[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Wesley Parish]

On Friday 30 May 2003 11:50 am, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at  6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> > In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob at vetsystems.com>
> >
> >             Robert Tillyard <rob at vetsystems.com> writes:
> >> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
> >> not on copyright issues.
> >
> > All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual.  Their
> > statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
> > aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
>
> What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues.  The
> IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
> have been remarkably vague.  The suspension of Linux distribution is a
> different matter.  From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:
>
>    On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
>    director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
>    independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
>    kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
>    occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
>    kernels.
>
>    In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
>    the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
>    older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
>    UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
>    UnixWare 7.
>
> >> But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and
> >> putting it into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit
> >> upset about it, after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to
> >> compete with a product that's just about free and contains code
> >> that I wrote.
> >
> > That's the rub.  Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
> > they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
>
> Of course they have lots of code with their own copyright.  The
> release of JFS was one example.  Probably the majority of AIX was
> developed by IBM, not by AT&T.  It's rather similar to the issue with
> 4BSD in the early 90s: with a little bit of work you could probably
> replace the entire AT&T code in AIX and have a system which did not
> require an SCO license.

I would say that that is entirely likely.  AIX was developed by IBM for
IBM-specific machines running in IBM-style environments, and I can imagine
that SysVRx just _doesn't_ _cut_ _the_ _mustard_.

So, SCO's latching on the IBM for Monterey - RS-6000 was 64-bit, or am I
getting confused? - probably gave SCO much more than it gave IBM.  So
ironically, if IBM donated stuff to Monterey under the terms of the agreement
and later incorporated the same stuff into Linux, it _could_ look as if they
had taken stuff from SysVRx/Unixware - stuff that SCO had never had the
opportunity to develop if it hadn't been for Monterey and IBM's pre-existing
expertise.

Just some thoughts - but if that is so, I can see why IBM's not getting too
het up about the whole muck-up.

Wesley Parish

> If you mean "is there IBM copyright code in Linux?", I think the
> answer is again yes, but it's under the GPL or possibly IPL, IBM's
> attempt at a compromise between proprietary licenses and the GPL.  I
> think they've given up on the IPL now.
>
> For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
> true.
>
> 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 vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Boyd Lynn Gerber]

I think Novell for got about the admendment to the orignal agreement.

http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=110907

I do not necessarily agree with what they are doing, but I think they do
have to protect their rights.  I know I would.

tt,

--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb at zenez.com>
ZENEZ	1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah  84047

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Norman Wilson]

Kenneth Stailey:

  Two words: "version control".

  If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known
  the version control archives will say who inserted it.  It will
  be very easy to prove if Caldera inserted the code
  themselves.

Alas, two more words: "read-write storage."  Version control
info is stored in a file; how do we know (as SCalderaO might
argue) that some hacker hasn't edited it after the fact to
pretend something was put in by Caldera, or that they just
lied about it to begin with?

Version control data might be a useful, but I suspect only as
a trail to specific people whose could then offer personal
testimony about the history of a particular piece of code.
The testimony would be harder to impeach than the code.

Even a read-only copy of the version control info, e.g. a
CD-ROM, isn't a lot more solid; some hard evidence would
be needed of when that CD-ROM was written, beyond the
easily-forged timestamps on the disc itself, and there could
still be a claim that someone just lied when writing it,
especially if there is a claim that malice was involved.  So
it still would probably come down to personal testimony.

The usual disclaimer applies: I'm no lawyer.  I'm just trying
to think of counter-arguments, both those reasonable in
abstract and those that seem to fit within the spirit of the
complaint against IBM.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[zmkm zmkm]

Looks like sco has learned a lot from its cozying up with microsoft that is 
instead of meeting market challenges with better technology and competitive 
pricing against its competitors it resorts to the lowest form bullying 
marketing gimmicks and legal arm twisting  just like microsoft  style , so 
now they look like shooting themselves in the foot , good ! let's hope they 
shoot both feet !.


