From: jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> Date: 6 Dec 92 17:44:17 GMT Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu Followup-To: alt.suit.att-bsdi Organization: University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science Lines: 123 Well, those friendly "journalists" at Unigram have been at it again. Remember them? They're the ones who this summer characterised the BSD community as a "drug-happy, hippy-freak Unix culture" and the net uproar over the lawsuit as "naive tech weenies ready to form a lynch mob". Following is a BSDI statement that responds to a recent Unigram article and gives an update on recent events on the legal front. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with BSDI in any way, I'm just posting this because I think it is important to get real information out rather than FUD rumors. The above opinions are mine, the BSDI statement is below. Jaime ............................................................................ : Stand on my shoulders, : jds@cs.umd.edu : James da Silva : not on my toes. : uunet!mimsy!jds : Systems Design & Analysis Group -------- Forwarded Message Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 22:27:09 MST From: kolstad@BSDI.COM (Rob Kolstad) Subject: A note about the Unigram article To: beta@BSDI.COM Yesterday, the unigram article reproduced below was posted to this list with a query about whether it was true or not. Our management and attorneys have worked through the day and have the response I've included below. RK ==================================================================== /\ Rob Kolstad Berkeley Software Design, Inc. /\/ \ kolstad@bsdi.com 7759 Delmonico Drive / \ \ 719-593-9445 Colorado Springs, CO 80919 ==================================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unigram#413 BSD/386 DISTRIBUTION HALTED A US federal judge has prohibited Berkeley Software Design Inc from distributing production or updated pre-production versions of its BSD/386 operating system to anyone anywhere. BSD/386, which the company may distribute in its current pre-production or beta state, is the centrepiece of the lawsuit Unix System Laboratories has filed against BSDI charging it with copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets (UX No 396). The ruling came after BSDI asked the court to postpone a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction against it made by USL. USL is asking the court for a preliminary injunction forbidding BSDI from distributing any of its BSD/386 software hoping that as a result of the anticipated trial the courts will make it permanent. The hearing has been moved from December 14 to January 25. Response: Unigram has again published an extremely slanted article based loosely on the actual facts. It is unclear what ties Unigram has with USL, but as always, Unigram continues to present only the USL version of reality and makes no attempt to determine the actual facts or to even ask for an opposing viewpoint. In a presumably unrelated coincidence, USL has produced documents at BSDI depositions that bear the Unigram fax header line. The facts relevant to this issue are that on November 12th, USL served a notice that they had filed a motion for preliminary injunctive relief. The motion named a hearing date of December 14, 1992. BSDI's response to USL's motion was due 14 calendar days before the hearing or November 30, 1992. Because of the Thanksgiving Holidays (a coincidence of course...) this only allowed nine business days to respond to USL's lengthy brief that they had had eight months to prepare. USL's motion asks that BSDI be ordered to stop shipping all products, recall all copies already shipped and cease all development on the product "until the final determination of this action", which is probably at least a year away - i.e., to shut down BSDI and put them out of business. USL's action at this time (eight months after the original complaint) is puzzling. They claim they will suffer immediate and irreversible harm if BSDI is allowed to continue shipping. Yet, BSDI has been shipping a product based on NET2 since December, 1991. Further, the NET2 code that is principally at issue continues to be available for anonymous ftp on over 66 sites, to be made available on various CD-ROM distributions and to be incorporated in 386BSD. With this motion, USL for the first time, has provided details of what intellectual property has been allegedly violated. However, they have designated that material as their confidential technical information so that it may only be shown to the attorneys and outside experts - not the BSDI employees who are best qualified to rebut their claims. By pressing the issue now, when they have had eight months to prepare their case, and only now giving any specifics regarding the alleged violation, USL is forcing BSDI to respond in a hurried, less than fully prepared manner. To allow more time to respond to USL's lengthy and presumably well prepared motion, BSDI VOLUNTARILY offered to delay shipping the production release of its software in order to postpone the hearing date until January 25, 1993. The judge accepted BSDI's offer and adjourned the hearing six weeks to allow BSDI to more fully prepare its opposition to USl's motion. BSDI is explicitly permitted to continue shipping the preproduction releases that it was already shipping and BSDI