Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 03:19:24 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, gmarco@scotty.masternet.it, oleg@ogurok.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lawsuit with Novel Message-ID: <199902230319.UAA15386@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19990223133226.L93492@lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Feb 23, 99 01:32:26 pm
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> > 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. > > Are you sure Bill Jolitz got one? Dr. Dobbs were still actively > marketing their CD in late 1995. I remember talking with Lynne on the phone about it, when Bill was off consulting at Sun. > >> 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. > > I don't understand what you're trying to say here. They had the files > in question, just as BSDI did. Right. What I'm saying is that it is my opinion that the suit was filed to stop competition, not because there was a true belief that Trade Secrets were being infringed. My non-professional, personal opinion is that once a Trade Secret is disclosed, it's disclosed, and that you can only collect damages based on the act of disclosure doing you irreperable harm. In other words, people to whom the secret is disclosed are free to use it, regardless of whether or not the disclosure was illegal. Consider the secret of how Russia is able to smelt Zirconium about 10 times more efficiently than the US. It is a trade secret, and is not protected by patent. If disclosed, then anyone else who wants to smelt zirconium could use the method. Actually, there is a long line of kiln/furnace/smelting analogies, with large historical precedent. When you try to protect something with Trade Secret status instead of a Patent (which requires disclosure to obtain protection), then the penalties are based solely on the act of disclosure. 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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