[TUHS] Re: Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[TUHS] Re: Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[Norman Wilson]

Marc Donner:

  Having taken my daily troll pill, I am forced to ask, where is
  'Reply-to-the-right-folks'?

=====

Don't they all use VMS, to own the Eunuchs?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[steve jenkin]

> On 16 Mar 2023, at 08:22, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> Is there any market for System V at this point?  I would think it's 
> Windows, MacOS, Linux and anything else is an also ran at this point.

Is this the right question, treating System V as commercial?

"What “uses” would SysV codebase have now?" may be a better Q.

Minor commercial use, restricted to old hardware.

A platform for research and hobbyist non-commercial use.

And for the intellectually curious,
to document the evolution of the codebase through time.
[ for ‘completeness’ of the git repo ]

At best, academically it might enable a comparative code course
and some PhD’s.

I think it’d be quite some legacy to leave a complete tree
of the evolution of Unix, from the earliest versions,
out to the end.

But having corporates give up any “Intellectual Property”
isn’t likely. Not until a bunch of people have died :)

--
Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin

[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Warner Losh]

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On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 3:56 PM steve jenkin <sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au>
wrote:

> "What “uses” would SysV codebase have now?" may be a better Q.
>

A System V release 2 might have very limited use (old VAXen are all it ran
on from
AT&T though there were at least a few ports: 68k for sure).

The successor code base of OpenIndiana which forked from OpenSolaris which
was System Vr4 plus a bunch... And that's open... illumos is still using
that for its distribution... They'd have been totally dead, imho, were it
not for OpenZFS using illumos for so long as the reference platform (that's
changed, so now Linux and FreeBSD are the reference platforms, though one
of those two is more equal than the other).

But the successor code base being open isn't quite the same as System V
being open. There's no 'orphan exception' or 'abandonware rider' that would
allow us to distribute this without any legal risk.

But there's the rub: what's the legal risk. The legal risk here is that
somebody could show up and assert they have rights to the software, and
that we're distributing it illegally. Actual damages likely are near $0
these days, but statutory damages could become quite excessive. But to get
damages, one would likely need a lot of money to fight it, and there's not
any kind of real revenue stream from System V today (let alone from System
V r2). Plus, were this successfully prosecuted, it's not like that would
increase that revenue stream: TUHS has no assets, so the current IP owner
would have to somehow assess there was blood to be had from this stone,
which is unlikely... So, how do you rate the risk of a low-probability,
high damage outcome vs the near certainty of a no-damage outcome. Since
it's none of our butt's but Warren's, he gets to decide his comfort zone
here. :)

So the risk of adverse consequences is likely low, but not zero were we to
distribute this without a license to do so. There's plenty of others that
are doing so today, but that's between the others and whatever IP owners

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice...

Warner

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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Luther Johnson]

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I think the real risk is not measured in dollars, but potential damage 
to reputations, ill will, the perception that it's not legal or kosher, etc.

So I completely understand this well-founded caution.

However if anyone was interested in approaching the license holders and 
seeing if licenses could be obtained or purchased, I'm interested in that.

On 03/15/2023 04:30 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 3:56 PM steve jenkin <sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au 
> <mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au>> wrote:
>
>     "What “uses” would SysV codebase have now?" may be a better Q.
>
>
> A System V release 2 might have very limited use (old VAXen are all it 
> ran on from
> AT&T though there were at least a few ports: 68k for sure).
>
> The successor code base of OpenIndiana which forked from OpenSolaris 
> which was System Vr4 plus a bunch... And that's open... illumos is 
> still using that for its distribution... They'd have been totally 
> dead, imho, were it not for OpenZFS using illumos for so long as the 
> reference platform (that's changed, so now Linux and FreeBSD are the 
> reference platforms, though one of those two is more equal than the 
> other).
>
> But the successor code base being open isn't quite the same as System 
> V being open. There's no 'orphan exception' or 'abandonware rider' 
> that would allow us to distribute this without any legal risk.
>
> But there's the rub: what's the legal risk. The legal risk here is 
> that somebody could show up and assert they have rights to the 
> software, and that we're distributing it illegally. Actual damages 
> likely are near $0 these days, but statutory damages could become 
> quite excessive. But to get damages, one would likely need a lot of 
> money to fight it, and there's not any kind of real revenue stream 
> from System V today (let alone from System V r2). Plus, were this 
> successfully prosecuted, it's not like that would increase that 
> revenue stream: TUHS has no assets, so the current IP owner would have 
> to somehow assess there was blood to be had from this stone, which is 
> unlikely... So, how do you rate the risk of a low-probability, high 
> damage outcome vs the near certainty of a no-damage outcome. Since 
> it's none of our butt's but Warren's, he gets to decide his comfort 
> zone here. :)
>
> So the risk of adverse consequences is likely low, but not zero were 
> we to distribute this without a license to do so. There's plenty of 
> others that are doing so today, but that's between the others and 
> whatever IP owners
>
> Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice...
>
> Warner
>


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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Warner Losh]

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On Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 5:42 PM Luther Johnson <luther@makerlisp.com> wrote:

> I think the real risk is not measured in dollars, but potential damage to
> reputations, ill will, the perception that it's not legal or kosher, etc.
>
Yea. However, there could be novel, perhaps untested, legal theories one
could use in this circumstance. THE LAW often times isn't cut and died like
engineering.

