🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep15.221741.28261@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>In article <DREIER.92Sep15145233@lhasa.berkeley.edu>
>dreier@lhasa.berkeley.edu (Roland Dreier) writes: 
>#I'm still a little confused about the difference between USL and Apple.
>
>Apple is saying, "We will sue anyone who writes code that looks like a
>Mac." 
>
>USL is saying, "We will sue anyone who distributes our code without
>proper liscencing."

There certainly are distinctions between the two situations, but the
latter case isn't quite that simple.  It isn't all that clear what USL
is claiming; by attacking all of Networking-2, even though clearly almost
all of it is completely original work, without pinpointing any specific
cases, their suit is equivalent to trying to shut down an entire bookstore
because of a question about one or two books.  They aren't saying whether
the problem is copyright violation or trade secret violation either.
If USL had said "these specific modules violate our copyright" I'm sure
CSRG would have happily removed them from the Networking-2 distribution.
They tried to do just this -- have AT&T check their list of AT&T-free
files -- but AT&T refused to cooperate.

The Apple suit is clearly more dangerous, but the USL suit threatens the
cause of free software as well, by casting a cloud over the contributions
of many authors at Berkeley and elsewhere who contributed to Networking-2.
FSF and others may now feel compelled to waste time rewriting software
they could otherwise have obtained from Networking-2.

RMS's opinions on some of these issues differ from mine -- I think that
USL could make as strong a case -- that is, complete bullshit, but close
enough to tie up CMU in the courts for years -- against Mach 3.0, but
others disagree.  Who knows what the courts will decide?

Does this mean that FSF must boycott AT&T/USL in the same way as they
boycott Apple?  Not at all.  They are free to choose the most effective
strategy for each opponent.  Apple makes its money selling hardware (their
software revenue is tiny by comparison).  Strategy: make the hardware less
valuable by refusing to provide software for it.  USL makes its money
selling software and Unix licenses.  How to attack them?  By producing
software that provides the same functionality as theirs without giving any
revenue to them.  It seems to me that the appropriate strategy is being
used against each opponent.  If it is most effective to continue to use
Unix boxes (for which a Unix license has been paid) to develop Gnu, no
matter; in the long run, the Gnu project will cost USL more revenue than
a self-defeating boycott would.





--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu