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. Not arguing, just making sure I understand your statement thanks bob On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 2:27 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 7/29/20 2:01 PM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > > On 29/07/2020 15:21, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > >> > >> It also only covered SIMH until Bob Supnik left DEC. > >> > >> "MENTEC grants to CUSTOMER a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free > >> license under MENTEC's INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS to use and copy > >> the SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY solely for personal, non-commercial uses in > >> conjunction with the EMULATOR." > >> > >> Note that EMULATOR is highlighted with capitalization. > >> > >> " EMULATOR shall mean software owned by Digital Equipment Corporation > >> that emulates the operation of a PDP-11 processor and allows PDP-11 > >> programs and operating systems to run on non-PDP-11 systems. " > >> > >> Here it is defined. "owned by Digital Equipment Corporation". > >> That condition ceased to exist when Bob left DEC and DEC allowed > >> him to take SIMH with him. > >> > > > > Why? I can't find (after several minutes of searching) exactly what > > happened when Bob Supnik left DEC. > > > > Did DEC give him the software or did DEC release it under the "modified > > X-Windows " licence? If the latter, > > > > then DEC continued to own it and the PDP-11 release continue to be legal > > to run under SIMH. > > DEC gave it to Bob Supnik as he had been the one who created it, > developed it and maintained it. I don't believe they ever had any > interest in it and it was only theirs because Bob had done it > while in their employ. When he left they had no interest in it > and let him take it with him. A quick glance at the source will > show no DEC Copyrights and Bob's from 1993 onward. > > > > > >> This is plain English. One does not need to be a lawyer to see > >> what it actually says. They were very explicit in their wording. > > > > One *always* needs a lawyer! They were clear, although they don't seem > > to have said *which* DEC-owned emulator. > > You were free to use any. As it turns out, there was only one. > > > > > I just don't see that you can immediately dismiss the possibility that > > DEC still owned the software. > > That question was asked and answered decades ago. Might be able to > still find something on the web, but the notion that the web keeps > things around forever is facetious at best. > > > > > DEC certainly permissively licensed other code. The OpenVMS BLISS > > compiler was released on the Freeware CD, but I bet DEC still thought > > they owned it. > > The history of SIMH has never been in question. Except by people > trying to rationalize using DEC's (and later Mentec's) IP without > permission. Some things never change. > > bill > >
