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

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <524d43b4$0$44290$c3e8da3$38634283 at news.astraweb.com>,
	JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
> 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.
> 
> 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 this is totally different from what you have been proposing up
until now.  Feel free to dig down into your deep pockets and take
HP to court.  There is nothing to stop you.  Of course, it's a major
gamble (and I expect you wold lose) but you can do that.  And there
is also the issue that I doubt you would get a court date before I
was long dead and buried.  or do you think the Judges just sit around
in their robes playing pinochle, too?

>               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.

I see this as the most unlikely scenario.  Much more likely, primarily
because you have no legal basis on which to make your request, you will
lose and be required to pick up not only your lergal expenxses but HP's
as well for filing a frivolous lawsuit.  :-)

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

Again, that is not your call and you have no way of proving it.

> 
> 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).

And now you are back to having someone else do it for you.  If you think
it should be done, you do it, not Mentec, not XX2274.

> 
> 
> 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.

You really need to get back on your meds.  There have already been
billions of lines of "Historical" computer data lost.  Some of it
forced by the government who made it clear that they didn't give a
damn about preserving any of it.  

> 
> At the end of the day, this is all about these operating systems having
> historical value, not about having commercial value, 

Once again, you make a claim you can not prove.  And which is still
irrelevant as regards who owns the IP and what their responsibilities
towards it are.

>                                                      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).

And, again, both unprovable and irrelevant.

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>