24 Dec
2003
24 Dec
'03
3:09 p.m.
On Wed, Dec 24, 2003 at 03:17:57AM -0500, Norman Wilson wrote:
About 2 years ago, Dennis Ritchie sent me a long e-mail explaining why
certain releases of UNIX, and 32V in particular, did not have any
copyright notices. When I get back from holidays, I'll see if Dennis
will let me forward the information here.
As I
understand it, Editions 7 and 32V could have had copyright
protection without registration since they were released after
1978. However, because they lacked copyright notices when
released, they may very well be considered public domain....
Notwithstanding other comments about the history, for practical purposes
none of this matters for Seventh Edition and 32V and anything earlier,
because Caldera (as it then was) open-licensed them in January 2002;
see http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf. Among those whose work produced ... the current
BSD-like license,
was Warren Toomey, who manages that web server and this mailing list.
I don't think it will give him a swollen head (or a wooden leg) to
thank him now and then, and I do so here.
It does make me go Owwww sometimes, especially with this SCO thing.
Have a good and safe Christmas, all.
Warren