Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 SMI; site sun.uucp
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!gnu
From: gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: UNIX trademark
Message-ID: <1806@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 24-Nov-84 18:36:18 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.1806
Posted: Sat Nov 24 18:36:18 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Nov-84 04:05:14 EST
References: <5882@brl-tgr.ARPA> <5896@brl-tgr.ARPA> <413@zeus.UUCP> <1273@hao.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 14

> Is Brian Kernighan trying to wage an inside battle against the
> lawyers?
>   Russ Rew

No, it's just that lawyers are paid to wage battle against reality.
I don't begrudge courts their job -- trying to reconcile the real world
with the "imaginative" things lawyers write to justify their salaries.
In the trademark case, languages evolve, shedding and gaining words and
constructs.  All lawyers can do is put fingers in dykes; they can't stop
the tide.

	"Reach out and grep* someone"

* grep is not a trademark of AT&T Bell Lawyetories