[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

I'm sure I'm not the only person who sees SCO's recent legal
activities with dismay.  For those of you still looking for facts,
take a look at the links off http://www.sco.com/scosource/, and
particularly the complaint at
http://www.sco.com/scosource/complaint3.06.03.html.  There are a
number of things there which concern me, but particularly:

   85.  For example, Linux is currently capable of coordinating the
        simultaneous performance of 4 computer processors.  UNIX, on
        the other hand, commonly links 16 processors and can
        successfully link up to 32 processors for simultaneous
        operation.  This difference in memory management performance
        is very significant to enterprise customers who need extremely
        high computing capabilities for complex tasks.  The ability to
        accomplish this task successfully has taken AT&T, Novell and
        SCO at least 20 years, with access to expensive equipment for
        design and testing, well-trained UNIX engineers and a wealth
        of experience in UNIX methods and concepts.

Apart from the fact that I can't see any factual evidence that System
V as licensed from SCO or its predecessors had any competitive SMP
scalability, the "20 years" concerns me.  That could go back to the
days of the Seventh Edition.

Which brings me to the real point: a little over a year ago, we
received a message from Dion Johnson releasing Ancient UNIX under a
BSD licence.  For those of you who have misplaced it, I'm attaching it
again.  While none of us doubt that it is genuine, SCO has no record
of it on their web site, nor (as far as I know) do any of us have this
in signed form.  In view of SCO's aggression, I think we should
contact them and ask them to at least put the statement somewhere on
their web site.

Comments?

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
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[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[David C. Jenner]

Greg,

I can't properly read your pdf attachment.

Some of us have a signed, dated, and numbered license and paid $100 for it!

Dave

Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> 
> I'm sure I'm not the only person who sees SCO's recent legal
> activities with dismay.  For those of you still looking for facts,
> take a look at the links off http://www.sco.com/scosource/, and
> particularly the complaint at
> http://www.sco.com/scosource/complaint3.06.03.html.  There are a
> number of things there which concern me, but particularly:
> 
>    85.  For example, Linux is currently capable of coordinating the
>         simultaneous performance of 4 computer processors.  UNIX, on
>         the other hand, commonly links 16 processors and can
>         successfully link up to 32 processors for simultaneous
>         operation.  This difference in memory management performance
>         is very significant to enterprise customers who need extremely
>         high computing capabilities for complex tasks.  The ability to
>         accomplish this task successfully has taken AT&T, Novell and
>         SCO at least 20 years, with access to expensive equipment for
>         design and testing, well-trained UNIX engineers and a wealth
>         of experience in UNIX methods and concepts.
> 
> Apart from the fact that I can't see any factual evidence that System
> V as licensed from SCO or its predecessors had any competitive SMP
> scalability, the "20 years" concerns me.  That could go back to the
> days of the Seventh Edition.
> 
> Which brings me to the real point: a little over a year ago, we
> received a message from Dion Johnson releasing Ancient UNIX under a
> BSD licence.  For those of you who have misplaced it, I'm attaching it
> again.  While none of us doubt that it is genuine, SCO has no record
> of it on their web site, nor (as far as I know) do any of us have this
> in signed form.  In view of SCO's aggression, I think we should
> contact them and ask them to at least put the statement somewhere on
> their web site.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> Greg
> --
> Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers
> 
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject: Liberal license for ancient UNIX sources
> Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:03:37 -0800
> From: Dion Johnson <dionj at caldera.com>
> To: wht at minnie.tuhs.org
> CC: dmr at bell-labs.com, ken at plan9.bell-labs.com, grog at lemis.com,
>      John Terpstra <jht at caldera.com>, drew at caldera.com, maddog at li.org,
>      evan at starnix.com, phatch at caldera.com, ransom at caldera.com
> 
> Dear Warren, and friends,
> 
> I'm happy to let you know that Caldera International has placed
> the ancient UNIX releases (V1-7 and 32V) under a "BSD-style" license.
> I've attached a PDF of the license letter hereto.  Feel free to
> propogate it as you see fit.
> 
> I apologize that this has taken so long.  We do not have a well
> regulated archive of these ancient releases, so we must depend
> upon you UNIX enthusiasts, historians, and original authors to
> help the community of interested parties figure out exactly what
> is available, where, and how.
> 
> Many thanks to Warren Toomey, of PUPS, and to Caldera's Bill
> Broderick, director of licensing services here.  Both of these
> gentlemen were instrumental in making this happen.  And thanks
> to our CEO, Ransom Love, whose vision for Caldera International
> prescribes cooperation and mutual respect for the open source
> communities.
> 
> Of course, there are thousands of other people who should be
> acknowledged.  I regret I do not have time or wisdom to make
> a list of them all, but maybe someone does, or has.
> 
> Anyway, here it is.  Feel free to write to us if you want to
> understand more about how/why Caldera International has released
> this code, or you have any other comments that we should hear.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Dion L. Johnson II - dionj at caldera.com
> Product Manager and one of many open source enthusiasts in Caldera Intl.
> 
> Paul Hatch - phatch at caldera.com
> Public Relations Manager at Caldera International
> 
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                              Name: ancient-source-all.pdf
>    ancient-source-all.pdf    Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
>                          Encoding: quoted-printable
> 
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>    Part 1.2Type: application/pgp-signature

