[TUHS] Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[TUHS] Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[segaloco via TUHS]

So System V shops had to hold a license with AT&T to modify and redistribute
code based on UNIX System V and they would then license directly with their
customers correct?  This being distinct from the way licensing with BSD was
concerned in that you had to pursue the license with AT&T to then use BSD. That
is my current understanding anyway that I base this question on.

So IBM, DEC, Sun, HP, Microsoft, etc. approach AT&T, got a source license, and
started producing their System V value adds out there in the world.  In this
present day and age, for those still shipping genuine System V derivatives, what
does this licensing landscape actually look like?  Do the players still in the
game still refer to whatever license they started with back in the 80s, did they
renew up until say SVR4 when folks stopped drinking from the USL well, or are
there still ongoing licenses that the remaining vendors have to renew to
distribute their software?

Where I'm going with this is just another angle on the whole "who owns System V"
question which comes up in my mind all the time.  Knowing the specific legal
entities involved in the most recent licensing documentation would certainly
factor into understanding the landscape a little better.

To boil that down to a specific example, once upon a time, Sun held a license
with AT&T to use, modify, and redistribute UNIX System V.  At the present
moment, Oracle is the distributor of Solaris.  If there is a piece of licensing
paperwork sitting in a filing cabinet at Oracle somewhere, who would that
paperwork say is the original licensor of the product?  Would that even matter
in this year of 2025?

- Matt G.

[TUHS] Re: Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[Warner Losh]

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On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 2:25 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> Where I'm going with this is just another angle on the whole "who owns
> System V"
> question which comes up in my mind all the time.  Knowing the specific
> legal
> entities involved in the most recent licensing documentation would
> certainly
> factor into understanding the landscape a little better.
>

We don't even know, for sure, who owns Unix, apart from The Open Group
definitely owns the trademark and the whole POSIX stuff. Though we can
make some good guesses.

Novell had the copyrights, as far as anybody could tell. Let's assume that
was
true (not a big leap, but a point that's been contested in the past). They
sold
it to attachmate, who sold it to MicroFocus who sold it to OpenText. At
least
that's the paper trail, except the last step, that I think I can document
on the
US copyright registration web site. There's changes that release interest
in the
copyright filed 1/31/2023, which corresponds with the sale to OpenText. But
I can't find OpenText's name on the new copyright paperwork, which is a bit
weird
since the older filings for the sale to MicroFocus have their name on it.
It's part of
a huge bundle of works transferred (like 1800 works). It includes System V,
System V
release 2; release 3; release 4, unixware and a couple of other things
you'd expect
to find here. But nothing for OpenText or Open Text that I saw. I'm sure
those
more skilled than I will surface those records.

https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search%5FArg=Unix%20System%20V&Search%5FCode=TALL&CNT=25&REC=0&RD=0&RC=0&PID=Yig8CwgSX_JCL5yGUgrC0eBzQf4i16&SEQ=20250408171535&SID=3
might be useful to people to mine further.

I imagine that OpenText is still getting at least a tiny royalty stream
from sales
of System V derived software, but I can't imagine that would be very large
since
I recall reading IBM, Digital, Sun and SGI all getting "paid up" licenses
that required
no future royalty. But I have no original sources for this information.

Interestingly enough,on the above loc.gov web site, there's nothing for 6th
edition, 7th
edition or 32V or any of the variations I could think of. This fits with
Clem's assertion
that these were only trade secrets whose secret status was blown up decades
ago.
System III also has no registration (though System 3 found too many IBM
System/3
systems to be a useful search).

Warner

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[TUHS] Re: Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[Clem Cole]

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On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org
<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=tuhs@tuhs.org>> wrote:

> So System V shops had to hold a license with AT&T to modify and
> redistribute
> code based on UNIX System V and they would then license directly with their
> customers correct?

You are talking about two different licenses (with three fees, actually).



> This being distinct from the way licensing with BSD was
> concerned in that you had to pursue the license with AT&T to then use BSD.
> That
> is my current understanding anyway that I base this question on.
>
Right... that would worked for any version of the UNIX license from Fifth
Edition through SVR5, which I believe was the last license that Novell
released to the world.

If you are a *commercial customer*, the license grants you the right to
have the sources and use them on a >>single<< CPU, which is named (via make
and serial number) in the license.  Each additional CPU must be named and
licensed separately at a reduced fee.

The universities and research institutions had a non-commercial license
that did not name a CPU. They could use the  AT&T IP anywhere as long as it
was for non-commercial purposes [more in a minute—there is a catch-22].

Either of these licenses also gives you the right to *share your sources
with anyone else who has a source license from AT&T for the same (or a
lesser) version*.   That is, if you had a System 3.0 [renamed Sys III] or
later System V license, you could still obtain things from someone with a
V6 or V7 license (like UCB say), but since you were Sytem III and they V7
or V32, you could only give them code that was based on the license they
had.    For example, SCCS was part of PWB 2.0 originally and officially
left the labs as part of and Sytem 3.0. Remember the research license only
included V5, V6, V7, and V32 — not PWB, nor System 3   While SCCS "leaked"
to some of the Universities via AT&T Employee's (the OYOCs), the
Universities were technically not licensed for it, which is why, of course,
even though it is being used at UCB, it's not in the BSD source
distribution and also why UCB switched to RCS as soon as it was available
(because it done at another University and was >>freely<< open source, not
just AT&T licensed and open with the AT&T license community.

