*BSD News Article 49483


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From: vixie@wisdom.home.vix.com (Paul A Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc
Subject: Re: What is "BSD"?
Date: 22 Aug 1995 01:08:23 GMT
Organization: Vixie Enterprises
Lines: 58
Message-ID: <VIXIE.95Aug21180823@wisdom.home.vix.com>
References: <CGD.95Aug20032937@BALVENIE.PDL.CS.CMU.EDU>
	<4199pv$skk@cnn.nas.nasa.gov> <41adgc$b0m@bsdi.BSDI.COM>
	<DDo9z9.JFC@kithrup.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: wisdom.home.vix.com
In-reply-to: sef@kithrup.com's message of Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:59:33 GMT

>>Because otherwise any random person could create a product, e.g.,
>
>You mean like the random company you work for?  What makes you think BSDi is
>so automatically entitled to be the only ones who can have "BSD"?

No, probably he meant all those _other_ random companies who would not have
let FreeBSD use the mark without fee.

There's an urban legend about some enterprising soul who discovered back in
the 1940's that "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or some similarly popular song whose
existence predated copyright laws, was not copyrighted.  This random person
copyrighted the popular tune and now anyone who wants to include it in a book
or record of children's songs has to pay licensing fees.

My Digital UNIX (ne DEC OSF/1) manual's inside front cover claims that "BSD
is a trademark of UUNET Technologies, Inc."  Apparently UUNET assigned the
mark to BSDi.  BSDi has now gone off and permitted FreeBSD to use it without
any kind of license fees.  Whatever bad thing shall happen next, I wonder?

Can you say "tempest in a teapot?"  I knew you could.

Geez, you try to do a favour for some people.

Listen up.  John Gilmore and a lot of other people yelled like crazy when Rick
Adams copyrighted some release or other of the B News source.  Folks were just
absolutely livid that the source was somehow no longer "free."  This was way
before the GNU Public Virus was written, and folks were accustomed to sources
that had no legal crap at the front of them.  Rick was, as far as I know, the
first one to think of doing this.  And obviously the copyright on B News was
what helped propel UUNET to its bazillion dollar IPO.  (NOT!)  And obviously,
B News went into a decline in popularity due to its lack of "free"ness.  (NOT!)

The lesson taught by Gosling Emacs was apparently learned only by a few folks,
and none of them seem to be contributing to this discussion, except maybe me.

If BSDi experiences any positive income differential due to its ability to
prevent commercial competitors from using the "BSD" mark, will it be more or
less than the amount of their legal fees for defending BNR2's public status?
(Think carefully before you answer, now, that's a trick question and you are
expected to know that the U C Regents would have settled with USL by lining
the CSRG people up against a wall and shooting all of them; further, you are
expected to understand that the NetBSD and FreeBSD people would have gone out
of existence if they'd had to fight that legal battle on their own.)

CGD and SEF are friends of mine and I'm going to stop this message right now
before I start off on some kind of personal rant that might hurt their 
feelings.  I wish I understood why what UUNET/BSDi has done is seen as "wrong".
Other than the highly abstract act of trademarking "BSD" what have they done
that's pissed anybody off?  What other use have they prevented which you fine
folks think should not have been prevented?  What use have they made which you
folks think ought not to have been made?  I've stated the "good" that they are
seeking to protect -- now can someone please tell me the "harm" that's been
done?
-- 
Paul Vixie
La Honda, CA			"Illegitimi non carborundum."
<paul@vix.com>
pacbell!vixie!paul		(dont let the bastards grind you down)