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

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <l2fdja$hb2$1 at speranza.aioe.org>,
	glen herrmannsfeldt <gah at ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:
> Bill Gunshannon <bill at server3.cs.scranton.edu> wrote:
>> In article <l2f81e$t0j$1 at speranza.aioe.org>,
> 
> (snip, I wrote)
> 
>>> Working on personal project related to your company work is always
>>> complicated. My understanding (again, IANAL) is that unless he was
>>> very careful about it that it would belong to DEC. 
>  
>>> In cases where you can make a clear separation, maybe a simulator
>>> for the physics of black holes, (just a random example) that 
>>> obviously DEC isn't doing, then it might not be so hard.
>  
>>> To keep a simulator for a DEC processor separate, he might have
>>> needed to document the exact times he worked on it, and show that
>>> those times were personal times. Also, it might have helped to 
>>> do it on hardware not owned by DEC.
>  (snip of wrench story)
> 
>> Except that a PDP-11 emulator uses knowledge gained as a part of
>> his employement.  There is no way to separate that by when you
>> actually worked on the project.  
> 
> Which PDP-11 knowledge was available to employees, but not to
> general PDP-11 users? Well, I suppose only employees would know
> that, but usually the instruction set was well known, at least
> to assembly programmers, and that is mostly what is needed.
> I suppose also the locations of I/O registers and interrupt
> vectors, but that was also known outside DEC.

Known does not change the status of the information.  I could reverse
engineer the PDP-11 using publicly available information and write an
emulator that would be free and clear, ie. the cleanroom approach.  
But if I have any information that is internal to my employer or even
just access to such information I would have a hard time defending
a "cleanroom approach" and my employer could easily defend claiming
ownership.

> 
> Processor microcode might have been proprietary, but is normally
> not used in writing emulators, unless it is specifically 
> desired to emulate the micro-engine. 
> 
>> And, there is also the question
>> of what his employment contract said.  And none of us will ever
>> know that.  All we do know is that DEC let him take it with him
>> when he left and asserts no ownership over any of the subsequent
>> versions.
> 
> Did they supply written release of ownership? Letting him take
> it doesn't necessarily release ownership, but might indicate
> that they don't claim exclusive ownership. 

Not being Bob or DEC, I can't say what the agreement actually was.
But based ont he fact that we have his word that they let him take
it and the total absence of any DEC Copyright in the code I think
we are safe to assume that, whatever the manner, it became the sole
property of Bob Supnik when he left DEC.

> 
> But yes, to claim exclusive ownership he would have had to
> document both that it was personal time, and that only publically
> available reference sources were used. 

Not usually enough.  Having had access to non-public information is
usually enough for a rulling that "cleanroom" does not apply.  One
can not empty one's head when they walk out the door at 5:00 PM.

> 
> (and, again, IANAL)

Neither am I, but I have attended courses on IP and Copyright.
I would recommend that anyone interested in actually generating
IP attend them as well.  The world in general, and the Web in
particular, is loaded with bogus information.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>