The interesting catch-22  came about when Universities (like CMU
originally) started using UNIX commercially internally for things like
billing and student records.   A few of us grew uncomfortable about this
pretty blatant misuse in Mellon Institute, CMU's semi-cokmerical arm, which
was using UNIX as its development system for the projects they contracted
(like the Pittsburgh Press automation, USS Steel, Alcoa, and even the
Israeli Army.   In fact, in mid-1978, Danny Klein and I went on strike at
Mellon Institute, and Al Arm's of AT&T Patent and Licensing team offered a
compromise where CMU bought one commercial license and named the Mellon
Institute PDP-11 as the CMU commercial host.  Officially, any work, like
the work that started to be done for the CMU back-office, even if it ran on
a different system, was officially designated as work for Mellon.   I know
Case-Western got a similar license in late 1979 because I told Fred Park
about it when he was working with us at Tektronix in the Summer of 1979. I
believe UCB and Purdue also followed suit, but I never knew.





> So IBM, DEC, Sun, HP, Microsoft, etc. approach AT&T, got a source license,

err.. Sun was not there, thank you very much... [they would not exist for
another 6 years].

With the release of the V7 license, a group of Prof. Dennis Allison's
clients were brought together at Ricki's Hyatt in Palo Alto [I was there,
and it is, as I have said in other messages, the only time I ever met
Gates].  The firms I remember that were there (besides Al Arms for AT&T)
were IBM, Tektronix, DEC, HP, Microsoft, 3Com, and what would eventually
become SCO. There were a couple of others, but I do not remember who they
were. Somebody like Bruce Borden, who was representing 3Com, might, and
Dennis might remember who he invited from his client list.

At that point, AT&T had produced the V7 "redistribution" license, which
once you had a source license, then allowed you (for a per CPU fee) the
right redistribute the AT&T IP. Let's just say the terms were pretty bad.
I'll not go into them here.

This first meeting resulted in a set of follow-up meetings to create what
would eventually become the Sytem 3.0 redistribution license (and the new
Sytem 3.0 source license).  This group would also eventually create what
would become /usr/group, but that's another story. As I said, AT&T
Marketing decided to change the marketing materials to System III at the
last minute. But all the docs and the licenses say *System 3.0* because
they were already through the print cycle for the former and the legal
approval cycle for the latter.

The key is that a commercial firm had to pay for the right to have the
source only on >>specific<< CPUs and then the rights redistribution, and
then on a per redistributed binary, a license for each of those CPUs (3
different fees).  BTW, the whole X-user license stuff for end-user binaries
was because of the redistribution license fees.  The fee the licensee paid
to AT&T for a binary that ran a "workstation" was significantly cheaper
than one that ran an eight or 16-user, much less 32 or 64-user time-sharing
machine [thank you, Microsoft and DEC actually -- I can explain how this
all happened in another email if folks are interested].    With later
redistribution licenses for later AT&T releases such as System V, SRV2,
SRV3, SRV4, some of the source license storage requirements were relaxed,
but for this list, please understand there is the core source license
(which is based on each release) and then a redistribution license for the
release, and per CPU license

BTW: the primary reason why OSF was created was because everytime AT&T made
a new OS release, they changed the redistribution license terms.  If you
look at the OSF found principles the first one is "*stable license terms.*"
It really was a problem for everyone.

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[TUHS] Re: Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)]

segaloco via TUHS writes:

> To boil that down to a specific example, once upon a time, Sun held
> a license with AT&T to use, modify, and redistribute UNIX System
> V.  At the present moment, Oracle is the distributor of Solaris.
> If there is a piece of licensing paperwork sitting in a filing
> cabinet at Oracle somewhere, who would that paperwork say is the
> original licensor of the product?  Would that even matter in this
> year of 2025?

At some point Sun bought out their license from AT&T.  My guess is
it was pre-Solaris 9, as that buyout was what let them start offering
up Solaris 9 source code on an experimental basis, and then fully
unleashing it with the Solaris 10 release.

As Warren mentions, others might have done the same, but I
have no knowledge of any deals other than Sun's.

--lyndon

[TUHS] Re: Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[Alan Coopersmith via TUHS]

On 4/9/25 10:10, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:
> segaloco via TUHS writes:
> 
>> To boil that down to a specific example, once upon a time, Sun held
>> a license with AT&T to use, modify, and redistribute UNIX System
>> V.  At the present moment, Oracle is the distributor of Solaris.
>> If there is a piece of licensing paperwork sitting in a filing
>> cabinet at Oracle somewhere, who would that paperwork say is the
>> original licensor of the product?  Would that even matter in this
>> year of 2025?
> 
> At some point Sun bought out their license from AT&T.

 From Novell, since AT&T had already sold USL to Novell by then:

https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1994/03/17/Sun-Micro-pays-Novell-825-million-to-end-license-deal/7075763880400/

-- 
         -Alan Coopersmith-                 alan.coopersmith@oracle.com
          Oracle Solaris Engineering - https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris

[TUHS] Re: Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[sjenkin]

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For completeness, 
SUN & AT&T merged their lines, at least Userland, with SVR4, 
with, I believe, SUN paying a perpetual fee for its license. 
[ refs only for the merge, not license deal ]

TUHS, Larry McVoy
	<https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2017-January/009495.html>

Excerpt from Solaris 8 System Admin Manual, 2000
Bill Calkins, ‘History of Solaris'
	<https://cse.unl.edu/~witty/class/csce351/howto/history_of_solaris.pdf>


Calkins makes the point the merge was to resolve the “Unix Wars”, to have one product going up against Windows NT.

	"UNIX is plural. It is not one operating system but, many implementations of an idea that originated in 1965."

> On 10 Apr 2025, at 03:10, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
> 
> At some point Sun bought out their license from AT&T.  My guess is
> it was pre-Solaris 9, as that buyout was what let them start offering
> up Solaris 9 source code on an experimental basis, and then fully
> unleashing it with the Solaris 10 release.
> 
> As Warren mentions, others might have done the same, but I
> have no knowledge of any deals other than Sun's.
> 
> --lyndon

--

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