>From: Kenneth Stailey <kstailey at yahoo.com>
>To: tuhs at tuhs.org
>Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
>Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 19:32:55 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Two words: "version control".
>
>If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known the version 
>control
>archives will say who inserted it.  It will be very easy to prove if 
>Caldera
>inserted the code themselves.
>
>
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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Kenneth Stailey]

Two words: "version control".

If the code that SCO purports is copied into Linux is known the version control
archives will say who inserted it.  It will be very easy to prove if Caldera
inserted the code themselves.


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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Aharon Robbins]

> add on the lion book

Yes, that's been officially published, as well as in N-th generation
photo copies.  But the books I cited are for System V, including SVR4,
which is much more relevant for the issue under discussion...

Pfui.  What a mess this whole business is.

Arnold

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[zmkm zmkm]

add on the lion book

>From: Aharon Robbins <arnold at skeeve.com>
>To: tuhs at tuhs.org
>Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate
>Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 12:56:08 +0300
>
>What I find fascinating (and that no-one has mentioned yet) is how anyone
>can claim that Unix internals are still trade secret, especially given
>this book:
>
>	The Design of the UNIX Operating System,
>	Maurice J. Bach.
>	Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1986.
>	ISBN 0-13-201799-7.
>
>There's also these:
>
>	The Magic Garden Explained:
>	The Internals of Unix System V Release 4:
>	An Open Systems Design,
>	Berny Goodheart, James Cox, John R. Mashey.
>	Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1994.
>	ISBN 0-13-098138-9.
>
>	Unix Internals: The New Frontiers,
>	Uresh Vahalia.
>	Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1996.
>	ISBN 0-13-101908-2.
>	According to Amazon.com, a new edition is scheduled for 2005.
>
>The Bach book, in particular, is a rather large smoking gun that AT&T
>didn't care a huge amount about trade secrets.  The book is still in
>print (and selling for a whopping $69.97 on Amazon.com!).  It doesn't
>contain actual source code, but let's get real here...
>
>Arnold
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>TUHS mailing list
>TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Aharon Robbins]

What I find fascinating (and that no-one has mentioned yet) is how anyone
can claim that Unix internals are still trade secret, especially given
this book:

	The Design of the UNIX Operating System,
	Maurice J. Bach.
	Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1986.
	ISBN 0-13-201799-7.

There's also these:

	The Magic Garden Explained:
	The Internals of Unix System V Release 4:
	An Open Systems Design,
	Berny Goodheart, James Cox, John R. Mashey.
	Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1994.
	ISBN 0-13-098138-9.

	Unix Internals: The New Frontiers,
	Uresh Vahalia.
	Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1996.
	ISBN 0-13-101908-2.
	According to Amazon.com, a new edition is scheduled for 2005.

The Bach book, in particular, is a rather large smoking gun that AT&T
didn't care a huge amount about trade secrets.  The book is still in
print (and selling for a whopping $69.97 on Amazon.com!).  It doesn't
contain actual source code, but let's get real here...

Arnold

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Friday, 30 May 2003 at 11:01:26 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 10:07:46AM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>> There are plenty of cases where you need to initialize a data
>> structure.  Many data structures are public knowledge, and
>> initialization is a brainless enough task that the code could have
>> been written independently and look almost the same.  Does this line
>> ring a bell?
>>
>> 	(*bdevsw[major(bp->b_dev)].d_strategy) (bp);
>
> And you've got to watch out for these ones, which have been around
> since 1973:
>
> #define EPERM           1               /* Operation not permitted */
> #define ENOENT          2               /* No such file or directory */
> #define ESRCH           3               /* No such process */
> #define EINTR           4               /* Interrupted system call */
>
> So that that extent, there is real UNIX code in Linux 8-)

Heh.  Also in the Third Edition:

/src/UNIX/PDP-11/Third-Edition/dmr/bio.c:       (*bdevsw[dev.d_major].d_strategy)(rbp);
/src/UNIX/PDP-11/Third-Edition/dmr/bio.c:       (*bdevsw[rbp->b_dev.d_major].d_strategy)(rbp);

Yes, this is the reason why I asked Kieran if it was really UnixWare
or UNIX System V.  They need to prove where the code originally came
from before they have any kind of case.

