Subject: Re: Question on the copyright removal event

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 22:11:24 -0500

> Dennis, I'm not sure this is at all relevant to the current
> situation. Do you have or know where the USL -> Novell
> asset purchase agreement can be found? You mentioned that
> the wording was unclear on what releases of UNIX were
> passed to Novell, and at the time you tried to have some
> releases (7th Ed & earlier?) held by AT&T. I'd very much
> like to see the original purchase agreement.

I've not seen the USL->Novell agreement and
don't have it.  About all I do have is the AT&T agreement
creating USL.  It was really explicit only about SV
plus some of the ancillary stuff like C++ and DWB.
In the SV section it mentioned "development versions."

All of this may well have been modified by
subsequent letters and agreements between AT&T
and USL and then between USL and Novell.

At the time of the USL suit against BSDi, I did
ask the AT&T lawyers whether AT&T could simply
release the 32V code, which was what was at issue
in USL vs BSDi/UCB.  They agreed that an obvious
reading would say we (as we were then) probably could,
but under a less obvious reading, perhaps not.

At that point some of the hesitation about getting involved in the
suit presumably came from the partial ties to USL  (AT&T still then majority
owner, I think).  Nowadays, post-trivestiture, both companies'
main interest seems to be not getting into the fight and also
not spending money on it.

	Dennis

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From: Warren Toomey <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 17:16:35 +1000

Dennis, Peter,

Greetings to you both. I was interviewed this morning about my
involvement in the Unix Archive, and it got me to thinking, maybe
its time to get some more history of Unix published. Peter's "Quarter
Century" was very good, but it came out seven years (?) ago. And
the SCO vs. IBM mess seems to have tainted AT&T and all things Unix.

I searched through the IEEE Annals of Computing History for Unix
papers, and there is not a single one, which astounded me completely.

At the very least, it would be good to get some of the Unix history
papers reprinted in Annals, e.g 1974 CACM, The Evolution of the
UNIX TSS.

Even better, IMHO, would be a compilation of important Unix papers
in a monograph, perhaps as a series of "chapters", each with a short
introduction or overview. I think I have floated this idea before.

I've got 4 months away from teaching (May to August), so I will
have a chance to work on this. However, I have no contacts in the
publishing arena, so I don't know who to approach etc.

Guys, what are your feelings on this? Peter, would Usenix be
interested in publishing such a compilation? If not, what is the
procedure to ask for permission to reprint old Usenix papers?

Thanks in advance for any comments, suggestions, obstacles etc.

	Warren Toomey

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 21:15:26 -0500

I've thought for a while about the possibilities of collecting
the material, mostly on my home page, into a book.
(At one point I even promised my boss I would do it).

What other things do you think should be there?  Mike
Mahoney, historian at Princeton, has transcripts of some
old interviews.  Some of Rob Pike's papers?

I think I mined most of the gold from the BSTJ/BLTJ
papers (meaning they are already available without
much effort, i.e. scanned where source was missing).

As Peter says, I don't think there will be permissions
problems with any of this.

I dunno about a publisher.  I could ask our editor at PH (==AW)
if he (really they--Greg Doench and John Wait) to see if
they have advice.

	Dennis

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From: Warren Toomey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:47:48 +1000

> old interviews.  Some of Rob Pike's papers?

I'd like to cast the net fairly wide to include technical papers,
how we got from A to B papers, extracts from Peter's book etc.
I'd also like to do Unix where Unix >> UNIX, e.g Kirk's paper
in Voices from the Open Source Revolution on the history of BSD.
I guess I'm sort of thinking of Peter's QCU, but expanded to have
contemporary papers/publications. There were also some good
papers in the 1985 Unix Review, and there is also the dissertation
by Ronda Hauben.

In terms of format, have either of you read "The Mind's I" by
Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett? The format is sections,
where each section has an overview/preface, followed either
by full papers, or extracts from books etc.
 
> if he (really they--Greg Doench and John Wait) to see if

Yes please. While I love the web, it can be ephemeral. I'd rather
have a book sitting on my shelf which will still be intact in 10
years [unless I've loaned it to someone...]

Thanks for the feedback.
	Warren