In this case one could likely argue fair use because the purpose is
educational and only a small portion of the source is ever disclosed at any
time. One look no further than google books to see this working out. They
won cases with similar broad stroke outlines, though they had the resources
to win...

My earlier analysis was more on the worst case financial side of things.

> I completely understand this well-founded caution.

As do I, to be honest.

However if anyone was interested in approaching the license holders and
> seeing if licenses could be obtained or purchased, I'm interested in that.
>

Yea. Only way I see that working is buying the rights outright... I suspect
too few licenses would be sold to recoup even a modest amount of effort it
would take. I'd bet it would only be a modest sum at this point..

Warner

On 03/15/2023 04:30 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 3:56 PM steve jenkin <sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au>
> wrote:
>
>> "What “uses” would SysV codebase have now?" may be a better Q.
>>
>
> A System V release 2 might have very limited use (old VAXen are all it ran
> on from
> AT&T though there were at least a few ports: 68k for sure).
>
> The successor code base of OpenIndiana which forked from OpenSolaris which
> was System Vr4 plus a bunch... And that's open... illumos is still using
> that for its distribution... They'd have been totally dead, imho, were it
> not for OpenZFS using illumos for so long as the reference platform (that's
> changed, so now Linux and FreeBSD are the reference platforms, though one
> of those two is more equal than the other).
>
> But the successor code base being open isn't quite the same as System V
> being open. There's no 'orphan exception' or 'abandonware rider' that would
> allow us to distribute this without any legal risk.
>
> But there's the rub: what's the legal risk. The legal risk here is that
> somebody could show up and assert they have rights to the software, and
> that we're distributing it illegally. Actual damages likely are near $0
> these days, but statutory damages could become quite excessive. But to get
> damages, one would likely need a lot of money to fight it, and there's not
> any kind of real revenue stream from System V today (let alone from System
> V r2). Plus, were this successfully prosecuted, it's not like that would
> increase that revenue stream: TUHS has no assets, so the current IP owner
> would have to somehow assess there was blood to be had from this stone,
> which is unlikely... So, how do you rate the risk of a low-probability,
> high damage outcome vs the near certainty of a no-damage outcome. Since
> it's none of our butt's but Warren's, he gets to decide his comfort zone
> here. :)
>
> So the risk of adverse consequences is likely low, but not zero were we to
> distribute this without a license to do so. There's plenty of others that
> are doing so today, but that's between the others and whatever IP owners
>
> Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice...
>
> Warner
>
>
>

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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Rich Salz]

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> Yea. However, there could be novel, perhaps untested, legal theories one
> could use in this circumstance.
>

All you need is one person who can claim (or show) that they are a
copyright holder to serve TUHS with a DMCA take-down, and kiss this group
goodbye.

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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Dave Horsfall]

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On Wed, 15 Mar 2023, Rich Salz wrote:

> All you need is one person who can claim (or show) that they are a 
> copyright holder to serve TUHS with a DMCA take-down, and kiss this 
> group goodbye.

Call me naïve, but how would a foreign law be enforced in Australia?

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Rich Salz]

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>
>
> Call me naïve, but how would a foreign law be enforced in Australia?
>

I didn't know the site and people in charge of it were in Australia.
Ignorant just assuming it all revolves around us. But I suppose some global
firm could still cause trouble, especially since Australia is a party to
the Berne convention.

>

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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[segaloco via TUHS]

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Aside from just legal matters there's also just the matters of ethics and responsibility. Of course, corporations aren't bastions of these principles, but playing within the lines in at least some fashion stands to put less strain on individual lines of contact and establishes good precedent on future-such goals. If some group were to be found to be incredibly lax with legal ramifications out of a perception that they didn't matter, that group is much less likely to be able to work through the proper channels in the times it does matter. That damage or not to perceptions in some ways could do more lethal damage to a historical effort than, say, legal red tape.

