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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!jkh From: jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Wenn Ich das Word "BSD" hoere, entsicher Ich meine Waffe! Date: 29 Jul 1994 16:25:02 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 51 Message-ID: <31bagu$15s@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu To paraphrase Goering just a little bit.. :-) I've been staying out of news for the last few weeks in an effort to get some work done instead (FreeBSD 2.0's due date looming as it is) and came back to see one royal flame war over FreeBSD and NetBSD's legal status. Jesus, get a grip, guys! I mean, I'm glad to see that the flames have died down a bit now but I have to say that I'm a bit ashamed at the way some of the folks on "my side" behaved throughout this. NetBSD did what they felt to be adequate in order to escape USL's wrath and every indication I've had is that this is going to be Just Fine! In any case, it's NONE OF OUR BUSINESS whether they get sued or not. As others have pointed out, USL could decide to sue us because they don't like the color of our underwear and it wouldn't matter a tinker's damn what we did or didn't do to the code - in the good 'ol U.S. of A it's permissible to sue someone for looking at you cross-eyed and causing you mental distress and suffering, so no one is ever truly safe anyway. We've taken our own route and only time will tell whether our decision was better or worse that NetBSDs - in the long run, I strongly suspect that it WON'T MATTER. What will distinguish the two camps are the amount of effort they put into the usability and reliability of the bits, not how much "Net/2 taint" they sanded off. I've personally talked quite a bit with USL's senior council in connection with this whole mess and can truthfully say that it's not USL's desire to sue anybody at this point - the lawsuit was started by someone they acquired, and their own interests now lie in marketing their own product effectively, not wasting time and generating bad PR by suing a bunch of non-entity little BSD piss-ants! It would take something pretty blatant to attract their ire, and even then I think the most it'd earn would be a nasty letter. Most people completely forget that NetBSD and FreeBSD are not incorporated entities with any real legal standing, and would be rather difficult to sue. If push came to shove everyone would just put on a bewildered expression, say "It's not *me*! I just work here!" and fade into the woodwork! In any case, I seriously doubt it's going to happen and I think that some of our members, whether they intended it or not, WERE coming across as simply firing cheap scare-tactic shots at NetBSD. I must regrettably find myself in agreement with Charles! :-) Enough. Let's simply prove our virility, if such is our intention, by releasing better NetBSD 1.0 / FreeBSD 2.0 releases and those that follow. By NetBSD 1.5 and FreeBSD 2.5 I suspect all this will have been forgotten and people will be focusing more on FEATURES rather than some nebulous concept of "unencumbered status". Thank you.. Jordan