Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
On 25/07/12 16:06, John Floren wrote: (snip) Just write the code, nobody cares. The manual pages define an interface, and you're going to implement it. The manual pages are copyrighted, sure, because they're written works and are automatically protected by copyright. Besides the recent Google vs. Oracle fiasco, I can't think of a time an open-source project had legal problems by writing new code to implement an API. And, based on a brief reading of http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf, it looks as though a US judge has ruled that an API is not subject to copyright; if you implement the 9P API, you should be fine. Also, since you're doing a free reimplementation of code which is currently available free to everyone by the creators (Lucent), I have a hard time figuring out exactly what basis they'd have for a lawsuit. john Hi John - thanks for that. Thanks also to everyone who has commented in this thread - you've been very helpful! This is one of the most helpful lists that I've been on. This feedback is very useful as a guide to how to proceed. Although I'm not running Plan 9 at present (I'm on Linux), I'm very impressed with its elegance. Everything from kbdfs to the plumber to the Venti filesystem - it's all beautifully thought-out. The way that Venti uses SHA1 hashes to store data reminds me a lot of Git (which I also really like - there's another elegantly designed bit of software). Thanks again, all - bye for now :) - Andy
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 11:01 PM, Andy Elvey andy.el...@paradise.net.nzwrote: On 25/07/12 16:06, John Floren wrote: (snip) Just write the code, nobody cares. The manual pages define an interface, and you're going to implement it. The manual pages are copyrighted, sure, because they're written works and are automatically protected by copyright. Besides the recent Google vs. Oracle fiasco, I can't think of a time an open-source project had legal problems by writing new code to implement an API. And, based on a brief reading of http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf, it looks as though a US judge has ruled that an API is not subject to copyright; if you implement the 9P API, you should be fine. Also, since you're doing a free reimplementation of code which is currently available free to everyone by the creators (Lucent), I have a hard time figuring out exactly what basis they'd have for a lawsuit. john Hi John - thanks for that. Thanks also to everyone who has commented in this thread - you've been very helpful! This is one of the most helpful lists that I've been on. This feedback is very useful as a guide to how to proceed. Although I'm not running Plan 9 at present (I'm on Linux), I'm very impressed with its elegance. Everything from kbdfs to the plumber to the Venti filesystem - it's all beautifully thought-out. The way that Venti uses SHA1 hashes to store data reminds me a lot of Git (which I also really like - there's another elegantly designed bit of software). Thanks again, all - bye for now :) - Andy Linux of course has v9fs which is a 9P implementation in the kernel.
[9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
Hi everyone - I'm a first-timer here - I'm thinking of doing a public domain implementation (in C) of 9P. I've seen the large listing (on the cat-v site) of existing 9P implementations which are under various licenses, and so in thinking about where those people obtained the required information from, the following questions came to mind - a) The information *must* have been obtained from the Plan 9 technical docs (specification papers) or the Plan 9 man pages. Can the information in either of these be regarded as being public domain? (It would seem to be, given the number of different licenses of the various implementations. They could surely not have taken LPL-licensed code and then converted it to GPL, BSD, MIT..? It would seem that the proliferation of licenses could only be done if the original source of the information was public domain. ) b) If the answer to (a) is yes - does that include the source-code shown in those papers (and the man pages)? I've seen the public domain implementation of 9P in Python (by Tim Newsham), so I assume he got the required information from the places I've mentioned. Thanks for your time - looking forward to your replies. - Andy
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
nobody here's a lawyer.
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
I'm not a lawyer but I play one in comedy clubs. The first implementation of 9p came about long before Plan 9 had a free (as in rms) license. Nobody got sued, nobody died, although a few bystanders were maimed. My advice as your lawyer [in comedy] would be to go nuts and do whatever you want. The documentation[1] is a good place to start if you don't want to look at any source (no license required to see that!), and if you want to cover all corner cases, a running Plan 9 kernel is a good client/server to test against. 1: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
(no license required to see that!) there is, however, a copyright link at the bottom of each man page. as your lawyer [in comedy] i advise you to click it.
