Re: Re: What Are the Chances That CICS/VS will Be Available for DOS/VS Under Hercules???

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1a.html
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92preface.html

This link identifies that copyright protections were extended to 
software in 1980.  Before that date, software was NOT copyrightable by 
U.S. law.  So, IBM COULD not copyright this software.  I suspect that 
IBM had something to do with bringing software under copyright 
protection.  What other company in the '70's created a lot of software?

It would be interesting to determine if any of these program product 
copies predated 12 December, 1980.  The licensing of software is founded 
on copyright law.  Regardless of what IBM called it, if it was written 
before 12 Dec 1980 it isn't protected by U.S. copyright law.  Even if 
IBM claimed it was copyrighted material before then, it did not matter.  
Even if constraints existed in the software contract around use or 
distribution of the software, violations would constitute a breach of 
contract, but such would not have been a breach of Federal law.  The 
consequences of breaching the contract with IBM could be very unpleasant 
then, but I think it bears on the situation today.

The consent decree predated this date for copyright law.  If I am not 
mistaken, it had the effect of unbundling the software from the 
hardware.  And, since there were no separate protections in law for 
software, other plug-compatible manufactures customers were allowed to 
run it.  I remember in the 70's working for a company that had an Itel 
mainframe.  We got support from Itel for DOS/VS, but support for CICS 
from IBM.  IBM legitimately could require us to pay for a support 
service for this software (called a Program Product).  The right to use 
or distribute the software by law though was not constrained until 
copyright was extended to this software.  Such activities might have 
been constrained by the contract, but not law.

With regard to the OS's, what I saw happening after 1980 in the DOS/VS 
world was the creation of Advanced Function program products that were 
really copyrighted software add on's to the uncopyrighted OS.  This 
probably was because the consent decree did get in the way of 
copyrighting the OS out write.

If copies of any of these old program products exist from before 12 
December, 1980, it would be worth pursuing their use by the Hercules 
community in my opinion.

Harold Grovesteen

Jay Maynard wrote:

>  
>
> (Please trim your quotes. Thanks.)
>
> On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 11:49:03AM -0000, dosvsoperator wrote:
> > How then did we end up seeing DOS/360, DOS/VS, OS/MFT, OS/MVT, MVS 3.8j,
> > et al. released to the public domain (Thank G-d and IBM for that!)???
>
> They wren't released to the public domain. They were never copyrighted to
> begin with. Before 1978 in the US, anything published without a copyright
> statement was automatically in the public domain.
>
> I don't know for sure, but I suspect that IBM did not copyright its
> operating systems because of the consent decree that it was operating 
> under
> with the Department of Justice, after an earlier unfavorable court 
> decision
> and an antitrust lawsuit.
> -- 
> Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com <http://www.conmicro.com>
> http://jmaynard.livejournal.com <http://jmaynard.livejournal.com> 
> http://www.tronguy.net <http://www.tronguy.net>
> http://www.hercules-390.org <http://www.hercules-390.org> (Yes, that's 
> me!)
> Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390 
> <http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390>
>
> 



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