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From: davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen)
Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit
Message-ID: <1992Aug6.135607.5620@crd.ge.com>
Date: 6 Aug 92 13:56:07 GMT
References: <KANDALL.92Aug4161214@globalize.nsg.sgi.com> <5042.Aug412.31.0892@virtualnews.nyu.edu> <KANDALL.92Aug5175428@globalize.nsg.sgi.com> <7066@skye.ed.ac.uk>
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Reply-To: davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center, Schenectady NY
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In article <7066@skye.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
| But I suspect there's no way some people can be convinced.
| AT&T just owns Unix, in their opinion, and anyone who implements
| a Unix owes AT&T.
Correct. Anyone who implements an o/s which they sell (or give away)
as UNIX, and which is based on AT&T code, owes AT&T. people who write a
functional clone, reverse engineered, seem to have avoided USL claims so
far (linix, linux, coherent, etc). Early BSD versions came to us as
patch tapes to be applied to our licensed AT&T source code. Hard to
argue that they were not based on UNIX. Later the AT&T parts were
rewritten bit by bit, but in many cases using the same overall
structure.
If I may draw an analogy, once a builder (we can call him Dennis)
started building foundations. They were very fine foundations, well
built and could be used in any climate. Many people used those
foundations, and when they moved to another location they were able to
use the same foundation. The original builder trademarked his house as
"Dennis_built."
Another builder (we can call him Bill), funded by reaserch grant
money, started with the foundation and added a spacious house with
solar heating. It was now bigger, and prettier, and it used mirrors to
make it seem even bigger than it really was. People liked that, and
started calling the the new design "Dennis_built by Bill."
The original builder liked some of the new features, and added them to
basic plan. Soon the original builder was providing foundations with a
first floor, solar heat, and a slightly different type of mirror, which
made the house seem bigger, and was on the ceiling instead of the walls
of the bedrooms. Now people could either buy the original foundation and
get the add-on from the reaserch group, or for a few dollars more get
the whole house from the original builder. People had a choice and as
little porticos and gingerbread was added to one or the other, the best
ideas moved back and forth, so all the people living in the houses had
better homes.
Other builders, seeing how much people liked these homes, designed
their own. Some builders sold their homes as smaller, or cheaper, or
with dorrs and windows which opened and closed very quickly. Some
builders, being either rich or nice guys, built houses and gave them
away. But they couldn't give a warranty on free houses, so people had to
choose. They could have free, or a foundation from the original builder
and trim for free (and some support from the friends of houses), or buy
a house from the original builder and get a waranty. And people had a
choice, and the people who wanted to give away houses did, and the
people who wanted to sell houses did, and things worked really well.
Then Tony (who took over after Bill left), saw his research grant
was running out, and decided to give away houses, too. Building parts
of houses was getting boring, and money was running out, so it was
decided to eliminate the original builder's foundation and give away
the house with a new foundation. And the original foundation was
replaced, beam by beam, block by block, nail by nail, until nothing was
left but Tony's materials, pretty much in the shape of the original
foundation. Then Tony said "I'm quitting building, but I'm going to
give away the whole house, because it's all mine now."
But Betty, who inherited the business from her father, said "wait a
minute, you are using your materials, but it's dad's design. When dad
let you use his foundation for reaserch you agreed to keep the tricks
to yourself. And you are calling your houses 'Dennis_built by Tony'
which confuses people and infringes my trademark."
"Did not!" said Tony. "You're trying to profit on my materials."
"Did so!" said Betty, "and you're trying to steal my ideas and give
them away because you don't want to build houses any more."
"Not!"
"Did!"
Finally Betty said, "Let's get Bob the builder to look at your house
and mine, and see if you are still using any of my materials, or things
built from my blueprint, or if the whole foundation still looks like
mine."
But Tony said, "No, I only want to have him look at the bay windows
and the floor joists, or you can pick three details to let him think
about. And by the way I want to use my good buddy, Elmo, who used to
work for me and really knows my stuff."
And it came to pass that Tony and Betty never did agree, and Betty
sued Tony. People who bought houses thought both of them were being
jerks, and bought cheap mass produced Quonsett huts from _Bill's Huts_.
They were ugly, but had only one room and were easy to use because you
can't get lost in one room, no matter how little effort you make to
learn your way around. And the new Quonsett huts had lots of windows,
which really didn't add much, but made people think they were neat even
though there was nothing inside to see.
So Tony and Betty hurt each other's reputation, lost business to
inferior products, and their lawyers lived happily and prosperously ever
after.
Any resemblence to persons living, dead, foolish or greedy, or any
company or organization is in the mind of the reader. This story is my
personal fantasy and should not be confused with fact or policy of
anyone but me.
--
bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.