-- 
David C. Jenner
djenner at earthlink.net

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2003-Mar-09 18:33:34 -0800, "David C. Jenner" <djenner at earthlink.net> wrote:
>I can't properly read your pdf attachment.

It was attached as "text/plain" instead of PDF.  If I save it, xpdf
displays it correctly.

>Some of us have a signed, dated, and numbered license and paid $100 for it!

The critical bit of Greg's mail relates to the release of Ancient UNIX
under a BSD license.  Your "signed, dated, and numbered license" states
that Ancient UNIX contains trade secret information.

Peter

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Jeffrey Sharp]

> Your "signed, dated, and numbered license" states that Ancient UNIX
> contains trade secret information.

This probably all comes down to whether or not IBM breached any NDAs it had
with SCO. Trade secrets in and of themselves IIRC do not have any statutory
protection in the United States. Once they're leaked, they aren't secrets
any more. IANAL, TINLA.

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Michael Davidson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To: UNIX Heritage Society <tuhs at tuhs.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2003 5:21 PM
Subject: [TUHS] SCO sues IBM?


> 
> Which brings me to the real point: a little over a year ago, we
> received a message from Dion Johnson releasing Ancient UNIX under a
> BSD licence.  For those of you who have misplaced it, I'm attaching it
> again.  While none of us doubt that it is genuine, SCO has no record
> of it on their web site, nor (as far as I know) do any of us have this
> in signed form.  In view of SCO's aggression, I think we should
> contact them and ask them to at least put the statement somewhere on
> their web site.
> 

While I can't comment on the current legal issues, I was involved
in the decision to release the "Ancient UNIX" source code under a
BSD style license and I am not aware of anything having changed
in that area.

I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current
position on "Ancient UNIX" - I expect that this will take a few
days but I should have an answer by the end of the week.

Michael Davidson

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Jeffrey Sharp]

On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Michael Davidson wrote:
> I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current position
> on "Ancient UNIX"

But once they've released it under a BSD-style license, it is released. They
simply can't unrelease it. They don't have to continue distributing it, but
they can't stop me from doing what the license explicitly allows. So their
current position WRT ancient UNIX may not mave much legal weight. IANAL,
TINLA.

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2003-Mar-10 14:21:00 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp <jss at subatomix.com> wrote:
>On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Michael Davidson wrote:
>> I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current position
>> on "Ancient UNIX"
>
>But once they've released it under a BSD-style license, it is released. They
>simply can't unrelease it. They don't have to continue distributing it, but
>they can't stop me from doing what the license explicitly allows. So their
>current position WRT ancient UNIX may not mave much legal weight. IANAL,
>TINLA.

AFAIK, the only evidence we have that it is released under a BSD-style
license is an e-mail allegedly from an authorised person within SCO.
Warren has not been able to find an equivalent statement on their
website.  I suspect Warren is concerned that they could claim it was
never released - ie the e-mail is a faked/forged or the sender didn't
have the authority to make the claims therein.

What would you do if SCO's lawyers came knocking on your door and
demanded you cease distributing ancient UNIX or derived products?
Whilst you could probably prove the authenticity of the e-mail, this
would cost real money - and SCO probably can afford to spend a lot
more money than you can.

The date of the e-mail may also be a crucial issue - since IBM would
presumably have the right to use the code after SCO changed the code
to a BSD license.

IANAL, TINLA etc.

Peter

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[David C. Jenner]

Warren has a signed, dated, and numbered license for Ancient Unix (AU-0).
I have a signed, dated, and numbered license for Ancient Unix (AU-1).
I don't see how Warren can't distribute to me any software covered under the license.

