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From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,comp.org.usenix
Subject: Re: BSDI/USL Lawsuit -- More Bad News for Human Beings...
Message-ID: <BZS.93Jan16205935@world.std.com>
Date: 17 Jan 93 01:59:35 GMT
References: <1993Jan16.165710.7389@eecs.nwu.edu> <C0yK27.9Ly@csn.org>
<1ja6bgINNh23@chnews.intel.com>
Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Distribution: inet
Organization: The World
Lines: 85
In-Reply-To: bhoughto@sedona.intel.com's message of 16 Jan 1993 23:39:28 GMT
First: A Disclaimer...
Although this note appears on comp.org.usenix (and other groups) and
noting that I am on the Board of Directors of Usenix, this note is
not to be construed as expressing the official position of Usenix nor
their Board of Directors.
From: bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton)
>In article <C0yK27.9Ly@csn.org> dfishman@teal.csn.org (Dan Fishman) writes:
>>There are those of us who see no
>>problems in commercial expolitation of protected expressions and ideas, in
>>fact, some of us even make a living doing so... it called programming too!
>
>Much as I loathe sycophancy, especially my own, I need to
>mention that this was a very apt expression of my own
>opinion on the matter.
The issue vis a vis the USL/BSDI suit isn't much about whether or not
copyright protections (etc) are appropriate on software. That's a red
herring interpretation. BSDI certainly claims copyrights on their own
work and expects them to be honored.
The issue is, among other things, whether anyone can really be made to
believe that what occurred over a period of approximately 14 years at
UCB/CSRG by their highly esteemed staff and by hundreds of members of
the software community at large can really be construed as "copying"?
One would think that "copying", at the very least, implies some sort
of unfair short cut.
Put another way, was the purpose of the Copyright law and its
extension to software over the years to stop what CSRG actually did?
Or is USL stretching a point beyond any rational limit and in fact
there was no copying as protected under that law (if that law is even
appropriate)?
Further, the license at issue is Unix/32V* and whether or not there is
copyright protection for that version remains an issue.
USL clearly claims there is a legitimate copyright for 32V in their
complaints. What's at issue is whether or not this copyright was first
claimed many years after the software was distributed, and whether or
not the reason that AT&T did not claim copyright for 32V at the time
was at least in part due to their being forbidden from entering the
software business as part of their monopoly agreement with the United
States of America, or perhaps because they purposely did not copyright
it for other strategic reasons (which perhaps now they regret)?
Although there may well be nit-picky fine points regarding the line
between minor "copying" and mere "compatability" (e.g. #define'd
symbols which are the same, should they have renamed BUFSIZ or
whatever?), one would hope that there is something more substantive to
USL's claims to drag others into such a knock-down, drag-out fight.
Let's get down to the point: Did CSRG or did CSRG not create a work of
significant new creative content (in Net/2) to merit its being
considered a wholely new and unique work under the copyright law?
That's the issue under the law, not whether or not they both used a
1-4-5 chord progression or both had the words "baby, oh baby"
somewhere in the chorus.
So, although the issue of copyright does indeed come up in the
complaints filed by USL, the issue is not whether or not copyrights
are valid in general, but whether or not A) USL's specific claim of
copyright on 32V is valid and B) Even if the copyright is valid was
anything material actually copied (put more simply: was the Copyright
Law violated)?
* 32V was a minor release of Unix around 1979 which provided a partial
port of Unix Version 7 to the then new DEC/Vax hardware. This is the
last source license and version Berkeley (UCB/CSRG) signed and
acquired from AT&T. 32V, among other things, did not use the virtual
memory features of the Vax. The first release to do so came from
Berkeley/CSRG. AT&T entered the software business with Unix, after
Judge Green cleared it, around 1982.
--
-Barry Shein
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