[Info-vax] Posts

[bill]

On 5/28/2024 2:44 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 5/27/2024 11:46 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
>> In article <v33ev3$dujk$1 at dont-email.me>, arne at vajhoej.dk says...
>>> On 5/27/2024 9:16 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
>>>> In article <v337me$92s3$1 at dont-email.me>, arne at vajhoej.dk says...
>>>>> Whether HP/HPE can give VSI a license to sell VMS binaries similar
>>>>> to how HP/HPE sold them and whether HPE can release the source code
>>>>> as open source under license XYZ are two different questions.
>>>>>
>>>>> And with supposedly 25 million lines, then it will require a 
>>>>> significant
>>>>> software engineering and legal effort.
>>>>
>>>> But HP/HPE didn't just give VSI a license to sell binaries.
>>>>
>>>> HP/HPE released source code to VSI and allowed VSI to take that code 
>>>> and
>>>> build new things on top of it (VSI OpenVMS).
>>>
>>> HPE does not have a say about VSI source code.
>>>
>>> VSI got the license to sell binaries that include HPE code. How much
>>> VSI code those binaries contains are less important. And the answer
>>> depends a lot on whether 8.4-2Lx or 9.x anyway.
>>
>> But HPE gave all of the OpenVMS *source code* to to VSI under some
>> license, a license that was different from any that had previously been
>> applied to this source code. Any 3rd party code present was either
>> sublicensed to VSI or removed and maybe provided in binary form only.
>>
>> For HPE to do this they had to do some work to figure out what they
>> could and what they couldn't hand over. HPE had to be sure of their own
>> rights before they could grant any rights to VSI. And they had to remove
>> anything they weren't allowed to distribute, or go back to whoever owns
>> the code and get permission to sublicense it to VSI.
>>
>> I don't see how that work is any less than what HPE would have to do to
>> open source it. I guess if you're open-sourcing it you might want to
>> search for and remove any insults from the code? But thats probably not
>> strictly necessary.
> 
> It was not less work - it was different work.
> 
> The right to give source code to VSI for use in VMS is one thing.
> 
> The right to open source the code so that everybody can use it
> for whatever is another thing.
> 
> If company X owns some code used in VMS, then VSI may automatically
> be permitted to use it in VMS if the original contract was worded for
> it, or they may have needed a permission, which X would give either
> for money or because they had other business reasons to do HPE a favor.
> It is extremely unlikely that X would give HPE permission to give
> X's source code away to the entire world.
> 
>> Also, didn't DEC/Compaq actually publish some substantial part of the
>> OpenVMS codebase on Microfiche and CD-ROM? So presumably they would have
>> had pretty good records on what was fit for public release and what
>> wasn't.
> 
> They did.

Actually, I believe it hinges on the word "publish".
The source was not "published", it was provided to
certain paying customers with very strict rules.
Like they weren't actually to let just anybody look at it.


> 
> But "source available" and "open source" are two very
> different concepts.
> 
> "source available" just makes it possible to study the source.
> 
> "open source" gives people the right to use the source code.
> 
> https://opensource.org/osd
> 
> Arne
> 

bill