OpenVMS Community License

[Warner Losh]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 3:00 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 7/29/20 4:22 PM, Bob Smith wrote:
> > I am not sure I understand your "as it turns out there was only one"
> Bill.
> > Am I correct in assuming you are talking about DEC owned, and meaning
> > that Bob Supnik one?
> >
> > John Wilson's Ersatz 11, aka E11, was and is a great functioning
> > emulator, but not owned by DEC.
> >
>
> We were discussing the Mentec Hobbyist License.  It never covered
> E11 or anything other than the Supnik Emulator when he was a DEC
> employee and DEC actually owned the IP.
>

How much of the IP does DEC need to own (the license is unclear on this
point)? Unless they conveyed the Copyrights to Supnik in writing (which is
possible), they (well their successors in interest) still have an ownership
interest in the emulator. One could make a case that the wording of the
license is imprecise enough (it didn't exclude successors in interest, for
example). Though finding out would require litigation, which is an
expensive game... and is apparently against the wishes of Mentec, at least
as expressed privately over the years...

The problem with the license being that it's written in a bit too plain
language which makes it a bit ambiguous once DEC was sold to Compaq and
then to HP since they are a successor interest for many other things...

Warner


> > Not arguing, just making sure I understand your statement
> > thanks
> > bob
>
> bill
>
>
>