UUCP & you

[cottrell at nbs-vms.ARPA]

/*
Lauren writes about his UUCP...
> One reason you don't see much about how the protocol works is that
> since it is embodied in trade-secret source code, it would be
> illicit to read the UUCP source code to figure out the protocol
> (and then use or publish that information in non-Unix-licensed environments).
> I developed my own knowledge and versions of UUCP completely from the
> outside, without any reference to UUCP source code.

Yeah, but I bet you read the articles on UUCP in the manual set. How
straight can you get? Who is going to know that you read the code?
Experience is not copyrighted, patententable, or protected by trade
secret. I suppose that if your license said you couldn't run yacc on
Tuesdays, you probably wouldn't do it. Agreements often are more
restrictive than they have to be in order to apply to the real misuses.
There is a fine line between fair use and outright piracy. Try to find
the happy medium. BTW, why do you call it UUCP? Isn't that stealing
their name? 

	jim
*/