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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!caen!umeecs!dip.eecs.umich.edu!dmuntz
From: dmuntz@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Daniel A Muntz)
Subject: Re: AT&T sues BSDI
Message-ID: <1992Jul25.212616.18351@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Keywords: BSDI AT&T
Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Mr. News)
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
References: <83@ampr.ab.ca> <1992Jul23.173415.11587@nebulus.ca> <1992Jul25.014246.11533@klic.rain.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 21:26:16 GMT
Lines: 50
In article <1992Jul25.014246.11533@klic.rain.com> keithl@klic.rain.com (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>dennis@nebulus.ca (Dennis S. Breckenridge) [ and others ] write:
>
>>Send your $1000.00 to BSDI and get a source license now.
>
>I just did so. There are a number of reasons why this is a good idea:
>
good idea?
1) Now you're tainted by having seen BSDI code. Obviously there's one shining
example of someone who's seen BSDI code and "contributed" to 386bsd, but
what will BSDI's reaction be to BSDI owners who contribute code to
386bsd in the future? Perhaps an official response would be useful for
people considering purchasing BSDI code. To avoid a vague response
I'll suggest some scenerios below.
2) Anyone who recommends a BSDI purchase to their employer at this point is
an idiot *unless* said employer is into pirating software or is more
interested in making a donation to BSDI than receiving a product they can
use (i.e. BSDI loses and your software becomes illegal).
I'd like to know what BSDI's reaction to the following cases would be.
They are purely fictional as I have seen no BSDI code.
a) I notice that /usr/sys/kern/foo.c is nearly identical in BSDI and 386bsd
except the BSDI version has some bug fixes (ptr+1 instead of ptr, etc.).
I post a diff of the two foo.c's. Am I in trouble?
b) I notice BSDI uses buffering in wt.c to improve tape performance. I write
buffering code for wt.c in 386bsd (which I argue would have occurred to
me independently...). There are some coincidental similarities in the
buffering code.
c) Some code I post is similar to some BSDI code that I've never seen.
Perhaps the BSDIers and I read the same article on hyperwidget-trees at
some point in the past.
d) (Remember, this is fiction) Bill Jolitz decides to market 386bsd
as a commercial product by distributing source and binaries
free, but selling support. The company is successful.
Keep in mind that even if BSDI's reactions to these situations would be
positive (from my perspective; as I suspect they would be at the moment),
who knows what would happen if BSDI became more successful and the
human to lawyer ratio began to drop.
-Dan