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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!airs!ian From: ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: AT&T vs. BSDI --> 4.3BSD-NET2 distribution requires AT&T license! Message-ID: <4938@airs.com> Date: 25 Jul 92 03:55:46 GMT References: <1992Jul21.131433.16450@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg> <l6vt9sINN93u@neuro.usc.edu> <23309@alice.att.com> Sender: news@airs.com Lines: 22 andrew@alice.att.com (Andrew Hume) writes: >an embargo against plan 9, as some have proposed, would be utterly pointless. >do you seriously think for a femtosecond that USL gives a damn about you >using plan 9? (i'm sure they are indifferent but if they had an opinion, they >are probably glad you aren't using plan 9.) I think it's fairly clear that avoiding Plan 9 will have little or no effect on the law suit against BSDI. However, it appears to me that avoiding Plan 9 would be a good way to avoid law suits in the future. Once upon a time Unix was available as a research system, and many people looked at it. USL is now essentially alleging that those people can no longer produce untainted OS code. What's to stop the same thing from happening with Plan 9 in the future? Much as I respect Mr. Hume and the people who have worked on Plan 9, and although I find its ideas quite interesting, you could not pay me to look at that code now. -- Ian Taylor | ian@airs.com | First to identify quote wins free e-mail message: ``It takes a man months and months to reconcile himself to a new hat. And just when you're preparing to send it to the jumble sale, he says, `That's rather a nice hat you've got on, where did you get it?' ''