Greg
--
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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Warren Toomey]

On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 10:07:46AM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> There are plenty of cases where you need to initialize a data
> structure.  Many data structures are public knowledge, and
> initialization is a brainless enough task that the code could have
> been written independently and look almost the same.  Does this line
> ring a bell?
> 
> 	(*bdevsw[major(bp->b_dev)]->d_strategy) (bp);

And you've got to watch out for these ones, which have been around
since 1973:

#define EPERM           1               /* Operation not permitted */
#define ENOENT          2               /* No such file or directory */
#define ESRCH           3               /* No such process */
#define EINTR           4               /* Interrupted system call */

So that that extent, there is real UNIX code in Linux 8-)

	Warren

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Norman Wilson]

M. Warner Losh:

  There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
  line snippets scattered all through the kernel.  Give me a break.
  That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face.  I can see
  one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
  can't see anything more pervasive than that.

I agree that it sounds unlikely, and I won't give it much credit
until SCO makes its evidence generally available.  But it's by no
means absurd.  Suppose SCO invented some whizzy data structure and
associated code conventions to afford especially efficient
interprocessor locks.  That could show up in fragments scattered
throughout the kernel, and the idea itself could in fact be
valuable intellectual property and the fragments a demonstration
that the idea was stolen.

Or suppose the issue at hand was a particular way to implement a
file system switch.  I was involved in adding such a thing to an
old-fashioned kernel myself; it touches many little pieces of
code all over the kernel that happen to do certain things to or
with in-core i-nodes.  If I was worried that someone had stolen
such work wholesale, part of what I would look for would indeed
be scattered fragments.

As I say, there's no useful evidence on view at all, therefore
there is no useful evidence that what I am describing is what
the fuss is about.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at 17:56:39 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <20030529235027.GE20321 at wantadilla.lemis.com>
>             "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> writes:
>> On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at  6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
>>> In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob at vetsystems.com>
>>>             Robert Tillyard <rob at vetsystems.com> writes:
>>
>>>> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
>>>> not on copyright issues.
>>>
>>> All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual.  Their
>>> statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
>>> aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
>>
>> What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues.  The
>> IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
>> have been remarkably vague.  The suspension of Linux distribution is a
>> different matter.  From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:
>>
>>    On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
>>    director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
>>    independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
>>    kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
>>    occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
>>    kernels.
>>
>>    In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
>>    the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
>>    older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
>>    UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
>>    UnixWare 7.
>
> I base my statements on the legal filings that are available at the
> SCO site.  I do not base them on anything that SCO has said to the
> press, since those statements are nearly universally overinflated.
> Since these are statements to the press, or other public statements, I
> trust them as much as I trust public statements by politicians.

The trouble is that there *is* no legal filing on the Linux without
IBM case.

>>> That's the rub.  Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
>>> they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
>>
>> ...
>
> I was speaking of SCO, not IBM.  What code does SCO own the copyright
> to?

Ah, sorry.  Got to pass on that one.  They probably have the rights to
XENIX.

>> For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
>> true.
>
> Me too.  There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
> line snippets scattered all through the kernel.  Give me a break.
> That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face.  I can see
> one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
> can't see anything more pervasive than that.

There are plenty of cases where you need to initialize a data
structure.  Many data structures are public knowledge, and
initialization is a brainless enough task that the code could have
been written independently and look almost the same.  Does this line
ring a bell?

	(*bdevsw[major(bp->b_dev)]->d_strategy) (bp);

How many people have written that independently of each other?

Greg
--
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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <20030529235027.GE20321 at wantadilla.lemis.com>
            "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> writes:
: On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at  6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
: > In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob at vetsystems.com>
: >             Robert Tillyard <rob at vetsystems.com> writes:
: 
: >> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
: >> not on copyright issues.
: >
: > All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual.  Their
: > statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
: > aren't actually alledged in the court filings.
: 
: What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues.  The
: IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
: have been remarkably vague.  The suspension of Linux distribution is a
: different matter.  From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:
: 
:    On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
:    director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
:    independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
:    kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
:    occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
:    kernels.
: 
:    In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
:    the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
:    older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
:    UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
:    UnixWare 7.

