[Info-vax] Old DECUS VMS SIG tapes (pre-1984)

[terry+googleblog at tmk.com]

On Monday, June 1, 2015 at 7:25:35 PM UTC-4, Rich Alderson wrote:
> Dave Carroll at XX2247, to whom the remnants of Mentec sold the rights several
> years ago.

Per https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sys.pdp11/IzOvyR8EVuo the rights apparently do not include the right to give away licenses to use the software. From that previous discussion, there appears to be a fixed per-copy royalty due to HP as the corporate successor of DEC.

On the one hand, that would seem to imply that acquiring the rights from Mentec would be relatively inexpensive; on the other that there doesn't seem to be a lot that could be done with such rights, other than perhaps a consultancy that provided software maintenance services for previously-licensed copies.

I find it amusing that people argued vociferously in that thread (and spill-overs to others) that all license rights to use PDP-11 software under an old SIMH version terminated because DEC no longer exists, but that the licenses Mentec obtained remain valid through the DEC -> Compaq - HP corporate succession.

Anyway, I'm not a lawyer and don't particularly care. I pointed out that I have appropriately-licensed copies of the software. Should anyone want to do the legwork to get permission to make it available and forward that to me, I'd be happy to provide the software.

Just so this post isn't completely technical-content-free, I'll remark that XX2247 is a great name. Trivia question: Can anyone here tell me what XX2265 was?