*BSD News Article 10340


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From: woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods)
Subject: Re: BSDI/USL Lawsuit -- More Bad News for Human Beings...
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc.
References: <BZS.93Jan16205935@world.std.com> <1jdibnINN52u@usenet.pa.dec.com> <1jftlvINNq62@chnews.intel.com>
Message-ID: <1993Jan24.171352.708@robohack.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 17:13:52 GMT
Lines: 32

[Distribution was "inet"?!?!?  I don't think so!]

In article <1jftlvINNq62@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
> Yes, it is.  Ritchie placed it there, after the patent was
> granted.  Or so goes the version of the story I've seen:
> somewhere there's a copy of the patent documents with his
> signature and the handwritten statement "placed in the
> public domain, <date>".
> 
> ...I just checked Bach, Leffler, and the Jargon file;
> Thompson&Pike of course has the footnote, but it doesn't
> mention the PD-ness; I must've seen it in a Usenet posting;
> that's sort of like hearsay evidence from Richard Nixon...

The complete patent (``Protection of Data File Contents''; US Patent
4,135,240; Jan. 16, 1979; Assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories,
Inc.; invented by Dennis M Ritchie) is printed in appendix L of ``UNIX
System Security'', Wood & Kochan, 1985 [Hayden].  On the last page of
the reprinted patent is a hand-written statement that says:

	Dedicated to the public
	11/28/79
	991 OG 11

Oddly enough, Kernighan and Pike place a footnote in ``The UNIX
Programming Environment'' [1984] that says "The set-uid bit is
patented by Dennis Ritchie."
-- 
						Greg A. Woods

woods@robohack.UUCP, woods@Elegant.COM  VE3TCP	UniForum Canada & ECI
+1 416 443-1734 [home] +1 416 362-XRSA [work]	Toronto, Ontario; CANADA