Subject: Re: Prehistoric UNIX licenses

From: Dion <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 16:47:35 PDT

Warren,

I asked our licensing folks back East.  They said there
is no problem in similar licensees exchanging software among
themselves.  In other words, your friend who resurrected
the PDP-11  can be considered a licensee since his machine
did once have a UNIX license, and if he agrees to
the same terms as your license states.   And if he is
therefore also a licensee, you can provide him with
copies of the software.

They are not willing to write a letter because they are busy
writing up real revenue deals.

I recommend you go ahead and provide the necessary UNIX code to
your university colleagues who have restored PDP-11s, as needed,
with the understanding that they are licensees also, as
deduced by the above rationalization.

I hope this works well enough.
-Dion

	From: Warren Toomey <[email-masked]>
	Subject: Re: Prehistoric UNIX licenses
	To: Dion <[email-masked]>
	Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 09:34:11 +1000 (EST)
	Cc: Warren Toomey <[email-masked]>
	
	In atricle by Dion:
	 
	> If you want it to be an official letter, it's a whole different ballgame.
	> I will see what I can find out, but it will take a while.
	
	I can imagine! I think in your original email you meant that SCO wouldn't
	take legal action against someone who distributed PDP UNIXs, but at the
	same time SCO wouldn't make it officially legal. Even if I can get a signed
	statement like that from someone there, that would be good.
	
	I don't think you guys are going to let the PDP UNIXs be legally freely
	redistributable, but perhaps we can reach a middle ground somewhere?!
	
	Many thanks for your effort and support in this.
	
	Cheers,
		Warren

---

From: wkt (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 14:18:20 +1000 (EST)

In atricle by Dion:
> 
> Warren,
> I asked our licensing folks back East.

Understandable!

> I hope this works well enough.

Hmm, it's the people who have never had a license that are the problem.
I've got, say, six people who have saved PDP-11s from the dump, and they
would rather run UNIX on them than RT-11. Is there some way that SCO can
give them the right to use UNIX? Even a cheap ($100?) single-user license
would probably be good enough, but I guess that's more paperwork for you guys.

The people who do have licenses (or work for departments with licenses)
don't have any problems. They've been exchanging software for years now,
as you pointed out.

We need a solution that's little or no work for SCO, reasonably cheap
for the people currently without licenses, and legally above board. I
know that Peter Salus and John Lions are negotiating for the right to
publish Lions' commentary on Sixth Edition Unix. Perhaps the SCO folk
looking at that problem might be persuaded to consider this problem
too, as they are fairly similar.

Anyway, I appreciate your help for a situation which isn't going to earn
SCO anything, and I'm sure you've got other things to look after. But if
you could keep the pot boiling at your end, that would be great. I
suspect SCO will get kudos from the Unix community for allowing Lions'
book to be published, and would earn similar kudos if they made these
antique UNIX versions available too.

Thanks for your help!

	Warren