*BSD News Article 33086


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From: dmuntz@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Dan Muntz)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 4.4-lite?
Date: 23 Jul 1994 16:58:15 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept.
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <30ri77$d9@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
References: <2vgvc7$3tg@spruce.cic.net> <30h9jl$fg4@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <MYCROFT.94Jul20171702@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <30q72v$3cv@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: quip.eecs.umich.edu

In article <30q72v$3cv@pdq.coe.montana.edu>,
Nate Williams <nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu> wrote:
>
>It was neither cheap, nor a scare tactic.  It happened once, it could
>happen again.  *I* wouldn't want to take my chances.

Did FreeBSD replace all of its core team members who had been exposed to
the tainted Net-2 code?  Sounds like the basis for a lawsuit, should
USL decide to come after you.  How certain are you that some of those
device drivers you're using weren't based on some USL code in the past and
that USL might recognize it and come after you?  It's not particularly
easy to prove your code isn't borrowed even if you're writing all of the
non 4.4Lite code "from scratch."

All this arguing is absurd.  NetBSD and FreeBSD have about equal chances
of being pursued by USL (Novell?) IMHO; equal chances being about zero.

>'Don't need a ton of bricks to fall on my head twice.'

If you aren't consciously using scare tactics, you should at least read
and try to understand what you write.  The implication of this statement
is that bad things are likely to happen to people who use NetBSD.  If this
is what you intended, fine, but I'd say the basis for this statement is flimsy,
and it is therefore a "scare tactic."  If you're *so* concerned, switch to
Linux.  It seems to be the least vulnerable.

Just for the record, I'm running FreeBSD 1.1.5.1-RELEASE on all of my machines
at the moment and I'm quite happy with it.  Hopefully, "porting" software to
2.0 will be as easy as it is under 1.1.5.1 (type make :).

  -Dan