Peter Jeremy wrote:
> 
> On 2003-Mar-10 14:21:00 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp <jss at subatomix.com> wrote:
> >On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Michael Davidson wrote:
> >> I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current position
> >> on "Ancient UNIX"
> >
> >But once they've released it under a BSD-style license, it is released. They
> >simply can't unrelease it. They don't have to continue distributing it, but
> >they can't stop me from doing what the license explicitly allows. So their
> >current position WRT ancient UNIX may not mave much legal weight. IANAL,
> >TINLA.
> 
> AFAIK, the only evidence we have that it is released under a BSD-style
> license is an e-mail allegedly from an authorised person within SCO.
> Warren has not been able to find an equivalent statement on their
> website.  I suspect Warren is concerned that they could claim it was
> never released - ie the e-mail is a faked/forged or the sender didn't
> have the authority to make the claims therein.
> 
> What would you do if SCO's lawyers came knocking on your door and
> demanded you cease distributing ancient UNIX or derived products?
> Whilst you could probably prove the authenticity of the e-mail, this
> would cost real money - and SCO probably can afford to spend a lot
> more money than you can.
> 
> The date of the e-mail may also be a crucial issue - since IBM would
> presumably have the right to use the code after SCO changed the code
> to a BSD license.
> 
> IANAL, TINLA etc.
> 
> Peter
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
David C. Jenner
djenner at earthlink.net

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at  8:15:18 +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> On 2003-Mar-10 14:21:00 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp <jss at subatomix.com> wrote:
>> On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Michael Davidson wrote:
>>> I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current position
>>> on "Ancient UNIX"
>>
>> But once they've released it under a BSD-style license, it is released. They
>> simply can't unrelease it. They don't have to continue distributing it, but
>> they can't stop me from doing what the license explicitly allows. So their
>> current position WRT ancient UNIX may not mave much legal weight. IANAL,
>> TINLA.
>
> AFAIK, the only evidence we have that it is released under a BSD-style
> license is an e-mail allegedly from an authorised person within SCO.
> Warren has not been able to find an equivalent statement on their
> website.  I suspect Warren is concerned that they could claim it was
> never released - ie the e-mail is a faked/forged or the sender didn't
> have the authority to make the claims therein.

I think you mean me, not Warren.  Warren hasn't said anything yet.

My concern is not whether it's genuine--I'm convinced it is.  My
concern is more whether SCO's apparently bone-headed lawyers will
believe it's genuine.

> What would you do if SCO's lawyers came knocking on your door and
> demanded you cease distributing ancient UNIX or derived products?

Yes, this is the point.

> Whilst you could probably prove the authenticity of the e-mail, this
> would cost real money - and SCO probably can afford to spend a lot
> more money than you can.

It's not clear how much money SCO has.

> The date of the e-mail may also be a crucial issue - since IBM would
> presumably have the right to use the code after SCO changed the code
> to a BSD license.

I am very sure that IBM has not put any UNIX code into Linux.  For one
thing, it's not their style, and in fact they keep the AIX and Linux
people very separate.  Last year I wrote a clone of AIX's JFS file
system on Linux for IBM.  This is the old JFS, not the JFS they
released under GPL.  I was not allowed to see the AIX source code, for
exactly the reasons of the complaint.  The only information I had were
the header files they distribute with the development system.

The AIX code wouldn't have helped, anyway.  Linux is not UNIX, as
anybody who's done kernel programming in both knows.  I had thought
that this childish superstition about the holiness of source code
would have been stamped out at the end of the last UNIX wars.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
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[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2003-Mar-11 10:15:48 +1030, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at  8:15:18 +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote:
>I think you mean me, not Warren.  Warren hasn't said anything yet.

Oops.  Sorry about that.  "My mind is going...  I can feel it, Dave"

>My concern is not whether it's genuine--I'm convinced it is.  My
>concern is more whether SCO's apparently bone-headed lawyers will
>believe it's genuine.

Taking the devil's advocate position, if my lawyers were convinced
that I'm made a particular statement, based solely on a piece of
e-mail given to them by my competition, I'd be in the market for
some new lawyers.

>> Whilst you could probably prove the authenticity of the e-mail, this
>> would cost real money - and SCO probably can afford to spend a lot
>> more money than you can.
>
>It's not clear how much money SCO has.

Probably more than you or I do...

>I am very sure that IBM has not put any UNIX code into Linux.