- Matt G.
------- Original Message -------
On Thursday, March 16th, 2023 at 5:33 PM, Rich Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Call me naïve, but how would a foreign law be enforced in Australia?
>
> I didn't know the site and people in charge of it were in Australia. Ignorant just assuming it all revolves around us. But I suppose some global firm could still cause trouble, especially since Australia is a party to the Berne convention.
>
>>

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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[G. Branden Robinson]

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[replying only to list]

At 2023-03-17T01:05:56+0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
> Aside from just legal matters there's also just the matters of ethics
> and responsibility.  Of course, corporations aren't bastions of these
> principles,

Indeed not.  For any publicly traded company, and not a few privately
held ones, the _only_ ethical principle is, as the cryptocurrency
aficionados say, "number go up!" (increase the share price).

> but playing within the lines in at least some fashion stands to put
> less strain on individual lines of contact and establishes good
> precedent on future-such goals.

This is speculative.  I think the lengthy and expensive SCO v. IBM case
established a (rebuttable) presumption that much of what we call Unix,
at least those parts that the Berkeley CSRG didn't replace or tidy up,
is an orphaned work.[1]  For purposes of copyright litigation, IBM had
(and has) all the money in the world, and SCOX(E) had nearly all the
money in the world thanks to underwriting (by Microsoft and others) who
saw the potential for extracting royalties from every Linux installation
in every data center in the world.

I would also point out that fair use _is_ "playing within the lines".

> If some group were to be found to be incredibly lax with legal
> ramifications out of a perception that they didn't matter, that group
> is much less likely to be able to work through the proper channels in
> the times it does matter.

Researching copyright title would appear to be a costly process, at
least for a work like Unix System V, which had many corporate
contributors, some of which are now defunct or whose status is unknown,
and whose legal successors-in-interest cannot be identified, let alone
for paperwork sufficient to clarify copyright ownership (for just one
aspect of what may have been a diversified business), located.

Think like a corporation: are you going to send off a team of senior
engineers and attorneys to research this stuff for jollies?  For however
long it takes?  What's the ROI?  If you're the director-level person
issuing this decree, you can expect to be challenged to justify yourself
to your Vice President at every quarterly meeting.

Who is going to say "yes" to that sort of project?

> That damage or not to perceptions in some ways could do more lethal
> damage to a historical effort than, say, legal red tape.

I'm sorry, but this view strikes me as cowardly.  Even granting the
existing copyright regime all the legitimacy in the world, I think the
evidence that the Unix System V copyrights have been responsibly
stewarded is meager.

Simply taking the System V sources and using them in commercial product,
without source disclosure, is, I think, the most _likely_ means of
agitating any potential copyright holders into assembling sufficient
documentation to substantiate a claim of copyright ownership to a
standard that wouldn't be laughed out of court.

But I will grant that that could be perceived as a rude and
uncooperative.  If one concealed their provenance, it would rightly be
considered unethical as well.

Consequently, putting the Unix System V sources up as the historical and
educational resource that the history of operating systems research and
development unquestionably establishes them to be, _is_ the gentle,
polite approach calibrated to elicit cooperation from friendly hands
inside firms that may be involved, given that is apparently too costly
for any one of these firms to slap up a web page saying, "yup, it's
ours, and here's the proof!", without exposing themselves to unfriendly
attention from the Federal Trade Commission for false dealing.

Getting a DMCA takedown notice would not, I am sure, be pleasant, but it
happens all the time and as far as I can tell it does not ruin lives or
even, of itself, cost people money.  That said, I wouldn't embark on the
project without competent legal assistance that is prepared to file a
counter-notice, to discourage the issue of a BS takedown notice.[2]  The
whole point is to build a documentary record we can have some confidence
in, for scholarly purposes among others.  But scholarly purposes don't
suffice to motivate anyone who has, or thinks they might have, the
rights to Unix System V, or they would have told us already.

If we want to find out who really has the rights to this stuff, we've
got to give them a reason to find out whether they do and announce
themselves.

As noted above, we've got to give them a reason to say "yes", even if it
comes with a "no": "yes, this is mine, and here is how I know, and no,
you can't do what you're doing".  And that means posing a question that
share price-sensitive executives are willing to find the answer to.

If you want my prediction, I don't think anyone will do anything.  The
answer to the question will not be uttered, but will resemble this.

"We believe this asset has no commercial value.  We don't know if we own
it or not, and finding out would cost money we're not willing to spend."

If I'm right, we'll be waiting a long time for that takedown notice.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_work

[2] Again, I'm not a lawyer, but my half-educated guess is that either
    the original takedown notice itself, if sufficiently clear, or any
    response to a counter-notice, would have to sufficiently clearly
    allege ownership of Unix System V copyrights that if the allegations
    were false, they would constitute "slander of title", which is one
    of the torts upon which the SCO v. IBM case turned.  So it would
    still accomplish our mission: if someone steps forward falsely
    claiming copyright ownership of the code, they open themselves up to
    liability to those firm(s) that actually do.  And if the true
    title-holders take the BS title-holders to court over it, we get our
    question answered then, too.

