11 ms·

Under what license? Can we view, modify, redistribute? No one wants to get sued for these things, or being found to violate some end user license agreement wi

• gnoway 13y ago
  Microsoft Research License. Yes, Yes, No.
  • herge 13y ago
    How can a license allow modification without redistribution?
    • squintychino 13y ago
      Why do you have to redistribute something in order to modify it? Just modify it for your own personal use.
      • tensenki 13y ago
        I can't think of a single use case where I would want to hack on a 32 year old OS without distributing it.
        • Someone 13y ago
          Not quite the same, but it may be good enough for you: I guess you can distribute a patch, combined with a URL to the original download.
      • delinka 13y ago
        Since when do you need a license to modify something for your own personal use? If they've given me access to the source, I can just start editing to my heart's content...
        • chimeracoder 13y ago
          Practically, yes, but legally, you may not have the rights to. That's why it's explicitly listed as part of Freedom 1 of the four freedoms of software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
        • ballard 13y ago
          DVD players.
    • breadbox 13y ago
      It's sometimes hard to believe, but our current laws seems to allow that you can be forbidden from modifying a piece of software even for your own personal use.
      • derefr 13y ago
        I think where it would come into legal question is a situation more like "modifying our software, running the modified version on a server, and making a profit from the service that server provides." In other words, modifying for commercial use.
      • elwell 13y ago
        Even more interesting: copyright laws seems to indicate that playing/singing a song that someone else wrote, even in the shower, may be infringement.
        • anigbrowl 13y ago
          Um, no. You have to publish or perform it publicly to be infringing. If you sign it at home, or record yourself singing it at home, or record a copy of the original at home, you're still not infringing as long as you don't attempt to distribute it. Unless your shower is located on a stage and you charge admission for people to listen to you sing in the shower, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
    • nealabq 13y ago
      So you can't publish a modified version. But can you publish a diff, which someone could use to recreate your modified version?
      • smtddr 13y ago
        FWIW, the ROM community does this sometimes. There are SueprMarioBros. edits where they only distribute the patching file and the patcher program... just not the original ROM itself. They leave that for you to find somewhere...
      • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        If it were to avoid a patent infringement then it could still be considered contributory infringement - ie you [knowingly] provided the necessary parts, methods, information that enables someone else to perform the infringement. That's not going to be the case here as the code is too old to be patent encumbered. Things are certainly moving towards there being a wide definition of contributory copyright infringement, eg cases against torrent file sites that don't store copyright works. It would be pretty asinine and regressive to punish someone for publishing instruction on a copyright work could be modified, IMO, but the law isn't known for always making sense. https://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Copyright:_Infringement_Issues#Contributory https://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Copyright:_Infringement_Issues...
    • baddox 13y ago
      How can a license do anything? They write the license, the government enforces it.
    • ballard 13y ago
      If you paid for a license to something and they provide the source with purchase, but don't want the source shared or modifications to it shared either. In reality, if redistribution of source is forbidden, restricting unreleased modifications of source is hard to enforce.
  • ConceptJunkie 13y ago
    Microsoft Research does some really cool stuff. Do they really work for the same company as the people who make Windows and Office? I can't imagine two more diametrically different organizations.
    • masklinn 13y ago
      Bell Labs was founded by Ma Bell, it's hard to top that and MSR does not come close.
      • sremani 13y ago
        are you privy to research in either of the organizations. I know its great to revere age old organizations but as we are speaking the best research is probably being conducted in a place we least expect. I am not privy to research at Ma Bell or only the published elements of Microsoft Research - so your reaction is more of an instinct than any factual basis.
        • masklinn 13y ago
          I've got no idea what you're talking about, I was responding to GP's comment about diametrically opposed spirits in subsets of the same organisation.
        • loumf 13y ago
          Bell Lab's results are widely known. I'll just point to two: C and the Transistor, as being pretty hard to beat (there's much more). In any case, the parent commenters point wasn't the difference in the two research lab's results, but the difference in philosophies between the labs and their respective parent companies.
          • angersock 13y ago
            Erm, lasers, Unix, communications satellites...
          • mturmon 13y ago
• RyanZAG 13y ago
  Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the code will probably get you sued for patent violation, too. EDIT: I can just imagine a future lawsuit: A: Did you read the MS-DOS source code released by Microsoft on XX? We have logs to show you downloaded it. B: Yes, but that has nothing to do with this lawsuit! A: Incorrect. The MS-DOS source code you viewed is under Patent ZZ. We believe you used the IP found in the MS-DOS source code to build your flying car. Judge: Guilty!
  • voidlogic 13y ago
    Don't patents only last 15-20 years?
