Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/12/84; site desint.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!desint!geoff 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