[Info-vax] [Attn: HP Employees] PDP-11 OS hobbyist licensing

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-09-30 20:30, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-earth.ufp> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
>> As I understand it, the issues everyone seems to be talking about when
>> this comes up fall into two main stages.
>
>> 1) The existing Mentec license talks about DEC owned emulators only and
>> the language dates from the time when simh was created while it's creator
>> worked at DEC.
>
> As well as I understand it, and IANAL, when a company is bought by
> another company contracts (such as license agreements) automatically
> apply to the new company. Consider that a bank might buy another bank
> that holds many mortgage loans. You don't stop paying just because the
> bank you contracted with doesn't exist anymore.
>
>> The first stage would be to extend that so that the Mentec license (or
>> something like it) continues to cover simh now it's no longer a DEC
>> project.
>
> On the other hand, I have no idea how the transfer of emulators
> was done to HP.

Well, that is the point. It was not transferred to HP. In fact, it got 
spun away from DEC all together. Now, a continued work by an individual 
might not be covered by the same license as the original work.

That is what one part of the problem here is about. The license in 
question mentions "emulator owned by DEC". This was simh, back when simh 
was a DEC "product". Bob later quit DEC, and continued working on simh 
on his own. Is this later, improved version, owned by Bob still covered 
by a license for software on a simulator owned by DEC?
Sounds doubtful, if you ask me.

You might possibly claim that the version DEC had was probably 
transferred to HP, and *that* version would still be covered. But I 
doubt anyone can find that version of simh anymore.

>> 2) A relaxing of the OS license conditions so that they can become
>> available, open source style, for people to work on. A example here
>> might be the way CDE was made open.
>
>> My main interest is in stage (1), so I will leave others more interested
>> in stage (2) to talk about that.
>
>> PS: BTW, is TOPS-10/TOPS-20 still HP owned, or was that placed in the
>> public domain by DEC ?
>
> As well as I understand it, and this is without looking it up for
> a while, it isn't public but is open for the usual hobbyist usage.
> Then again, I was only interested in hobby usage so I might have
> forgotten. You should probably look it up before you start using
> it to run your business.

Rich Alderson already followed up more on this, and yes, Tops-10/TOPS-20 
are not in the public domain. But they are also not owned by HP anymore. 
And hobbyist usage is allowed.

	Johnny