continues to do that. BSDI continues to support its customers and operates business as usual. BSDI continues to have no access to any specifics of its alleged violations. -------- End of Forwarded Message Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: Sender: news@rahul.net (Usenet News) Nntp-Posting-Host: bolero Organization: a2i network References: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1992 21:13:02 GMT Lines: 17 In <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva) writes: >With this motion, USL for the first time, has provided details of what >intellectual property has been allegedly violated. However, they have >designated that material as their confidential technical information >so that it may only be shown to the attorneys and outside experts - not >the BSDI employees who are best qualified to rebut their claims. Is AT&T/USL essentially saying the following? Could somebody from AT&T/USL please clarify? "Your honor, these guys stole our very secret stuff...but we can't let them see what we are claiming they stole, since this is extremely secret stuff that we don't want them to see..." -- Rahul Dhesi also: dhesi@cirrus.com Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: <1992Dec6.230835.2598@fcom.cc.utah.edu> Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu Organization: University of Utah Computer Center References: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> Date: Sun, 6 Dec 92 23:08:35 GMT Lines: 50 In article , dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi) writes: |> In <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva) writes: |> |> >With this motion, USL for the first time, has provided details of what |> >intellectual property has been allegedly violated. However, they have |> >designated that material as their confidential technical information |> >so that it may only be shown to the attorneys and outside experts - not |> >the BSDI employees who are best qualified to rebut their claims. |> |> Is AT&T/USL essentially saying the following? Could somebody from |> AT&T/USL please clarify? |> |> "Your honor, these guys stole our very secret stuff...but we can't |> let them see what we are claiming they stole, since this is |> extremely secret stuff that we don't want them to see..." Or to put it another way: "If we let them see it, then they'll actually have copies instead of just allegedly having copies" I think it's more on the order of not wanting their "secret stuff" in a public record, and therefore "published". There are probably real specific reasons for this (Trade Secret litigation is one) which match the reasoning behind "Copyright 19xx (c) Joe Blow; This is unpublished proprietary source code of Joe Blow; The above notice does not imply publication or intent to publish in any way, shape, or form". I suspect they are attempting to litigate a trade secret without losing the ability to call it a trade secret after the litigation is done. I don't think this has ever been successfully accomplished in the past; in all the trade secret cases I am aware of, after litigation, the trade secret was no longer secret... so a company could only win a suit based on it once. I will be interesting to find out what happens on 25 Jan 93, one way or the other. Aren't all these briefs a matter of public record? I'd like to see them online somewhere, like the initial briefs and informations. Terry Lambert terry@icarus.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have an 8 user poetic license" - me Get the 386bsd FAQ from agate.berkeley.edu:/pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Date: 6 Dec 1992 15:23:01 -0800 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 15 Message-ID: <1fu20lINN3hk@neuro.usc.edu> References: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> <1992Dec6.230835.2598@fcom.cc.utah.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: neuro.usc.edu >I suspect they are attempting to litigate a trade secret without losing the >ability to call it a trade secret after the litigation is done. I don't >think this has ever been successfully accomplished in the past; in all the >trade secret cases I am aware of, after litigation, the trade secret was no >longer secret... so a company could only win a suit based on it once. The US government had to create a special statute to be able to litigate national security secrets in such a confidential manner. It would appear to be that in the absence of similar statutes that AT&T/USL would be hard pressed to keep their mere commercially confidential information out of the hands of the public once they decide to go into court. Perhaps this court will try to experiment with a new form of confidential litigation - but in the end on appeal they may find this unusual manipulation of the forum is not endorsed - and they could be required to expose all of their supposedly secret filings and arguments under remand to the lower court. From: bremner@cs.sfu.ca (David Bremner) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Summary: free legal philosophy. worth every penny. Message-ID: <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> Date: 6 Dec 92 23:30:59 GMT References: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> Reply-To: bremner@cs.sfu.ca (David Bremner) Organization: CSS, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada Lines: 36 In article <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes: > >In essence, no. USL is trying to do something similar to what the US >government does when prosecuting espionage cases -- they are obviosuly >reluctant to tell the supposed 'spies' is either (1) really sensitive >or (2) really true. So, what the courts seem to feel is best to do in >such a circumstance is to disclose whatever additional secret material >is needed to understand the case to independent experts and attorneys >who are believed to be less likely to exploit the trade secrets and/or >confidential information. It's hard to see how the public and/or BSDI knowing which secrets USL considers misappropriated can damage USL. The analogy to National Zecurity doesn't hold up well since it doesn't make sense to talk about the "truth" of trade secrets, only their usefulness. After all, if I steal an algorithm from you, it doesn't make the algorithm more valuable to me to know that you valued it. I guess it comes down to the difference between analytic (a priori) and synthetic knowledge; I suppose there could be synthetic trade secrets, i.e. market research, but I don't think USL is claiming BSDI stole that kind of thing. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that someone is going to gain access to valuable USL secrets by reading court records that did not have access to the same (alleged) secrets by reading the NET-2 tapes or ordering a copy of BSD/386. Of course, these are pretty unusual circumstances, I'm not sure I'd want to extrapolate from this one case to a general rule on evidence disclosure for trade secret cases, even though some lawyer probably will. It does seem that USL has not in good faith tried to resolve their complaints out of court. David -- David Bremner / bremner@cs.sfu.ca / ubc-cs!fornax!bremner / (604)291-5938(days) From: merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Date: 6 Dec 1992 22:34:41 -0800 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 42 Message-ID: <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> References: <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: neuro.usc.edu >It's hard to see how the public and/or BSDI knowing which secrets USL >considers misappropriated can damage USL. Think about the AT&T/USL trade secrets as a kind of radioactive or fluorescent tag which may be used as proof that any given chunk of source code originated at least in part from AT&T/USL owned source code. If AT&T/USL were required to disclose which portions of the BSDI BSD/386 distribution originated from AT&T/USL source code, it be substantially more likely that someone will remove this tag and get away with product infringing on stolen AT&T/USL trade secrets. Thus, maintaining the secret of those sections of the BSDI BSD/386 distribution violating AT&T/USL property rights has economic value to AT&T/USL. Moreover, there may be some legitimate public policy goals accomplished by maintaining the secrecy of AT&T/USL sources: this would make it easier for the court to detect purloined source code in similar future litigation by AT&T/USL against other people who might have illicitly acquired copies of AT&T/USL secret codes. Personally, I would really like to see a low cost version of UNIX functionality on the market -- preferably something which may be avaialable in binary form at $200/individual workstation or $2000 per large site. Stealing AT&T/USL source code and giving it away to huge numbers of people so it can never be fully recovered from the recipients throughout world wide INTERNET is only one way for us to accomplish this goal. Another way is to duplicate the UNIX functionality in another operating system -- e.g. Linux. Finally, perhaps we should consider whether we simply want to continue the endless reliving and attempted revival by extension of an antique operating system -- or perhaps we should seriously consider trying to develop a better freely available operating system to supplant and replace AT&T/USL UNIX, DOS, VMS, OS/2, Windows/NT, and all of the other arcane and primitive environments which appear to limit our non computer science colleagues to dull boring repetitive work on their desktop machines. I honestly don't know how this case should eventually be decided. Perhaps AT&T/USL are simply trying to crush a tiny competitor and simultaneously through the fear of the devil into anyone who may have the audacity to give away or sell at minimal cost copies of supposed AT&T/USL trade secrets. Or maybe they are litigating in bad faith. Who really knows what is really going on here? Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: <1992Dec7.083154.27977@u.washington.edu> Sender: news@u.washington.edu (USENET News System) Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95 References: <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1992 08:31:54 GMT Lines: 10 In article <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes: >Personally, I would really like to see a low cost version of UNIX >functionality on the market -- preferably something which may be >avaialable in binary form at $200/individual workstation or $2000 >per large site. Stealing AT&T/USL source code and giving it away I'd like to see someone write something *modern*. All this fuss over the rights to 15 year old technology is rather silly. --Tim Smith Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: <1992Dec11.011535.4277@fcom.cc.utah.edu> Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu Organization: Weber State University (Ogden, UT) References: <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Dec7.083154.27977@u.washington.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 01:15:35 GMT Lines: 79 NOTE: Because of the news group name, I will refer to AT&T here. The suit actually involves USL and BSDI, *not* AT&T. In article <1992Dec7.083154.27977@u.washington.edu> tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes: >In article <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes: >>Personally, I would really like to see a low cost version of UNIX >>functionality on the market -- preferably something which may be >>avaialable in binary form at $200/individual workstation or $2000 >>per large site. Stealing AT&T/USL source code and giving it away > >I'd like to see someone write something *modern*. All this fuss over >the rights to 15 year old technology is rather silly. Define "something *modern*". In many instances, progress is evolutionary, not revolutionary. You are talking about "being taller than a giant" without "standing on the shoulders of a giant" when you suggest that "somethng *modern*" be written without reference to materials, said reference being impacted by the outcome of this case. Another person pointed at OS/2 as an example of "*modern*" and intimated that it was "*modern*" because of it's ability to run DOS as a task. Neither of these are modern to my mind. 8086 virtual machines have existed long before the 386 was released, and DOS, to overuse a phrase, is "a real mode interrupt handler", not an operating system. The closest comparison is a loader. I am infuriated by people who demand "something *modern*" or "something new" without giving an example referring to something "old" and "*unmodern*" as "the way it should be done". If the fuss were truly over 15 year old technology, there wouldn't be a law suit. AT&T would have Berkeley beat competitively by 15 years and wouldn't need litigation to protect their [now worthless] property. The recent work in BSD 4.4, and in particular Popek and Heidemann's work on layered file system design and Page and Guy's work with Ficus and Scalable File System technology seems quite "*modern*" to me, and certainly worthy of further research and investigation. The "DOS file system" is neither a "Disk Operating System" nor a "File System" in the computer science definition of the terms. Even were this a "fuss over the rights to 15 year old technology", I'd like you to examine a 50 year old technology (nuclear physics) and a 100 year old technology (the automobile) and tell me what impact they have on society today. Computer science is arguably ~150 years old (Babbage). The other individual was doting on the merits of OS/2 (arguably a DOS derivitive and thus 12 year old technology, but obviously ennobled or reborn in the renaming); would you say that BSD/386 is 1 1/2 year old technology because of it's renaming? The point is: The ATT-BSDI suit is not an issue to be decided by an Art Critic. There are many very good reasons for "the fuss", most of which have been posted in this forum. It's obvious to many of the readers here (if not to yourself, or the OS/2 advocate) that regardless of outcome, and regardless of whether AT&T is morally or legally correct, this law suit has threatened progress in computer science in many ways. I personally believe the ATT-BSDI suit will have as profound an effect on research and the industry as the Lotus and Apple "Look and Feel". In point of fact, it is possible that this suit will have a more profound effect on the industry than any previous suit, given both the prevalence of AT&T code in instituitions of higher education (with regard to the theory that programmers seeing this source are "contaminated") and the potential for the case law generated producing what could be a defacto software patent. Terry Lambert terry@icarus.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have an 8 user poetic license" - me Get the 386bsd FAQ from agate.berkeley.edu:/pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: <1992Dec7.085250.28334@u.washington.edu> Sender: news@u.washington.edu (USENET News System) Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95 References: <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1992 08:52:50 GMT Lines: 31 In article <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes: >functionality in another operating system -- e.g. Linux. Finally, >perhaps we should consider whether we simply want to continue the >endless reliving and attempted revival by extension of an antique >operating system -- or perhaps we should seriously consider trying >to develop a better freely available operating system to supplant >and replace AT&T/USL UNIX, DOS, VMS, OS/2, Windows/NT, and all of >the other arcane and primitive environments which appear to limit >our non computer science colleagues to dull boring repetitive work >on their desktop machines. > Amen! Emulation of interfaces and even of hardware has reached the point where OS designers do not have to constrain themselves to the systems of the past when designing a new system. Too many people seem to view writing an operating system as an opportunity to produce new implementations of old mistakes (or worse, to combine the worst of multiple systems into a new and even worse