I'd be very surprised at this as well.  It would open a legal minefield.

Peter

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Gregg C Levine]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2659 bytes --]

Hello from Gregg C Levine
You guys will never guess where I first saw this issue raised.
Personally I don't think IBM would be as stupid as SCO wants them to
be. If anything SCO is looking at a wash of red ink, because Caldera
was actually doing badly in the Linux field, and SCO saw its own
profits waste away, after Linux took off, like a heard of elephants.

And for that matter, having read the PDF that contains the license
statement, twice now, I am convinced of one thing, okay two. SCO is
desperate for cash. And some idiot in their legal department thinks
suing IBM will help.

And those are only opinions mind you, nothing more.
Besides, I'm convinced SCO should just forget about the versions of
UNIX that we run on such programs as SIMH, and even E-11, and
sometimes on a real hardware.
-------------------
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net
------------------------------------------------------------
"The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
"Use the Force, Luke."  Obi-Wan Kenobi
(This company dedicates this E-Mail to General Obi-Wan Kenobi )
(This company dedicates this E-Mail to Master Yoda )



> -----Original Message-----
> From: tuhs-admin at minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-admin at minnie.tuhs.org]
On
> Behalf Of Peter Jeremy
> Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 7:22 PM
> To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey
> Cc: UNIX Heritage Society
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO sues IBM?
> 
> On 2003-Mar-11 10:15:48 +1030, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
wrote:
> >On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at  8:15:18 +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> >I think you mean me, not Warren.  Warren hasn't said anything yet.
> 
> Oops.  Sorry about that.  "My mind is going...  I can feel it, Dave"
> 
> >My concern is not whether it's genuine--I'm convinced it is.  My
> >concern is more whether SCO's apparently bone-headed lawyers will
> >believe it's genuine.
> 
> Taking the devil's advocate position, if my lawyers were convinced
> that I'm made a particular statement, based solely on a piece of
> e-mail given to them by my competition, I'd be in the market for
> some new lawyers.
> 
> >> Whilst you could probably prove the authenticity of the e-mail,
this
> >> would cost real money - and SCO probably can afford to spend a
lot
> >> more money than you can.
> >
> >It's not clear how much money SCO has.
> 
> Probably more than you or I do...
> 
> >I am very sure that IBM has not put any UNIX code into Linux.
> 
> I'd be very surprised at this as well.  It would open a legal
minefield.
> 
> Peter
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Warren Toomey]

I've just read through the TUHS mail: SCO vs. IBM.

I think we're missing the point a bit. The Caldera license places the
UNIX research editions 1 to 7, and 32V, under a BSD-style license.
Later systems such as System III and System V are not covered.

Although the Caldera license helps protect the newer BSDs from license
infringement, SCO/Caldera can still sue anybody if they believe that
their IP from System III/System V and on has been violated.

IBM has a source license to System V and has contributed to Linux.
I think that this is the approach that SCO/Caldera are taking in the
lawsuit.

The BSDs are more immune here, unless BSDI or Apple also have a System V
source license. [ Er, um, given the existence of Apples A/UX, they probably
do. Ah, I should have kept my mouth shut :-) ]

So: I don't think the BSDs or the Unix Archive are under any immediate
threat. I agree with whoever that suggested that SCO/Caldera are doing
this as a means of raising revenue.

Just my $0.02 here.

	Warren

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at 11:51:28 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> I've just read through the TUHS mail: SCO vs. IBM.
>
> I think we're missing the point a bit. The Caldera license places
> the UNIX research editions 1 to 7, and 32V, under a BSD-style
> license.  Later systems such as System III and System V are not
> covered.

Yes, maybe you're missing the point.  My concern was that the Caldera
license has never been signed, and that they don't have anything about
it on their web site.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
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[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Warren Toomey]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 12:29:39PM +1030, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> > I think we're missing the point a bit.
> 
> Yes, maybe you're missing the point.  My concern was that the Caldera
> license has never been signed, and that they don't have anything about
> it on their web site.
> Greg

Yes, that's true. I hadn't missed it, but I hadn't started to worry
about it yet. Wait till Uncle Caldera gives me a phone call .....

	Warren

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Michael Davidson]

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy@alcatel.com.au>
To: Jeffrey Sharp <jss at subatomix.com>
Cc: UNIX Heritage Society <tuhs at tuhs.org>
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO sues IBM?


