*BSD News Article 79607


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From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Subject: Re: Old BSD Source Code
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References: <19960922121710134506@pppx231.berlin.snafu.de> <AWB.96Sep25081534@margo.cstr.ed.ac.uk> <52kjah$r4r@herald.concentric.net>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 00:06:31 GMT
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In article <52kjah$r4r@herald.concentric.net> dantso@cris.com (Daniel Ts'o) writes:
>	I'm not sure exactly what you are claiming here. Why is there any
>question whether USL-owned UNIX code is "propriety" ?

Well, this was discussed at length in the UCB/BSDI-USL case.  The
defendants argued that (a) there was no copyright or trade secrets
in the 32V code from which BSD was derived and (b) that they had
documents from AT&T assigning ownership of any derivative works
to UCB.  So the matter is certainly in question.

>	The Unix source license was actually not based on copyright nor
>patent, but trade secret.

USL claimed violation of both, and UCB denied both.  It's hard to
believe that any trade secrets that might have existed in unix have
not been long disclosed.

-- Richard

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