*BSD News Article 2939


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,alt.suit.att-bsdi
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdl!plts!tal
From: tal@plts.uucp (Tom Limoncelli)
Subject: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit
Message-ID: <1992Aug1.020513.14170@plts.uucp>
Followup-To: comp.unix.bsd
Organization: Tom's Box of Ahedonia
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1992 02:05:13 GMT
Lines: 179

I'm posting this without any comments.  I just thought it might be good
fodder (though I'm not sure for which side).

(It does contain some new news.)

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 COPIED WITH PERMISSION OF UNIGRAM X  COPYRIGHT (C) UNIGRAM PRODUCTS LTD.
 
------------------------------------------------------
London, August 3-7, 1992
Issue 396
 
+              NOW UNIX SYSTEM LABS TURNS THE HEAT 
         ON UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OVER BERKELEY CODE
  
In an unprecedented action against one of its own educational
licencees, Unix System Laboratories has filed suit in the US
federal courts against the University of California, Berkeley,
charging the prestigious institution with breach of contract,
copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and 
Lanham Trademark Act violations. The move makes UC Berkeley a 
party to USL's existing suit against software start-up Berkeley 
Software Design Inc (UX Nos 392, 394) for unfair competition, 
deceptive trade practices and false advertising. USL has now 
amended that suit against BSDI to include additional charges of 
copyright infringement, trade secret violations and inducing 
breach of contract.
 
                     Harassment
  
BSDI's response to the amended suit, which was served last 
Thursday, was to declare it "totally without merit" and "another 
step in [USL's] harassment campaign." BSDI, an alleged spin-off 
of UC Berkeley's Computer Sciences Research Group, author of the 
famous Berkeley code, is attempting to commercialise a 386 
operating system called BSD/386 based on the university's Network 
Release 2. Berkeley and BSDI claim NET2 is AT&T code-free and 
owes no licensing fees to USL. USL says it "knows for a fact" 
NET2 contains proprietary AT&T code. USL also says UC Berkeley 
rebuffed every proposal it put forward over the last few months 
to resolve the dispute without recourse to litigation. According 
to USL, the school effectively rejected a proposal for a full 
comparison of Berkeley versus USL code by unbiased third parties 
by demanding that the evaluation be limited only to USL-specified 
snapshots and by selecting as arbiters for its side members of 
the Computer Systems Research Group whose credentials, USL 
claims, were already tainted. CSRG, in what appears to be a form 
letter over the signature of CSRG team member Marshall Kirk 
McKusick, made written representations to BSDI on April 30, 1991 
that Berkeley software "may be freely redistributed...." and 
"requires no previous licence, either from AT&T or The Regents of 
the University of California." The university reportedly picked 
McKusick as one of its evaluators.
 
                     Public opinion
  
Had that proposal been acted on, McKusick, CSRG senior programmer 
and past president of Usenix, would have found himself in another 
conflict of interests since he is believed to be a secret a 
director of BSDI. BSDI, which the USL suit suggests is in 
collusion with CSRG, declines to publicly identify any of its 
founders or investors declaring such information "proprietary" on 
the basis that BSDI is a closely held company. No names appear on 
BSDI's papers of incorporation except the company's nominal 
president Rick Adams who was described to Unigram last week by 
Donnalyn Frey, BSDI's spokesman, as merely a figurehead, soon to 
be replaced when BSDI completes its current search for a chief 
executive. Adams, she said, is actually the president of UUNet 
Technologies, a long-established company currently  distributing 
BSD/386. Donnalyn, well-known as Usenix's erstwhile spokesman, 
should know since she is in fact Mrs Rick Adams. Besides 
McKusick, there are other ties between CSRG and BSDI. According 
to an April filing with the Virginia Commission on Corporations, 
where BSDI is headquartered, CSRG senior programmer Keith Bostic 
and former CSRG mainstay Mike Karels, the acknowledged architect 
of the university's 4.3 BSD release, are also directors of BSDI. 
BSDI describes Karels simply as an employee, claiming he joined 
the company after BSD/386 was established. Another director is 
Don Seeley, an employee of UUNet Technologies, the supplier of 
UUNet. Clearly USL will argue that CSRG staff gave themselves 
permission to commercialise the system and will doubtless note a 
violation of the university's established code of ethics which 
requires university personnel with a financial interest in a 
university decision to disqualify themselves. BSDI, meanwhile, is 
attempting to try the case in the court of public opinion. The 
week before last it put the full text of the initial complaint 
(but not the expanded suit) on UUNet ostensibly because so many 
were asking to see the exact wording. More details on page four.
 