> On 2003-Mar-10 14:21:00 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp <jss at subatomix.com> wrote:
> >On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Michael Davidson wrote:
> >> I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current
position
> >> on "Ancient UNIX"
> >
> >But once they've released it under a BSD-style license, it is released.
They
> >simply can't unrelease it. They don't have to continue distributing it,
but
> >they can't stop me from doing what the license explicitly allows. So
their
> >current position WRT ancient UNIX may not mave much legal weight. IANAL,
> >TINLA.
>
> AFAIK, the only evidence we have that it is released under a BSD-style
> license is an e-mail allegedly from an authorised person within SCO.
> Warren has not been able to find an equivalent statement on their
> website.  I suspect Warren is concerned that they could claim it was
> never released - ie the e-mail is a faked/forged or the sender didn't
> have the authority to make the claims therein.
>

I can assure you that the email from Dion Johnson was and is genuine.
The release of "Ancient UNIX" under a BSD license was agreed to by
Ransom Love (then president and CEO of Caldera), Drew Spencer
(then CTO of Caldera), Dion, myself and others.

I realise that some people are concerned that they can no longer find
the "Ancient UNIX" license on the SCO web site - I wouldn't read too
much into that - the "Ancient UNIX" stuff was always tucked away in
an obscure corner - I suspect that the link to it just got lost when we
stopped doing free evaluation licenses for the current product.

Anyway, as I said, I will try to get an "official statement" about the
"Ancient UNIX" license by the end of the week - I expect that statement
will simply re-affirm what you already know - ie that it has been released
under a BSD license, and possibly re-emphasize the fact that System III,
and System V are *NOT* covered by that license.
(However, I am *not* in a position where I can make such a statement
on behalf on SCO which is why I'm afraid you will have to wait a few
days so that I can get you the "official" position).

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Sven Mascheck]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 08:11:20PM -0800, Michael Davidson wrote:

> I realise that some people are concerned that they can no longer find
> the "Ancient UNIX" license on the SCO web site - I wouldn't read too
> much into that - the "Ancient UNIX" stuff was always tucked away in
> an obscure corner - I suspect that the link to it just got lost when we
> stopped doing free evaluation licenses for the current product.

Concerning the former, "strictly educational" license:
It doesn't seem to be linked, but is still available at
<http://shop.caldera.com/caldera/ancient.html>
It's functional and pointing to downloadable source.

Sven

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Gregg C Levine]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2108 bytes --]

Hello from Gregg C Levine
Well if anyone else is interested in my opinions, the pages that
originate at that link, make a reference to the code that resides at
Warren's repository, it even calls it by name. A proper one even.

So, I'm in the process of downloading the contents that I am
interested in, in case the site gets pulled down. I know everything
will still exist on Warren's site.

I suspect this will get settled out of court. And I still think SCO
should just give it up, and place everything except their current
products in the public domain. That is put what we run, and what they
are concerned about in that legal black hole, and find a public
administrator who knows computers to manage it.. 
-------------------
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net
------------------------------------------------------------
"The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
"Use the Force, Luke."  Obi-Wan Kenobi
(This company dedicates this E-Mail to General Obi-Wan Kenobi )
(This company dedicates this E-Mail to Master Yoda )



> -----Original Message-----
> From: tuhs-admin at minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-admin at minnie.tuhs.org]
On
> Behalf Of Sven Mascheck
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 4:44 AM
> To: UNIX Heritage Society
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO sues IBM?
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 08:11:20PM -0800, Michael Davidson wrote:
> 
> > I realise that some people are concerned that they can no longer
find
> > the "Ancient UNIX" license on the SCO web site - I wouldn't read
too
> > much into that - the "Ancient UNIX" stuff was always tucked away
in
> > an obscure corner - I suspect that the link to it just got lost
when we
> > stopped doing free evaluation licenses for the current product.
> 
> Concerning the former, "strictly educational" license:
> It doesn't seem to be linked, but is still available at
> <http://shop.caldera.com/caldera/ancient.html>
> It's functional and pointing to downloadable source.
> 
> Sven
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Jeffrey Sharp]

On Tuesday, March 11, 2003, Gregg C Levine wrote:
> I suspect this will get settled out of court. And I still think SCO should
> just give it up, and place everything except their current products in the
> public domain.

A large number of people on Slashdot are saying that SCO's market
capitalization is around $26 million. If that is correct, settling out of
court may involve more traders than lawyers. This may simply be SCO's exit
strategy, designed to get the most money for its investors. And of course,
if I read it on Slashdot it must be true.

