[TUHS] Re: The Mark Williams Company and Coherent

[Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 05:23:44PM -0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> > There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen.
> 
> Not always misplaced. There was a guy in Boston who sold Unix look-alike
> programs. A quick look at the binary revealed perfect correlation with our
> C source. Coincidentally, DEC had hired this person as a consultant in
> connection with cross-licensing negotiations with AT&T. Socializing at
> the end of a day's negotiations,  our lawyer somehow managed to turn the
> conversation to software piracy. He discussed  a case he was working on,
> and happened to have some documents about it in his briefcase. He pulled
> out a page disassembled binary and a page of source code and showed them to
> the consultant.
> 
> After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary was
> obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the lawyer
> asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The consultant
> did not attend the following day's meeting.

Oh come on, you can leave that juicy story there.  What happened next?
-- 
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Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat