ATT SOURCE CODE AGREEMENT Version 1.2C

[Justin Wells]

On Fri, Sep 10, 1999 at 12:52:22PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:

> But you still have many other rights as an owner of a copy of the copyrighted
> work.  For example, you can study it to learn things.  But the ASCA
> keeps ownership (not merely copyright-ownership, but full ownership)
> of every copy in AT&T's hands, and gives you *only* four enumerated rights:
> 
> o	to distribute the original bits
> 
> o	to compile the source code and execute it on a computer
> 
> o	to package and distribute patches and additional bits with
> 	the original bits
> 
> o	to compile and execute the above package
> 
> The right to print, the right to display on a monitor, the right to read,
> the right to study: these rights are *not* granted.  This is unfree.

What are the implications of not having the rights to "display" and 
"perform" the software? Presumably you don't have these rights to a 
derived vesion either--such as the compiled executable.

Scott McNealy is wandering around claiming that in a few years most 
people will have dumb terminals and all their applications will be 
run from someone else's server. 

In that case you won't normally run your own software, you won't
even necessarily own it or have any direct rights to it. Someone
else will own it, and it will be on their server, and they will
perform it for you on demand, displaying it to you on your WebTV.

It may not happen, McNealy might be totally out to lunch, but it
is an important use-case, and certainly SOME software will be run
this way. Could you install this software on a public terminal and
let patrons of a library use it? Could a University put it on a server
and let students access it via xterminals? And can my ISP put it on 
their server and let me use it via my insanely cheap and easy to
use WebTV?

I don't know if you could legally do this under this license or not. On 
the one hand, you aren't really showing the code to anyone, you are just
executing the software on a computer (which is allowed). On the
other hand, you may be exporting all the visible signs of the
program running to someone else, and this may be restricted since
you don't have the right to display or perform the software.

Justin