[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Doug McIlroy]

> Many of the gnu tools started life as BSD code that was hacked on and
> rebranded with the GPL.

I have seen Gnu code likewise adopted from AT&T.

Doug

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Warner Losh]

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 1:18 AM,  <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
> "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:
>
>> So around same time GNU project didn't publish some the most common
>> tools, but soon did. I didn't check, but I am pretty sure these are all
>> different code than the rewritten BSD code. Duplicated work.
>
> ISTR that the smaller utils were duplicated. 4.4BSD shipped gawk instead
> of original Unix awk, and used GCC (and I guess the binutils) as the
> compiler suite.  So some GNU stuff was used.

All the GNU and X11 stuff was under contrib in 4.4-lite. This included
gawk, gcc, binutils, perl, emacs, flex, gdb, groff, kermit, libg++,
mh, nvi, rcs, gnu sort and a few other sundries. But the research awk
was also included. The build system by default included gawk though...

Warner

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Wesley Parish]

If you read the early GNUs Bulletins you find a quite positive attitude towards the BSD community.

Wesley Parish

Quoting arnold at skeeve.com:

> "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:
> 
> > So around same time GNU project didn't publish some the most common 
> > tools, but soon did. I didn't check, but I am pretty sure these are
> all 
> > different code than the rewritten BSD code. Duplicated work.
> 
> ISTR that the smaller utils were duplicated. 4.4BSD shipped gawk
> instead
> of original Unix awk, and used GCC (and I guess the binutils) as the
> compiler suite. So some GNU stuff was used.
> 
> Arnold
>  



"I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
Method for Guitar

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel Goldwyn

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[arnold]

"Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> So around same time GNU project didn't publish some the most common 
> tools, but soon did. I didn't check, but I am pretty sure these are all 
> different code than the rewritten BSD code. Duplicated work.

ISTR that the smaller utils were duplicated. 4.4BSD shipped gawk instead
of original Unix awk, and used GCC (and I guess the binutils) as the
compiler suite.  So some GNU stuff was used.

Arnold

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Warner Losh]

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 11:45 AM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:
> There's a lot of code in a handful of not-part-of-GNU-proper core
> utility packages used in Linux distributions - bsdmainutils, bsdgames,
> bsdutils, and util-linux [only the last of which has the GPL] - which
> come from some BSD or another and mostly have intact UCB copyright
> statements and licenses at the top. If any of these are improperly
> attributed, it's likely that UCB is to blame.

Anything in 4.4-lite was specifically blessed by USL as non-infringing
as part of the settlement of that suit...

But the bsd* packages aren't what's being talked about here. Those
generally came about later as these BSD programs ported to Linux and
resistance to non-gpl'd code in distributions waned.

Warner

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Random832]

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017, at 12:25, Doug McIlroy wrote:
> Nick asked for an exmple of AT&T code in Gnu.
> Warner explained a spectrum of ways and degrees of innocence
> by which that might happen.
> 
> The example I have in mind is "calendar" from v7, whose very
> idiosyncratic implementation appeared in Gnu with only
> cosmetic changes. It has been modified since by discarding
> archaic efficiency hacks, but still uses the same quirky
> basic method.

The "calendar" available my Linux machine is from the "bsdmainutils"
package (which has never been put under the GPL, incidentally) which is
stuff copied with attribution from FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD, and
calendar.c has a UCB copyright/license and OpenBSD RCS ID at the top of
the file. (In the TUHS archive, this implementation first appears in
4.3BSD-Reno, with earlier versions having code clearly derived from V7).

The earliest version (from Debian 1.1) that I can find has a UCB
copyright dated 1993 and SCCS ID 8.3 3/25/94, not much removed from
4.4BSD in the archive (which has SCCS ID 8.1 6/6/93) - my guess is that
the actual source is 4.4BSD-Lite, which is mentioned in the bsdmainutils
README.

In the converted-to-git CSRG archive, the implementation first appears
in 1989 by "bostic" (Keith Bostic, presumably)
https://github.com/weiss/original-bsd/commit/46857f6fe723eff85f22986beb78063f05b60f78
with the change note "redone from scratch as a C program to fix cpp
security problem" - this is the first version to have a UCB copyright
notice. [Using cpp seems to have itself been a BSD innovation circa
4.1cBSD]

V7 calendar consists of a C program that outputs a set of regexes, and a
shell script that runs egrep. Unless by "same quirky basic method" you
mean the fact that it reads events from a text file at all, I'm not sure
what you're referring to... but that's functionality rather than
implementation.

There's a lot of code in a handful of not-part-of-GNU-proper core
utility packages used in Linux distributions - bsdmainutils, bsdgames,
bsdutils, and util-linux [only the last of which has the GPL] - which
come from some BSD or another and mostly have intact UCB copyright
statements and licenses at the top. If any of these are improperly
attributed, it's likely that UCB is to blame.

> Conceivably Gnu's implementation was done only after v7
> code was made public. But in any event, it has been
> distributed without attribution.
> 
> Doug

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Doug McIlroy]

Nick asked for an exmple of AT&T code in Gnu.
Warner explained a spectrum of ways and degrees of innocence
by which that might happen.

