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OS/2 Licensing
Roderick Klein:
--- Quote from: Neil Waldhauer on January 02, 2025, 03:44:23 pm ---If someone wants to try OS/2, and downloads a copy from the Internet, I doubt they can get in trouble with IBM, even if they are violating license terms.
It's different for someone who wants to offer OS/2 software. IBM may have issues with someone distributing OS/2 parts and fixpaks. Here on OS/2 World, we don't even give links to unofficial OS/2 media and fixes. But OS/2 has been off the market for 18 years.
Is there some time limit after which OS/2 licensing doesn't matter?
Have we already reached that time?
When can a business or other organization offer OS/2 parts without licensing restrictions?
--- End quote ---
Just like a book copyright applies to software. Look how long the copyright lasts for a book. That should also apply to software. Which is at least 70 years or in the US, best I can tell.
Roderick
Neil Waldhauer:
The copyright seems to be 120 years for a commercial product like OS/2. Software written by one person would be copyrighted for 70 years after the end of his life.
Oddly, it looks like a private person downloading a copy of OS/2 and using it may be OK legally. Offering a copy of OS/2 for download from a server in the USA is probably not OK.
Remy:
--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on December 30, 2024, 06:02:07 pm --- IBM does not offer support for it.
--- End quote ---
Are you sure IBM no more providing support as special exclusive contract for customer customer requesting it ?
I remember IBM having provided OS/2 support in year 2015 for a client having a special support contract (not catalog referenced)
Martin Iturbide:
--- Quote from: Remy on January 03, 2025, 02:15:07 am ---
--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on December 30, 2024, 06:02:07 pm --- IBM does not offer support for it.
--- End quote ---
Are you sure IBM no more providing support as special exclusive contract for customer customer requesting it ?
I remember IBM having provided OS/2 support in year 2015 for a client having a special support contract (not catalog referenced)
--- End quote ---
Hi Remy
If you have information on which customer and which special support let me know. I haven't seen any leaked file, document, comment or evidence that IBM has patched or released new binaries since 2006 or in the latest years. Sometimes I think that we like to dream and have the hope that IBM is still working on it.
Regards
Andrew Stephenson:
--- Quote from: Roderick Klein on January 02, 2025, 05:09:35 pm ---[...] Look how long the copyright lasts for a book. That should also apply to software. Which is at least 70 years or in the US, best I can tell.
--- End quote ---
IIRC (and assuming the rules have not changed), literary copyright starts from the moment you create the text and lasts until "lifetime plus 70 years". Companies seem to have ways of refreshing copyrights, however: comics publishers (AIUI) simply need to re-use a character every so often. Titles and brand names can also be affected by rules about "passing off", so (eg) a breakfast cereal called "OS/2 Flakes" might escape IBM's wrath. What a certain well-known corporation would make of impotence medicine whose name included "Microsoft" is anyone's guess.
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