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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