Please remove PD-YACC sources from your machine IMMEDIATELY

[Joe Bob Willie]

In article <135 at dcs.UUCP> wnp at dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
>1. Are they reacting to the _name_ YACC, or did they look at the actual
>   files John had on his system and determine that they consisted of
>   or contained AT&T-owned source?

i don't know.  otis wilson is out of town, and i suspect only he knows.
i doubt they picked the code up from me, more likely they are aware the
posting shouldn't have been made from previous inquiries.  of course, i
may be wrong.  for everyone's information, the source was obtained from
killer's comp.unix.sources archive as i recall.  you might want to check
your machine if you archive comp.unix.sources.

>2. If they are reacting to the name YACC, does this mean that they ARE
>   moving towards considering the names of *NIX utilities their property
>   which no-one else may use? If so, where does this leave such products
>   as MINIX, MKS, etc.?

no, they seem to be aiming at the source itself, or possibly the ideas
contained in the source.  i'm not certain.  i don't know how this will
affect unix-like utilities.  it may affect clones which are not exact
source ripoffs, but say, used the exact same algorithms.  for example,
a yacc clone which built a lalr(0) parser identical to the real yacc
might be more in danger than one which built a lr(0) or lr(1) parser.

>It might be useful if Mr. Wilson of AT&T could address these two questions;
>he or his colleagues obviously read news or they would not have known about
>John's posting.

in speaking with someone at at&t software licensing i learned that they
do not have netnews access.  so, mr. wilson will not be reading about
this on the net.

- john.
-- 
 Joe Bob Willie                                             Big "D" Oil and Gas
 UUCP: ...!killer!rpp386!jfh                            jfh at rpp386.uucp :DOMAIN
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