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

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <524d43b4$0$44290$c3e8da3$38634283 at news.astraweb.com>, JF
Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes: 

> > Let us be clear here. Technically, according to law, we are not allowed 
> > to distribute it, nor run it without a license.
> > 
> > The discussions here really boils down to a "will HP bother"? And for 
> > people on the receiving end, chances are they will not. For the 
> > distributing end, maybe chances are also that they will not.
> 
> That is the crux of the matter here.
> 
> In some recent judgement about battles between handset makers, a judge
> ordered one company to make available IPs at reasonable price because
> they were for very basic concepts.

Not really comparable to what we are talking about here.

> So, I ask HP for rights to publish RSX or RSTS. HP doesn't reply.
> I go to court and get judge to force HP to pronounce itself, and if HP
> says "NO", then the judge can order HP to make it available for $1 or
> other amount because HP failed to provide reasonable excuse.

You are simply wrong about this.

> Making public 30 year old programs would not impact HP's competitiveness
> today (especially since HP is winding down its OS divisions).

Irrelevant.

> However, if social media campaign wer eto be organised and get attention
> of media on how HP is allwing historical computer archives to die
> instead of making them public, then HP's PR department might decided it
> is worth making them public.

This would probably backfire.

> At the end of the day, this is all about these operating systems having
> historical value, not about having commercial value, and the goal is to
> preserve them by making them public instead of protectiong them in a
> vault where they will be forgotten and lost within HP  (it is likely
> already lost when HP got rid of ZKO).

I see your point here, but I don't see any way of legally enforcing it.

I think VMS should be some sort of UN protected world heritage or 
whatever.  :-)