    If the lawsuit is profitable, then it's not inconceivable that we
    will establish the exact sort of friendly relationship with the true
    title-holders that you are afraid of jeopardizing.  Because anyone
    willing to issue a DMCA takedown notice--to a zero-profit bunch of
    old geeks with a web page--falsely claiming ownership of Unix System
    V copyrights is, I suspect, already making these fraudulent claims
    in private communications to firms who are paying them license fees.
    Why?  Because why does any corporation do anything?  For the money.

    This is one way we could go from being bold to being bona fide.

    A bit of courage could bring benefits for all except fraudsters.

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[TUHS] Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

[Dave Horsfall]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2023, G. Branden Robinson wrote:

> [replying only to list]

Short of replying to the sender alone, is there any other way to reply?  
I get annoyed by people blindly using "Reply to all" and are too lazy to 
edit the recipient list; I will see my own copy, after all...

-- Dave

[TUHS] Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2023-03-17T14:17:34+1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Mar 2023, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> 
> > [replying only to list]
> 
> Short of replying to the sender alone, is there any other way to reply?  

Apparently there is; reply-all seems to have become the norm over the
past 20 years.  I used to rail against it but I gave up.  Now it seems
some people (mainly younger people, perhaps) regard it as rude if I
_don't_ CC them on mailing replies.  Maybe they fear being ignored or
circumvented in decision processes.

> I get annoyed by people blindly using "Reply to all" and are too lazy
> to edit the recipient list; I will see my own copy, after all...

Years ago, the header "Mail-Followup-To" was developed as a convention
to get this under control.[1]  Maybe because the maintainers of GMail,
Outlook, and other web email portals that provided spam filtering
services, found themselves with better things to do than support it, we
arrived where we are today.  :(

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://cr.yp.to/proto/replyto.html

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[TUHS] Re: Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[Pete Turnbull]

On 17/03/2023 03:30, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2023-03-17T14:17:34+1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> On Thu, 16 Mar 2023, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
>>
>>> [replying only to list]
>>
>> Short of replying to the sender alone, is there any other way to reply?
> 
> Apparently there is; reply-all seems to have become the norm over the

Thunderbird has Reply, Reply-All, and Reply-List.  I'm sure you can 
guess which I'm using for this message.

-- 
Pete
Pete Turnbull

[TUHS] Re: Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[segaloco via TUHS]

I just hit whatever reply button I wind up hitting, usually reply all. End of the day, it's just words on a screen, if I have to skip past a few emails here and there due to random Cc lists, whatever, I'm not sorting physical junk mail, it all goes away when I turn off the screen.

- Matt G.

------- Original Message -------
On Friday, March 17th, 2023 at 8:12 AM, Pete Turnbull <pete@dunnington.plus.com> wrote:


> On 17/03/2023 03:30, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> 
> > At 2023-03-17T14:17:34+1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> > 
> > > On Thu, 16 Mar 2023, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > 
> > > > [replying only to list]
> > > 
> > > Short of replying to the sender alone, is there any other way to reply?
> > 
> > Apparently there is; reply-all seems to have become the norm over the
> 
> 
> Thunderbird has Reply, Reply-All, and Reply-List. I'm sure you can
> guess which I'm using for this message.
> 
> --
> Pete
> Pete Turnbull

[TUHS] Re: Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[Steve Nickolas]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2023, segaloco via TUHS wrote:

> I just hit whatever reply button I wind up hitting, usually reply all. 
> End of the day, it's just words on a screen, if I have to skip past a 
> few emails here and there due to random Cc lists, whatever, I'm not 
> sorting physical junk mail, it all goes away when I turn off the screen.

My client (alpine) offers "reply to sender", "reply to Reply-To", "reply 
to all".

It's about a pain to deal with this list, though.

-uso.

[TUHS] Re: Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To (was: Re: UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780)

[Marc Donner]

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Having taken my daily troll pill, I am forced to ask, where is
'Reply-to-the-right-folks'?

On Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 17:41 Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> wrote:

> On Fri, 17 Mar 2023, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
>
> > I just hit whatever reply button I wind up hitting, usually reply all.
> > End of the day, it's just words on a screen, if I have to skip past a
> > few emails here and there due to random Cc lists, whatever, I'm not
> > sorting physical junk mail, it all goes away when I turn off the screen.
>
> My client (alpine) offers "reply to sender", "reply to Reply-To", "reply
> to all".
>
> It's about a pain to deal with this list, though.
>
> -uso.
>

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