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Jeffrey Sharp]

On Monday, March 10, 2003, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> The date of the e-mail may also be a crucial issue - since IBM would
> presumably have the right to use the code after SCO changed the code to a
> BSD license.

Does the suit involve code xor concepts? If the patents are on concepts,
then any sufficiently similar implementation might infringe upon the patent,
no matter how untainted its code is. This case has the potential to go
horribly, horribly awry if a stupid judge sits on the bench.

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at 22:46:04 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
> On Monday, March 10, 2003, Peter Jeremy wrote:
>> The date of the e-mail may also be a crucial issue - since IBM would
>> presumably have the right to use the code after SCO changed the code to a
>> BSD license.
>
> Does the suit involve code xor concepts? If the patents are on concepts,
> then any sufficiently similar implementation might infringe upon the patent,
> no matter how untainted its code is. This case has the potential to go
> horribly, horribly awry if a stupid judge sits on the bench.

I this subthread is off the mark.  I'm personally convinced that IBM
never used any licensed UNIX technology in Linux.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
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[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2003-Mar-12 15:33:12 +1030, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at 22:46:04 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
>> Does the suit involve code xor concepts? If the patents are on concepts,
>> then any sufficiently similar implementation might infringe upon the patent,
>> no matter how untainted its code is. This case has the potential to go
>> horribly, horribly awry if a stupid judge sits on the bench.

There's no reference anywhere in SCO's suit to patents.  The suit is
based on misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract and
unfair competition.

The "misappropriation of trade secrets" and "breach of contract" seems
to be based on the premise that since AIX is based on UNIX, _all_ of
AIX is therefore covered by the terms of IBM's source code license for
UNIX.  There are regular whinges about the viral nature of GPL, but
this is the first time I've seen someone claim the the UNIX license
was viral - and the USL case pretty well demonstrated the opposite.
4.4BSD-Lite is clear evidence that it's possible to take a UNIX
derivative, developed with full access to UNIX source code, and
produce a product that is not covered by UNIX licenses.

The basis of the "unfair competition" seems to be that IBM can afford
more staff than SCO can.  IBM's had plenty of practise at defending
itself against unfair competition claims in the past...

>I this subthread is off the mark.  I'm personally convinced that IBM
>never used any licensed UNIX technology in Linux.

Agreed.  I don't see that SCO has a leg to stand on.  The only way I
can see for them to win would be a combination of an incompetent
judge and managing to bamboozle a not-technically-savvy jury.

IANAL, TINLA etc

Peter

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Wm. G. McGrath]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 15:33:12 +1030
"Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

>> Does the suit involve code xor concepts? If the patents are on
>> concepts, then any sufficiently similar implementation might
>> infringe upon the patent, no matter how untainted its code is.
>> This case has the potential to go horribly, horribly awry if a
>> stupid judge sits on the bench.
>
>I this subthread is off the mark.  I'm personally convinced that
>IBM never used any licensed UNIX technology in Linux.

Unfortunately, truth and morals often don't count in court. It's
what your lawyers can prove. That's why SCO engaged David Boies.
They want to win - just like in the Microsoft case - a true
miscarriage of justice.

Much will indeed depend on the judge. There isn't a lot of precedent
to support open source and public interest software, but there is a
lot to support patent and copyright. It will be difficult for a
senior citizen (the judge) to understand computers and free
software, let alone the interaction between IBM and the community.

	bill

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Wm. G. McGrath]

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003 11:51:47 +1030
"Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

>I'm sure I'm not the only person who sees SCO's recent legal
>activities with dismay. 

More and more I come to the conclusion that intellectual property is
a bad idea. Physical property fine, but intellectual
property/patents etc seems to be a get rich scheme for lawyers,
executives and investors. This latest exploit is just another proof
that information needs at least a limited amount of freedom - like
the human minds that create it.

	bill

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Wesley Parish]

Well, the impression I got from IBM re: AIX and Linux's relationship, was that 
they were going to give AIX a Linux makeover so that they could maintain an 
apparently unified Un*xish shop - as far as AIX and Linux _are_ Un*ces, that 
is!

How that gets interpreted as importing Un*x trade secrets into Linux, I have 
no idea.

I also thought IBM was going to allow some of their mainframe high 
availability ideas to influence Linux - not through direct porting of the 
code - VM/ESA is apparently written in PL/I, and I doubt that most Linux 
programmers would touch that with a barge-pole.  And a waldo at a workplace 
on a planet on the other side of the galaxy.  Or universe.

