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

[Jonathan Gray via TUHS]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 11:05:31AM +1000, Jonathan Gray via TUHS wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 08:27:46PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o via TUHS wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 05:13:45PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> > > That said, in the BSDi case, the hacker community got it wrong.  AT&T went
> > > after BSDi/UCB under the trade secret claim, not copyright infringement.
> > > And, interestingly, the court did find *that AT&T owned the intellectual
> > > property*    — i.e., >>the core ideas<< which made UNIX so powerful and
> > > unique.  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.
> > 
> > So inquiring minds want to know.  When was the first date that Unix
> > was distributed outside of Bell Labs, and when was the first license
> > which included the assertion that it was a trade secret?
> > 
> > According to Wikipedia ("which is never wrong"),
> > 
> >    In 1975, the first source license for UNIX was sold to Donald
> >    B. Gillies at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC)
> >    Department of Computer Science.[27]
> 
> "The first educational licence was granted, in October 1973, to
> Columbia University
> ...
> The Children's Museum in Boston was the first non educational recipient
> of UNIX in October 1973"
> Pirzada's thesis, p 47
> 
> "In January 1974, a Version 4 tape was delivered and Unix was installed
> by graduate student Keith Standiford."
> McKusick - Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix
> https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/kirkmck.html

Pirzada's use of 'license' may be wrong here.

"Several universities contacted Bell Labs and received copies of the
Fourth Edition. Agreements were signed not to disclose the source code,
but no licenses were in use at this point."
Don Libes & Sandy Ressler - Life with Unix, p 7