MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-06-24 |
| FROM | David Sugar
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] I sense a theme here...
|
SCO claims to be the copyright holder AT&T Unix System V. Apparently AT&T
sold Unix System V copyrights to Novell, and Novell later appears to have
sold them to SCO.
Of course, actual copyright on AT&T Unix System V is a matter of dispute from
the original BSD lawsuit where it was found that although BSD (net-2) may
have still had "some" AT&T copyrighted code in it's source tree, there was,
as found in the process of discovery, a large amount of BSD originated code
that AT&T copied without attribution as per the then BSD license required. I
am not sure of the terms of the final settlement between AT&T and BSD, and I
do not believe they were made public, but it is possible that SCO, in it's
current actions and claims, may be in violation of that original settlement.
AT&T originally licensed out Unix source code to a number of universities and
companies, including IBM, Sequent, SGI, etc. Novell acquired those licenses
and existing contracts as part of their purchase of copyright from AT&T, and
then gave to SCO the privilege of being able to collect license fees for
these existing contracts on Novell's behalf. This latter development is
curious if indeed SCO is the copyright holder, but it also suggests that
Novell, rather than SCO, is the party with legal standing in relation to
dispute these contracts. As such, I am not sure SCO really has clear
copyright to Unix System V, nor do I see immediately how they have the right
or legal standing to enforce past contracts that, in theory, remain
principally between Novell and others, even before discussing their claims.
On Tuesday 24 June 2003 05:05 pm, Michael Richardson wrote:
> Where did SCO get their "Original Work"?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Sugar [mailto:dyfet-at-ostel.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 5:00 PM
> To: Rene Ferrer; hangout-at-nylxs.com
> Subject: Re: [hangout] I sense a theme here...
>
>
>
> Or the very irony...SCO's claims is that they can, using their own terms,
> even
> if innapropriate, "pirate" other companies copyrights. Consider the case
> of
>
> their claim to ownership of both Numa, and JFS, both of which are
> indipendently created works by other companies that do not derive from
> prior
>
> existing Unix sources (Unix sources that SCO "may" be proven to be the
> legal
>
> copyright holder for; there is some dispute on that issue as well). If we
> take this argument they are expressing to it's logical conclusion, if one
> writes an (original) application for (SCO held) Unix, the authors or
> companies that do this will automatically loose their copyright to their
> own
>
> work. Sounds viral to me. Hmm...if such a legal principle actually has
> any
>
> merit at all, or their licensing can be interpreted in any manner as giving
> them such a claim to the copyright of other's indipendently created work,
> we
>
> should take the time to explain how it is that proprietary licensing,
> rather
>
> than copyleft, really can be viral and dangerous and how it can cause one
> to
>
> loose one's own copyrights.
>
> On Monday 23 June 2003 08:07 am, Rene Ferrer wrote:
> > I can't believe that SCO employees made these. I'm stunned. I have no
>
> words
>
> > to express my disappointment if this is real.
> >
> > RF
> >
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> > ____________________________
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>
> ____________________________
> NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
> Fair Use -
> because it's either fair use or useless....
> NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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