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From: fouts@orville (Marty Fouts)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: AT&T copyrights (was Re: Swedish copyright laws)
Message-ID: <101@ames.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 21-Dec-86 20:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.101
Posted: Sun Dec 21 20:20:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Dec-86 22:37:30 EST
References: <8612171607.AA09065@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> <82@ames.UUCP> <1572@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>
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Reply-To: fouts@orville.UUCP (Marty Fouts)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA
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In article <1572@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> martillo@trillian.UUCP (Yakim Martillo) writes:
>
>You can call Stallman's point of view as naive and unrealistic as you
>want but he is totally upfront and clear about what he wants.  Some of
>us were hacking Unix back since 1975 when ATT used to give it away
>practically free to universities.  We were under the impression that
>our work would remain free and available, because we were told ATT
>can't sell software.  Then after the consent degree was promulgated,
>suddenly all our work was owned by ATT and they were selling it as
>their property as a trade secret.  Something is very wrong if the
>laws permit such sleaze.  With Richard, such practices do not happen.

The copy of the 6th edition Unix that I bought for $300 in 1975 came
complete with a nondisclosure agreement.  AT&T has done some questionable
things, but they aren't exactly what you are implying.

AT&T has never to my knowledge claimed ownership of software someone developed
using a Unix system, or of changes someone else made to the Unix system.  They
"merely" restricted your right to distribute software directly derived from an
AT&T distribution.

Berkeley "solved" their problem with AT&T by having to require that you get a
source license for some AT&T unix before you got one from Berkeley.  This has
now become a way of life, and all of the vendors we are currently dealing with
require this; because AT&T requires it of them.

The qustionable nature comes from the prices AT&T is now charging for a
product over which they hold a monopoly.  But that's what the market wants.
If the people who buy Unix thought it was valuable enough to do so, they
would have long ago have done what Stallman is trying to do, provide an
alternative.

This has been done.  Look at all of the succesful IBM PC Clones and the number
of copyrights they have had to work around.  Including having to write BIOS
software which is compatable with, but not identical to or derived from IBM's.