Philip Gust wrote Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:42:08 -0800:
> At 08:59 AM 2/11/2005, Jonathan Cheyer wrote:
>
>> [Jonathan] Our primary need is to get Boeing
>> (through Tymshare/McDonnell-Douglas)
>> to agree to release NLS/Augment to public domain. I think the best way
>> to do that is for the CHM to appeal to Boeing that it should be
>> released for historical, educational, and inspirational purposes.
>> Because I expect it may take many months for us to actually get to the
>> point of receiving a written statement from Boeing, we should start
>> this process as soon as possible. I can't overstate the importance of
>> having NLS/Augment released into the public domain. We can work on the
>> technical aspects in parallel, but if we aren't able to obtain the
>> statement of release from Boeing, this project will not be able to
>> continue.
>>
>> Rather than just approaching Boeing Legal directly, who are likely to
>> turn down our request, I think speaking with someone much higher up at
>> Boeing is the way to go. When I spoke with John Toole, he said he
>> would be able to help out in this area. I believe he knows someone at
>> Boeing, and I think if we can get a favor from them then they can help
>> push Boeing Legal to write up a public domain release document of some
>> kind. If they can't find the code anywhere at Boeing, it would be fine
>> if they would just agree in writing to release their ownership of
>> whichever version of the NLS/Augment system code that we find on
>> Doug's computer.
>
>
> [Phil] I agree with the priority of clarifying the legal status and getting
> Boeing to agree to as
> few restrictions as we can get. Working through people like John at CHM
> sounds like
> the right approach to me, too. We should ask John to poke around and
> find out whether
> someone associated with the museum has a close personal relationship
> with a very
> senior Boeing executive, and ask that person to make the initial call.
> Those kind of
> personal contacts are golden. Until we can clarify the status, we'll
> have to treat the
> NLS/Augment software as what's called a "dark archive", with access
> limited only to
> those working on the preservation project. There are several other
> pieces of software
> with that status at the museum, including the source code to MacPaint. (01)
[ppy] we actually did have a conversation about that with John
Toole during Doug's party. John has exactly the right connection
get this started -- he's Lew Platt, ex-HP chief honcho (who is
now Chairman of Boeing.) I guess what you need to do, Phil, is to
bring this up at your CHM meeting, and request for John to set
this in motion. (02)
Cheers. -ppy
-- (03)
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