[HECnet] TOPS-10/20 copyright status

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2014-11-14 16:47, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:

On Nov 14, 2014, at 7:43 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:

Evening,

What IS the current copyright status on TOPS-10/20?   Who owns it? I assume it's still copyrighted I assume...and I doubt the current copyright owner would bother to enforce their rights to it.

If it was copyrighted originally, that copyright is certainly still valid.   Anything that didn   t expire prior to the last set of changes will remain valid for decades, thanks to the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

Interesting question who owns it.   Did HP get that piece of DEC?

Already answered, but I might as well repeat it.
Yes, it's still copyrighted, as you say Paul.
No, HP never got their hands on it. DEC sold it all to XKL as XKL was in the business of making yet another PDP-10. And XKL eventually did deliver that machine. Almost none sold, however.
And as a part, XKL also made some further development as well as porting lots of GNU stuff over to TOPS-20.

XKL is sortof still using bit and pieces of the software. And XKL did pretty much go down the same path as Cisco, which ironically also started out as a plan to build a PDP-10. They just got sidetracked into doing network gear. XKL at least have a PDP-10 in the center of their network gear. :-)

	Johnny