[Info-vax] New free Load Average driver (LAXDRIVER) to replace LAVDRIVER

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 6/20/2022 8:59 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-06-17, Jake Hamby <jake.hamby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've put it under an MIT license: it's all my original work, except
>> for the skeleton and some of the function comments that came from
>> the sample LRDRIVER.C in sys$examples that I used as a template
>> (I'm sure VSI won't mind since they put the code there as an
>> example). There's a test app you can compile as test-lav-driver.exe
>> to read from the original VAX FP LAVDRIVER, or with /float=ieee to
>> build as test-lax-driver.exe and read fixed-point with 14-bit
>> scaling factor from my new driver. >
> It may not be that simple. VSI are constrained by what the HPE contract says
> and the copyrights on the original source code.
> 
> For example, just because the EVE source code is in sys$examples, it doesn't
> mean that VSI or a VMS user can just post it on GitHub (for example).
> 
> That said, I do hope that you are right.

Copyright rules are pretty strict. Stuff in SYS$EXAMPLES
are copyrighted and one need permission to use
copyrighted material.

But I think in this case one could try argue:
- the stuff in SYS$EXAMPLES are obviously intended
   to be used so it must be OK to use it at
   least locally
- everybody using this code will obviously have
   a VMS system and a SYS$EXAMPLES with the same
   stuff already, so it is distributing code to people
   that already have a legal copy of that code

The argument also points to a workaround: distribute
only ones own code and a script that merge it with
SYS$EXAMPLES stuff.

Arne