Distribution can be restricted by agreement - for instance, I can share source code with you under an agreement that you will not disclose it to others, and I can seek redress if you do disclose. That is common with software. But even absent modifying contract, the "fair use" right you mention is not absolute and unfettered. If I write a book and it is published, you cannot decide to print your own copies and distribute them; I have not waived my rights under copyright by publishing. Indeed, the book does NOT "pass into the public domain" until after expiration of my copyright. This is no different from the case where I invent and create a physical object and distribute it, subject to patent rights that I have acquired; although the physical object is (by logical necessity) out in the public, others may not freely copy it and deny me the benefit of my creativity. "Publishing" is "making public," but not "placing into the public domain" - you have correctly stated that "public domain" is a legal concept, but incorrectly defined it. Even distribution for no material gain (e.g. "freeware") is not "public domain."
DEC (and others) wrote some interesting licenses; although I might buy a DEC computer from you, complete with its software, I would not be legally entitled to use the software until I had negotiated my own license with DEC (or now, most commonly, Mentec). I've always thought that was a bit greedy, but it is lawful to create a non-transferrable license. Today, once the license fee for a given copy has been paid, that license is usually transferrable to another; I can give (or sell) you a copy of a book I purchased, too. But that does not change the author's rights to the material, nor those of the party in possession; it is simply not true that "placing the work in the hands of the public" means "they may now be freely redistributed".
Software does make things more complex; the corpus of law around it is still being established. However, the fundamental principle of a party's right to control of and recompense for his/her/its work product, be it physical or intellectual, still applies. Anyone who denies that, and acts accordingly, is simply a thief, notwithstanding their erudite rationalizations. -- Ian
My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mirian Crzig Lennox [mailto:mirian@cosmic.com]
Sent: Fri 9/6/2002 6:59 AM
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Cc:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Ultrix...
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002 02:27:39 +0100, Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> wrote:
>* Mirian Crzig Lennox wrote:
>
>> In fact, the concept of "intellectual property" is a fairly recent
>> perversion, and the consequence has been a steady depletion of the
>> public domain. When a piece of software (and Ultrix is an excellent
>> example) is tied up in copyright long after it is of any value to
>> anyone beyond pure academic interest, nothing is added to anyone's
>> wealth, and society as a whole loses.
>
>I think this is kind of unfair in many cases. Firstly copyright has
>lasted for a fairly long time for, well, a fairly long time. It's not
>some sinister new development which is keeping ultrix in copyright.
Copyright has existed for roughly 300 years[1]. However, the
construction of copyright as a form of property is a relatively recent
development. The original copyright term in the U.S. was a mere 14
years[2], and copyrights were adjudicated under tort law, not property
law. As framed in law and interpreted by U.S courts, the purpose of
copyright is foremost the public good (hence the "fair use" doctrine);
the act of 'publishing' is, as the etymology of the word suggests, a
contribution by the author to the public domain, in return for which
he or she is given exclusive right to profit from that work for a
limited prior time.
However, since 1960 the term of copyright has been extended 11 times,
so that no copyrighted work published before 1923 has entered the
public domain (nor will it until 2018, save for future extensions of
the term). The depletion of the public domain is real.
>Secondly, it's all very well to say that old and valueless bits of
>software should be freed, but if you are the organisation which has
>the copyright on these things it's really less trivial than you might
>think to just give them away. For a start, there's (almost by
>definition) no money in it, so any kind of work needed is costing
>money. Secondly there may be just plain trade-secret stuff in there,
>what do you do about that? There may be all sorts of other awful
>things that you don't want to let the world see.
This is all a totally unrelated issue however. Copyright refers
necessarily only to published materials, and published materials
cannot (by definition) be trade secrets. Furthermore, "public domain"
refers merely to legal status, not to any obligation to make physical
materials available. The presumption is that if a work is published,
then copies already exist in the hands of the public, and they may now
be freely redistributed.
--Mirian
[1] The Statute of Anne (1710, in England) is considered to be the
precursor to U.S. copyright law.
[2] It could however be renewed for a single further period of 14
years, provided the initial author was still alive.
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"It is a problem only if you choose to honor copyright laws." I can only hope that others (dis)regard your property rights, as you (dis)regard the property rights of others. BTW, where do you live? I could use a new monitor or two....
-- Ian King, speaking only for himself (the usual disclaimers apply)
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Sokolov [mailto:msokolov@ivan.Harhan.ORG]
Sent: Wed 8/28/2002 10:48 AM
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Cc:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Ultrix...
Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)update.uu.se> wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out a way of getting the MSCP driver from Ultrix
> available for porting to NetBSD.
I don't support NetBSD, but Ultrix' MSCP/SCA code is available to everyone.
> The problem is that it's (c) by Digital, now HP.
It is a problem only if you choose to honor copyright laws. Since that is your
personal voluntary choice, it is your problem.
> Could I be lucky enough that Ultrix actually have been released?
> And I'm talking Ultrix-32 here, not Ultrix-11.
The International Free Computing Task Force has freed the Ultrix-32 V2.00 and
V4.20 sources. They can be found on our FTP site in
ivan.Harhan.ORG:/pub/UNIX/thirdparty/Ultrix-32
--
Michael Sokolov 786 E MISSION AVE APT F
Programletarian Freedom Fighter ESCONDIDO CA 92025-2154 USA
International Free Computing Task Force Phone: +1-760-480-4575
msokolov(a)ivan.Harhan.ORG (ARPA)
Let the Source be with you
Programletarians of the world, unite!
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The chist paper on my home page is pretty complete (if telegraphic)
about bootstrapping B on the PDP-7 and later C (via B) on the -11.
It does not, indeed, explain TMG. Doug McIlroy did write TMG
(on the -7) first in assembly language, then bootstrapped
that into itself. Doug had used TMG to write EPL, the early
Pl/I compiler for Multics. I don't know whether he needed
to create a new implementation of TMG for that or whether
it was already running on the IBM 7094.
The paper also mentions (as does some of the other history stuff)
that Unix itself was written first in assembler on the GE-645
(running GECOS, not Multics at that point),
using a macro package that turned symbolic -7 instructions into
an object deck that could be rendered onto paper tape.
There is not much about TMG on the web that I can find
(and some of it is inaccurate).
Incidentally, TMG didn't immediately survive the move
to the -11. B was already in its own language,
and nothing else was using TMG besides itself.
Doug did revive it later just for fun, and it is in the
6th edition distribution--you can get it nearby!
Both on the -7 and the -11, TMG was implemented as
an interpreter for an abstract machine.
Dennis
Holden's link,
http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/pdp-11/11_20.html
reinforces my guess that our first -11 probably did
have just "PDP11" on the bezel. The one in my photo
(which has the 20) is doubtless our second -11.
I've looked at this page before, but it slipped my mind.
Our first -11 was very early, and its disk took several
months to arrive: it had TTY33 and high-speed paper tape
as its only peripherals besides the clock.
Early on, for fun, we tried assembling the DEC-supplied
assembler, which came on at least one (maybe more) long
fan-folded paper tapes. I don't think we ever succeeded; it had to
be fed in twice for the two passes, and enough characters
were dropped that phase errors occurred.
Incidentally, B programs could be run on this first pre-disk
-11, using cross-compilation from GECOS. There was
a stand-alone predecessor of dc!
BTW, apologies for the units slip in the earlier posting.
Indeed 128 words of RAM on the 11/10, 4096 words
standard on the 11/20 (we splurged with 12K).
Also BTW, the young woman on p. 104 of the first
manual has a just-so-1969 hairdo! She has her
index finger on one of the console switches, is
holding a Unibus jumper in the other hand, and
the caption is "The PDP-11 provides Direct Device
Addressing...." The Unibus address pin assignments
that replaced herwere probably more useful, but not
so redolent of history.
Dennis
I agree with your premise that copyright can be detrimental to broader interests, and the case of "obsolete but historically interesting" software is a prime case in point. However, copyright holders can choose to make things readily available without placing them in the public domain; the 'Ancient UNIX' license is a great example. If they choose not to do so, the law does allow them recourse. I doubt they would consume the resources to execute on that against individuals who are running old software for non-commercial purposes; I suspect that those who commit such indiscretions wholesale may not be treated with such latitude.
And, IMHO, those who baldly advertise their general disdain of copyright law are pretty much asking for it. -- Ian
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent my employer's opinions.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mirian Crzig Lennox [mailto:mirian@cosmic.com]
Sent: Thu 9/5/2002 4:56 PM
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Cc:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Ultrix...
On Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:15:52 -0700, Ian King <iking(a)microsoft.com> wrote:
>"It is a problem only if you choose to honor copyright laws." I can
> only hope that others (dis)regard your property rights, as you
> (dis)regard the property rights of others. BTW, where do you live? I
> could use a new monitor or two....
