*BSD News Article 2729


Return to BSD News archive

Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!yale!gumby!destroyer!uunet!mcsun!uknet!bcc.ac.uk!link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk!ucacmsu
From: ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk (Mr Stephen R Usher)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: I wonder, did AT&T backstab BSDI?
Keywords: AT&T speculation lawsuit BSDI
Message-ID: <1992Jul29.144859.8222@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Jul 92 14:48:59 GMT
References: <1992Jul28.153750.8395@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@ucl.ac.uk (Usenet News System)
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium, London
Lines: 31

In article <1992Jul28.153750.8395@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> knight@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Knight of the Living Dead) writes:
>
>As I recall when System 5 Revision 4.0 was released, it was described
>(to me, anyway) as an attempt to gain "BSD Compatibility".  I'm wondering
>if the reason why AT&T held out sueing BSDI this long is so they could
>claim copyright of BSD's code/style/look/feel/etc while it was still
>popular, and then smash all the competition.

The only problem with this idea is that SYSVr4 (NOT System 5, that was
another Unix way back) doesn't look like BSD, it still looks like SYSV to
the normal user, ie you have horrid syntax for the ps utility where you need
to use a hyphen in front of the arguments and the devices... yuck!

The only real thing I've seen which is BSD is the socket library (not
complete) and the BSD compatibility library which is not complete either.

>
[Stuff deleted]
>-- Eric Knight
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>These opinions are my own, and my employeer doesn't want me ruining his
>life anymore than I absolutely have to.
>                                            EBKnight@dockmaster.ncsc.mil
>------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve
--
Addresses:-
JANET:-		ucacmsu@uk.ac.ucl or	steve@uk.ac.ox.earth (preferable)
Internet:-	ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk or	steve@earth.ox.ac.uk (preferable)