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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!serv.hinet.net!news.cc.nctu.edu.tw!spring.edu.tw!howland.erols.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.coast.net!news2.acs.oakland.edu!newsfeed.concentric.net!news-master!news From: dantso@cris.com (Daniel Ts'o) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Old BSD Source Code Date: Sun, 29 Sep 96 02:28:18 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Lines: 19 Message-ID: <52kjah$r4r@herald.concentric.net> References: <52129f$ogf@Venus.mcs.com> <19960922121710134506@pppx231.berlin.snafu.de> <AWB.96Sep25081534@margo.cstr.ed.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: crc9.cris.com X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 In article <AWB.96Sep25081534@margo.cstr.ed.ac.uk>, awb@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) wrote: :Technically the released source before 4.4-lite has not been shown to :contain proprietary code as it has never been tested in court. In :fact most people would go further and say that there wasn't any :proprietary code in the released versions, and that may be the reason :USL (who owned Unix at the time) never actually went to court. I'm not sure exactly what you are claiming here. Why is there any question whether USL-owned UNIX code is "propriety" ? If you just mean, "well its never been tested in court", that is true, but disingenuous. You aren't contesting that AT&T licensed the source to UCB, limiting its distribution, are you ?" The Unix source license was actually not based on copyright nor patent, but trade secret. Cheers, Dan Ts'o dantso@cris.com