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From: mrmike@michelotti.ae.ge.com ("Mr. Mike" Passaretti)
Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit
Message-ID: <MRMIKE.92Aug3125623@michelotti.ae.ge.com>
Date: 3 Aug 92 17:56:23 GMT
References: <1992Aug1.020513.14170@plts.uucp> <1992Aug1.042344.23428@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
<leb.712651912@Hypatia> <3YWHI6A@taronga.com> <45961@shamash.cdc.com>
<25138@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1992Aug3.143259.23897@crd.ge.com>
Sender: usenet@crd.ge.com (Required for NNTP)
Reply-To: Mike Passaretti <passaretti@crd.ge.com>
Organization: GE Aircraft Engines
Lines: 40
In-Reply-To: davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM's message of Mon, 3 Aug 1992 14:32:59 GMT
Nntp-Posting-Host: michelotti.ae.ge.com
# In message <1992Aug3.143259.23897@crd.ge.com>,
# davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen) writes:
bd> It seems to me that the university was not really trying
bd> to solve the issue when they refused to let a mutually
bd> agreed third party examing the whole body of code. By
bd> insisting on snapshots they give the appearance of trying
bd> to hide something, even if they're not.
I don't know about this. It seems to me if USL is asserting
that they "know" there is AT&T code in there they ought to be
able to say where, and a third party ought to be able to
verify it. It's not like the BSD folks want to specify which
pieces get looked at, I think they're just trying to limit the
exposure so generic programming practice overlap can't be
judged as being derivative. Of course, I could be being
optimistic too...
bd> When this started I thought the major legitimate
bd> complaint was that BSDI was using the word UNIX pretty
bd> freely in its literature. Now that so much effort is going
bd> into avoiding a fair evaluation of the entire body of the
bd> code, I am willing to accept the possibility the BSDI has
bd> used some UNIX code in their implementation.
As some wag recently commented, there aren't too many ways to
write /bin/true. I know _I've_ never seen any AT&T source,
but I'm willing to bet if you gave me 10 function calls to
duplicate, I'd end up with at least on subroutine that looked
pretty much like what they distribute. How many ways can you,
for instance, chase a pointer through a string?
bd> bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
- MM
--
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