+  100,000 USERS HAVE YET ANOTHER BERKELEY VARIANT - 386BSD...
                        by Maureen O'Gara
  
Besides Berkeley Software Design Inc's BSD/386 operating system,
there is another body of 386 code making the rounds.  That code 
got started in conjunction with the same University of California 
lab that BSDI's did and traces its  roots first to 4.3BSD Tahoe 
and ultimately to the same NET2 subset source. This code is 
confusingly named 386BSD after the original 386BSD project kicked 
off in the university's Computer Systems Research Group in 1989. 
The man who says he named both pieces of software is former 
386BSD project leader and principal developer of BSD 2.8 and 2.9, 
Bill Jolitz.  Jolitz reportedly mortgaged his house to start the 
initial 386BSD project and subsequently finished it in his own 
time. The code and its rationale were published over the course 
of a year in Dr Dobb's Journal beginning in January of 1991. It 
was also picked up by Dr Dobbs' sister publication Unix Magazin 
in Germany. The full code has been available on InterNet for the 
last two months and was to go on CompuServe last week, according 
to Dr Dobbs' editor Jonathan Erickson. He estimates that 386BSD 
is currently in the hands of 100,000 people. Jolitz, interviewed 
by Unigram.X last week, says that his 386BSD, at least in its 
initial versions, was encumbered. He also says that 386BSD is the 
basis of BSDI's BSD/386 which he worked on in 1991 at CSRG 
initially under the financial sponsorship of UUNet Technologies.  
Last summer his cheques started coming from BSDI. He claims he 
was never officially hired by BSDI and signed no employment 
contract with the firm, which he believes is the brainchild of 
UUNet chief Rick Adams and former CSRG staffer Mike Karels who 
was best man at Jolitz's wedding. However, Jolitz was apparently 
crucial to the project since none of BSDI's principals, alias 
CSRG's staffers, knew much about 386 Berkeley and couldn't 
maintain it. 386BSD was originally intended to be "a university 
curiosity," Jolitz said, a non-commercial, non-industrial 
strength way for students, facility and researchers to have 
access to Berkeley code on inexpensive machines. Increasingly 
through last year it became apparent that what CSRG wanted was  
"basically the same thing as BSDI:" an unencumbered commercial 
system. Ultimately, he says, he opposed it since it would mean 
terminating the 386BSD project, an action CSRG has taken, as well 
as having him renege on a published promise to produce freely 
accessible 386 code. He broke with BSDI in November, he says, but 
not before Usenix mysteriously refused to allow him to present a 
paper on his 386 work and BSDI offered to cut him in - in return 
for the title to his house. The first tack he regards as a way 
for CSRG/BSDI to limit competition. The second tactic he regards 
as an attempt to keep him in line. He says he attempted to bring 
what was happening to the attention of university authorities 
such as CSRG's faculty overseer Susan Graham and its Office of 
Technology Licensing but was sluffed off. He claims the 
university is guilty of "incompetent stewardship." He 
subsequently received letters from CSRG and university counsel 
claiming that all the work he had contributed to Berkeley since 
NET2 was "University proprietary," a phrase he had never heard 
before. In November he was asked to destroy all his own work and 
anything in his possession having to do with Berkeley or 386. He 
says he complied and rewrote the current 386BSD Release 0.0 from 
scratch. He says he receives no money from BSDI for his code 
though he alleges BSDI has told its customers that he does. 
Jolitz does not believe NET2 is encumbered.
 

+              ...AS BSDI PUTS THE WORD ON THE NET
 
The week before last, BSDI put the full text of Unix System Labs' 
initial complaint (but not the expanded suit) on UUNet, 
ostensibly because so many people were asking to see the exact 
wording - see front page. As might be expected, the move has 
stirred up a hornet's nest of academic fear and loathing against 
USL and has created a cadre of naive tech weinees ready to form a 
lynch mob. For all their thousands of lines of protests, however, 
no one has flat out denied USL's intellectual property rights. 
USL's suit asks the courts to oblige UC Berkeley to abide by its 
license from USL. It also wants the school to recall all copies 
of NET2. USL is seeking an unstipulated amount of actual and 
compensatory damages from UC Berkeley as well as legal fees. It 
wants the same from BSDI plus punitive damages. BSDI is 
reportedly getting set to move from a beta to a gamma version of 
BSD/386 either this week or next. It says it has distributed over 
300 copies of the beta system to an assortment of users including 
hackers, old DOS buffs and big brand name computer makers. BSDI 
is also getting ready to expand its distributor base.
 
-- 
Tom Limoncelli  goshicanneverthinkofwhattoputinmydotsignaturemaybeifijustwrite
-- tal@plts.uucp   lotsoftextnobodywillnoticethatiamnotreallysayinganythinggee
-- uunet!sdl!plts!tal   thatissortofusenetinamicrocosmisntitpeopletalkingonand
-- tal@warren.mentorg.com  onandnotreallysayinganythingwowhowutterlyironicofme