1994 BSD/Unix Settlement Released On Groklaw

davidwr writes "Groklaw has the newly-released-previously-secret 1994 Berkeley/UNIX Systems Laboratories settlement which gave rise to BSD4.4(Lite) (as pdf and text with commentary). This may have an impact on the SCO vs. Linux war."

Comments

pay the cost to be the boss

[Doc Ruby]

These corporations take their feuds into the courts, where we pay taxes for them to produce justice. Then they settle, because the actual trial completion costs too much and is too risky for their own investment in justice. So we get no return on our investment in justice, but the corporations do, without the full cost or risk. They should have to at least register their settlement terms, especially since they'll next expect our courts to enforce them. The judge should decide whether they can keep the settlement secret, and for how long, so we can at least get some contribution to the justice we're funding. Otherwise, we're just funding expensive corporate negotiations.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[ScrewMaster]

Depends upon the relative size and heft of the combatants. Between a Microsoft and a one-man garage software shop the law is a blunt instrument used to beat someone to a bloody pulp. But that doesn't usually cost much court time (Burst not withstanding.) Between two more evenly-matched players ... you're pretty much dead on.

Carrying it a step further, I'm leaning towards the idea that, once you've filed a lawsuit, an out-of-court settlement should no longer be possible. Why should it? If two companies can't agree before going to court, why should the courts be used to pressure one side or the other to give in? You're right, that's not justice and it is an abuse of the court system. Either you drop the case (and take your lumps) or pursue it to the bitter end and accept what the justice system hands you. If that's not worth the risk, then make a deal before going in.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[Doc Ruby]

Even a one-man garage SW shop, with the facts on their side, can offer a very expensive challenge to Microsoft. And they sometimes win - which is a reason they can sometimes raise the money as investment in their victory. But I'm talking about the costs *to taxpayers* like us. If MS and other companies want to fight, and it's expensive, that's their problem. But these corporations are wasting so much of our government budgets on their negotiations that it's a DoS attack on our system, without much cost or risk to them.

Civil suits are ways to remedy damages between citizens, so litigants should be able to "cut their losses" when Justice is going against them. Their active participation is required for our adversarial process of justice to work, but either side might not be in position to continue the process past a certain point, compared with settling. But, as we apparently agree, the public shouldn't be cheated of everything in that case. Their settlements are the only product available, and that should be used for the public benefit as much as is just, as decided by the judge in the case.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[bstone]

Worse than that, with sealed settlements and sealed documents filed in the court cases, the rest of the people who are affected by the proceedings have no way of knowing how they were affected. Rulings on the ownership of code and agreements between the various parties to lawsuits leave the rest of the world unable to know how to react.

Can I contribute to BSD code, or does someone else own it who can sue me for derivitive works? Can I legally use various open source software, or has it been decided that the company who allowed me that option has conceded that they really didn't own it in a sealed agreement? Do I owe SCO extortion fees because of something AT&T and BSD decided in a sealed settlement (SCO seems to think so, and somehow they seem to have the documents)? Has SCO, as they have claimed, given the courts proof of their ownership of Linux code in sealed documents? Can I be held liable for not knowing the contents of those documents?

As soon as something affects third parties, whether it's a settlement agreement, a court decision, or documents filed with the courts, it should not be allowed to be sealed and hidden from the other parties who are affected.

Re:pay the cost to be the boss

[ScrewMaster]

Well, I was speaking primarily about the person or group filing the lawsuit. If you sue, you should either have to accept whatever justice the system hands you (if you choose to go that far) or simply drop the case. The problem, as I see it, is that the cost of mounting a defense is, in and of itself, a punitive measure regardless of the outcome of a case. I don't know, I'm hardly a lawyer but it just seems to me that a settlement shouldn't be forced just because someone can't afford a protracted defense. And if the entity filing a suit doesn't really believe that the case can be won on its merits but is simply using the expense of a legal defense as a tool to coerce the defendant ... that's a problem.

No

[ColourlessGreenIdeas]

The current BSDs are all forks of the version of BSD that was released to comply with this ruling. Which doesn't include the restricted files (those in Exhibit A) We've always known they were clean. We just hadn't previously known what it was about them that made them clean.

no

[twitter]

You ask:

does any of this in any way impact the slew of child BSD's out there?

