*BSD News Article 2653


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From: orion@nuchat.nuchat.sccsi.com (Roland Dunkerley)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,misc.jobs.misc
Subject: Re: AT&T sues BSDI
Message-ID: <ORION.92Jul28023753@nuchat.nuchat.sccsi.com>
Date: 28 Jul 92 08:37:53 GMT
References: <FSTX.92Jul22102314@meryl.csd.uu.se> <1992Jul22.235604.27104@exlog.com>
	<1992Jul25.222121.20426@socrates.umd.edu> <s6j1Hp4!q8@atlantis.psu.edu>
Sender: orion@nuchat.sccsi.com (Roland Dunkerley)
Organization: Eristic Rite In Software, Houston, Tx.
Lines: 38
In-Reply-To: hvozda@wilbur.psu.edu's message of 27 Jul 92 23:41:15 GMT

>>>>> On 27 Jul 92 23:41:15 GMT, hvozda@wilbur.psu.edu (Eric Hvozda) said:

	|> In article <1992Jul25.222121.20426@socrates.umd.edu>
	|> ice@socrates.umd.edu (Fredrik Nyman) writes:
>Comments?

	|> Indeed!

	|> It is a shame companies can be so petty over such things
	|> when all poeple want to do is make a living...
I thought there was a precedent that no agreement you make with a
company can prohibit you from earning a living in your chosen
profession.  Hopefully someone will correct me if I have the details
wrong, but the particular case I am thinking of has to do with Greg
Wilcox (I think that's his name, it's been a while), the founder of
Alpha-Micro.  Anyway, he left DEC with tapes of an early version of
RSTS under his arm, founded Alpha-Micro selling systems based on the
LSI-11 processor with a re-arranged instruction set running AMOS, an
exact clone of RSTS.  The binary images were different due to the
re-arranged instruction set.  The court ruled that not only could DEC
not prohibit him from writing OS software since that was his primary
profession, but that if he had written RSTS once, he could therefore
write it again.  Of course, this was before look and feel, these days,
DEC could claim that he had infringed on the look and feel of their
software and probably win on those grounds.  Too bad Atari managed to
create the concept of look and feel, we'd certainly be better off
without it.  Of course, I can do without a Mac or Mac-related job just
fine...  Don't think I'll be buying anything from Lotus either.
--
"I still dream of Orgonon..."     ---    KaTe Bush, Cloudbusting
Fnord.                        Roland Pleasant Dunkerley III, KSC
South Coast Computing Services, Inc - Houston Public Access UNIX
orion@nuchat.sccsi.com               {uhnix1,uunet}!nuchat!orion
-- 
"I still dream of Orgonon..."     ---    KaTe Bush, Cloudbusting
Fnord.                        Roland Pleasant Dunkerley III, KSC
South Coast Computing Services, Inc - Houston Public Access UNIX
orion@nuchat.sccsi.com               {uhnix1,uunet}!nuchat!orion