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From: jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,alt.suit.att-bsdi
Subject: Update on the USL Lawsuit
Message-ID: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 92 17:44:17 GMT
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Followup-To: alt.suit.att-bsdi
Organization: University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science
Lines: 123
Well, those friendly "journalists" at Unigram have been at it again.
Remember them? They're the ones who this summer characterised the BSD
community as a "drug-happy, hippy-freak Unix culture" and the net uproar
over the lawsuit as "naive tech weenies ready to form a lynch mob".
Following is a BSDI statement that responds to a recent Unigram article and
gives an update on recent events on the legal front. Disclaimer: I am not
affiliated with BSDI in any way, I'm just posting this because I think it
is important to get real information out rather than FUD rumors.
The above opinions are mine, the BSDI statement is below.
Jaime
.............................................................................
: Stand on my shoulders, : jds@cs.umd.edu : James da Silva
: not on my toes. : uunet!mimsy!jds : Systems Design & Analysis Group
-------- Forwarded Message
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 22:27:09 MST
From: kolstad@BSDI.COM (Rob Kolstad)
Subject: A note about the Unigram article
To: beta@BSDI.COM
Yesterday, the unigram article reproduced below was posted to this
list with a query about whether it was true or not. Our management
and attorneys have worked through the day and have the response I've
included below.
RK
====================================================================
/\ Rob Kolstad Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
/\/ \ kolstad@bsdi.com 7759 Delmonico Drive
/ \ \ 719-593-9445 Colorado Springs, CO 80919
====================================================================
----------------------------------------------------------------------
unigram#413
BSD/386 DISTRIBUTION HALTED
A US federal judge has prohibited Berkeley Software Design Inc
from distributing production or updated pre-production versions
of its BSD/386 operating system to anyone anywhere. BSD/386,
which the company may distribute in its current pre-production or
beta state, is the centrepiece of the lawsuit Unix System
Laboratories has filed against BSDI charging it with copyright
infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets (UX No 396).
The ruling came after BSDI asked the court to postpone a hearing
on a motion for a preliminary injunction against it made by USL.
USL is asking the court for a preliminary injunction forbidding
BSDI from distributing any of its BSD/386 software hoping that as
a result of the anticipated trial the courts will make it
permanent. The hearing has been moved from December 14 to January
25.
Response:
Unigram has again published an extremely slanted article based loosely on
the actual facts. It is unclear what ties Unigram has with USL, but as
always, Unigram continues to present only the USL version of reality and
makes no attempt to determine the actual facts or to even ask for an
opposing viewpoint.
In a presumably unrelated coincidence, USL has produced documents at
BSDI depositions that bear the Unigram fax header line.
The facts relevant to this issue are that on November 12th, USL served
a notice that they had filed a motion for preliminary injunctive
relief. The motion named a hearing date of December 14, 1992. BSDI's
response to USL's motion was due 14 calendar days before the hearing or
November 30, 1992.
Because of the Thanksgiving Holidays (a coincidence of course...) this
only allowed nine business days to respond to USL's lengthy brief that
they had had eight months to prepare.
USL's motion asks that BSDI be ordered to stop shipping all products,
recall all copies already shipped and cease all development on the
product "until the final determination of this action", which is
probably at least a year away - i.e., to shut down BSDI and put them out
of business.
USL's action at this time (eight months after the original complaint)
is puzzling. They claim they will suffer immediate and irreversible
harm if BSDI is allowed to continue shipping. Yet, BSDI has been
shipping a product based on NET2 since December, 1991. Further, the
NET2 code that is principally at issue continues to be available for
anonymous ftp on over 66 sites, to be made available on various CD-ROM
distributions and to be incorporated in 386BSD.
With this motion, USL for the first time, has provided details of what
intellectual property has been allegedly violated. However, they have
designated that material as their confidential technical information
so that it may only be shown to the attorneys and outside experts - not
the BSDI employees who are best qualified to rebut their claims.
By pressing the issue now, when they have had eight months to prepare
their case, and only now giving any specifics regarding the alleged
violation, USL is forcing BSDI to respond in a hurried, less than
fully prepared manner.
To allow more time to respond to USL's lengthy and presumably well
prepared motion, BSDI VOLUNTARILY offered to delay shipping the
production release of its software in order to postpone the hearing
date until January 25, 1993.
The judge accepted BSDI's offer and adjourned the hearing six weeks to
allow BSDI to more fully prepare its opposition to USl's motion. BSDI
is explicitly permitted to continue shipping the preproduction releases
that it was already shipping and BSDI continues to do that.
BSDI continues to support its customers and operates business as
usual. BSDI continues to have no access to any specifics of its
alleged violations.
-------- End of Forwarded Message