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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA7085 ; Mon, 18 Jan 93 10:47:15 EST Xref: sserve comp.org.eff.talk:11657 comp.unix.bsd:10092 comp.unix.wizards:28247 comp.org.usenix:3110 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pa.dec.com!weir.pa.dec.com!ed From: ed@weir.pa.dec.com (Ed Gould) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: BSDI/USL Lawsuit -- More Bad News for Human Beings... Date: 18 Jan 1993 06:22:47 GMT Organization: DEC Network Systems Lab, Palo Alto Lines: 73 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <1jdibnINN52u@usenet.pa.dec.com> References: <1jd307INNlf6@chnews.intel.com> <C0yK27.9Ly@csn.org> <1ja6bgINNh23@chnews.intel.com> <BZS.93Jan16205935@world.std.com> Reply-To: ed@pa.dec.com NNTP-Posting-Host: weir.pa.dec.com [Houghton] > I'd find it hard to believe that copyright bugs weren't > apparent in every element of the packaging and installed > files of 32V when the license for it was signed; if they > weren't then AT&T's lawyers probably have some excruciating > explaining to do to the shareholders. [Shein] >> or perhaps because they purposely did not copyright >> it for other strategic reasons (which perhaps now they regret)? The copyright notices were *removed* from a previous version (I no longer remember just which, but I expect it was 5th Edition) before it was released outside AT&T. This removal was at the explicit direction of the lawyers, who, at the time, believed that under then-current copyrught law they could not claim both copyright protection *and* trade secret protection for the work. At the time, they wanted to protect UNIX as their trade secret. Whether the 32/V release is protected by copyright is one of the primary issues in the case. As I understand things, it hinges on the technical definition of "publication." USL claims that 32/V (and other systems that they released at that time) were not published works, hence they were not covered by the copyright law at the time. This is particularly important, because the law then said that, in order to claim copyright, the work must be marked as copyrighted. Current law does not have this requirement; USL has recently (since the bringing of the suit against BSDI) filed a copyright registration for 32/V. > I'm all for intellectual property, but ... Could you be clear about what you mean by "intellectual property?" I suspect you have an understanding of the concept that is different from the legal meaning. > THEY'LL NEVER GET THE SETUID-BIT!!! NEVER!!! > > (They can't. It's PD. Thanks, Dennis. :-)) If by "PD" you mean "Public Domain," then no, it's not. The set-uid bit is protected by a United States patent. It happens that the owner of the patent (AT&T, not DMR, for all practical purposes), has decided to "let" the patent, which means, effectively, that they grant a royalty-free license, without application, to anyone who chooses to use it. "Public Domain" is probably the most mis-used phrase on the net. Nearly nothing whose author is still alive is legally in the public domain. This doesn't mean that there aren't things that are freely distributable, but that's not a synonem for public domain. > And C) Did this copying somehow violate the terms of the > original license? The "original license" protected UNIX solely on trade secret grounds. I have heard tell of a legal analysis (but never talked to any of the lawyers who did the analysis) that described the trade secret status of UNIX thusly. IF the case were ever to go to court, the defense would call as witness, someone from the plaintiff (USL, perhaps, in this case) and ask, "How many people, outside your organization, know this `secret'?" The answer would be something like, "Oh, maybe 100,000 or so." IF that weren't sufficient for the judge to throw out the claim of a secret, the second question would be, "What secrets remain after the publication of Bach's book, the publication of which was approved by you?" The only truthful answer to this question is, "None." -- Ed Gould ed@pa.dec.com Digital Equipment Corporation +1 415 688 1309 Network Systems Lab 181 Lytton Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301 "Unison is only one form of harmony." -- LW