Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Precedent... Whitesmiths Re: AT&T vs. BSDI --> 4.3BSD-NET2 distribution requires AT&T license!!! Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uunet!think.com!unixland!rmkhome!rmk From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) Organization: The Man With Ten Cats Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:52:31 GMT Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) Message-ID: <9207270852.35@rmkhome.UUCP> References: <1992Jul21.142631.14517@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <mcuddy.711795634@fensende> <l6rld6INN3dh@neuro.usc.edu> <QIQHXX9@taronga.com> Keywords: AT&T Death Star rises over BSDIs horizon [Tel. 1-800-800-4BSD] Lines: 24 In article <QIQHXX9@taronga.com> peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >>AT&T's claim though if litigated >>well -- and AT&T has some of the best attorneys in the country -- may form >>a basis for asserting a property right in virtually any compatible version >>of a UNIX type operating system. > >I believe there may be a precedent here, in the Whitesmiths C library and >Whitesmith's UNIX lookalike, from back in the early '80s. The original >release of Whitesmith's C and (I believe) Idris used a non-standard variant >of the UNIX standard I/O library to avoid any possible attack from AT&T (for >example, "putfmt()" instead of "printf()". This was changed, from what I >recall, after AT&T indicated that the interface defined in the UNIX >programmer's manual (the look and feel) was public domain. > >In addition, of course, there is the precedent of donating the setuid patent >to the public domain. AT&T checked out Coherent back in 1981, and just told them that they couldn't call it UNIX. -- Rick Kelly rmk@rmkhome.UUCP unixland!rmkhome!rmk rmk@frog.UUCP