I myself wanted to get some information on the internal structure - ie, the 
part that gets passed between the SFS client and the Reusable Kernel Server - 
of the VM/ESA Shared File System way back when, and was told in no uncertain 
terms, not to bother trying.

I don't see SCO has much chance of doing anything except causing a bit of 
unwelcome disruption and - I hope - getting bought out at bargain basement 
prices by IBM and getting the entire Un*x source tree BSDed or LGPLed to stop 
all this useless nonsense at the "source".  Or at the "sauce", to give it a 
rather appropriate spin.

Wesley Parish

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 12:45 pm, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
<snip>
>
> I am very sure that IBM has not put any UNIX code into Linux.  For one
> thing, it's not their style, and in fact they keep the AIX and Linux
> people very separate.  Last year I wrote a clone of AIX's JFS file
> system on Linux for IBM.  This is the old JFS, not the JFS they
> released under GPL.  I was not allowed to see the AIX source code, for
> exactly the reasons of the complaint.  The only information I had were
> the header files they distribute with the development system.
>
> The AIX code wouldn't have helped, anyway.  Linux is not UNIX, as
> anybody who's done kernel programming in both knows.  I had thought
> that this childish superstition about the holiness of source code
> would have been stamped out at the end of the last UNIX wars.
>
> Greg

-- 
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Dennis Ritchie]

A working link to the ancient-Unix license exists at

  http://shop.caldera.com/caldera/ancient.html

This is a saved link; I didn't investigate how
to find it currently from a Caldera or SCO site.

In case anyone is interested, I retrieved
some fraction of the court papers from
the early 90s USL suit against BSDI and UCB.
The case seems in some ways similar to this
one.  They are at

 http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/bsdisuit.html

In this one, USL pulled back after an injunction
was denied.  By the time the 1993 ruling was issued,
USL was being taken over by Novell.

	Dennis

[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Tuesday, 11 March 2003 at  0:25:40 -0500, Dennis Ritchie wrote:
> A working link to the ancient-Unix license exists at
>
>   http://shop.caldera.com/caldera/ancient.html
>
> This is a saved link; I didn't investigate how
> to find it currently from a Caldera or SCO site.

This is the prior license.  It contains wording like:

2.1 (a) CALDERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. grants to LICENSEE a personal,
        nontransferable and nonexclusive right to use, in the
        AUTHORIZED COUNTRY, each SOURCE CODE PRODUCT identified in
        Section 3 of this AGREEMENT, solely for personal use (as
        restricted in Section 2.1(b)) and solely on or in conjunction
        with DESIGNATED CPUs, and/or Networks of CPUs, licensed by
        LICENSEE through this SPECIAL SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT for
        such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT. Such right to use includes the right
        to modify such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT and to prepare DERIVED
        BINARY PRODUCT based on such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT, provided
        that any such modification or DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT that
        contains any part of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT subject to this
        AGREEMENT is treated hereunder the same as such SOURCE CODE
        PRODUCT. CALDERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. claims no ownership
        interest in any portion of such a modification or DERIVED
        BINARY PRODUCT that is not part of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT.

That's not the BSD-like license under which they re-released the code
last year.

Greg
--
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[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Jeffrey Sharp]

On Monday, March 10, 2003, Dennis Ritchie wrote:
> In case anyone is interested, I retrieved some fraction of the court
> papers from the early 90s USL suit against BSDI and UCB. ... USL pulled
> back after an injunction was denied. By the time the 1993 ruling was
> issued, USL was being taken over by Novell.

It seems that all descendants of 4.4BSD-Lite are immune to SCO, due to the
terms of the settlement. If you're in a hurry, skip to the last paragraph.

Source: Marshall Kirk McKusick, "Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix: From
AT&T-Owned to Freely Redistributable".
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/kirkmck.html

----- BEGIN -----

In addition to the groups organized to freely redistribute systems built
around the Networking Release 2 tape, a company, Berkeley Software Design,
Incorporated (BSDI), was formed to develop and distribute a commercially
supported version of the code. (More information about BSDI can be found at
http://www.bsdi.com.) Like the other groups, they started by adding the six
missing files that Bill Jolitz had written for his 386/BSD release. BSDI
began selling their system including both source and binaries in January
1992 for $995. They began running advertisements touting their 99% discount
over the price charged for System V source plus binary systems. Interested
readers were told to call 1-800-ITS-Unix.

