Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 16:44:57 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: "f.johan.beisser" <jan@caustic.org> Cc: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD history article Message-ID: <3DA36DF9.CD52524F@mindspring.com> References: <20021008145226.K30424-100000@pogo.caustic.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
"f.johan.beisser" wrote: > BSD was always free. the AT&T code for UNIX was not. UNIX was free, too. The consent decree from the Greene decision on the AT&T antitrust case forbit AT&T from making money from selling software. This was the original "Western Electric" license that UCB got the UNIX sources under. This is the same license that permitted the University of Queensland commented source code book to be distributed. > remember, BSD started as a set of extentions and improvements to AT&Ts > UNIX, and it eventually evolved in to it's own OS. when AT&T realised it > could make cash off of UNIX, it changed the licensing terms, and sued the > University of California for distributing UNIX. When AT&T was broken up, the 1956 consent decree was no longer in force, and it was permitted to start charging for software. This did not change the licensing under which the software was obtained by UCB. For a long time, UCB did not "upgrade" its source license, because of the additional restrictions the new license tried to place on the code. They were happy with the old license. The lawsuit came from BSDI using the phone number "1-800-ITS-UNIX", infringing the UNIX trademark. They ceased use of the trademark, as ordered, but, like dragons, once awoken, lawyers seldom go back to sleep easily. BSDI then "hid behind" UCB, claiming that if their code infringed, then all they were doing was contributory infringement. At which point AT&T (USL) sued UCB as well, since you have to defend trademarks zealously, and you have to try really hard to jam the cat back into the bag, if a trade secret is disclosed. Technically, UCB was sued because of BSDI. > > I suspect that there were many portions of BSD for which one couldn't > > possibly separate into Berkeley and AT&T portions, so that there were > > portions which the two simply had joint ownership of. Such portions > > were licensed by AT&T and Berkeley under different licenses, and some > > licensees had to pay license fees to use it, making BSD non-free for > > most of it's existence and by no means "always free". > > yes, kind of. yes, there were portions of AT&T code, once those were > purged, the BSD code no longer fell under the AT&T license, and could be > distributed freely again. in the meanwhile, the plucky Linux kernel jumped > out of the woodwork. Nice rewrite on history, there... 8-). > > I see no need to spin the fact, sordid as it might seem to gnus. > > what spin? the facts are just that AT&T gave away UNIX, people took the > code, made extentions to it, gave those away as BSD, then AT&T stopped > giving away UNIX, but BSD was still being given away. > > seems simple enough. It's never that simple. I suggest you interview Mike DeFazio, if he will consent to be interviewed in the subject. He was the USL person who later became the Novell VP of Novell USG (UNIX Systems Group). I and a lot of people spent many hours in his office, convincing him to drop the lawsuit, and, particularly, to give the same terms to 386BSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD that they gave to BSDI (continue shipping until next version was available or 6 months), rather than the "Cease and Desist" order all the principal's received (ask Jordan; he might still have his letter somewhere he could scan it and post it). -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3DA36DF9.CD52524F>