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • 300bps 13y ago
      Don't patents only last 15-20 years? Yes. Design patents last 14 years. Utility patents last 20 years. The person you are responding to, like most people, likely uses the words copyright, trademark and patent interchangeably as if they are synonyms.
    • neurobro 13y ago
      Yes any patents would have expired, although the copyright still has upwards of 100 years left. I don't think reading some source code will put anyone at risk of frivolous lawsuits (unless they actually do infringe, in which case it would be a grain of supporting evidence).
    • tanzam75 13y ago
      Right, any patents from 1983 and 1991 have expired. Besides which, I don't think Microsoft had any patents in 1983. P.S. Google Patents is useless for answering this question. "Referenced by" is included in the search, so any patent from 1983 that is ever referenced by a Microsoft patent (from any year) shows up in the results.
• Spittie 13y ago
  The full license text is right on the download page: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsoft-research-license-agreement-msdos-v1-1-v2-0/ http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsoft-research-lice...
  • Rovanion 13y ago
    Got a 503 on that link sadly.
    • profquail 13y ago
      It's the Microsoft Research License Agreement (MSR-LA). MSR-LA text from another project: https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/msr-la.txt https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/msr-la.txt
      • anon4 13y ago
        Alright, so reading it closely, it's kind of like the GPL in that any derivative work is licensed under the same license, but unlike the GPL, Microsoft get full rights to any modifications you make and any comments you make, including if you send them mail marked "confidential", plus you cannot sue anybody using this software for patent infringement if you discovered it via reading the source code. Basically, if you touch this with a ten-foot-pole, the pole now belongs to Microsoft, along with your arm and anybody standing too close to you. You also lose the right to use your arm to sell things.
        • rbanffy 13y ago
          So, answering the question opened in another thread, if FreeDOS developers read the code, they risk making Microsoft the owner of their future contributions.
          • btown 13y ago
            > You may not use or distribute this Software or any derivative works in any form for commercial purposes. Examples of commercial purposes would be running business operations, licensing, leasing, or selling the Software, distributing the Software for use with commercial products, using the Software in the creation or use of commercial products or any other activity which purpose is to procure a commercial gain to you or others. If you're in academia and getting a stipend and you look at it as part of your research, Microsoft could argue that that is a commercial gain to you. If FreeDOS has ever been used to make a commercial product (this is very different from the GPL which explicitly delineates derivative works from works produced by the software!), then its developers risk breaking the terms of the license agreement if they taint their thought processes with Microsoft's code. So yes, I'd probably say you're right.
• Tobu 13y ago
  For novelty purposes only™ No redistribution and the license can be revoked. (also: must be research or education, mustn't be commercial, and you are licensing derivative works to Microsoft somehow)
• bunderbunder 13y ago
  > Under what license? Can we view, modify, redistribute? Just speaking for myself, I come down pretty firmly in the "Don't know, don't care" camp for both questions. In a world where FreeDOS exists, there just isn't any practical value to having the source code to MS-DOS 2.0 available under a truly open license. That code's only interesting as a historical exhibit. If all we can do is look at it and go, "Huh, so that's how that worked", that's fine with me.
  • derefr 13y ago
    The important question, I think, is: can the FreeDOS folks read the MS-DOS source, and then continue to work on FreeDOS?
    • rbanffy 13y ago
      It's safer if they don't. Unless Microsoft licenses it under a license with the most explicit and extensive protections against patent lawsuits.
      • anigbrowl 13y ago
        Utility patents only last 20 years. MS-DOS 2.0 was published in 1983, which is 31 years ago. So, while it's copyrighted and you can't redistribute the code or the compiled binary, you can go to town with the algorithms, should you want to. As a bonus, the availability of this code might make prior art challenges to extant patents much easier.
        • ekianjo 13y ago
          Is MS-DOS even patented ? As far as I remember, software patents were not granted until fairly recently in History (usually from the 90s).
          • lugg 13y ago
            I couldn't find the answer but did come across this interesting historical take on software patents. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/24/business/microsoft-loses-case-on-patent.html http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/24/business/microsoft-loses-c... > The Patents and Trademark Office, which began issuing software patents only a decade ago, has been accused of having inadequate expertise in software to judge what is truly novel. Nice to know nothing has changed in a decade.
• elwell 13y ago
  To me, this isn't about useful code, it's about a terrifying journey back in time.
• Gepser 13y ago
  ->Under what license? If you create Derivative Works, you grant to Microsoft a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable, sublicenseable license to reproduce, distribute, publicly display, modify, use, make, have made, import, and sell such Derivative Works.