Path: utzoo!yunexus!oz
From: oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: dbm(3) legal status
Message-ID: <514@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 88 14:30:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: yunexus.514
References: <937@fig.bbn.com> <3046@palo-alto.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit)
Organization: York U. Computing Services - Magic Group
Lines: 39

In article <3046@palo-alto.DEC.COM> vixie@dec.com (Paul Vixie) writes:
>
>There's a dbm.c and a dbm.h in X Windows Version 11 Release 2. It's part
>of HP's contribution in the server directory.  Since X.V11R2 is freely
>distributable, I am assuming that this DBM package was written by HP and
>is not AT&T-derived (otherwise HP and MIT could get in trouble for sending
>it out to people without AT&T source licenses).  Looking at the code very
>briefly and comparing it with my memory of the 4.2bsd DBM source (not NDBM),
>it looked totally different.
>
>Paul Vixie

Hehehe. This is neat. It is indeed there, and you are wrong, it is
the one and the same dbm.c we know and love (?) (look under "old"
sources in your 4.3 distribution, and you shall find an identical
dbm.c). I strongly suspect though, that the cat was out of the bag
long before hp put dbm.* into X distribution. There was a posting few
years back, called mdbm, that was a derivative of ndbm, which i
suspect was derived from dbm.c. So, it is possible that even the
neighborhood cabbie may have a copy of it in her atari/st.

Now, I do not know exactly how long does it take for a piece of
software to lose its "trade secret" status and/or its copyright
protection, but, it appears to me that dbm/ndbm/etc.  are good
candidates. If I posted dbm.c to this newsgroup tomorrow, would I
get sued ?? I kinda doubt it. [Relax, this is just hypothetical. I am
not going to post, not until I get some legal or otherwise informed
opinion :-)] 

So, you want dbm.c ?? See x.11.2/driver/os/hpux/dbm.* in your
X distribution. If you do not have the X distribution, ask your
neighborhood cabbie for a copy. :-)

oz
-- 
The DeathStar rotated slowly,	      |  Usenet: ...!utzoo!yunexus!oz
towards its target, and sparked       |  ....!uunet!mnetor!yunexus!oz
an intense SUNbeam. The green world   |  Bitnet: oz@[yulibra|yuyetti]
of unics evaporated instantly...      |  Phonet: +1 416 736-5257x3976