I base my statements on the legal filings that are available at the
SCO site.  I do not base them on anything that SCO has said to the
press, since those statements are nearly universally overinflated.
Since these are statements to the press, or other public statements, I
trust them as much as I trust public statements by politicians.

: > That's the rub.  Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
: > they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?
: 
: Of course they have lots of code with their own copyright.  The
: release of JFS was one example.  Probably the majority of AIX was
: developed by IBM, not by AT&T.  It's rather similar to the issue with
: 4BSD in the early 90s: with a little bit of work you could probably
: replace the entire AT&T code in AIX and have a system which did not
: require an SCO license.

I was speaking of SCO, not IBM.  What code does SCO own the copyright
to?

: For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
: true.

Me too.  There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
line snippets scattered all through the kernel.  Give me a break.
That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face.  I can see
one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
can't see anything more pervasive than that.

Warner

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday, 29 May 2003 at  6:33:54 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob at vetsystems.com>
>             Robert Tillyard <rob at vetsystems.com> writes:

>> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and
>> not on copyright issues.
>
> All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual.  Their
> statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
> aren't actually alledged in the court filings.

What's not very clear here is that there seem to be two issues.  The
IBM issue is, as you say, a contractual one which about which they
have been remarkably vague.  The suspension of Linux distribution is a
different matter.  From http://www.lemis.com/grog/sco.html:

   On Tuesday, 27 May 2003, I spoke to Kieran O'Shaughnessy, managing
   director of SCO Australia. He told me that SCO had entrusted three
   independent companies to compare the code of the UnixWare and Linux
   kernels. All three had come back pointing to significant
   occurrences of common code ("UnixWare code", as he put it) in both
   kernels.

   In view of the long and varied history of UNIX, I wondered whether
   the code in question might have been legally transferred from an
   older version of UNIX to Linux, so I asked him if he really meant
   UnixWare and not System V.4. He stated that it was specifically
   UnixWare 7.

>> But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and
>> putting it into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit
>> upset about it, after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to
>> compete with a product that's just about free and contains code
>> that I wrote.
>
> That's the rub.  Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
> they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?

Of course they have lots of code with their own copyright.  The
release of JFS was one example.  Probably the majority of AIX was
developed by IBM, not by AT&T.  It's rather similar to the issue with
4BSD in the early 90s: with a little bit of work you could probably
replace the entire AT&T code in AIX and have a system which did not
require an SCO license.

If you mean "is there IBM copyright code in Linux?", I think the
answer is again yes, but it's under the GPL or possibly IPL, IBM's
attempt at a compromise between proprietary licenses and the GPL.  I
think they've given up on the IPL now.

For what it's worth, I'd be astounded if SCO's claims were found to be
true.

Greg
--
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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Kenneth Stailey]

--- Robert Tillyard <rob at vetsystems.com> wrote:
> I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
> copyright issues.

SCO has packed so much FUD around this issue.  If Novell did anything to help
it made SCO clarify their posistion.

http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=110126

Another good thing that came out of this mess is the neat-o table embedded in
this page:

http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html

That shows AIX (and XENIX/SCO) in relationship to other systems.

Search for "Relationships among the Unix variants at issue"

It does leave out AIX 2 on ROMP.


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[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <BAFBB8B1.118%rob at vetsystems.com>
            Robert Tillyard <rob at vetsystems.com> writes:
: I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
: copyright issues.

All of SCO's statements to the court have been contractual.  Their
statements to the press have been inflated to include things that
aren't actually alledged in the court filings.

: But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and putting it
: into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit upset about it,
: after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to compete with a product that's
: just about free and contains code that I wrote.

That's the rub.  Do they, in point of fact, actually have any code
they own the Copyright to or the patent rights to?

SCO is blustering more and more as the open source community exposes
them for the fruads that they have become.

