From: lehman@george.arc.nasa.gov (John Lehman -- GDP)
Subject: License wars :-). [Was: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects]
Summary: A bystander steps into a morass and attempts to extricate foot.
Organization: NASA Ames Res. Ctr. Mtn Vw CA 94035
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 18:27:10 GMT


Someone recently wrote, in rebuttal to someone else:

 <o>        [stuff deleted]                       Less legal difficulty in
 <o> getting what will amount to a pro-forma decision on the basis of the
 <o> small fish being unprepared to defend itself as rigorously as BSDI might.
 <o> My best defense would be to attempt to get BSDI involved again to try
 <o> and make myself look like a big fish.
 <o> 
 <o>         The next highest risk is that AT&T loses, but wins a pyhric
 <o> victory in their licensing issue against BSD.  BSD has two choices:
 <o> Buy an AT&T license (and contaminate themselves) so that BSDI and my
 <o> hypothetical company can continue commercial use of the code (thus
 <o> leaving the Berkeley license unattacked), or withdrawl their code from
 <o> commercial use (admitting a hole in the Berkeley license, but avoiding
 <o> the AT&T license issue).      [stuff deleted]


Given the lamentable complications contemplated above, it is easy 
to see part of the motivation of GNU:  to leave all this legal hassle 
behind.  I don't even have the patience to study and understand the 
entire _post_, and my lack of patience doesn't really matter much
because the above argument is just the tip of the iceberg:  I wouldn't
expect to follow it to completion, which would come in the courts. 

I don't know enough to speak for anyone else; I'm a bystander who will 
dodge all tomatoes; but I think:

(1)  If people really understood the motives behind GNU --
(see the GNU Manifesto) -- (which I find much, much easier to 
understand than suits, counter-suits, and political analyses 
of suits) then they would be less reluctant to package GNU as 
has been described in someone's earlier post. 

(2)  Yes it is true that trouble could come from other, non-GNU, 
organizations that sell Unix software arguably similar to GNU.
(I have no "solution" to that, but can only wait for one or more 
landmark legal cases to decide such issues.  Meanwhile, such
a risk is probably worth ignoring -- in the same sense as one 
might go about one's day-to-day business despite the possibility 
of [other?] criminal acts occurring.)

and
(3)  The main risk from the GNU organization itself is in the 
doubtful case that some business-person who probably couldn't 
care less about providing good software for free takes over GNU 
and starts treating it like an ordinary organization.  (Would
that be like the pigs in _Animal Farm_?  Hmm -- the pigs would 
be analogous to trouble rising up from within the ranks of GNU 
programmers.)


Slight change of subject:  Did y'all catch the "60-Minutes" 
segment last night where former customers had to pay the difference
between their car's price and the sticker price?  Was that because 
someone had taken over the bankrupt car company?  That sort of 
shenanigans is what I'd expect in the event that some profit-monger 
could "buy" the GNU project.

lehman@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sys.mac.advocacy