Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 11:40:24 +0800 (SGT)
From: Joerg Micheel <joerg@krdl.org.sg>
Message-Id: <199803180340.LAA04283@iti.gov.sg>
To: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Subject: Re: T-shirt for SCO Unix Licenses
Reply-To: joerg@begemot.org
Sender: owner-pups@minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Precedence: bulk

# > # I had this idea for a t-shirt to celebrate the release of the SCO PDP-11
# > # licenses. The front says:
# > # 
# > #                            I am
# > #                           LEGALLY
# > #                         CONTAMINATED
# > #                           by UNIX
# > # 
# > # The back has as much kernel source code as you can print on a t-shirt.
# > # Near the middle is the comment /* You are not expected to understand this */
# > 
# > Hey, hey! Gotta make a reference to the original artwork! :-)
# > 
# I should say (and Joerg reminds me) that he & Harti sent me a t-shirt
# a couple of years ago with a copy of boot/login sequence of V7 on the
# front, and the section of the V6 kernel with the comment above on the
# back. I wear it quite a bit, and my fiancee likes it too, but probably
# for other reasons.

The /* You are not expected to understand this */ is also on the second
page of Peter Salus' A Quater Century of UNIX, explaining a lot of folklore
behind the UNIX history, including things like "a tape was found on the
street to contain ...".

The "contamination" term is (as far as I can tell) originated at Berkeley.
When USL sued UCB for violating AT&T UNIX copyrights, it became apparent,
that anyone ever having had a look at the original sources would be "infected"
and be disallowed to distribute code that vaguely resembles anything in UNIX.

Kirk McKusick then showed up with "Mentally contaminated" stickers for everyone
attending the 4.4BSD Kernel Internals course at the Winter 1993 USENIX
Conference, since he would present us - guess, what - source code! (of 4.4BSD)

I still have the sticker somewhere in my collection.

	Joerg