[TUHS] Re: Thoughts on Licenses

[Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>]

So I have to say "who cares?"  If we were talking about a modern multi
threaded, scaled SMP, NUMA aware, knows all about the latest PCI, etc,
OS, yes, whoever owns that might care.

I love the early Unix releases because they were so simple, processors
were simple then as well.

Other than as a learning tool, which is a big deal but not a financial
big deal, the early Unix versions have no value.  Nobody cares other
than us and we're, I dunno, but I would guess in the low thosands of
people.

I get that we all want the licenses to be above board but really, does
it matter?  Is anyone going to do anything with these early releases?
I worked on SCO, it was early when SunOS was around and it was not
friendly compared to SunOS and SunOS is long dead.  I can promise you
the number of people who care about SCO source are under 100.  As in
the people who would actually compile it, I bet it is under 10.

I'm all for doing the right thing but some of the time when people talk
about the licenses, I fail to see where a lawyer or a corporation is
going to care.  For them to care, they would need to see a way to make
money.  Nobody is going to make money off of 50 year old Unix releases.
Heck, nobody is going to make money off of 20 year old Unix releases.
As Rob Gingell said, bits rot.

On Sat, Jul 02, 2022 at 08:03:12PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> With spdx it would go in neither place.. spdx is prescriptive about where
> the bom and such resides.
> 
> But one of the big issues with thus stuff is things like USENIX tapes and
> other similar artifacts that have unclear or no license data still extant
> from the time, if there ever was. Or licenses that are poorly crafted. Some
> items have good and clear title, but many do not.  Unix itself has an
> unclear chain of ownership at the time the ancient licenses were granted,
> especially in light of rulings in some court cases (some of which conflict
> in their finer points). We likely do not want to be in the business of
> judging things beyond "we have a good faith basis to think we can
> distribute this"
> 
> So anything that goes beyond the simple spdx stuff, with our own extensions
> makes me nervous.
> 
> Warner
> 
> On Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 5:54 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> > Agreed
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 2, 2022 at 5:03 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> >
> >> If I were looking for licenses "Copyrights+Licenses" would make me
> >> find, "metadata" I wouldn't think to look in.
> >>
> >> But I'm an old retired dude without many brain cells left.
> >>
> >> On Sat, Jul 02, 2022 at 02:57:31PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> >> > Before we go inventing our own thing, let's just add spdx tags and
> >> > metadata..... there already is a standard for this.
> >> >
> >> > Warner
> >> >
> >> > On Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 1:09 PM Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > I would call that top level directory "metadata" ... the licensing
> >> stuff
> >> > > is quite relevant to the owner and operator of the system, but not
> >> directly
> >> > > relevant to any of its actual content or function.
> >> > > =====
> >> > > nygeek.net
> >> > > mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > On Sat, Jul 2, 2022 at 2:17 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > >> As part of some of simh work, I've been immersed in some licensing
> >> > >> discussions.  Thanks for the V8-10, Plan-9 and Inferno notes - they
> >> are
> >> > >> relevant.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> Anyway, WRT to TUHS, I'm thinking that at least in the case of the
> >> Unix
> >> > >> style bits, I propose a small change to Waren's top-level
> >> directory.   Add
> >> > >> a new dir called something like 'Legal Docs' or
> >> 'Copyrights+Licenses'.
> >> > >>  Then move the Caldera document and Warren's current note into that
> >> area.
> >> > >> Then add copies of anything we can collect like the Dan Cross's
> >> V8-10,
> >> > >> anything WRT to Plan9/Inferno or anything we from the UNIX world -
> >> such as
> >> > >> something Sun, DEC or HP or like might have added.  Maybe add a
> >> > >> subdirectory with the AT&T/USL case details.   And maybe add a
> >> > >> sub-directory with known FOSS licenses used by the UNIX community
> >> and add a
> >> > >> copy of the 3-clause BSD and maybe even the two GPLs.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> Then update the README in the current top-level dir.   Adding to the
> >> > >> contents something like "*the IP contained on this website is
> >> covered by
> >> > >> different licenses depending on the specific IP.  Copies of these
> >> can be
> >> > >> found with the source code itself, but have also been all collected
> >> > >> together in the top-level directory: ...*."
> >> > >>
> >> > >> I think these all have both historical values, as well as practical
> >> > >> values.  As I said, I was not sure myself and I think other would be
> >> less
> >> > >> ignorant if they could find it all easily.   In the case of the
> >> practical,
> >> > >> a for instance, in an email with some lawyers last week, I had
> >> pointed them
> >> > >> at the Caldera document.  I'ld have loved to have been able to say
> >> look in
> >> > >> this directory.  The Caldera and later Nokia Licenses are what we are
> >> > >> considering as examples.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> Thoughts?
> >> > >>
> >> > >
> >>
> >> --
> >> ---
> >> Larry McVoy            Retired to fishing
> >> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
> >>
> > --
> > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
> >

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            Retired to fishing           http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat