Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: MINIX for the Macintosh
Message-ID: <4562@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 16 Nov 89 18:38:20 GMT
References: <1989Nov15.233227.24597@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <5817@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 33

In article <5817@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> ka2czu@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (robert.switzer) writes:
>That is, even if P-H doesn't want to incur the cost, someone else should be able to
>provide the modified, educational, MAC version.

The cost is not entirely the issue.  P-H is gradually beginning to see that
MINIX might be valuable in some sense.  They don't want to sanction any
distribution other than what the shrink-wrap license allows, since that
muddies their rights.  Either they do it or it gets killed.

MINIX legal issues have come up so often that they actually
hired a lawyer to deal with this and similar issues.  Her first reaction
was "no copying" but I argued against that saying that it was actually in
P-H's economic interest to allow a little bit.  I wanted to allow 3 copies
of each original.  She grudgingly said "Ok, 1 copy."  We compromised on two.
Starting in a couple of months, the shrink wrap license will say what you
can and cannot do with MINIX.  I actually got her to write this part in
English, not in ISO Lawyer Standard 4520.7(b)iii sub 3a bis.  It will say
"The purchaser is permitted to make 2 backup copies of the software."  If
you want to give them to your friends, that is up to you.  They can't make
further backups.   While enforcing this is not real easy :-) this is a lot
more liberal than the license that comes with, say, Word Perfect or Lotus.
And for the first time it is in black and white in a fairly unambigous way.
In addition, faculty members at bona fide educational institutions are
permitted to make unlimited copies for use in teaching or research at their
institutions.  Companies that want to make > 10 copies for whatever 
purpose can negotiate a site license with P-H.  I will, of course, continue to
post cdiffs of everything except the compiler to the net.  She doesn't know
about it, and probably wouldn't believe me if I told her that I talk to
16,000 people every day.

I hope this doesn't start a flame storm.  

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)