It is possible to respect property rights and yet disagree (to the
point of disobedience) with how the concept has been lately twisted by
monied interests in the United States.
The purpose of copyright is not to be a form of property; if it were,
copyrights would not expire. The purpose of copyright is to enrich
the public domain by encouraging authors to publish their works, by
ensuring them exclusive right to profit from their work for a limited
time after which time *the work passes into the public domain*. This
is plainly stated in the U.S. Constitution as the basis for copyright
law: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to
their respective writings and discoveries." [Article I, section 8].
In fact, the concept of "intellectual property" is a fairly recent
perversion, and the consequence has been a steady depletion of the
public domain. When a piece of software (and Ultrix is an excellent
example) is tied up in copyright long after it is of any value to
anyone beyond pure academic interest, nothing is added to anyone's
wealth, and society as a whole loses.
--Mirian
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<nl>
> I guess my MACRO-11 implementation of C isn't good enough.
> (Well, it ain't mine, it's the normal DECUS C, but I'm hacked some at it.)
<nl><nl>
and to bring this full circle, do you know where DECUS C came from?
<nl><nl>
> From: Al Kossow <aek(a)spies.com>
> To: pups(a)tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [pups] Bringing up the fist C compiler
> Content-ID: <9012_13188_1031248039_2(a)spies.com>
> Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 10:47:19 -0700
>
> <nl>
> > I guess my MACRO-11 implementation of C isn't good enough.
> > (Well, it ain't mine, it's the normal DECUS C, but I'm hacked some at i=
> t.)
> <nl><nl>
>
> and to bring this full circle, do you know where DECUS C came from?
> <nl><nl>
It is my understanding that it was a "clean room" reimplementation of
the 6th Edition Unix "cc" and "as".
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clowenst(a)ucsd.edu
Peter Wrangell <pwrangell(a)bsdmercs.org> wrote:
> I am looking for a copy of Ultrix 4.5 preferably on TK70 tapes but any
> medium will do. I have a MicroVax 3300 that I would like to breath life
> into again.
I can't help you with 4.5, but I have the full V4.00 TK50 distribution and it
fully supports MV3300 with DSSI. The tape images are on my FTP site in:
ivan.Harhan.ORG:/pub/UNIX/thirdparty/Ultrix-32/ult400vaxdist-tk50
On the same site I also have full sources for V2.00 and V4.20. (I have no
sources for the version for which I have the dist, and no dists for the
versions for which I have the sources... I guess I need to bite the bullet and
compile V4.20 myself. Some day maybe.)
MS
About a thousand years ago, I recall hand-building programs for 8-bit microprocessors (in what we'd call embedded systems today). In many cases, I was the "assembler", writing directly in machine code which was then either keyed in through front-panel switches or burned into a PROM.... -- Ian
-----Original Message-----
From: Johnny Billquist [mailto:bqt@update.uu.se]
Sent: Thu 9/5/2002 5:05 AM
To: Tim Bradshaw
Cc: pups(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [pups] Bringing up the fist C compiler
On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> * Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
> > How? It was written, of course. In assembler. By that time, you already
> > had the assembler, an editor, and other commonly used system programs, so
> > it's just a case of the normal development cycle.
>
> Is this known or is it deduction?
[...]
Ah. Ok, now I understand what you're asking for.
You want to know what the first C was written in, and what that
compiler/assembler was written in/on, and so on...
No, I'm just deducting. Since the reference posted said that TMG was the
first higher level language implemented, it follows that it must have been
written in a low level language, namely assembler.
Admittedly, the PDP-7 TMG *could* have been written in some high level
language on some other machine using some tool that made a PDP-7
executable, so your guess is as good as mine.
But even though I cannot account for all steps, I can guarantee that at
the end of the chain, you *will* find assembler.
I guess my MACRO-11 implementation of C isn't good enough. :-)
(Well, it ain't mine, it's the normal DECUS C, but I'm hacked some at it.)
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)update.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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Greetings,
I am looking for a copy of Ultrix 4.5 preferably on TK70 tapes but any
medium will do. I have a MicroVax 3300 that I would like to breath life
into again. Unfortunately the version in the Archives is too old to be
of use and it seems that there is no DSSI support in NetBSD. I would be
willing to trade old computer parts in return(I have Old SGI, Dec PDP
and and Sun Stuff). Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
-Peter
pwrangell(a)bsdmercs.org
