Richard, (01)
Val Nielsen referred me to you. I'm leading a volunteer team at the
Computer History Museum to restore and preserve Doug Engelbart's
NLS/Augment system. Several advisory team member, including Doug
Engelbart and Jeff Rulifson, were on the original NLS team at SRI. I
first met Doug in 1986, when I started the Collaboration Technologies
group at HP Labs. (02)
One of our goals is to release a complete record historical documents
and the NLS/Augment system itself. Consequently, we have been trying
to determine the status of copyrights to the system and related
documentation. It has been an interesting case study for potential
orphaned works legislation: none of the companies we know must have
owned it retains legal records on it. Our strategy has been to get
releases from each of them to the effect that they have no records of
owning it, but have no problem for their part with CHM releasing
copyrighted material on a non-commercial basis. Thanks to help from
Lew Platt at Boeing and Vint Cerf who used to be at MCI, we have
releases from Boeing and British Telecom, and expect to have one from
MCI shortly. (03)
My purpose in contacting you is to ask for your help to have SRI
provide a similar release for any material it may still have under
copyright. If you would be willing to discuss this, I would be happy
to meet with you and provide additional information, including copies
of releases we have already obtained. Please let me know if you
would like to do this, and what date and time would be best for you. (04)
The project has been running nearly eighteen months and we hope to
complete the initial phase of preservation work soon, possibly to
coincide with SRI's 50th anniversary in October. We have an
NLS/Augment system running in software emulation, and quite a bit of
additional historical material. We are currently considering
different ways to make the material available, including through an
on-line "cyber exhibit", and as a download package or commemorative
DVD. Of course, we would be grateful for any additional material or
resources SRI could provide related to this project. (05)
Thank you in advance for your help, and I look forward to talking
with you soon. (06)
Philip Gust
President and CEO
Nouveau Systems, Inc.
3120 De La Cruz Blvd., Suite 120
Santa Clara, CA 95054 (07)
phone: +1 650 961-7992
fax: +1 520 843-7217 (08)
mailto: gust@NouveauSystems.com (09)
Nouveau Systems products seamlessly integrate collaboration,
information management, processes automation, and capture of
mission-critical knowledge. To learn how Nouveau Systems products
can help your organization drive innovation, visit:
http://www.NouveauSystems.com (010)
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