Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: posting fixes, license, and the u-area bug
Summary: hmmm
Message-ID: <1991Feb23.080050.21181@ico.isc.com>
Date: 23 Feb 91 08:00:50 GMT
References: <7667@crash.cts.com> <1991Feb21.141349.26015@virtech.uucp> <1141@gistdev.gist.com>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 43

flint@gistdev.gist.com (Flint Pellett) writes:
> cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
> >This will take time.  I too thought posting the fix would be appropriate, but
> >if there is a licensing agreement that stands in the way, there is nothing that
> >ISC can do about it.
> 
> Wrong.  ISC can go to AT&T and say "Please give us permission to
> violate the licensing agreement and post this fix."...

#ifndef reality

Wait...OK, I get it!  Marty should just spend a little of her copious free
time, or perhaps do it on her lunch hour...just drop by the local AT&T
office and have a friendly chat, say "By the way, we've got this little
problem, so would you folks mind if we posted, oh, say a couple hundred Kb
of the code we license from you?"  I'm sure AT&T won't mind if we say
"pretty please".

#else

Folks, I really *do*not* intend to be snide.  But let's keep some per-
spective here.
	- Even if no other considerations applied, and even if the
	  corrected code applied to os.o alone, it would require a quarter
	  meg of code.  A posting has to be done in 7-bit, so normal tools
	  will expand this to a third of a meg.  A posting that large is
	  rude, crude, and socially unacceptable to the point of overt
	  hostility.
	- ISC is not small, but AT&T has more lawyers than ISC has
	  employees.  Even if approval could be granted, it would take
	  far longer than it will take for ISC to put out a fix.  You DO
	  NOT just go ask a complicated question with various contractual
	  implications of a large organization and get a quick answer.
	  The time to answer such questions is measured in months.
	- AT&T is serious about its "intellectual property rights" in the
	  broad sense.  I assume you folks have seen the postings regarding
	  AT&T contacting commercial members of the X consortium for roy-
	  alties on using backing store?  Think about it.

#endif
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...But is it art?