The article "Software Patents" (DDJ, November 1990) created quite a stir. But then, we expected it would. What we didn't anticipate was the passion of your reactions to the article -- both on the part of those of you who agreed with the League for Programming Freedom's position and those who didn't.
Among those who agreed with the League's position -- and were moved to action -- was the reader at a large corporation who, at the urging of his superiors, applied for a patent on a rather fundamental windowing scheme. He sent us a description of the technique, imploring us to publish it and establish prior art, thereby possibly blocking his own patent application. Unfortunately what's done is done and our publicizing the method wouldn't halt the patent process.
On the other hand, we heard from folks like Paul Heckel, creator of the card and rack metaphor (and its card and stack subset) developed and patented long before Apple released HyperCard. After years of anguish on Paul's part, Apple finally acknowledged his inventions and licensed his patents. The patent process protected Paul by not allowing a large corporation to play Goliath to his David.
But the tremors weren't felt at DDJ alone. At the article's behest, many of you also wrote the U.S. House of Representative's Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. And rarely, according to the people in Washington I talked to, has the Subcommittee received the quantity -- and quality -- of mail the article generated.
To give you an idea: One measure of the quality of mail received by Congressional committees is whether the letters are standardized form letters or individual letters. Every letter sent by DDJ readers in response to the November article was a carefully thought out, multipage, personal letter written by an individual. As a Subcommittee spokesperson told me, "people wrote because they were concerned." He went on to say that "you've certainly hit a nerve here."
On February 1 of this year, TelePath, DDJ's online companion, became a free service available via direct dial. You can access the system at anytime without hassling with credit cards or packet-switched networks.
In addition to the source code in DDJ (and other M&T magazines), you'll find source code libraries and on-going discussions on subjects ranging from object-oriented programming to database benchmarks.
The communications parameters are 1200/2400 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, and the direct dial number is 415-364-8315.
Nor were we surprised at the flood of inquiries regarding the status and availability of 386BSD. In fact, the general response can be summed up in two words -- more now!
According to Bill and Lynne Jolitz, the current status of the project is that 386BSD has been merged into the 4.3BSD-Reno version of the Berkeley Software Distribution, a work-in-progress version of the upcoming 4.4BSD release. Due to the research orientation of BSD, updated versions are made available from the University of California at Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at scheduled intervals. What follows is the current official statement by the CSRG on this matter:
The 386BSD support will be available in February as part of an update of the 1989 Networking Release distribution. One very important fact to remember is, that although the 386BSD support itself is freely redistributable, much of the rest of the operating system and utilities require proprietary source licenses. Therefore, the February distribution will NOT be a complete system and cannot be booted or run on a 386 machine. This distribution will only require a Berkeley license and distribution fee. Previous fees were approximately $500, but the actual fee has not yet been determined.
The 4.4BSD release is scheduled for the middle of 1991, and additional, freely redistributable support will be made available at that time.
Since the CSRG is a research group, not all calls or e-mail can be promptly answered, so we'll try to keep you updated here in the magazine. CSRG can be contacted via e-mail at bsd.dist@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu, and e-mail is preferred for complete and accurate updates. If you have any specific questions or comments regarding 386BSD, Bill and Lynne ask that you contact them directly via e-mail at william@berkeley.edu or at uunet!william.
Copyright © 1991, Dr. Dobb's JournalTelePath Update
386BSD Availability