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

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-10-03 12:15, JF Mezei wrote:
> On 13-10-03 05:48, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>> 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.

Yes. Good. So we are on the same page on the technicalities of the legal 
point.

> 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.
>
> 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 will not get a judge to for HP to release it, since you cannot claim 
we're talking about some "basic concepts" that are being protected here. 
We're talking about a specific product.

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

Now, this is a very uninformed assumption on your side.

> But here is the second crux of the matter:  because there is likely too
> little interest in the sources, the current owner doesn't have any
> motivation to go through the trouble and money of waking the HP monster
> up to get it to look into its archives for the status of the stuff and
> come back with an answer (whether through simple lawyer process or via a
> court).
>
>
> 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.
>
> 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).

So, you are free to offer the money to get the copyrights transferred to 
you, and sign the neccesary papers in relationship to HP. And then you 
can break those agreements you signed to. If you really believe in what 
you write, this should be very cheap and safe.

	Johnny