Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: is the shell copyrighted?
Message-ID: <3725@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 16 Oct 89 11:08:54 GMT
References: <8910160448.AA06026@mordor.eng.umd.edu>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 20

In article <8910160448.AA06026@mordor.eng.umd.edu> djm@mordor.eng.umd.edu (David J. MacKenzie) writes:
>
>I just got from an archive a two-part posting by ast of 5 Oct 1988
>containing the source code to a Minix shell.  There's no copyright
>message on it; can I assume that means it's in the public domain, and
>not covered by the Prentice-Hall restrictions?


The shell was written by Charles Forsyth at the University of York in
England.  England (unlike the U.S.) is a signatory to the Berne Convention,
which means that the author of any work, including software, gets 
automatic copyright to the work when it is created.  No notice is required.
That also applies to work generated by me in Holland.  Thus as to the
shell, P-H claims an anthology copyright on the whole package, but
Forsyth has the copyright on the shell itself.  What he does with it is up
to him.  I didn't have the impression that he was planning to do anything
with it, and don't think he objected to other people using it, but you'd
have to check with him (forsyth@minster.york.ac.uk).

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)