*BSD News Article 49314


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From: gillham@andrews.edu (Andrew Gillham)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc
Subject: Re: What is "BSD"?
Date: 20 Aug 1995 18:05:58 GMT
Organization: Andrews University
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <417ti6$bft@orion.cc.andrews.edu>
References: <CGD.95Aug20032937@balvenie.pdl.cs.cmu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: edmund.cs.andrews.edu

In article <CGD.95Aug20032937@balvenie.pdl.cs.cmu.edu> cgd@cs.cmu.edu writes:
>
[...]
>
>	BSDI is the owner of the trademark "BSD" which is used
>	in the field of computer software.
>
>
>According to BSDI, _NONE_ of the following can be called "BSD Systems":
>
>	Ultrix		386BSD
>	FreeBSD 	NetBSD
>	Lites		SunOS [34].x
>
>even though some of them have been considered "BSD Systems" before BSDI
>was formed.  Indeed, systems like NetBSD or FreeBSD would find it

How does this affect 4.4BSD-lite distributions?  Is UCB being required
to rename this to "4.4-something-other-than-bsd-lite"
This makes me sick. A term (BSD) that has been institutionalized by UCB,
and some greedy SOB trademarks it!

What happens to the "BSD Copyright" that we all know and love?

>As far as I know, BSDi's been very quiet about their ownership of the
>BSD trademark (probably for good reason).  But they own it, and are
>asserting their "right" to exclusive use of it.  If you don't believe
>me, call them up and ask them if they claim ownership of the "BSD"
>name, if they've entered into such an agreement with the FreeBSD
>folks, etc.

Just great.  Well, I will make sure that my company _never_ buys a BSDi
product.

>Some of you may note that there's more than just a little bit of
>irony in this...

So, should someone be trademarking 4.4BSD, 4.4BSD-lite, etc?  Can't let
the bastards trademark everything.

-Andrew

-- 
============================ Real 32bit multi-tasking UN*X System
Andrew Gillham             | TCP/IP,NFS,PPP,4.4BSD-lite,multi-user
gillham@andrews.edu        | i386,sparc,alpha,mac68k,amiga,others
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