Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 02:34:15 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: gmarco@scotty.masternet.it (Gianmarco Giovannelli) Cc: oleg@ogurok.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lawsuit with Novel Message-ID: <199902230234.TAA13718@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990222191438.009d3f00@194.184.65.4> from "Gianmarco Giovannelli" at Feb 22, 99 07:36:25 pm
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> >I heard about some lawsuit between FreeBSD and Novel. What was this about? > >Any info on web? Just personal curiousity. Thank you. > > "In 1992, AT&T's subsidiary USL (UNIX System Labs) filled a lawsuit against > Berkeley Software Development Inc. (BSDI), the manufacteur of the BSD/386 > and (later) BSD/OS operating systems, for alleged distribution of AT&T > source code in violation of license agreements. They subsequently extended > the case to University of California at Berkeley." (The Complete FreeBSD, > Lehey) BSDI = Berekeley Software Design, Inc. Novel = Novell > The final agreement arrive in 1994 between Novel (who had bought the right > from AT&T in the meantime) and BSDI. Novel was attribuited of all rights on > NET/2 distribution, but in exchange bless the new upcoming 4.4BSD to be > free from any duties. Novell bought USL from AT&T. It became the Novell UNIX Systems Group, or "Novell/USG". The USL lawsuit alleged disclosure of USL Trade Secrets through publication of Net/2 by UCB's CSRG (University of California at Berkeley, Computer Science Research Group). UCB filed countersuit, claiming fully 50% of UNIX System V was in violation of the UCB license by way of the license having been removed from UCB sources incorporated into SVR4 (System V release 4). UCB and USL settled, even though the judge all but dismissed the charges made by USL. As part of this, files from several critical subsystems were deemed "tainted", and removed from BSD 4.4 prior to distribution. UCB subsequently removed the code from distribution, and requested that others remove the code as well. Few people complied, since (1) the license is irrevocable, and (2) USL did not press the matter, probably for fear of someone who wouldn't settle would take up the banner. The code is still available from gatekeeper.dec.com, among other FTP archives. > FreeBSD and all other OS based on NET/2 distribution where obliged to be > rewritten using only source code from 4.4BSD (which they are prepared to do > in any case...). > FreBSD 1.1.5.1 was the last based on NET/2 and was released in July 1994. After the UCB/USL settlement, BSDI was sent a letter permitting its distribution of the binaries for the Net/2 derived OS, but denying permission to continue distribution of the sources. This was the beginning of binary-only BSDI distributions. The principles associated with 386BSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD were not initially given the same deal as BSDI. Instead, they were individually served with "Cease And Desist" orders. Through several meetings I had over the period of a week with Mike DeFazio, then head of Novell/USG under Bob Frakenburg, in which, among other facts, I pointed out that the code was archived off shore in countries without intellectual property treaties with the US, and thus cessation could not be ordered by a US Court, Novell/USG releneted, and allowed the non-BSDI Net/2 based code to continue distribution until such time as the BSD 4.4-Lite code could be substituted. > They worked hard to release the new version, even because the 4.4BSD was > not fully complete at this time. FreeBSD version 2.0 was the first relase > based on the 4.4BSD and was released in December 1994. It is my opinion that it was Novell/USG's opinion at the time that the non-BSDI Net/2 based projects would be unable to recreate the supposedly "tainted" files, and thus not threaten the Novell/USG UNIX royalty monopoly. It is my opinion that the files removed were removed not for their content, but for their criticality. The CSRG quickly integrated pieces to replace the components, including a hackish integration of John Heidemann's vnode stacking architecture, from the UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) FICUS project. > Then in January I arrived and bought my first CD, but I was not able to > install it. :-) > > Is it correct ? Any actors can confirm ? Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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