From: R.KITTREDGE@MD-B.Prime.COM (Roland Kittredge - Marketing 508-620-2800 x4666)
Subject: Kermit Commercial Policy
Reply-To: Info-Prime@Blx-A.Prime.COM
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 12:51:00 GMT

       POLICY ON COMMERCIAL USE AND DISTRIBUTION OF KERMIT
       Columbia University Center for Computing Activities


    The Kermit file transfer protocol has always been open,
available, and free to all. The protocol was developed at the
Columbia University Center for Computing Activities, as were the
first several Kermit programs. Columbia has shared these programs
freely with the worldwide computing community since 1981 and as a
result many individuals and institutions have contributed their
own improvements or new implementations in the same spirit. In
this manner, the number of different systems supporting Kermit
implementations has grown from three to its present large number.
If Columbia had elected to keep the protocol secret, to restrict
access to source code, or to license the software, Kermit
software would never have spread to so many different kinds of
computers, nor would the programs be in use at so many sites, nor
would the quality of many of the implementations be so high.

    Although Kermit is free and available to anyone who requests
it, it is not in the "public domain". The manuals, the Columbia
implementations, and many of the contributed implementations bear
copyright notices dated 1981 or later, and include a legend like:

    Copyright(C) 1990, Trustees of Columbia University in the
    City of New York
    Permission is granted to any individual or institution to
    use, copy, or redistribute this software as long as it is not
    sold for profit, provided this copyright notice is retained.

    The copyright notice is to protect Kermit, Columbia
University, and the various contributors from having their work
usurped by others and sold as a product. Kermit material can be
passed along to others; we ask only that profit not be your goal,
credit be given where it is due, and that new material be sent
back to us so that we can maintain a definitive and comprehensive
set of Kermit implementations.

    Within this framework, it is acceptable to charge a
reproduction fee when supplying Kermit to others. The
reproduction fee may be designed to recover costs of media,
packaging, printing, shipping, order processing, or any computer
use required for production. The fee should not reflect any
program or documentation development effort, and it should be
independent of how many implementations of Kermit appear on the
medium or where they came from. It should not be viewed as a
license fee. For instance, when Columbia ships a Kermit tape in
the USA, there is a $120.00 reproduction fee which includes a
2400' reel of magnetic tape, printed manuals, various flyers, a
box, and postage. The tape includes as many versions of Kermit,
including sources and documentation, as will fit.

    Commercial institutions may make unlimited internal use of
Kermit, and Kermit may be installed on timesharing systems where
customers are charged for system use, as long as they are not
charged more for using Kermit than for using any other program.

    A question raised with increasing frequency is whether a
company may incorporate Kermit into its products. A hardware
vendor may wish to include Kermit with its standard software. A
software house may wish to incorporate Kermit protocol into its
communications package, or to distribute Kermit software along
with some other product. A timesharing vendor or dialup database
may wish to provide Kermit for downloading. All these uses of
Kermit are permissible, provided:

         + A Kermit program may not be sold as a product in and
           of itself. In addition to violating the prevailing
           spirit of sharing and cooperation, commercial sale of
           the product called "Kermit" could violate the trade
           mark which is held on that name by Henson Associates,
           Inc., creators of THE MUPPET SHOW.

         + Existing Kermit programs and documentation may be
           included with hardware or other software as part of a
           standard package, provided the price of the hardware
           or software product is not raised significantly beyond
           costs of reproduction of the Kermit component.

         + Kermit protocol may be included in a multi-protocol
           communication package as one of the communication
           options, or as a communication feature of some other
           kind of software package, in order to enhance the
           attractiveness of the package. Kermit protocol file
           transfer and management should not be the primary
           purpose of the package. The price of the package
           should not be raised significantly because Kermit was
           included, and the vendor's literature should make a
           statement to that effect.

         + Credit for development of the Kermit protocol should
           be given to the Columbia University Center for
           Computing Activities, and customers should be advised
           that Kermit is available for many different computer
           systems for a nominal fee from Columbia and from
           various user group organizations.

    A commercial institution that intends to distribute Kermit
under the conditions listed above should be aware that other
implementations of Kermit for the same computer system may appear
in the standard Kermit distribution at any time. Columbia
University encourages all developers of Kermit software and
documentation to contribute their work back to Columbia for
further distribution.

    These are general guidelines; this is not a legal document to
be searched for loopholes. To date, Kermit has been freely shared
by all who have taken time to do work on it, and no formal
legalities have proven necessary. The guidelines are designed to
allow commercial enterprises to participate in the promulgation
of Kermit without seriously violating the Kermit user community's
trust that Kermit will continue to spread and improve at no
significant cost to themselves. These guidelines are subject to
change at any time, should more formal detail prove necessary.
Commercial organizations wishing to incorporate Kermit into their
products or to provide Kermit software to their customers should
write a letter stating their plans and their agreement to comply
with these guidelines, to :

    Kermit Distribution, Dept. CP
    Columbia University Center for Computing Activities
    612 West 115th Street
    New York, N.Y. 10025 USA


* Please use Kermit only for peaceful and humane purposes.
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