topic about copyright question in Operating System - HP-UX

about copyright question

inventsekar_1 — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:06:54 GMT

a simple question. it looks like simple.

when we login to HPUX, its saying, the copyright page as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------
/usr/bin/X11/xauth: timeout in locking authority file /home2/hpzsunda/.Xauthority
(c)Copyright 1983-1997 Hewlett-Packard Co., All Rights Reserved.
(c)Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985-1993 The Regents of the Univ. of California
(c)Copyright 1980, 1984, 1986 Novell, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1986-1992 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1985, 1986, 1988 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(c)Copyright 1989-1993 The Open Software Foundation, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1986 Digital Equipment Corp.
(c)Copyright 1990 Motorola, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992 Cornell University
(c)Copyright 1989-1991 The University of Maryland
(c)Copyright 1988 Carnegie Mellon University
(c)Copyright 1991-1997 Mentat, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1996 Morning Star Technologies, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1996 Progressive Systems, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1997 Isogon Corporation
-------------------------------------------------------
i am just thinking that,
1.)this copyright page means "This HPUX contains all these companies softwares or applications or utils. we got license from them to use that".
is it correct?
2.) how to find out what applictions of a company is in use with hpux? for example: (c)Copyright 1996 Morning Star Technologies, Inc. means some apllications are in use from morning star tech,..isnt? what are those applications..?

Re: about copyright question

Bill Hassell — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:18:13 GMT

1) Actually, these copyrights are covering small pieces of code that are part of the operating system. Unix is more than 30 years old and many, many companies have added specific parts to the OS and associated commands.

2) No, as mentioned above, it refers to contributions to the OS code. These contributions might be a portion of filesystem code or some code in a daemon used in networking or perhaps a method to handle tape I/O.

Re: about copyright question

Patrick Wallek — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:23:07 GMT

To answer your questions:

1) Yes HP-UX contains components from these various companies. HP has agreements with these companies to include their items in HP-UX. You are licensed to use the items from those companies as a result of your HP-UX license.

2) You *might* be able to see some of this by looking at the man page for various commands. For example the 'tunefs' man page has an AUTHOR section at the end that indicates the command was developed by University of California at Berkeley.

AUTHOR
tunefs was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

Other commands have some similar info. Other than this, I'm not sure there is an easy way to tell what parts of HP-UX came from what companies.

Re: about copyright question

Peter Godron — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:31:37 GMT

Hi,
nfs of example was developed by SUN, but is now also part of HPUX. So SUN needs to be credited, which also happens in the manpages.
But can't find any mention of "Morning Star" in the man pages.
For a list of the commands (co)developed grep the manpages for "was developed by". Makes interesting reading!

Re: about copyright question

inventsekar_1 — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:45:01 GMT

yes patrick, the AUTHOR part in the man pages, i have noted that already...in that i usually find University of California, Berkeley. or HP...

that is why i thought to know,
----------
(c)Copyright 1991-1997 Mentat, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1996 Morning Star Technologies, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1996 Progressive Systems, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1997 Isogon Corporation
----------
why these companies are there....

now i understand, its because some part of these companies may be included somewhere,..
(i am curious to know where is that "somewhere")

thanks for the response.

Re: about copyright question

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:45:29 GMT

Hi Sekar:

Your question is also about the history and origins of Unix at large. You might find this article of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix

Regards!

...JRF...