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From: leb@Hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov (Lee E. Brotzman)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit
Message-ID: <leb.712651912@Hypatia>
Date: 1 Aug 92 06:51:52 GMT
References: <1992Aug1.042344.23428@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <l7k5fqINNgc9@neuro.usc.edu> <l7k6maINNgeg@neuro.usc.edu> <l7k72rINNgfn@neuro.usc.edu>
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merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes:
>In article <> bostic@toe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic) writes:
>> ... Unix System Labs didn't exactly want to sue the university,
>> but basically has no choice and regards this as a test case.
>AT&T/USL is going to regret this decision. UC Regents General Counsel's
>Office is extremely large, well financed, and backed up by some of the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>most prestigeous law schools in the country. Moreover, the UC Regents
>General Counsel's Office is capable of doing virtually anything which is
>necessary to win this suit. In a blind moment of panic, AT&T/USL seems
>to have forgotton the old cliche 'let sleeping dogs lay.' Bringing the
>UC Regents into this case was a serious mistake on AT&T/USL's part.
Excuse me, but aren't these state employees now getting IOU's in lieu of
paychecks? If I was USL (and I'm not, nor do I think USL is at all in the
right here) I would think that an attack on a small start-up firm *AND*
a financially insolvent state institution would be a pretty good bet.
One of the big counter-arguments against USL has been that they haven't tried
to protect their interests up till now, therefore they have forfeited all
claims to BSD source code. Maybe. I think that their point is that noone has
tried to make money off the NET2 code until BSDI came along. Making money (or
actually losing money) is the name of the game. USL has a financial stake in
keeping their source licenses in force. It means big bucks. I can't blame
them for trying to enforce their so-called rights to the license agreements
that were signed by the UC Regents (and every other commercial vendor, as
reported in this newsgroup). That's what the courts are for.
This kind of thing has arisen in the courts before, you know. The distributors
of the Phoenix BIOS took care that the actual writers of code weren't
"contaminated" by the IBM BIOS code. Can the BSDI writers say that they
haven't seen the USL copyrighted code? Maybe. Let's seem them prove it,
and by the same token, let's see USL prove that they have used AT&T
code. That's what the courts are for. If BSDI did not budget legal fees for
an almost certain court challenge then they need a new accountant (I know
because my wife is an accountant with an interest in contract law and she
saw this legal challenge coming.)
Now, this claim that any poor undergraduate student that has been
unfortunate enough to take an operating systems course will be suddenly
unemployable because of "contamination" from his college texts if they mention
UNIX, is pure bullshit. There are jobs with firms that have paid their source
license fee (i.e. all firms that market UNIX, I guess). And when BSDI wins
this case, there may be a few more jobs available. Let's face it, the real
money is in applications, not kernels.
On the other hand it is an inescabable conclusion (from where I sit) that it is
too late to claim UNIX as a trademark. Damnit, UNIX and Aspirin are terms
that have reached the public domain. Actually, I welcome this court action.
If BSDI and CSRG prevail, then "free" access is improved (is $1000 considered
free in these days of inflation -- last time I looked, $1000 was worth a few
bucks -- I wonder where all the talk about "free" came from?).
>Does anyone recall my initial prediction that this case wasn't a simple
>case of a big company trying to crush a tiny comeptitor -- instead, the
>people in control of the AT&T 'Death Star' had declared war on academia
>-- and as a result the case may have serious consequences for all of us?
>Well, I told you so [:-)].
It seems to me that if it was easy to free the Berkeley code of the USL source
license they (UCB) would have been able to manage it all these years since their
signing of the licencse agreement. My understanding is that even 4.4BSD will
still be USL (AT&T) encumbered (wasn't this very newsgroup lamenting this fact
just a few weeks ago?...) The idea is that the NETx tapes are not-quite-UNIX
with the licensed code belonging to USL missing -- not replaced totally. So
if the BSDI guys have seen the USL code and have just plugged it in, there's a
cause of action. That's the crux of the lawsuit.
Personally, I don't believe USL's claims. I think that BSDI (the commercial
group) and Jolitz ( the real saint here) just managed to figure it out.
--
-- Lee E. Brotzman Internet: leb@hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov
-- Hughes STX DECNET: NDADSA::BROTZMAN
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