Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: Legality Status of Thomas Roell's X11R4 server Message-ID: Date: 10 Dec 90 19:57:08 GMT References: <5918@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <1990Dec6.173229.7100@jdyx.UUCP> <5953@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.db <50931@bigtex.cactus.org> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 49 Nntp-Posting-Host: odin In-reply-to: james@bigtex.cactus.org's message of 9 Dec 90 11:40:30 GMT On 9 Dec 90 11:40:30 GMT, james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) said: In article <50931@bigtex.cactus.org> james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van In article <50931@bigtex.cactus.org> Artsdalen) writes: james> In <5953@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de>, james> roell@informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Thomas Roell) wrote: james> The consequences of using AT&T source in a commercial product are james> considerably greater than PD software I imagine. From what I understand Thomas Roell did not after all include AT&T source in a PD product. He included a bug fix for AT&T source, a bug fix that can only be used by people who have AT&T source. It is my guess that Thomas Roell can legally access AT&T source to derive the bug fix, as with all probability his University is an AT&T source licensee. A number of free sw packages distributed by Universities and other entities that are AT&T source licensees come with patches to AT&T licensed source (Ingres 7 for example used to require a patch to the exit(2) implementation for the lock driver), and since the amount of AT&T licensed source is small, they have no reason to claim that their copyright or trade secret has been violated. I am a bit perplexed by the idea that he could have posted the ldterm source in its entirety, as an act of protest an defiance, but thank goodness he did not, and thought better. But this aborted intention is about the only thing that IMNHO he can be accused of. Morever the ldterm(4) patch mentioned has been *posted* on this net some months ago by somebody else, if memory serves me well. james> The difference is that Friedel is allowed to use gcc and gdb by james> FSF, whereas AT&T never authorized you to use their source. This james> is not a terribly subtle distinction. [ ... ] I confess that I james> was disappointed to learn that your server was tainted by illegal james> source access. First it must be shown that Thomas Roell is not covered by an AT&T license or that posting a small excerpt is a violation of that license or of the copyright. IMNHO it is perfectly correct in law and established practice to make public bug fixes to AT&T licensed source code, whether they are headers or actual program code. -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk