Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 14:13:33 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com> To: Peter <fbsdq@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, s.cass@ieee.org Subject: Re: IEEE Journalist looking for facts about Microsoft use of BSDcode Message-ID: <3B30E7CD.ADB81084@iowna.com> References: <SAK.2001.06.20.tnntdrif@support10>
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Peter wrote: > > . . . .|Keep in mind that without contacting someone at Microsoft it will be > . . . .|difficult to prove, since the software license on the FreeBSD code would > . . . .|allow Microsoft (or any company) to use the code, resell it and never > . . . .|give credit to the original source. > I thought they had to include the "Regents of California" etc etc stuff > in the code they use ? > If so would it not be possible to do: > cd /win/WINDOWS > strings * |grep -i BSD > cd SYSTEM [SYSTEM32] > strings * |grep -i BSD > [or use a "for i in `ls` ; do strings $i |grep -i BSD ; done] > [Yes I know it's not clean but it a very easy/fast] > > to just search for all BSD code in Miscrosoft exe's/dlls ? > I'm not on a BSD box now, but I think this shouldn't take too long, > and in theory should work. Perhaps. Check the wording here: http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license.html [the usual disclaimer about me not being a laywer and not being responsible if someone takes my advice and gets in trouble applies to the following statements] The way I read this is that the copyright must appear _somewhere_ That could be in the source code. That could be in the help files. That could be in tiny print in the back of the paper manual that nobody reads anyway. That could be in a single file buried deep on the install CD somewhere that the setup process never copies. In other words, you'd have to be pretty thorough in your hunting if MS was trying to hide it. Another point is: how would you know if they lied? Take a piece of the TCP stack out of FreeBSD, tweak it to work in the windows environment and remove any reference to BSD ... once it's compiled, how are you going to find it? Prove it? Heck ... considering that scenerio, MS could be using GPLed software and it would be almost impossible to prove. Considering their approach to ethics, I would be surprised to find out they were doing things like that. But considering the general flaming nature of the Open Source community, I would be surprised to find out they had written everything themselves either. I'll be curious to see if anyone can come up with some hard proof. On a slight digression, this could be a compelling argument that MS _must_ make their source code reviewable! Otherwise, how can it be proven that it hasn't illegally used other folks (possibly GPLed) code? -Bill -- If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, then what can I get for two hands in the bush? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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