The answer is no. Nobody but SCO has anything to worry about. As Grocklaw astutely notes:

Now we know why SCO keeps telling us the case is "just a contract" case, why it has a penchant for suing only those who are, or were, their licensees, and why it sued IBM instead of Red Hat. USL preserves its rights against licensees under the license agreements. I see no expanded rights against third parties who are not licensees, just the preexisting right to try to sue them, with the same likely outcome that USL experienced when it tried to sue the University and BSDi, using the same lame copyright claims that the judge back then found so unconvincing.

SCO owns nothing useful and never has. They have yet to show any infringement by IBM nor will they ever. The whole thing is FUD, funded by your friends at M$ and a pump and dump scheme, in short fraud and anti-competitive fraud. I hope someone goes to jail for it.

Re:War?

[swillden]

How is that war on Drugs, and the war on terrah going for you guys?

I thought that was the "War on Terra".

You know, a shorthand description of Bush's environmental policies.

Your post is amusing. let's see why.

[hummassa]

First of all, this post is not offtopic. MODERATOR MADNESS applies.

actually the war on terror isn't a loosing battle. There won't always be terror at least on the scale it is today.
Hmmmm. Let me see. when I was 11 (1982) I was all the time scared to hell that Reagan would push the red button. Let's go futher back...
1950's-60's people were scared of the commies
1940's - the war
1930's - the depression
1910's - the war
1890's - the war
1500's-1600's - the Inquisition
-500's - the Romans, Attila, Alexander, the Egyptians, etc. etc. etc.
Yes, I got it pretty much covered. It is -- and has always been -- a blood-covered world. Terror world. It's a lost battle to begin with... unless you make real peace, which we don't have today (like: Israelis out of Palestine, Palestine and Israel get some common ground about what to do to Jerusalem; reunite Koreas; separate Taiwan; separate Euskadi from Spain and a piece of France; figure out something to Africa as a whole; get russians out of Chechenia; get USofAns out of everywhere but the USofA)

The object of the war on terror isn't to make everyone agree and get along. It is to force the terrorist to make changes by piecful means.
Yeah, by bombing the crap out of Fallujah. This one made me LOL.

A group of people that don't reflect the population killing civilians is not a noble thing to do no matter how you try to justify it.
You are right, but this applies equally to the US Armed Forces.

There are alway other options like full blown war were you go after troops and military instead of average joe trying to make a living. No, in most cases full blown war is too expensive except for the US govment. I'm not justifying terrorism, just saying that it *is*, after all, a resource-efficient form of warfare.

You even have countries like spain that cave in and give terrorist legitamicy. Even now there is a push to clean up the U.N. because of it's support for different terrorist or the countries that support it.
I did not understand if you claimed Spain gave legitimacy for terrorists because of Euskadi or because of Iraq (from which they pulled out BTW, by popular force)

What is being said is that they cannot use terror as a weapon to express those differences or try to force policy changes.
And this is the real stupid part: if it comes to a group to get their claims unheard so much that they would resource to terrorism (because of scarcity of means to fight a full-fledged war -- including propaganda means) they will -- always -- use terror as the weapon.
And now, my flamebait (not really, but a lot of people tend to think it is): it's exactly what the USofAn population-backed government does. It's a minority (3% of the world's population) that, by slaughtering civilians and by maintaing other governments "on check", enforces its views on the others.

The war on terror also is fought several different ways. Some ways might include military action while others might make sure those disgressed have a voice in the politics surounding the issue. One thing is certain, once they decide to use terror as a bargaining chip, they won't get the second treatment.
First: the second way you cited is *never* used;
Second: usually, it's the other way around: the people who make use of terror are not listened to until they make use of terror; then they negotiate, then they are heard.

Re:USofA lost both.

[cduffy]

Fine, drugs are bad. That doesn't mean it's a war.

A "war" is, generally speaking, a temporary situation which warrants the application of special powers during its (finite) duration.

The "war on drugs" doesn't have a finite duration. As you acknowledge, there is no achievable victory condition where we can all go home. Temporary "war powers" make no sense in this situation. Consequently, it's not a war, just another law-enforcement function, and calling it (thinking of it as) anything else invites bad decision-making.