Warner

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Robert Tillyard]

I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
copyright issues.

But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and putting it
into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit upset about it,
after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to compete with a product that's
just about free and contains code that I wrote.

Regards, Rob.

On 29/5/03 8:49 am, "Mike Haertel" <mike at ducky.net> wrote:

>> Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
>> the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
>> convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
>> the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
>> version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
>> 2002?  Are those agreements really valid?
> 
> You can have the right to sublicense something without owning
> the copyright.  You can even have the right to sublicense the
> right to sublicense without owning the copyright, and so on.
> It all depends on your contract with the real copyright holder.
> 
> This is probably how the contract for Novell's "sale" of Unix
> to (old) SCO was written.
> 
> But only the real copyright holder can bring a legal action
> against copyright violators.  And judging from recent press
> releases it would seem that Novell feels it is under no
> contractual obligation to do so on (new) SCO's behalf.

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Mike Haertel]

>Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
>the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
>convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
>the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
>version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
>2002?  Are those agreements really valid?

You can have the right to sublicense something without owning
the copyright.  You can even have the right to sublicense the
right to sublicense without owning the copyright, and so on.
It all depends on your contract with the real copyright holder.

This is probably how the contract for Novell's "sale" of Unix
to (old) SCO was written.

But only the real copyright holder can bring a legal action
against copyright violators.  And judging from recent press
releases it would seem that Novell feels it is under no
contractual obligation to do so on (new) SCO's behalf.

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Warren Toomey]

On Wed, May 28, 2003 at 06:24:56PM -0500, Cornelius Keck wrote:
> > Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
> > the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
> > convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
> > the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
> > version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
> > 2002?  Are those agreements really valid?
> 
> Good point. If memory serves me correctly, the 1998 agreement was
> not free for the asking, but rather required shelling out US$100,
> which means that SCO "sold" something they never owned, which
> constitutes fraud (anybody with some legal background reading
> this: please correct). What's the statue of limitations (sp?)
> for this?

Actually, Novell have only asserted that SCO/Caldera did not obtain
the rights to System V. Now, neither the $100 nor the BSD-style
SCO/Caldera Ancient UNIX licenses covered System V, so this might
not be fraud.

It depends on whether or not SCO/Caldera have the rights to Research
Editions 1 to 7 and System III :-)

This is all getting to be like a very bad TV soap: UNIX Sons and Daughters.
We've got grandad Research who was a pioneer in the area, son USL, and
now a lot of bastard grandchildren. And of course there's the newcomer
in town called Linux.

	Warren

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Cornelius Keck]

> Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
> the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
> convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
> the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
> version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
> 2002?  Are those agreements really valid?

Good point. If memory serves me correctly, the 1998 agreement was
not free for the asking, but rather required shelling out US$100,
which means that SCO "sold" something they never owned, which
constitutes fraud (anybody with some legal background reading
this: please correct). What's the statue of limitations (sp?)
for this?

Regards,

Cornelius

-- 
                             Cornelius Keck
                            ckeck at texoma.net

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Norman Wilson]

Interesting.  I suggest everyone interested in this fracas read the
whole scoop at (to repeat Kenneth Stailey's pointer)

  http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html

Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
2002?  Are those agreements really valid?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Kenneth Stailey]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1082 bytes --]

Press Release

	Novell Challenges SCO Position, Reiterates Support for Linux

PROVO, Utah � May 28, 2003 � Defending its interests in developing services to
operate on the Linux platform, Novell today issued a dual challenge to The SCO
Group over its recent statements regarding its UNIX ownership and potential
intellectual property rights claims over Linux.

First, Novell challenged SCO's assertion that it owns the copyrights and
patents to UNIX System V, pointing out that the asset purchase agreement
entered into between Novell and SCO in 1995 did not transfer these rights to
SCO. Second, Novell sought from SCO facts to back up its assertion that certain
UNIX System V code has been copied into Linux. Novell communicated these
concerns to SCO via a letter (text below) from Novell� Chairman and CEO Jack
Messman in response to SCO making these claims.

more:

http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html

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