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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!fcom.cc.utah.edu!gateway.univel.com!gateway.novell.com!thisbe!terry From: terry@thisbe.npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit Message-ID: <1992Aug5.174119.1201@gateway.novell.com> Date: 5 Aug 92 17:41:19 GMT References: <1992Aug1.020513.14170@plts.uucp> <1992Aug1.042344.23428@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <RV.92Aug4185218@tahoe.cs.brown.edu> Sender: terry@thisbe (Terry Lambert) Distribution: usa Organization: Novell NPD -- Sandy, UT Lines: 33 Nntp-Posting-Host: thisbe.eng.sandy.novell.com In article <1992Aug4.124523.23674@crd.ge.com>, davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen) writes: > > The fact that BSDI wouldn't trust anyone in the world to look at their > code in an unbiased way certainly suggests that they were not making the > effort to avoid this suit. Just as "the fact that someone claiming 5th amendment rights to Senator Joe McCarthy certainly suggests that they are communist sympathizers". The burden of proof is on the plaintif, not the defendant! If AT&T has a bone to pick, nothing prevents them from downloading the Net/2 (anonymously, like everyone else, so not even AT&T can tell who does and does not have the code) and doing the comparison. The financial obligation of evidence gathering is on AT&T, and is only *potentially* reimbursable as part of damages (maybe not even then). If the problem AT&T has is *specifically* with BSDI code, I am sure that BSDI would be happy to sell them a copy, or "trade software", as many companies do. Such a "trade" is admittedly equitable from AT&T's point of view, given that they place such equal value on the code that they claim BSDI code *is* their code. If it is, then they haven't given away anything that BSDI does not already have in it's posession. If not, they have received equal value. This should not be necessary, in any case, as AT&T claims that the infringing code path was by way of CSRG and UCB, not necessarily contamination of programmers at BSDI. Terry Lambert terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com terry@icarus.weber.edu --- Disclaimer: Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.