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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