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- Xref: sparky comp.sys.next.sysadmin:4771 misc.legal.computing:1990
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin,misc.legal.computing
- Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!mitl.com!lemke
- From: lemke@MITL.COM (Kennedy Lemke)
- Subject: "webster" copyright?
- Message-ID: <1992Aug20.183731.7101@MITL.COM>
- Originator: lemke@narnia.MITL.COM
- Sender: news@MITL.COM
- Nntp-Posting-Host: narnia.mitl.com
- Organization: Matsushita Information Technology Laboratory, Princeton, NJ
- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 18:37:31 GMT
- Lines: 63
-
- I recently ftp'ed code for webster and websterd with eyes
- toward installing these programs in our heterogeneous UNIX
- environment. In the process of obtaining the BTREE and LIBTEXT
- libraries as per the documentation (to get the "thesaurus"
- aspect of the program working), I received the following
- comments from a representative from NeXT:
-
-
- > Note: Also, I must tell you that using any software to extract
- > Websters definitions or Thesaurus entries from a non-NeXT
- > machine is a violation of the Webster's copyright and an
- > infringement of the NeXT Software License Agreement.
- >
- >
- > Merriam-Websters is concerned about an abuse of their copyright
- > and have expressed a willingness to license it's use on a
- > royalty-bearing basis. Here is how they can be contacted for
- > further information:
- >
- > Merriam-Webster, Inc.
- > 47 Federal Street
- > P.O. Box 281
- > Springfield, MA 01102
- > Attention: Jim Withgott, Vice President
-
- The above is not a legal statement, obviously, but it certainly
- informs me of a possible legal problem. I hope someone can help
- me with a couple questions about this:
-
- (1) Is this policy a well-known fact? Does anyone know
- more about this? Has anyone written the company (Webster)
- asked about this or perhaps even licensed the use of
- the "webster" program on non-next machines?
-
- (2) There was no mention of this in the webster sources (or the
- NeXT faq list) that I saw, so what can I imply from this?
-
- (a) Can I run webster on all our UNIX platforms because
- the program that is actually extracting information
- (websterd) is running on a NeXT?
- (b) Can I run websterd on a NeXT and run webster on all
- our other NeXTs but not on any other UNIX platforms?
- (c) Would it be OK (legal), for example, to use scenario
- (b) just above, and then on all other non-NeXT UNIX
- machines have "webster" be a one-line shell script
- that does: "rsh somenextmachine webster $*"? Or would
- this still be considered a violation?
-
- I know that I cannot expect complete and accurate answers based
- on the non-legal information from NeXT that I included above, but
- I would appreciate hearing some comments/discussion, especially
- from anyone who knows more about this or perhaps has contacted
- Merriam-Websters. Please send email rather than posting followups,
- and I'll post a summary to these groups.
-
- Kennedy Lemke
- Network and UNIX Systems Administrator
- Postmaster
- Matsushita Information Technology Laboratory
- 182 Nassau Street, Third Floor
- Princeton, New Jersey 08542
- Work Phone: (609) 497-4600
- Fax Phone: (609) 497-4013 Email: lemke@MITL.COM
-