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

[Simon Clubley]

On 2013-10-03, Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> wrote:
> In article <l2jlgg$8pc$1 at dont-email.me>,
>  Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> 
>> However, at the same time, I don't see the same as applying to the public
>> documentation; I don't see any reason why I cannot read through the public
>> RSX documentation also available from Bitsavers.
>
> I remember some pretty serious copyright statements on that 
> documentation, for example "shall not reproduce in whole or part... 
> without the express written permission of..."
>

Johnny said earlier on that DEC released it's control over the out of
print documentation and that's a recollection I have as well.

However, thinking about it, I now wonder if that applies to only, say,
the PDP-8/PDP-10 documentation and any older versions of the PDP-11
documentation at Bitsavers or if it applies to _all_ the PDP-11
documentation as well.

I had a quick look around and found a statement on a PDP-8 website
confirming the above statement about DEC releasing control of out of
print documentation, but without any exact details of what out of print
means in this case.

For example, does out of print apply to manuals for the old versions of
RSX developed at DEC, or does the control release not apply to _any_
RSX manuals because a later version of RSX was developed by Mentec
and hence a current version of the RSX manuals might technically
be considered to be still in print by the person who took over from
Mentec ?

At least with VMS, we don't have this problem because DEC/CPQ/HP put
the VMS documentation on it's own website in a freely downloadable
format.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world