4.4BSD

[Michael Sokolov]

Greg Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> You can trademark anything that hasn't already been trademarked.

But if a system has already existed under a certain name for 15 years, just
because some twit suddenly decided to trademark it doesn't mean that the
original author and copyright owner suddenly has to change its name. If some
twit decides to trademark the name Michael Sokolov, that doesn't mean that I
suddenly have to change my name. I have had this name for all my 19 years and
will keep it for as long as I live. The same with BSD. UC Berkeley has been
using this name for 15 years. Just because some phased BSDI twit suddenly
decided to trademark it doesn't mean that Berkeley suddenly has to stop using
it. True, I am not UC Berkeley, but I am working on UC Berkeley's system in
full compliance with Berkeley's license terms. Since the UC Berkeley system is
still called BSD, so is mine, since my system is just a newer version of the
Berkeley one. My right, both legal and ethical, to call my system a newer
version of BSD or Berkeley UNIX stems from the right to modify. The right to
modify includes _any_ kind of development work, including the possiblity of
becoming the new principal maintainer.

> > BSDI has no rights whatsoever to the code copyrighted by the Regents
> > of University of California.
>
> Of course they have.  The rights are described in the Berkeley
> License.

I meant that they have no exclusive rights. They have no right to say what I
can or cannot do with the UC Berkeley system. Once Berkeley gave me and
everyone else the rights to redistribute and modify, no one can take these
rights away from me. Not even UC Berkeley itself, since I didn't sign any
agreements that they could terminate.

Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46 at k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/

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