Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 03:40:40 -0500
From: mxs46@k2.scl.cwru.edu (Michael Sokolov)
Message-Id: <199901260840.DAA03267@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu>
To: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
Sender: owner-pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Precedence: bulk

Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:

> Now you mention this, I seem to remember that BSDI registered the name
> BSD as a trade mark, so you wouldn't be able to even if you wanted to.

That's nonsense. You can't trademark something that isn't even yours. BSDI has
no rights whatsoever to the code copyrighted by the Regents of University of
California. The BSD license agreement explicitly allows unrestricted
modification and distribution of modified versions. Incrementing the version
number is one of the most natural operations a developer modifying the system
can do. If I were to use CSRG's final 1995 code as my starting point, I would
indeed call my system 4.5BSD, and I would have the full right to do so. The
only reason I do not and cannot call my system 4.5BSD, 5BSD, or whatever is
because I'm tmachining the SCCS tree back to 1988, nullifying 4.4BSD.

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@k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/