AT&T vs. CSS (PC/Tools)

[Dominick Samperi]

CIn article <36 at gnosys.UUCP> gst at gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
C>In article <109 at dcs.UUCP> wnp at dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
C>> ...
C>> However, in order to have access to BSD source you need a UNIX source license,
C>> which these folks presumably did not have. Also, I would not be surprised
C>> to find out that vi/ex contains large chunks of ed source.
C>
C>at Berkeley, was that ex/vi *is* covered by the AT&T license EVEN THOUGH IT
C>CONTAINS NOT A SINGLE LINE OF CODE FROM ED!!  The fact is that they started
C>by hacking on the ed code, and even though they hollowed the thing out and

I started this discussion, and I'm not sure that the original question is
being addressed: the article said that AT&T won a settlement against CSS
because CSS "used ideas from UNIX." Source code copying may not have been
the issue. The question is: if I develop tools that have the same (or more)
functionality as some of the standard UNIX tools (ls, rm, cpio, tar, etc.),
then can I use the same program names? And if not, can I use the word "UNIX"
in describing the functionality of the tools? Does MKS have a license from
AT&T?

-- 
Dominick Samperi, NYC
    samperi at acf8.NYU.EDU	samperi at marob.MASA.COM
    cmcl2!phri!marob        	uunet!swlabs!mancol!samperi
      (^ ell)