Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ratfiv programming language

Old discussion from vfd
Discussion concluded and article kept on May 18, 2004

I'm not sure if this belongs here on as a copyvio. Something needs to be done. -Rholton 02:12, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep - There's no copy violation, the distribution was placed in the public domain when it was released on the DECUS tape. WPWoodJr 05:29, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep: seems to be public domain jaredwf 14:52, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'd be happier if someone researched the status of the DECUS material a bit, though. Certainly at the time contributors and users generally understood it to be public domain. I did some clicking on the archive link http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rsx/decus/rsx82a/330015/ to see if there was any explicit statement about it's being public domain, and I couldn't find it. In 1982, copyright registration was required within a year of publication to obtain protection, or something, so the absence of a copyright notice is evidence--but not, I think proof--of absence of copyright. And, of course, copyright was the only form of IP protection for software, which couldn't be patented then. Actually, now that I think about it, I am not sure that some individual contributions to the DECUS library contained GPL-like statements in them that tried to prevent their commercial use, so I'm not sure that "public domain" is 100.0000% strictly correct. I trust that this discussion, including this babbling, will get placed on the Talk page when the VfD debate is over. Dpbsmith 00:59, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * http://www.decus.org/encompass/software/index.shtml saith:
 * "The DECUS Software Library features a large collection of public domain software, containing hundreds of programs and application packages contributed by users from around the world...The DECUS Library operates as a software clearinghouse, recruiting and distributing freely distributable software products through a network of DECUS Chapters throughout the world. The DECUS Library does not generate or test the software, so all programs and information are provided on an "AS IS" basis.
 * That boilerplate sounds very familiar.

I've exchanged messages with User:WPWoodJr, who originally posted this article. William P. Wood, Jr. is the author of the Ratfiv compiler, and WPWoodJr has added a statement to the talk page that he authored the compiler. I don't see that there's really any question left as to copyvio. I now suggest we move this to Cleanup. Sooner that the usual 5 days would be fine with me. -Rholton 02:15, 11 May 2004 (UTC)