From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.COM (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: AT&T USL vs. BSDI/UCB, Mach3, OSF/1, GNU HURD, Linux
Summary: This could get AT&T in trouble
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Chicago, IL
Distribution: gnu
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 02:35:24 GMT


In article <PCG.92Sep9230720@aberdb.aber.ac.uk> pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
>On 5 Sep 92 20:24:56 GMT, jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) said:
>NNTP-Posting-Host: ohm.berkeley.edu
>
>jbuck> (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
>
>I doubt this strategy is tenable. Part of the educational UNIX source
>license are clauses that state:
>
>	1) all work done by the licensee with UNIX must be supplied free
>	of charge to any other UNIX source licensee.
>
>	2) all work done by the licensee *on* UNIX (the kernel) becomes
>	the intellectual property of the licensor, AT&T/USL.

Whoh!  Just a minute here!

Just because a student does work on a program does NOT make the code he or
she writes the property of anyone else!  I know that I never signed
anything like that in college, and wouldn't have at any cost.

That software that I wrote in college is MY property.  No one else's.  I
would have refused to sign away those rights and sued the school if
necessary to retain them.  The college would be on damn thin ice requiring
me to give up my code in order to consider it as "counting" in coursework 
I do believe.  They are >certainly< not my employer; in fact, the exact
opposite I belive (I pay tuition, in effect employing >them< to teach me
something).

Absent an assignment of those rights, or a PD notice, that software is
copyrighted by ME.  I suspect that this holds true for those students who 
worked on the BSD sources as well.  

My suspicion is that any attempt by AT&T to "claim" that work could easily 
be ruled invalid and unenforceable -- returning full copyright control to
the authors.

Failing to protect your copyright once doesn't invalidate it, unlike trade 
secret or trademark protections.....

Therefore, perhaps there is a third strategy which UCB could persue against
AT&T/USL -- through their graduates.  The incorporated pieces of those
student's work which were not derivitives of AT&T code (like the VFS stuff,
most of the networking code, etc) could easily be ruled >the student's< 
property.  The only "defense" here would be possibly the release to the
world via the NET/1 and NET/2 releases -- but even that is resolvable -- 
get the ex-students involved to sign over the copyrights, if any, to the 
Regents and then have the Regents go after AT&T with a vengence.  I dare 
say that most of the people who worked on this would probably not mind this 
at all (since their already is publically available, and this could be quite 
a weapon).

Now, how much of that work is in the SVR4 release?  Hmmm.....

This could get >quite< interesting.

Anyone on the net know if this is something that might work?  I think it
would be most interesting to do this to USL, considering that their 
"offsping" (Southwestern Bell, etc) likes to bring >criminal< charges 
against people for unsubstantiated copyright infringement (Operation Sun 
Devil comes to mind).

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
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