From cse.psu.edu!9fans-outgoing-owner Sat Aug 19 01:28:58 1995 Received: from colossus.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.1.2]) by cannon.ecf.toronto.edu with SMTP id <791>; Sat, 19 Aug 1995 01:28:48 -0400 Received: by colossus.cse.psu.edu id <45517>; Sat, 19 Aug 1995 01:19:31 -0400 Received: from plan9.att.com ([192.20.225.252]) by colossus.cse.psu.edu with SMTP id <45478>; Sat, 19 Aug 1995 01:11:50 -0400 Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 01:05:52 -0400 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu From: dmr@plan9.att.com (Dennis Ritchie) Subject: distribution of changes Message-Id: <95Aug19.011150edt.45478@colossus.cse.psu.edu> Sender: owner-9fans@cse.psu.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Status: RO The question arises Since we are bound by the licence not to distribute modified versions of THE SOFTWARE to anyone without a licence, do we have a plan by which we can authenticate licensees? It would be reasonable to assume for practical purposes that anyone who goes to the trouble of subscribing to 9fans is either a licensee or a member of an organization that has a licensee (I'm proud that I sneaked that clause into the shrink-wrap). Anyone can get the entire authentic source for $350. I'm quite certain that quoting fragments of it on a mailing list, or archiving repaired versions of things on an FTP site, is unlikely to be objectionable until the quantity grows to a level at which Plan 9 can be reconstructed more cheaply by seining out its source from the list--that is, the point at which demonstrable harm begins to exist. If that happens, expect mail from us asking you to stop, please; also expect mailbombs from 9fans readers who already have the system and don't want to find another copy in their mailboxes. Dennis From cse.psu.edu!9fans-outgoing-owner Fri Sep 8 18:23:50 1995 Received: from colossus.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.1.2]) by cannon.ecf.toronto.edu with SMTP id <4496>; Fri, 8 Sep 1995 18:23:48 -0400 Received: by colossus.cse.psu.edu id <45711>; Fri, 8 Sep 1995 18:05:14 -0400 Received: from plan9.att.com ([192.20.225.252]) by colossus.cse.psu.edu with SMTP id <45783>; Fri, 8 Sep 1995 17:07:42 -0400 From: dmr@plan9.att.com To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 16:32:46 -0400 Subject: Re: licensing terms Message-Id: <95Sep8.170742edt.45783@colossus.cse.psu.edu> Sender: owner-9fans@cse.psu.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Status: RO As Presotto mentioned in another context, to get an authoritative answer to a hard question about licensing, you have to talk to Software Solutions, and be prepared for whatever answer they give you. I think some of the questions asked were easier. ... is it OK to - use the text processing software of Plan 9 to PRODUCE a book or any other piece of writing I later SELL to others? Yes, I think this is pretty easy for an individual to justify as research or education. - being paid for writing a book ABOUT Plan 9 (not necessarily USING Plan 9 for the process of writing). OK. However, you would have to get permission to quote code. Further, given that there is another person or company who ALSO has a valid "non-commercial" license (bought independently from mine), would it be OK - being paid by the OTHER person/company for developing software using their system. OK - being paid for teaching the other person how to use the system and about its inner workings (i.e. SELLING knowledge I acquired by means of MY OWN system)? OK - develop software on MY OWN system and later SELL it to someone else with a valid "non-commercial" license? This is the sticky one. The buyer doesn't matter; the question is whether you are using the system solely for research and educational purposes. Incidentally, an issue that hasn't been faced yet to my knowledge is whether or how to deal with large-scale administrative use. The commercial license proposals I have seen so far envision only sales or services. However, I think it likely that the issue is (so to speak) academic; it's hard to imagine a company that would convert its operations to Plan 9 at this stage. Dennis From 9fans@cse.psu.edu Thu Oct 19 21:50:51 EDT 1995 Article: 670 of comp.os.plan9 Xref: cannon.ecf comp.os.plan9:670 Newsgroups: comp.os.plan9 Path: cannon.ecf!utnut!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!EU.net!uknet!dcl-cs!bath.ac.uk!ccsis From: rob@plan9.ATt.COM Subject: security - things to be aware of Message-ID: <95Oct19.094123edt.79116@colossus.cse.psu.edu> Sender: ccsis@bath.ac.uk (Icarus Sparry) Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Organization: Plan 9 mailing list Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 05:26:29 GMT Approved: plan9mod@bath.ac.uk Lines: 20 According to the shrink-wrap license, connecting a system with the Plan 9 source on it to the Internet is against the rules: nor may any part of the SOFTWARE be made available on a computer network external to you or your organization One might argue what 'make available' means, but as things stand, and as we intended them, this means the source should not be installed on an Internet-visible machine, regardless of the account structure. I would like to point out here that I was never happy with the idea of user 'none'. It made sense in the early debugging days but should have gone away years ago. -rob From cse.psu.edu!9fans-outgoing-owner Thu Jan 4 22:55:56 EST 1996 Received: by colossus.cse.psu.edu id <78702>; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 22:47:59 -0500 Received: from plan9.att.com ([192.20.225.253]) by colossus.cse.psu.edu with SMTP id <78411>; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 22:47:43 -0500 From: dmr@plan9.att.com To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 22:23:41 -0500 Subject: re: status of C license and network Message-Id: <96Jan4.224743est.78411@colossus.cse.psu.edu> Sender: owner-9fans@cse.psu.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Status: R Chad (yandros@mit.edu) wondered Can we have machines with the CD source code on it on the internet? All our machines are directly on the net (no firewall), and we're not likely to be willing to put up a plan 9 machine that isn't on the net in the same way. The operative phrase in the license is "made available on a computer network external to you or your organization." The source can be on a machine that's also on the internet (as ours is), but you have to arrange that it's not accessible from outside. In combination, permissions adjustment and limiting the namespace visible to visitors should be sufficient. Dennis From 9fans@cse.psu.edu Tue Jul 16 16:10:07 EDT 1996 Article: 1650 of comp.os.plan9 Xref: info.ecf comp.os.plan9:1650 Newsgroups: comp.os.plan9 Path: info.ecf!utnut!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!warwick!niss!bath.ac.uk!ccsis From: dmr@plan9.bell-labs.com Subject: re: 9P as a network filesystem protocol Approved: plan9mod@bath.ac.uk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Sender: ccsis@bath.ac.uk (Icarus Sparry) Organization: Plan 9 mailing list Message-ID: <199607130411.AAA08773@cse.psu.edu> Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 04:19:27 GMT Lines: 6 Status: R ... I guess what I'm asking is: is 9P an 'open' specification ? Yes, it is. You're quite free to reimplement and use the protocol in any setting. Dennis Ritchie