep msgs ssp vprint chsh head newaliases strings vprm clear help num symorder vtroff colcrt iul page tra vwidth colrm l pc trman w compact last pi tset what ctags leave pix u whatis cxref lisp pmerge ul whereis diffdir liszt print uncompact which e lnall printenv unexpand whoami edit lock prmail uptime xstr error lpq pti users yes ex lpr px uudecode expand lprm pxp uuencode I didn't check *all* these files, but here's the status of the ones I did check: source not found: uptime MH (and associated programs: comp,dist,folder,folders,forw,inc, mh,mkprof,msg,next,prev,prompter,rmf,rmm,scan,show, sndmsg) source access denied: Mail uptime ex (& vi) Marked copyright Regents of UC: lisp liszt eyacc Not marked: checknr chsh clear colcrt colrm compact ctags error expand finger fold grep head mkstr more msgs num printenv soelim strings tset ul uncompact unexpand uudecode uuencode w wc what whereis CONTENTS OF /usr/local/bin: MH e15 indent panout sfcopy Pnews e15.help ined paragrep show TrmTERM e17 ined.real pick sidel a86 emacs intext pmail sidl adduser emc intext2 pmail.old sidmdate altacct emc.new istat pmail2 sidmdump ar86 emc2 itp pmail2.old sidmload bban etherwatch itpz prev sidmread bug.ar fcopy itpz.xdict print1170 sidmwrite c86 fd2 just prompter smail calls file l pupechosend sndmsg cchk file.mh l8086 pupechoserve sqzdir cdb file.msg last pwd su central find lastcomm qcalc sysline charge fixlpr ld86 ranlib86 sysline.old charges fixnews lgrep rcs sysversion ci fixown localcmd rcsdiff talk cn fjust lock rcsmerge teco co folder mail.mh.testin rcssupport tfix code folders makefont re trace comp format mc recnews tymnet copy fortune menu recover umodem cost forw mh repl unpack cost.awk fstodev mkprof report usage cpdir ftp more rlog userlog cpfont getfs msg rmail uurec d9700 iconc netalias rmf v6run d9700.old icont netnews rmm v7run dbadd iconx netupd rn vanish dbcreate id newacct rogue.noshesc vinodb dblist idel newcmd roll vkbd dbprint ident news rpl vsh devf idl newsetup run wicomo diracct idmboot newsetup.csh run.csh wicomo.real dired idmdate newsgroups sc wm dirstat idmdump newsinfo scan wmmore dirtree idmload next scopy wmraw dist idmread nm86 sdiracct wmscrn dropme idmwrite old_emacs secure_csh wmshmon dscript iidel out securesorry xlisp dvi ilog page send xroff e inajo page.old sendanews e10 inc panin sendbnews status of the files I checked: source not found: Pnews (local variant of inews) cchk (c indentation checker) menu vkbd (virtual keyboard compiler for e15) source access denied: cdb (c debugger) find ci,co,ident,rcs,rcsdiff,rcsmerge,rlog (part of Revision Control System - see below) Marked copyright: emacs copyright James Gosling RCS source inaccessible, manuals say copyright Walter F. Tichy Marked proprietary e15 proprietary Rand Corp. Not marked: calls code dvi fd2 mc more pmail talk umodem vanish vsh Special cases: cchk was locally written and the author's home directory is inaccessible rn was locally written; the source is in the author's home directory and not marked in any way. The only indication that much of the stuff even comes from a given source is an RCSID line at the beginning of most of the ucb stuff. ===========> FLAME ON <============ How are we poor innocent programmers to know what's copyrighted and what isn't if BTL doesn't bother marking the stuff and there's non-copyrighted stuff in the same directories? I'm perfectly willing to respect everyone's copyright (even the "big bad guys" like IBM and BTL), but I think I'm entitled to fair notice!!! Don't you? Awhile back a fellow netter called me to task for including the entire text of dd.c along with a fix I was sending out to net.sources. I looked back at it. NOT ONE WORD ABOUT COPYRIGHT appears anywhere in the original source. I'm going to wait awhile for answers, but unless somebody comes up with a good reason to assume otherwise, I'm going to assume that anything that doesn't have a copyright notice is available to port to my home system and putz with--except for stuff like dd that I have other reasons to expect to be BTL property. My thanks go to James Gosling, Walter F. Tichy, and the authors of lisp for taking the trouble to put notices in their programs. May the Dark Trolls overtake BTL and anyone else who couldn't be bothered to insert one measly comment with a notice at the start of their proprietary programs. For contrast, EVERY module of IBM's BSEPP program product starts out with: ************************************************************** * * * 5748-XX8 COPYRIGHT I B M CORPORATION 1979 * * * * LICENSED MATERIAL - PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M * * * ************************************************************** ===========> FLAME OFF <============ How about it, you legal types out there? My layman's understanding of the new copyright law is that publishing something without a notice doesn't void the copyright (as the old law did), but definitely limits the copyright holders recovery rights against innocent infringers (those who weren't notified.) And you other authors: anyone care to post your copyright notices where people can see them? Maybe we should have a non-expiring newsgroup to contain after-the-fact copyright notices :-) -- Barry Gold usenet: {decvax!allegra|ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!ucla-s!lcc!barry Arpanet: barry@BNL