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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:14424 comp.os.386bsd.misc:2881 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.386bsd.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!festival!edcogsci!richard From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Subject: Re: Legal status of NetBSD Message-ID: <Ctp913.6Cn@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh References: <310j8t$gl4@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> <310u0n$krt@rhombus.cs.jhu.edu> <3199ok$kq5@carroll1.cc.edu> Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 11:24:39 GMT Lines: 39 In article <3199ok$kq5@carroll1.cc.edu> sander@carroll1.cc.edu (Scott B. Anderson) writes: >Novell (USG) and BSDI *DID* go to court, the ruling (uncontested >by either side) was ... How many times do I have to say this? *There was no ruling.* The case was settled out-of-court by an agreement between the parties. >BSDI had to use BSD 4.4lite code and no code which ATT owned BSDI *agreed* to switch to 4.4-lite, which they had planned to do anyway! There has been no court ruling on USL's claim. The closest was the judge's refusal to grant USL a preliminary injunction preventing BSDI from distributing their system, indicating that USL had not shown that there was a "reasonable probability of eventual success" for their claim. *My interpretation* of the settlement is that USL saw that they would lose the case (and maybe even have it declared that they had no copyright in 32V), but could have dragged it out indefinitely which would have had bad consequences for BSDI. As a face-saving measure they agreed to drop the case immediately in return for insignificant concessions from BSDI. The outcome was an almost complete victory for BSDI and UCB. If you want to verify the facts, you can get the relevant documents by anonymous ftp from macbeth.cogsci.ed.ac.uk in /pub/usl-vs-bsd, or by WWW from http://macbeth.cogsci/pub/usl-vs-bsd. -- Richard -- Richard Tobin, HCRC, Edinburgh University R.Tobin@ed.ac.uk Ooooh! I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.