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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!olivea!uunet!ftpbox!motsrd!mothost!lmpsbbs!areaplg2.corp.mot.com!bhv From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: UNIGRAM's article on the USL-BSDI suit Message-ID: <1992Aug4.212819.19417@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> Date: 4 Aug 92 21:28:19 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: news@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com (Net News) Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL Lines: 31 Nntp-Posting-Host: 137.23.47.37 In article <1992Aug3.143259.23897@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: ) It seems to me that the university was not really trying to solve the )issue when they refused to let a mutually agreed third party examing the )whole body of code. By insisting on snapshots they give the appearance )of trying to hide something, even if they're not. ) When this started I thought the major legitimate complaint was that )BSDI was using the word UNIX pretty freely in its literature. Now that )so much effort is going into avoiding a fair evaluation of the entire )body of the code, I am willing to accept the possibility the BSDI has )used some UNIX code in their implementation. Given that the snapshots, as another poster stated, were according to the article to be specified by *USL*, I would like to know if you still hold this opinion. My impression of the significance of the 'snapshot' idea was that the fundamental issue was whether the code was to be evaluated on a "look and feel" basis (which appears to me to be a totally fictitous and created principle - apparently due to Apple(tm) lawyers, and not having any previous basis in law) or actual copying. I haven't seen anything yet to convince me that there is any actual code copying. I'm fairly sure that BSDI or UCB would be ready, willing and able to re-write any questionable sections of code that AT&T had any objections to - probably cheaper than defending a law suit. I personally strongly doubt actual code-copying is a real issue here.