system...) rather than a chance to advance. If someone needs a particular misfeature of an old operating system, it can be emulated on top of a clean system. For an extreme example, look at OS/2 2.0. They provide an ability to create virtual machines that emulate a PC without an operating system. You boot whatever OS you want in the virtual machine. People have reported digging out old floppy-based CP/M games and having them run this way. People have also run Minix under OS/2 this way, I believe. --Tim Smith Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit In-Reply-To: merlin@neuro.usc.edu's message of 6 Dec 1992 22:34:41 -0800 Message-ID: Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Organization: The World References: <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1992 02:56:18 GMT Lines: 17 So, in other words, if USL revealed what portions of their code they thought were stolen then the other party might remove/replace that code thus there would be no stolen code in the product and...hmm... and that would just spoil the attornies' fun??? (we'll assume past transgressions can be settled, but not letting the other side make things right asap as a strategy seems more than a little insincere, if someone were punching me in the head I know I'd be happy if they stopped rather than insisting they keep punching me until a witness shows up...ah the law.) -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | uunet!world!bzs Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD From: merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Date: 10 Dec 1992 02:00:45 -0800 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 21 Message-ID: <1g74gdINNdl8@neuro.usc.edu> References: <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: neuro.usc.edu >So, in other words, if USL revealed what portions of their code they >thought were stolen then the other party might remove/replace that >code thus there would be no stolen code in the product and...hmm... >and that would just spoil the attornies' fun??? Well, yes and no. Perhaps it would be somewhat kinder to suggest AT&T/USL believe they have an interest in any source code derived directly or indirectly from their original UNIX system. AT&T/USL might argue that certain code fragments provide the best evidence of the tainted origin of source code which is claimed to have been written entirely from scratch. In a way they could draw analogy to the serial numbers embedded on various components of a common automobile -- these serial numbers provide evidence of the origin, manufacturer, and identity of a particular automobile. For us to simply tell everyone where these serial numbers are located and how to remove such serial numbers would be tantamount to making it increasingly easy for thieves to get away with stealing & parting out more automobiles. Telltail source code fragments and headers may make it easier for AT&T/USL to convince a court or jury which is composed of lay people about the parentage of programs suspected of including AT&T/USL technology. Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: multics@lachesis.acm.rpi.edu (Multics) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: Nntp-Posting-Host: lachesis.acm.rpi.edu Organization: The Voice of Fate References: <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> <1g74gdINNdl8@neuro.usc.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 00:13:41 GMT Lines: 20 In article <1g74gdINNdl8@neuro.usc.edu> merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes: > >Well, yes and no. Perhaps it would be somewhat kinder to suggest >AT&T/USL believe they have an interest in any source code derived >directly or indirectly from their original UNIX system. AT&T/USL >might argue that certain code fragments provide the best evidence >of the tainted origin of source code which is claimed to have been >written entirely from scratch. In a way they could draw analogy [edited for brevity] >out more automobiles. Telltail source code fragments and headers >may make it easier for AT&T/USL to convince a court or jury which >is composed of lay people about the parentage of programs suspected >of including AT&T/USL technology. Does this mean that if AT&T/USL win, then HIS will sue them for infringement on the multic OS that unix is derived from? -- A good bureaucracy is the best tool of oppression ever invented. Richard Shetron USERFXLG@rpi.mts.edu multics@clotho.acm.rpi.edu From: merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Date: 10 Dec 1992 19:02:21 -0800 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 9 Message-ID: <1g90btINNg8r@neuro.usc.edu> References: <1g74gdINNdl8@neuro.usc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: neuro.usc.edu >Does this mean that if AT&T/USL win, then HIS will sue them for >infringement on the multic OS that unix is derived from? Unfortunately, NO! The statute of limitations has long since run on such an HIS lawsuit against AT&T/USL. As it turns out, if the NET 2 distribution actually contained AT&T/USL code then AT&T/USL may have actually filed the current lawsuit within one year of an infringing release of their copyright/trade secret materials. Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 17:59:59 GMT References: <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> <1g74gdINNdl8@neuro.usc.edu> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 12 In article multics@lachesis.acm.rpi.edu (Multics) writes: >Does this mean that if AT&T/USL win, then HIS will sue them for >infringement on the multic OS that unix is derived from? No, because there's not a line of Multics code in Unix, and precious little in common even in the design. The derivation was not that close, and was more a question of philosophy than code. Note also that Bell Labs was co-author of Multics. -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: scs@iti.org (Steve Simmons) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: Sender: usenet@iti.org (Hela USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: wotan.iti.org Organization: Industrial Technology Institute References: <1fu0t9INN3er@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Dec6.233059.25546@cs.sfu.ca> <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1992 17:30:26 GMT Lines: 36 bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes: >So, in other words, if USL revealed what portions of their code they >thought were stolen then the other party might remove/replace that >code thus there would be no stolen code in the product and...hmm... >and that would just spoil the attornies' fun??? We had a copyright lawyer come talk to our local group about the ATT/BSDI suit, and he mentioned this particular topic. Once trade secret material enters the public arena *via any means*, the trade secret is lost. Two specific circumstances he mentioned were (a) revelation that occurs as a necessary part of prosecuting/defending such a suit, and (b) when the accused party has somehow widely disseminated the trade secret. In the former case, it can be a Phyrric victory -- win or lose, your secret is out. In the latter case, your secret is out but you can still seek damages. Lest anybody get too excited, let me add a few items: o This is my memory of a talk several months back; o Someone specificly asked him if the BSD distributions would comprise publication. He replied that his reading of the docs could lead one to think BSDI was accused of ripping off *other* parts of system V to create the "missing modules". So the answer was "it depends". o He thought that the case was unlikely to make any sort of precedent due to sloppy procedures on both sides. *My* interpretation of "sloppy procedures" was that AT&T had done a poor job of protecting their trade secret/copyrights, and BSDI had knowingly hired folks with full knowledge of AT&T code but did not provide a good trail showing that the implementation had been done independently. -- "You can't get here from here." Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi From: roc@techbook.com (Ron Christian) Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636 References: <1fura1INN4cn@neuro.usc.edu> Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:32:33 GMT Lines: 26 In article scs@iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes: >We had a copyright lawyer come talk to our local group about the ATT/BSDI >suit, and he mentioned this particular topic. Once trade secret material >enters the public arena *via any means*, the trade secret is lost. Then it seems like USL doesn't have much of a case. I think it could be demonstrated that there's *way* too many copies of BSD source out there to ever call a significant percentage of them back, or pretend that the widely available information contained therein still constitutes a trade secret. Seems like USL could still punish those responsible, but the cat is forever out of the bag. However, this explains why BSD features in SVR4 appear to be painful (and in many cases, buggy) re-implementations rather than simply incorporating the mature, freely available code that's been around for years. USL doesn't want the Regents to be able to do it back to them. :-) Seriously, think of all the things we would have time to accomplish if we didn't have to keep re-engineering the same old functions. What a waste of engineering DL. Ron -- roc@techbook.COM Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-0636 (1200/2400, N81) From: mitch@cirrus.com (Mitch Wright) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Update on the USL Lawsuit Message-ID: <1992Dec7.071545.10624@cirrus.com> Date: 7 Dec 92 07:15:45 GMT References: <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> Sender: news@cirrus.com Followup-To: poster Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc. Lines: 28 /* In dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi) writes: */ >In <62619@mimsy.umd.edu> jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva) writes: >>With this motion, USL for the first time, has provided details of what >>intellectual property has been allegedly violated. However, they have >>[...] >>so that it may only be shown to the attorneys and outside experts - not >>the BSDI employees who are best qualified to rebut their claims. >Is AT&T/USL essentially saying the following? Could somebody from >AT&T/USL please clarify? > "Your honor, these guys stole our very secret stuff...but we can't > let them see what we are claiming they stole, since this is > extremely secret stuff that we don't want them to see..." > Perhaps AT&T/USL is just trying to hide the fact that the ``tainted'' code is in fact only: #include main(argc, argv) int argc; char *argv[]; { Hey, thats nearly 5 lines per program! Uh Oh! Guess they'll be coming after me now... :-) ~mitch