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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,comp.sources.d
Subject: UUCP source code is protected.  End of discussion.
Message-ID: <15442@sun.uucp>
Date: Sun, 22-Mar-87 19:03:21 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.15442
Posted: Sun Mar 22 19:03:21 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Mar-87 01:46:40 EST
References: <1019@osiris.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: guy@sun.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 54
Xref: mnetor comp.mail.uucp:360 comp.sources.d:481

>I was just surprised that everything in 99% of the source I've ever seen
>often has more copyright lines than actual code, and here uucp has none.

Some very early UNIX release (V5?) may have had copyright notices in
the source.  The V6 release had some comments at the front of the
form

	/*
	 */

that may have been fossils left behind when the copyright notices
were removed.  I heard a claim that there was some conflict between
trade-secret protection and copyright that required AT&T to remove
the copyright notices from the code.  Not being an expert on
copyright law, I neither believe nor disbelieve this claim.  Does
anybody know (first-hand, please) whether this was the case or not?

>	It was pointed out to me that the licensing agreement covers the
>entire distribution as trade secrets, but I don't see how that works when
>public domain source is included with proprietary source (for example Mike
>Muus' "ping" program). 

AT&T doesn't distribute "ping".  Berkeley distributes "ping".
Everything on BSD distributions that comes from AT&T source code (and
yes, kids, this includes large chunks of the kernel, even in 4.3BSD)
is protected by trade secret.

>	Considering the amazingly touchy attitude lots of people on the net
>have shown towards having carefully worded copyright notices in EVERYTHING,
>I was (and still am) suprised there is nothing in uucp.

There are few copyright notices in the source to UNIX as distributed
by AT&T prior to S5R3.  In S5R3, most, if not all, source - including
UUCP source - has a copyright notice attached to it:

	/*	Copyright (c) 1984 AT&T	*/
	/*	  All Rights Reserved  	*/

	/*	THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T	*/
	/*	The copyright notice above does not evidence any   	*/
	/*	actual or intended publication of such source code.	*/

*This* one, in fact, came from the "gio.c" module in the UUCP source.

The bottom line is

	The fact that there are no copyright notices in UUCP may be
	surprising, but it isn't significant.  If you think you can
	give UUCP out, just because some versions didn't have
	copyrights at the front, think again.

You can't do it.  Period.  End of discussion.  If you want to
continue the discussion, I suggest you continue it with AT&T's
lawyers.  I'm sure they'll be happy to set you straight on this....