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From: jbass@igor.tamri.com (John Bass)
Subject: George William Herbert's Challenge - Part 6 (The question of motive)
Message-ID: <1993Feb5.105510.9628@igor.tamri.com>
Organization: DMS Design
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 10:55:10 GMT
Lines: 111
My frustration in the last posting (regarding the false claim by Keith Bostic)
Is a good example of about 70% of my mbox -- everybody is an expert telling
me to get my facts straight and stop re-writting history (before and after
calling me whatever).
My frustration in posting "ENOUGH" was from the long stream of postings
based on:
1) if big is bad, and AT&T is big, then everything AT&T does is bad.
2) if universities are good, and UCB is a university, every UCB
does is good.
Prior to posting "ENOUGH" I had received input about the global situtation
from a number of people, and have used the following to make my postings:
A) Things that appear to be facts(?):
1) BSDI was formed by, it's board of directors are, and it's
staff are, mostly current and/or former UCB's CSRG employees.
2) That Bill Jolitz (also CSRG staff) had also done major work for BSDI.
3) UCB, on the technical advice of the same CSRG group, claims Net-2,
the basis for Jolitz/BSDI products, is free of AT&T infringment.
4) BSDI claims no infringment, just basis on Net-2.
5) Jolitz claims no infringment, just basis on Net-2.
6) AT&T claims Net-2 infingment, code derived from UNIX sources.
7) My own review of 386BSD shows AT&T code segments and design
in major sections of the 386BSD kernel, and Net-2. The AT&T
claim seems to have ATLEAST some merit.
8) There is a strong anti-AT&T bias and pro-UCB bias in the
educational (read usenet) community.
B) Rumors with credibility:
9) There is CSRG funded work, post Net-2, common to both Jolitz & BSDI.
C) My Logic
10) This case is not about UCB, it's about CSRG staff involved in a
for-profit business (BSDI), using UCB for legal cover where they
have no personal liability for their actions.
11) The involved CSRG staff, (including Jolitz and common BSDI staff),
using the three products (Net-2, 386BSD, and BSD/386) acted out
a single goal, done with malice and forthought, of striping AT&T
of it's right to the UNIX operating system.
12) The primary motive was to make money if BSDI went big time,
the secondary motive was to enhance their prestege in the
usenix community.
13) The release of 386BSD into the public was done to provide a
damage shield, as well as provide a marketing tool, for BSDI.
With this logic, I do not separate any of the players, since I belive
they acted as a group ... certainly BSDI and CSRG are tightly interconnected,
and the Jolitz and CSRG and BSDI connections appear tightly interconnected
as well. Using the same logic, ditto for the three products.
UCB management and legal staff (read California tax payers) are stuck
defending the CSRG staff and their little company BSDI ... personally I
think their budget would be better spent educating UCB students.
This is in defense of my "Enough" posting with the following major points:
"First, the group at UCB, Joltz, BSDI, and others all have acted
out a plan to attempt to place the AT&T/USL UNIX product into the
public domain. A conspiracy based in false "Robin Hood" ethics.
...
"From my view what UCB, Joltz, BSDI and others have done has neither
advanced the art nor been in the UNIX industries best interest. With
forethought and malace they incrementally attempted to place the UNIX
operating system product into the public domain by re-writting it
line by line while leaving the framework and the fabric of the system
unchanged ... same global design, major algorithms, data structures,
internal interfaces, etc ... to what end? Only to attempt to destroy
AT&T/USL UNIX as a commercial product. At best the debate has
cost more than a million wasted man-hours that could have been more
productively used to advance the art with a new design. Their actions
have been WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!"
Now a number of people have taken the "advanced the art" part of this
out of context ... my point in context is that:
Their actions (which go beyond their contributions from original
DARPA work ending with Net-2) with the goal to pirate the balance
of unix, has not "advanced the art" nor was in "the UNIX industries
best interest".
It is time to stop letting the CSRG/BSDI staff hide behind UCB ... this case
SHOULD not be about UCB ... it's about the CSRG/BSDI pirates.
The first step is to get UCB to use their own standards of plagiarism
and setup an internal review board (NOT CSRG STAFF) to review the work
done by CSRG for Net-2 and Jolitz for 386BSD. Secondly this review board,
should then become the resource to guide UCB lawyers, not CSRG staff.
I would suggest review board members come from the English Lit and
Physical Sciences schools.
John Bass
DMS Design