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
Hi Andrey - thanks for your reply! On 25/07/12 14:47, andrey mirtchovski wrote: I'm not a lawyer but I play one in comedy clubs. The first implementation of 9p came about long before Plan 9 had a free (as in rms) license. Nobody got sued, nobody died, although a few bystanders were maimed. Interesting. It's good to find out a bit of the history behind 9p. My advice as your lawyer [in comedy] would be to go nuts and do whatever you want. The documentation[1] is a good place to start if you don't want to look at any source (no license required to see that!), and if you want to cover all corner cases, a running Plan 9 kernel is a good client/server to test against. 1: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html Thanks for that! I'll check that page out too. Btw - I clicked on the copyright link at the bottom, but the link is dead - nothing but a 404 page error. In looking at Tim Newsham's P9.py, he has a comment in the code - 9P protocol implementation as documented in plan9 intro(5) and fcall.h. ( I would likely be even more cautious and avoid looking at any header files if possible. ) Thanks again, Andrey - you've been very helpful! - Andy
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
In looking at Tim Newsham's P9.py, he has a comment in the code - 9P protocol implementation as documented in plan9 intro(5) and fcall.h. ( I would likely be even more cautious and avoid looking at any header files if possible. ) Thanks again, Andrey - you've been very helpful! section 5 of the manual should be a complete description of the protocol. the comment might be slightly misleading. that not withstanding, ianal, but my understanding is that header files, are considered similar to facts under copyright law, and therefore not copyrightable. - erik
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 8:31 PM, Andy Elvey andy.el...@paradise.net.nz wrote: Hi Andrey - thanks for your reply! On 25/07/12 14:47, andrey mirtchovski wrote: I'm not a lawyer but I play one in comedy clubs. The first implementation of 9p came about long before Plan 9 had a free (as in rms) license. Nobody got sued, nobody died, although a few bystanders were maimed. Interesting. It's good to find out a bit of the history behind 9p. My advice as your lawyer [in comedy] would be to go nuts and do whatever you want. The documentation[1] is a good place to start if you don't want to look at any source (no license required to see that!), and if you want to cover all corner cases, a running Plan 9 kernel is a good client/server to test against. 1: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html Thanks for that! I'll check that page out too. Btw - I clicked on the copyright link at the bottom, but the link is dead - nothing but a 404 page error. In looking at Tim Newsham's P9.py, he has a comment in the code - 9P protocol implementation as documented in plan9 intro(5) and fcall.h. ( I would likely be even more cautious and avoid looking at any header files if possible. ) Thanks again, Andrey - you've been very helpful! - Andy Just write the code, nobody cares. The manual pages define an interface, and you're going to implement it. The manual pages are copyrighted, sure, because they're written works and are automatically protected by copyright. Besides the recent Google vs. Oracle fiasco, I can't think of a time an open-source project had legal problems by writing new code to implement an API. And, based on a brief reading of http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf, it looks as though a US judge has ruled that an API is not subject to copyright; if you implement the 9P API, you should be fine. Also, since you're doing a free reimplementation of code which is currently available free to everyone by the creators (Lucent), I have a hard time figuring out exactly what basis they'd have for a lawsuit. john
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
Btw - I clicked on the copyright link at the bottom, but the link is dead - nothing but a 404 page error. that's the joke :) plan9 has been considered a dead operating system for a long time. from my (admittedly little) experience with 9p implementations, the ones done outside of plan9 code influence were done based on the man pages and then tested against the plan9 kernel driver. the implementations that came after Lucent Public Licence 1.0.2 (the OSS-approved one) all share a few similarities, mostly in structs. I think they all gleaned from Russ Cox's plan9port C code which may have been used as a reference. the 9p code in the linux kernel, i believe, doesn't share similarities in its data structs with plan9 (compare p9_fcall with fcall). I think Tim's py9p came after the OSS approval of the Lucent licence. I can tell you that Tim's original implementation used an unmarshalling routine that was definitely not derived from read9pmsg. it was (is) very python-y.
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
that's the joke :) plan9 has been considered a dead operating system for a long time. h. don't tell my employer. - erik
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
For a dead OS, Plan 9 sure gets around ;) Plan 9, a nurse-log of modern computing. -Skip On Jul 24, 2012, at 9:10 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote: that's the joke :) plan9 has been considered a dead operating system for a long time. h. don't tell my employer. - erik
Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or public domain?
2012/7/25 Skip Tavakkolian skip.tavakkol...@gmail.com: For a dead OS, Plan 9 sure gets around ;) Plan 9, a nurse-log of modern computing. -Skip On Jul 24, 2012, at 9:10 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote: that's the joke :) plan9 has been considered a dead operating system for a long time. h. don't tell my employer. - erik It must be Eros stimulating its pituitary and pineal glands. ;) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space)
