OpenVMS Community License

[Michael Kerpan]

In practical terms, I suspect that running VMS on a VAX (real or emulated)
will end up a lot like running DEC's PDP-11 software. Not technically
legal, but also not a practical problem, because the people who own the
rights simply don't care and aren't going to waste their time and resources
hunting down a bunch of nerds running obsolete software on ancient hardware
or some simulation thereof. If they DID decide that they cared, they'd be
within their right to go nuclear, but the odds of that happening are
exceedingly low.

Mike

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 10:21 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 7/29/20 10:07 AM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote:
> > On 29/07/2020 14:19, Paul Koning wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Jul 29, 2020, at 4:28 AM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk
> >>> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ...
> >>> For those of you with hobbyist licence PAKs, I presume that pakgen.c
> >>> will work on all versions that VSI doesn't support. I know it's
> >>> frowned on but it's not really different to running PDP-11 software
> >>> is it (as that is/was generally not licenced).
> >> Not licensed?  What about the Mentec hobbyist license?  That's pretty
> >> broad and clear.
> >>
> >>     paul
> >>
> > All I can find is one on the IA:
> >
> >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20110629021938/https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mader/delta/download/license.txt
> >
> >
> >
> > That covers SIMH rather than real HW (afaict). If there's another one,
> > that's good.
> >
>
>
> It also only covered SIMH until Bob Supnik left DEC.
>
> "MENTEC grants to CUSTOMER a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free
> license under MENTEC's INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS to use and copy
> the SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY solely for personal, non-commercial uses in
> conjunction with the EMULATOR."
>
> Note that EMULATOR is highlighted with capitalization.
>
> " EMULATOR shall mean software owned by Digital Equipment Corporation
> that emulates the operation of a PDP-11 processor and allows PDP-11
> programs and operating systems to run on non-PDP-11 systems. "
>
> Here it is defined.  "owned by Digital Equipment Corporation".
> That condition ceased to exist when Bob left DEC and DEC allowed
> him to take SIMH with him.
>
> This is plain English.  One does not need to be a lawyer to see
> what it actually says.  They were very explicit in their wording.
>
> bill
>