On 2015-11-15 02:32, Paul Koning wrote:
On Nov 14, 2015, at 8:27 PM, Johnny Billquist <b...@update.uu.se> wrote:
On 2015-11-15 01:56, Mark J. Blair wrote:
On Nov 14, 2015, at 15:56, rod <rodsmallwoo...@btinternet.com> wrote:
I am of the opinion that RT,RSX M & D etc could be dealt with in exactly the
same way as the very successful OpenVMS Hobbyists program.
Has anybody contacted the RT-11 rights holder to see if they might be
interested in a program like that? I think it could only work with their
blessing and cooperation.
Jerome knows very well who owns it, and have tried various ways to put it into
the public domain. Unfortunately, him wanting it to happen is not really enough
to make it happen.
We need HP to release things.
HP? I know HP acquired VMS, but I always had the impression that all PDP11 stuff (except IAS???)
went to Mentec, not HP. So it's Mentec or its successors who own it, and who would have to do the
licensing. That might be anything from "no" to a hobbyist license to whatever they want.
Public domain? I suppose one could imagine that being done, but it's rare for stuff to be
released into the public domain. A generous license of some sort is more common; open source is
one good example, hobbyist or "not for profit" licenses are somewhat more restrictive but
still not a bad deal.
It's murky waters, I'm afraid. But essentially, as I understand the
state of things, DEC "sold" the PDP-11 software to Mentec, but at the
same time they retained the intellectual property rights. So Mentec
could develop and release new versions, but they were not free to
actually release sources to anything without approval by DEC. And
anything that says "DEC" should now be read "HP".
Compare it to the deal VSI did with HP about VMS. VSI now "owns" VMS, do
development and releases. Support, and all that. However, VSI are not
free to release the sources to VMS without HP saying so. (Or that is how
I've understood the agreement anyway.)
Another thing that I don't know is if XX2247 would possibly be required
to pay a fee to HP for each license sold. It might be, which would make
it hard to even give licenses for binary distributions tricky.
And there are things in the sources that could be claimed to still be
relevant. Such as RMS-11, which in a further developed form is still
sold as a part of VMS.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
