*BSD News Article 3046


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From: gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert)
Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit
Date: 4 Aug 1992 07:36:38 GMT
Organization: Dis-
Lines: 55
Sender: gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert)
Message-ID: <15lc26INNlpq@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <1992Aug3.143259.23897@crd.ge.com> <7045@skye.ed.ac.uk> <KANDALL.92Aug4161214@globalize.nsg.sgi.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu
Summary: not accurate, friend...

In article <KANDALL.92Aug4161214@globalize.nsg.sgi.com> kandall@nsg.sgi.com (Michael Kandall) writes:
>The issue may be more than copyright.  I believe the software license
>which UCB signed with AT&T, now USL, requires them to protect the
>intellectual property beyond just the simple copyright.  Doesn't the
>license signed by UCB require them to protect ``ideas, concepts and
>techniques'' or something vague like that?  The copyright notice at
>the top of each file is not the only thing protecting the technology.

First I've heard of it...

>Its not just code.  Its an entire system: designs, specs and maybe
>parts of the implementation, lifted from USL property.  Whether it is
>legally possible to protect such things as general as implementation
>ideas is a separate question.
>
>Independent of the legal issues, it is clear to me that the BSDI
>people have taken their ideas from USL's UNIX System.  Where do you
>think they learned to write UNIX-like, mu, mt operating systems?  They
>weren't born like that.  They looked at the real UNIX code, used the
>ideas, and wrote their own.  Whether the legal system combined with
>the USL Software Agreement protect those ideas is a different issue.
>
>I find this (legal, or not) ``stealing'' of ideas reprehensible.  It
>is also contrary to the spirit of Open Systems.  As a company, what
>incentive do I have to invest person-years of time, money and
>collected expertise, designing and specifying a technology which I
>will license to other parties, if those other parties can:

What?
I understand some parts of how UNIX internals work.
I have not, to my knowledge, looked at encumbered code.
Rather, I've read articles and books and talked to people
about how it works.  Every little detail of the UNIX operating
system has been disected time and time again in journals,
books, and online and offline discussions.

If that knowledge, gained without reading AT&T's proprietary
code, is then used to recreate part of UNIX, is it violating their
copyright?  That's NOT what current copyright law generally holds.
That's not what current intellectual propertly law holds.
It might fall under patent law, but they didn't patent most
of UNIX, they just copyrighted the code.

If you don't want an idea "stolen", you don't discuss it in public
and encourage scholarly examination and work on it.  USL's only
fair grounds for complaint are if specific sections were copied
such that they are violations of USL copyright.


-george william herbert
gwh@soda.berkeley.edu  gwh@lurnix.com  herbert@uchu.isu92.ac.jp until 28 aug
++ copyright 1992 george william herbert. All rights reserved.  Permission   ++
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