*BSD News Article 3021


Return to BSD News archive

Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!darwin.sura.net!dtix!mimsy!jds
From: jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit
Message-ID: <59408@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 3 Aug 92 19:22:58 GMT
References: <45961@shamash.cdc.com> <25138@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1992Aug3.143259.23897@crd.ge.com>
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Organization: University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science
Lines: 75

davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>  What they imply in in the mind of the reader, but what they say sounds
>true to me. They appear to be trying to swing public opinion against
>USL, to bring pressure and cause damages (as in people buying osf1 or
>BSD/386 on moral rather than technical grounds). I don't normally expect
>this behavior of someone who expects to be upheld in court.

But what about UNIGRAM-X's bit of yellow journalism, clearly fed by USL.
By your own logic: "They appear to be trying to swing public opinion
against BSDI, to bring pressure and cause damages (as in people buying SVR4
instead of BSD/386 on moral rather than technical grounds).  I don't
normally expect this behavior of someone who expects to be upheld in
court."

Anyway, what behavior _do_ you expect?  Do you really believe that only
guilty parties need worry in our legal system?  USL has a huge advantage
over BSDI in terms of their ability to harass BSDI to death with lawsuits.
BSDI would be foolish to not in turn use one of their biggest weapons,
public opinion, to beat USL about the head and shoulders for being the
monopolistic, barren, ineffective, forgetful, shortsighted, lawyer-ridden
buttheads that they are (in my own words and opinion :-).

>  It seems to me that the university was not really trying to solve the
>issue when they refused to let a mutually agreed third party examing the
>whole body of code. By insisting on snapshots they give the appearance
>of trying to hide something, even if they're not.

It is a bit circular to take at face value UNIGRAM-X's depiction of the
events as the basis for your negative conclusions about incident, since the
article was so clearly biased to begin with.  Or do you have some direct
knowledge of the circumstances of this third-party examination proposal?

The idea projected in UNIGRAM-X's article --- that a reasonable USL, eager
to do the right thing, approached the University to settle the matter out
of court, but was rebuffed by those evil CSRG guys --- is laughable, and I
can't believe you would fall for it.

In the absence of more objective information about this proposed code
review, or at least the other side of the story, it's premature to draw any
conclusions about it.

In my pro-CSRG bias I tend to think that the university was very smart to
not give in to USL demands at this point.  

>  I still have an open mind on this, but that's a long way from my
>original assumption. Based on the old "if it walks like a duck..."
>addage, if a party behaves as if they have something to hide it
>certainly doesn't help me believe they don't.

Perhaps you don't mean it to be so, but this is a dangerous attitude to
take in general.  Am I guilty of something if I refuse to allow the police
into my house without a warrant?  Am I guilty if I refuse to respond to
questioning without a lawyer present?  Am I guilty if I call the newspapers
after being harassed?  Not according to the U.S. Constitution.  "Hmm, he
refused to give up his constitutional rights; he _must_ be hiding
something!"

Analogously, I interpret BSDI and The Regents not as "acting guilty", but
rather showing a good deal of legal and public-relations savvy.  Innocent
until proven guilty in this country, Bill; it is up to USL to prove the
infringement, not up to CSRG to prove that they aren't guilty.

By the way, does anyone have any information on who these UNIGRAM-X people
are anyway?  Is this a real newspaper or newsletter?  Who owns them, and
who is their intended audience?  It was so badly written that I would have
thought it a joke in other circumstances.  "drug-happy hippy-freak Unix
culture", indeed!  "naive tech-weenies", indeed!  Are the authors brave
enough to show their faces here and admit to writing this piece of trash,
or are they just going to continue lurking about?

Harumph,
Jaime
.............................................................................
: Stand on my shoulders, : jds@cs.umd.edu  :		      James da Silva
: not on my toes.	 : uunet!mimsy!jds : Systems Design & Analysis Group