The example I have in mind is "calendar" from v7, whose very
idiosyncratic implementation appeared in Gnu with only
cosmetic changes. It has been modified since by discarding
archaic efficiency hacks, but still uses the same quirky
basic method.

Conceivably Gnu's implementation was done only after v7
code was made public. But in any event, it has been
distributed without attribution.

Doug

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Warner Losh]

You're right. The GPL can't be applied in this way. However, there
were a few attempts (accidental it was claimed) to do this back in the
day, mostly by cutting and pasting bits out of NET2 for this or that
GPL thing. I don't recall the specifics, since it was fixed like
25-odd years ago. Accidental, as claimed, or sneaky, the incidents
(and talk of the incident) left a bad taste in people's mouths. A
couple of times the code in question passed from one person to the
next until the knowledge of the original copying was lost until
discovered by someone who was familiar with the original sources and
did a comparison. The reactions and the personalities didn't help to
smooth over the ruffled feathers either.

To be fair, it was a different time. The knowledge of what was and
wasn't permissible simply isn't at all what it is today. For many
people, it tended to fall into "OK to copy" and "NOT OK to copy". The
nuances of license compliance did not have the benefits of the last
two and a half decades of public education. While some people knew and
respected, it wasn't as universal as it is today. So it was natural
that people would just copy and not attribute. It didn't take too many
incidents of that happening for the word to spread it wasn't cool and
that just because you could copy an entire file w/o a problem doesn't
mean you could cut a dozen routines out of it and paste it into your
own work. That's why any projects that started out as a copy from BSD
(or worse AT&T) were thoroughly reworked to expunge that taint and you
don't hear about it today. It stopped being more than an incidental
problem in the mid 90's. And it wasn't just BSD->GPL either, again to
be fair, the same ignorance allowed code to flow the other way a time
or two...

Warner

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 7:27 AM, Nick Downing <downing.nick at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is this really true, can you give specific examples? AFAIK the GPL cannot be
> applied retrospectively except by the BSD- or commercial licensor, perhaps
> you could GPL your changes but I am not quite sure how this would work
> unless your release was in the form of a patch.
> cheers, Nick
>
> On Mar 19, 2017 12:07 AM, "Doug McIlroy" <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > Many of the gnu tools started life as BSD code that was hacked on and
>> > rebranded with the GPL.
>>
>> A small amount of code was likewise adopted from AT&T.
>>
>> Doug

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Nick Downing]

Is this really true, can you give specific examples? AFAIK the GPL cannot
be applied retrospectively except by the BSD- or commercial licensor,
perhaps you could GPL your changes but I am not quite sure how this would
work unless your release was in the form of a patch.
cheers, Nick

On Mar 19, 2017 12:07 AM, "Doug McIlroy" <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> > Many of the gnu tools started life as BSD code that was hacked on and
> > rebranded with the GPL.
>
> A small amount of code was likewise adopted from AT&T.
>
> Doug
>
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[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Doug McIlroy]

> Many of the gnu tools started life as BSD code that was hacked on and
> rebranded with the GPL.

A small amount of code was likewise adopted from AT&T.

Doug

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Ron Natalie]

I could never convince the principals to call the FreeBSD project "Radio
Free Berkeley."   As for duplication of effort, I'm not sure anybody cared.
Certainly RMS didn't give a rats ass.
I suspect some of the stuff came from sources outside of both projects, like
stuff we did at BRL (although, those using that tape need to be careful,
most of that stuff came right out of the system V sources, hacked over to
work on BSD).

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Jeremy C. Reed]

> This brings up questions about how GNU and BSD operated around 1990ish.
> I'm aware of Bostic's campaign to replace the AT&T code in BSD, which led
> to the almost-completely-free Net/2. What I wonder is how much of this was
> duplicating work also done under the GNU umbrella? How much of it was
> authors donating their rewritten utilities to both projects? What was the
> state of the GNU project when Bostic started his campaign?

Have a look at the following:

GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 6, January, 1989
Contents of Beta Test Tape
https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull6.html#SEC17

GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 7, June, 1989
https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull7.html
"A collection of utilities for file manipulation, including ls, mv, cp, 
cat, rm, du, head, tail and cmp will be released soon."
...
"The GNU project is working to provide reimplementations of System V 
features that Berkeley Unix lacks, such as improved shells and make 
commands."

GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 9, June 1990
https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull9.html#SEC10
GNU Project Status Report
"We have added a collection of utilities for file manipulation to the 
Pre-Release tape. The collection includes ls, mv, cp, cat, rm, du, head, 
tail, cmp, chmod, mkdir, and ln."

So around same time GNU project didn't publish some the most common 
tools, but soon did. I didn't check, but I am pretty sure these are all 
different code than the rewritten BSD code. Duplicated work.

[TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux

[Tony Finch]

Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:

> Many of the gnu tools started life as BSD code that was hacked on and
> rebranded with the GPL. [context brutally snipped]

This brings up questions about how GNU and BSD operated around 1990ish.
I'm aware of Bostic's campaign to replace the AT&T code in BSD, which led
to the almost-completely-free Net/2. What I wonder is how much of this was
duplicating work also done under the GNU umbrella? How much of it was
authors donating their rewritten utilities to both projects? What was the
state of the GNU project when Bostic started his campaign?

Tony.
-- 
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