On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 6:16 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> It was rewritten over time,
> which replaced AT&T's implementation. Which is all that was ever claimed.

And it's a false claim.

I believe you. But BSD's rewrite was good enough. The real key is the BSDi/UCB vs. USL/AT&T case was not about the code (or copyrights). That is the piece most hackers don't seem to understand. The case was about trade secrets (or not) and thus the ideas. BSDi/UCB released their system which clearly had started with code that had originated with AT&T and thus the ideas had to have originated there too.

I think too many hackers get caught up in FOSS, GPL, et al, and miss the point.

The real debt which we can never repay Doug, Ken, Dennis, and friends was their ideas and the way they broke down and solved problems. The code is a by-product, the existence proof that it was more than theory, but had a practical use.