*BSD News Article 2226


Return to BSD News archive

Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!unislc!erc
From: erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp)
Subject: Re: AT&T sues BSDI
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
References: <QUANSTRO.92Jul21140234@lars.StOlaf.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Jul21.235727.4693@unislc.uucp>
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:57:27 GMT
Lines: 24

quanstro@lars.StOlaf.edu (goon) writes:

:    Imminent death of free-UN*X systems predicted...
: 
: Wouldn't that be great!
: 
: Imagine being creative and trying to sythesize all that's been learned
: from Unix (R) in the last twenty years and actually trying to break
: out of the YAU (yet another Uni*) mold. . .

And AT&T would probably sue you, claiming that you got the ideas from any
exposure that you have had to any UNIX code derived (or claim to be derived)
from AT&T "proprietary" code.

The bottom line is that, if AT&T wins, any piece of code that any programmer
has written or will write that contains even the slightest hint of containing
"intellectual property" of AT&T (such as "for(i=0;i<XYZ; i++)") will be
claimed by AT&T as derivitive of that so-called "intellectual property".

Oops ... I just did it, didn't I? :)
-- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG		erc@apple.com	<-- preferred email address!
"In wildness is the preservation of the world."  - Henry David Thoreau
** Member, Linux port team - uucp division ** :)   801/269-8125