Where's the (c) on unix?

Barry Gold barryg at sdcrdcf.UUCP
Thu Mar 22 09:41:16 AEST 1984


Having heard from a friend that all of /usr/ucb except three programs was
public domain, I decided to look and see what was marked copyrighted and
what wasn't.  I have also obtained a list from RMS at MIT-AI of software
in the 4.2BSD tape that is believed to be in the public domain.
According to the list, the three programs are ex, eyacc, and wc.c.

I also looked through /usr/local/bin (and the corresponding /usr/local/src)
to see what was and wasn't copyrighted.  Some preliminary results on a
4.1 system:

CONTENTS OF /usr/ucb:

1kfix		eyacc		ls		pxref		vgrind
Mail		f		lsf		reset		vi
apl		finger		lsx		rewind		view
apropos		fmt		lxref		rotate		vmstat
biff		fold		man		script		vpq
ccat		from		mkstr		see		vpr
checknr		gets		more		soelim		vpr.nosoption
chfn		grep		msgs		ssp		vprint
chsh		head		newaliases	strings		vprm
clear		help		num		symorder	vtroff
colcrt		iul		page		tra		vwidth
colrm		l		pc		trman		w
compact		last		pi		tset		what
ctags		leave		pix		u		whatis
cxref		lisp		pmerge		ul		whereis
diffdir		liszt		print		uncompact	which
e		lnall		printenv	unexpand	whoami
edit		lock		prmail		uptime		xstr
error		lpq		pti		users		yes
ex		lpr		px		uudecode
expand		lprm		pxp		uuencode


I didn't check *all* these files, but here's the status of the ones I did
check:

source not found:
	uptime
	MH (and associated programs: comp,dist,folder,folders,forw,inc,
	   mh,mkprof,msg,next,prev,prompter,rmf,rmm,scan,show, sndmsg)

source access denied:
	Mail            uptime          ex (& vi)

Marked copyright Regents of UC:
	lisp            liszt           eyacc

Not marked:
	checknr         chsh            clear           colcrt
	colrm           compact         ctags           error
	expand          finger          fold            grep
	head            mkstr           more            msgs
	num             printenv        soelim          strings
	tset            ul              uncompact       unexpand
	uudecode        uuencode        w               wc
	what            whereis


CONTENTS OF /usr/local/bin:

MH		e15		indent		panout		sfcopy
Pnews		e15.help	ined		paragrep	show
TrmTERM		e17		ined.real	pick		sidel
a86		emacs		intext		pmail		sidl
adduser		emc		intext2		pmail.old	sidmdate
altacct		emc.new		istat		pmail2		sidmdump
ar86		emc2		itp		pmail2.old	sidmload
bban		etherwatch	itpz		prev		sidmread
bug.ar		fcopy		itpz.xdict	print1170	sidmwrite
c86		fd2		just		prompter	smail
calls		file		l		pupechosend	sndmsg
cchk		file.mh		l8086		pupechoserve	sqzdir
cdb		file.msg	last		pwd		su
central		find		lastcomm	qcalc		sysline
charge		fixlpr		ld86		ranlib86	sysline.old
charges		fixnews		lgrep		rcs		sysversion
ci		fixown		localcmd	rcsdiff		talk
cn		fjust		lock		rcsmerge	teco
co		folder		mail.mh.testin	rcssupport	tfix
code		folders		makefont	re		trace
comp		format		mc		recnews		tymnet
copy		fortune		menu		recover		umodem
cost		forw		mh		repl		unpack
cost.awk	fstodev		mkprof		report		usage
cpdir		ftp		more		rlog		userlog
cpfont		getfs		msg		rmail		uurec
d9700		iconc		netalias	rmf		v6run
d9700.old	icont		netnews		rmm		v7run
dbadd		iconx		netupd		rn		vanish
dbcreate	id		newacct		rogue.noshesc	vinodb
dblist		idel		newcmd		roll		vkbd
dbprint		ident		news		rpl		vsh
devf		idl		newsetup	run		wicomo
diracct		idmboot		newsetup.csh	run.csh		wicomo.real
dired		idmdate		newsgroups	sc		wm
dirstat		idmdump		newsinfo	scan		wmmore
dirtree		idmload		next		scopy		wmraw
dist		idmread		nm86		sdiracct	wmscrn
dropme		idmwrite	old_emacs	secure_csh	wmshmon
dscript		iidel		out		securesorry	xlisp
dvi		ilog		page		send		xroff
e		inajo		page.old	sendanews
e10		inc		panin		sendbnews


status of the files I checked:

source not found:
	Pnews   (local variant of inews)
	cchk    (c indentation checker)
	menu
	vkbd    (virtual keyboard compiler for e15)

source access denied:
	cdb     (c debugger)
	find
	ci,co,ident,rcs,rcsdiff,rcsmerge,rlog
		(part of Revision Control System - see below)

Marked copyright:
	emacs           copyright James Gosling
	RCS             source inaccessible, manuals say copyright
			Walter F. Tichy

Marked proprietary

	e15     proprietary Rand Corp.

Not marked:
	calls           code            dvi             fd2
	mc              more            pmail           talk
	umodem          vanish          vsh

Special cases:
        cchk was locally written and the author's home directory is
inaccessible

	rn was locally written; the source is in the author's home directory
and not marked in any way.

The only indication that much of the stuff even comes from a given source
is an RCSID line at the beginning of most of the ucb stuff.

===========> FLAME ON <============

How are we poor innocent programmers to know what's copyrighted and what
isn't if BTL doesn't bother marking the stuff and there's non-copyrighted
stuff in the same directories?

I'm perfectly willing to respect everyone's copyright (even the "big bad
guys" like IBM and BTL), but I think I'm entitled to fair notice!!!
Don't you?

Awhile back a fellow netter called me to task for including the entire
text of dd.c along with a fix I was sending out to net.sources.  I looked
back at it.  NOT ONE WORD ABOUT COPYRIGHT appears anywhere in the
original source.

I'm going to wait awhile for answers, but unless somebody comes up with a
good reason to assume otherwise, I'm going to assume that anything
that doesn't have a copyright notice is available to port to my home
system and putz with--except for stuff like dd that I have other reasons
to expect to be BTL property.

My thanks go to James Gosling, Walter F. Tichy, and the authors of lisp
for taking the trouble to put notices in their programs.  May the
Dark Trolls overtake BTL and anyone else who couldn't be bothered to
insert one measly comment with a notice at the start of their
proprietary programs.

For contrast, EVERY module of IBM's BSEPP program product starts out with:

**************************************************************
*                                                            *
*    5748-XX8     COPYRIGHT    I B M  CORPORATION    1979    *
*                                                            *
*    LICENSED MATERIAL - PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M           *
*                                                            *
**************************************************************

===========> FLAME OFF <============

How about it, you legal types out there?  My layman's understanding of the
new copyright law is that publishing something without a notice doesn't
void the copyright (as the old law did), but definitely limits the
copyright holders recovery rights against innocent infringers
(those who weren't notified.)

And you other authors:  anyone care to post your copyright notices where
people can see them?

Maybe we should have a non-expiring newsgroup to contain after-the-fact
copyright notices :-)

-- 
	Barry Gold
	usenet:         {decvax!allegra|ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!ucla-s!lcc!barry
	Arpanet:        barry at BNL



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