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From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.legal
Subject: Re: yacc: public domain? (flame on)
Message-ID: <315@desint.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 00:06:05 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.315
Posted: Fri Jan 18 00:06:05 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jan-85 04:28:56 EST
References: <132@circadia.UUCP>
Organization: his home computer, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 20
Xref: watmath net.unix-wizards:11641 net.legal:1338

In article <132@circadia.UUCP> dave@circadia.UUCP (dave) writes:

>To my mind, it doesn`t matter if AT&T still has LEGAL control over UNIX;
>I think, especially with V6, they have lost their trade-secret protection.
>Does this mean that we should go ahead and use UNIX without compensation
>to AT&T?  I think not.  The lawyers, out there, might want each corporation
>to abide by whatever the legal code says, but I think what is missing from
>the system is a sense of "Right and Wrong"; one does not take his neighbors
>automobile because he left the keys in it.

Although most of us (all right, at least I) have been arguing an abstract
legal point more than arguing that we can get away clean with AT&T's code,
Dave is entirely right here.  Furthermore, if AT&T actually loses trade
secret protection for UNIX in court, who will be left to spend all that
monetary muscle maintaining it and enforcing it as a standard?  I think trade
secret loss would probably be a loss for the community.
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	...!ihnp4!trwrb!desint!geoff