From: hopkins@sun.com (Don Hopkins)
To: openwin-dev@sun.com
Subject: XView Copyright Bugs

The copyright notice contained in the MIT XView distribution file "LEGAL_NOTICE" states:

"Users and possessors of this source code are hereby granted a nonexclusive, royalty-free copyright and design patent license to use this code in individual and commercial software."

The problem is that the legal notice does not clearly state that you can make changes and enhancements to the XView toolkit code, or distribute copies of the XView toolkit code itself.

One way to look at it is: If software were food, it might be legal for a restraunt to sell authentic OPEN LOOK cuisine, made out of pure XView; but a grocery store couldn't sell fresh raw XView! And a chef couldn't mix in any extra ingredients, and still call it OPEN LOOK cuisine (even if the diners demands it)!

The XView "LEGAL_NOTICE" file grants the right to use the XView toolkit code in individual or commercial software. But that is not what the X Consortium is doing -- they are not using XView toolkit code in their software -- they are distributing the XView toolkit code itself! The notice does not give them the right to do that, so they will have to pull XView from the X distribution, if Sun does not change the wording to make their intentions clear.

The legal notice also sets forth some restrictions on using the trademark "OPEN LOOK", with respect to modifications to the program that change its graphical appearance or output:

"A royalty-free, nonexclusive trademark license to refer to the code and output as "OPEN LOOK" compatible is available from AT&T if, and only if, the appearance of the icons or glyphs is not changed in any manner except as absolutely necessary to accommodate the standard resolution of the screen or other output device, the code and output is not changed except as authorized herein, and the code and output is validated by AT&T."

I read this as meaning that it's OK for anybody to make changes or extensions to XView (say for instance were someone to implement circular pie menus), as long as they don't claim that the enhanced toolkit or product using it is "OPEN LOOK" compatible. If they make *visual* changes to the toolkit and still want to call it "OPEN LOOK", then they must submit it to AT&T for validation, but they are not required to do so if they don't want to call it "OPEN LOOK". It's not clear to me what the difference between "appearance" and "output" is, and it's also not clear how this applies to extensions, bug fixes, ports, enhancements, and other changes of the code that aren't just arbitrary graphical mutations (like Motif).

XView application programmers will, in the course of building complex user interfaces, need to extend the XView toolkit code to create special purpose controls or widgets. Many of these controls will be generally useful to other people, and their authors will be willing to give them away for free. Hopefully some day there will exist a collection of free XView widgets comparable to the collection of free X Toolkit widgets that exists today! But unfortunately, the legal notice does not explicitly grant the right to make *extensions* (as opposed to modifications) to the XView toolkit code, and still call it "OPEN LOOK".

For example, someone might want to use XView to implement an otherwise perfectly compliant OPEN LOOK application, except that for some reason it requires a control that looks and behaves exactly like a rotary telephone dial. Something like that could be implemented as an extension to the XView toolkit code.

So it's possible and desirable to extend the toolkit, to implement compelling applications with sophisticated user interfaces. And it even seems permissible, under the present terms of the license. But *only* as long as those slick whiz bang applications with customized OPEN LOOK user interfaces make no claim to being OPEN LOOK compatible!

But do we really want to encourage people to write nifty user interfaces based on our free XView toolkit code, but require that they refer to the look and feel by some other name than "OPEN LOOK"? (I can see it now: someone extends the XView toolkit by implementing a telephone dial, and instead of calling it "OPEN LOOK with Tony's Telephony Extensions", they have to call it BTNS: "Better Than NeXT Step"!)

I think the XView legal notice should make a clear distinction between arbitrary visual changes (were someone to whack all the drawing code around so it looked like Motif, which we probably don't want to encourage), and extensions (were someone to implement a spreadsheet widget or a telephone dial, which we probably do want to encourage), including bug fixes, ports to other systems, enhancements, and other positive changes.

This is not the first time there has been a problem with overly restrictive copyright notices! The copyright notice in the client sources included with the NeWS 1.1 binary distribution ("psterm" for example) had a similar problem, unintentionally limiting the terms under which source could be redistributed. Some time ago, John Gilmore of Grasshopper Group brought this to the attention of Amy Christen of Sun, who worked with Sun Legal to come up with a better copyright notice. Sun gave Grasshopper Group permission to replace the copyright notice in psterm with a simpler, less restrictive one, approved by Sun Legal. (Grasshopper Group was distributing an enhanced version of psterm, and it would have been a violation of the copyright notice for them to have distributed the code, except as part of another product! This would have meant that psterm could not be sold or even given away as a separate program, it could not go on the Sun Users Group contributed software tape, and it could not be distributed over comp.windows.news or by anonymous ftp.) Here is the problem part of the old copyright notice:

"This file is a product of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and is provided for unrestricted use provided that this legend is included on all tape media and as a part of the software program in whole or part. Users may copy or modify this file without charge, but are not authorized to license or distribute it to anyone else except as part of a product or program developed by the user."

Here is the less restrictive copyright notice that was approved by Sun Legal:

"This file is a product of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and is provided for unrestricted use provided that this legend is included on all tape media and as a part of the software program in whole or part. Users may copy, modify or distribute this file at will."

The above is but one example of how such a notice could be worded. The main thing is that it must explicitly give users the right to make changes to the source code, and redistribute copies of that source code.

Another copyright notice that needs to be changed is the one currently used in all the Open Windows PostScript and client source code (not to be confused with the server source code, i.e. OWPS, which is a different issue entirely). Sun never did get around to using the simple, clear, unrestrictive copyright notice approved by Sun Legal. Just the opposite! The present copyright notice, appearing in most of the C and PostScript source code included with the Open Windows 2.0 binary distribution (and unfortunately also in all the current TNT code), is so *extremely* cryptic as to be totally useless:

"Copyright (c) 1989, Sun Microsystems, Inc. RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS 52.227-7013 and in similar clauses in the FAR and NASA FAR Supplement."

Can *anybody* tell me what that's supposed to mean? We have *GOT* to get rid of that copyright notice! Either that, or include a copy of DFARS 52.227-7013 and the FAR and NASA FAR Supplement with the OPEN WINDOWS documentation! (I hate to think what the media cost would be then!)

I might be mistaken in my interpretation of Sun's copyright notices, but that does not excuse them for being misleading. If the intention is to grant certain rights to the user, a copyright notice should state those rights explicitly. But when limiting those rights, the intent should be clear, and the restrictions shouldn't be vague, overly broad, indirect or implicit.

-Don