Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!att!dptg!pegasus!psrc From: psrc@pegasus.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Do you know where 'Custom Software Systems' is? Summary: a slight correction Keywords: pc/vi editor question Message-ID: <4229@pegasus.ATT.COM> Date: 5 Nov 89 18:39:56 GMT References: <1108@qip.UUCP> <1959@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> Distribution: usa Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 35 In article <1108@qip.UUCP> tama@qip.UUCP (Tama McBride) writes: > >Do you know if the company 'Custom Software Systems' is still in > >business? In article <1959@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>, dougm@palomar.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Doug Marshall) writes: > They were put out of business by AT&T. Seems they were found to have used > some (all?) of the source code to create the vi editor. Fairly close to the truth, but not quite. AT&T filed suit against CSS, charging that they used AT&T UNIX(R) system source code (without asking permission or paying royalties) in their PC/TOOLS and PC/SPELL products. PC/VI wasn't mentioned. CSS settled out of court, and shortly thereafter, ceased operations. Let me emphasize that this had nothing to do with "look and feel". AT&T spent a lot of money developing the UNIX operating system, and chose to treat it as a commercial property. The software itself, and the name, are owned by AT&T. The suit claimed that CSS had stolen the software, just as if they had run off a thousand copies of Lotus 1-2-3 on a disk duplicator. > I don't think that they're in business any more. That's what I heard, too. I have no idea if the settlement exhausted their finances, or if they decided that they couldn't do business if they (a) stopped selling PC/TOOLS and PC/SPELL, (b) re-wrote PC/TOOLS and PC/SPELL from scratch, or (c) paid AT&T for the AT&T source code their products depended on. > Doug Marshall <...!ncr-sd!palomar!dougm> Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories att!pegasus!psrc, psrc@pegasus.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm UNIX(R) is a registered trademark of AT&T. Other than that, I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.