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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!ksr!jfw@ksr.com From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 386BSD vs. BSD/386: Which is better for me? Message-ID: <25254@ksr.com> Date: 16 Apr 93 16:36:43 EDT References: <VIXIE.93Apr16115459@cognition.pa.dec.com> Sender: news@ksr.com Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp. Lines: 29 vixie@pa.dec.com (Paul A Vixie) writes: >>My advice is to play with 386bsd first; if you don't like it, you can go to >>BSD/386, and you lose nothing but time. If you try BSD/386 first, you're out >>a kilobuck. >on the other hand, if you try BSD/386 first, BSDI's lawyers get a kilobuck. >it's not clear to me that 386BSD won't be contraband if BSDI/CSRG loses on >net-2's legal status. just a thought. It might depend on what they lose on. Unless USL comes up with something a lot more convincing than what they've shown the judge so far, USL won't win on copyright issues. The judge only expressed skepticism for USL's trade secret claims, not outright disdain; if USL wins on that count, though the trade secret they claim in the suit (the "organization" of 32V) is out of the bag, they might then feel emboldened to claim some *other* trade secret is present in 386bsd and sue The Regents and the Jolitzes based on that (and every FTP site carrying 386bsd?). It's possible they could do that anyway if they lose the current lawsuit, unless the judge manages to find, in a really convincing manner, that there *can* be no trade secrets of any sort revealed in BSD/386 and NET2, but I would assume at least that the first loss would (a) provide the defense lawyers in the second case with a valuable outline for their case, and (b) open USL to a vigorous countersuit, especially if the outcome of the first suit is outright embarassing (which it could be, since the judge has indicated that, based on the paltry evidence so far, it basically looks like AT&T deliberately ceded the trade secret status of the "organization" of 32V when they explicitly approved NET1). Fortunately, by that time, Novell should own USL rather than AT&T, and they don't have the same *emotional* attachment to monopolies that AT&T execs have (a business attachment, sure), so they may be much less likely to sue again just to harass BSDI out of existence.