[TUHS] Trade Secrets and Copyrights [was History of cal(1)]

[Rob Pike via TUHS]

I barely knew what any official Bell Labs policy was, it was all pretty
informal and you just asked for permission when it seemed the right thing
to do. But there was a story that someone, probably a physicist, wanted to
write a book and management said it was OK but they would take the
royalties. This caused two changes: the physicist left and wrote the book,
and management decided it was OK to write a book and keep the royalties
provided you asked first and got permission, which presumably depended
somewhat on performance and indirectly on the potential value of the
publication for PR.

-rob


On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 11:11 AM steve jenkin via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

>
>
> > On 21 Sep 2025, at 07:13, Clem Cole via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> >   However, the moment the ACM paper was published, in July 1974, or
> > Bach's 1986 book came out, AT&T could no longer call the UNIX IP a trade
> > secret.
>
> For those like me that missed this textbook:
>
> Full text on Internet Archive, 485 pp
>         <https://archive.org/details/DesignUNIXOperatingSystem/mode/2up>
>
> Q:
> Bach in his Preface (p10) notes the book is based on an internal
> Bell Labs course he gave, including exercises.
>
> He also notes the two special issues of BSTJ 1978/1984 on UNIX.
>
> Did he have to get clearance to write / publish the book
> from Bell Labs management: I don’t know their policies.
>
> Is that correct?
>
> Which seems like a deliberate corporate act to publish
> the UNIX  ’trade secrets’.
>
> This is ancient history and irrelevant now
>         - the legal fights are over :)
>
> Not trying to prosecute what’s past,
> seeking clarity.
>
> --
>