Shortly after BSDI began their sales campaign, they received a letter from
Unix System Laboratories (USL) (a mostly-owned subsidiary of AT&T spun off
to develop and sell Unix). The letter demanded that they stop promoting
their product as Unix and in particular that they stop using the deceptive
phone number. Although the phone number was promptly dropped and the
advertisements changed to explain that the product was not Unix, USL was
still unhappy and filed suit to enjoin BSDI from selling their product. The
suit alleged that the BSDI product contained proprietary USL code and trade
secrets. USL sought to get an injunction to halt BSDI's sales until the
lawsuit was resolved, claiming that they would suffer irreparable harm from
the loss of their trade secrets if the BSDI distributions continued.

At the preliminary hearing for the injunction, BSDI contended that they were
simply using the sources being freely distributed by the University of
California plus six additional files. They were willing to discuss the
content of any of the six added files, but did not believe that they should
be held responsible for the files being distributed by the University of
California. The judge agreed with BSDI's argument and told USL that they
would have to restate their complaint based solely on the six files or he
would dismiss it. Recognizing that they would have a hard time making a case
from just the six files, USL decided to refile the suit against both BSDI
and the University of California. As before, USL requested an injunction on
the shipping of Networking Release 2 from the University and on the BSDI
products.

With the impending injunction hearing just a few short weeks away,
preparation began in earnest. All the members of the CSRG were deposed as
were nearly everyone employed at BSDI. Briefs, counter-briefs, and
counter-counter-briefs flew back and forth between the lawyers. Keith Bostic
and I personally had to write several hundred pages of material that found
its way into various briefs.

In December 1992, Dickinson R. Debevoise, a United States District Judge in
New Jersey, heard the arguments for the injunction. Although judges usually
rule on injunction requests immediately, he decided to take it under
advisement. On a Friday about six weeks later, he issued a forty-page
opinion in which he denied the injunction and threw out all but two of the
complaints. The remaining two complaints were narrowed to recent copyrights
and the possibility of the loss of trade secrets. He also suggested that the
matter should be heard in a state court system before being heard in the
federal court system.

The University of California took the hint and rushed into California state
court the following Monday morning with a counter-suit against USL. By
filing first in California, the University had established the locale of any
further state court action. Constitutional law requires all state filing to
be done in a single state to prevent a litigant with deep pockets from
bleeding an opponent dry by filing fifty cases against them in every state.
The result was that if USL wanted to take any action against the University
in state courts, they would be forced to do so in California rather than in
their home state of New Jersey.

The University's suit claimed that USL had failed in their obligation to
provide due credit to the University for the use of BSD code in System V as
required by the license that they had signed with the University. If the
claim were found to be valid, the University asked that USL be forced to
reprint all their documentation with the appropriate due credit added, to
notify all their licensees of their oversight, and to run full-page
advertisements in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal and
Fortune magazine notifying the business world of their inadvertent
oversight.

Soon after the filing in state court, USL was bought from AT&T by Novell.
The CEO of Novell, Ray Noorda, stated publicly that he would rather compete
in the marketplace than in court. By the summer of 1993, settlement talks
had started. Unfortunately, the two sides had dug in so deep that the talks
proceed slowly. With some further prodding by Ray Noorda on the USL side,
many of the sticking points were removed and a settlement was finally
reached in January 1994. The result was that three files were removed from
the 18,000 that made up Networking Release 2, and a number of minor changes
were made to other files. In addition, the University agreed to add USL
copyrights to about 70 files, although those files continued to be freely
redistributed.

The newly blessed release was called 4.4BSD-Lite and was released in June
1994 under terms identical to those used for the Networking releases.
Specifically, the terms allow free redistribution in source and binary form
subject only to the constraint that the University copyrights remain intact
and that the University receive credit when others use the code.
Simultaneously, the complete system was released as 4.4BSD-Encumbered, which
still required recipients to have a USL source license.

The lawsuit settlement also stipulated that USL would not sue any
organization using 4.4BSD-Lite as the base for their system. So, all the BSD
groups that were doing releases at that time, BSDI, NetBSD, and FreeBSD, had
to restart their code base with the 4.4BSD-Lite sources into which they then
merged their enhancements and improvements. While this reintegration caused
a short-term delay in the development of the various BSD systems, it was a
blessing in disguise since it forced all the divergent groups to
resynchronize with the three years of development that had occurred at the
CSRG since the release of Networking Release 2.

----- END -----

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp