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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!spcvxb.spc.edu!terry From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: AT&T sues BSDI Message-ID: <1992Jul25.061414.3401@spcvxb.spc.edu> Date: 25 Jul 92 10:14:13 GMT References: <1992Jul22.221515.23550@tfs.com> <QUANSTRO.92Jul24122923@lars.StOlaf.edu> Organization: St. Peter's College, US Lines: 52 In article <QUANSTRO.92Jul24122923@lars.StOlaf.edu>, quanstro@lars.StOlaf.edu (goon) writes: > What a sec. Perhaps I am being rather dense. But aside from size and > age (two factors which are rather irrevelent) What's the difference > between BSDI and AT&T. They are both trying to __sell__ a rather > expensive operating system. And since _when_ does selling a system > have to do with intellectual freedom. Suppose that BSDI were to > continue with their operating system and suppose that in ten years > somebody else tried to say that they were BSDI UNIX. Don't you think > that BSDI would get a little upset? The important thing is that BSDI took some code which was publicly avail- able, put a lot of effort into polishing it up and porting it to a new ar- chitecture, and began selling it, and that AT&T/USL claims that they do not have the right to do so. If AT&T/USL wins this case, this means that any vendor can claim that they have rights of "intellectual ancestry" or some such balderdash over any pack- age found on the net. What would you think if they claimed that AT&T/USL had "rights" to GCC because the specification of C was originally developed by them? How about the Jolitz's code? They've done essentially the same thing as BSDI except that they're not charging for it. Note that the law does not dis- tinguish between "free" and "commercial" in cases of trademark law. In other words, I can't give away boxes of tissues labeled "Kleenex" (a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark Corporation) if they aren't in fact Kleenex brand. In fact, in order to retain trademark protection, AT&T/USL would be _re- quired_ to sue any and all infringers if the infringers refused to cease and desist the unlawful trademark usage, or if AT&T/USL desired recompense for losses due to such wrongful usage. Aside from the trademark claim (item 1 in the complaint), the rest of the claims attempt to do exactly this. As far as the trademark claim, a BSDI bro- chure that I FTP'd from UUnet in March did _not_ have the "ITS UNIX" number in it, so I believe BSDI made a good faith effort to comply with AT&T's prior request to cease using that number. Thus, I don't see why the first claim is included in the suit, except possibly to attach some stigma to BSDI. > Er, we aren't talking about anything _really_ important here. There > are much more important things to get upset about. I hope you'll change your mind after reading my comments. By the way, the day I heard about this, I went out and bought a copy of BSDI/386 and a support agreement. I hope those of you who need a commercial quality 386 Unix will do the same (note that the Jolitz's state that their code should not be used for commercial purposes). Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.bitnet St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA terry@spcvxa.spc.edu +1 201 915 9381