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Novell Quotes AT&T on Derivative Works
grendelkhan writes "Novell has released their latest correspondance with the litigous bastards ordering them to stop the lawsuit by noon tomorrow, and clarify what the SVRX licensing agreements with AT&T meant regarding derivative works. The letter quotes AT&T from the April '85 issue of $echo as stating that they 'claim no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or derivative work.' So much for the ladder rung analogy."
And reader highwaytohell links to today's CRN article in which Eben Moglen suggests that the SCO/Linux lawsuit cannot move ahead "until SCO resolves its dispute with Novell. And regardless of which company prevails in court, he said, customers won't have to pay any company for a license fee since both claimants--SCO and Novell--have distributed the Linux code under the GPL. Once again, SCO have no comment."
Mr. Ryan E. Tibbitts
General Counsel
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Lindon, UT 84042
Re: Sequent Computer Systems
Dear Mr. Tibbitts:
On May 29, 2003, SCO sent a letter to Sequent Computer Systems providing notice that it would terminate Sequent's SVRX license agreement as of September 2, 2003 if Sequent did not remedy certain alleged breaches of the license agreement. On August 11, 2003, SCO sent another letter to Sequent purporting to terminate Sequent's SVRX license agreement. IBM, on behalf of Sequent, responded to these letters by letter of August 14, 2003.
As it has with IBM and other SVRX licensees, SCO appears to be taking the position that code developed by Sequent, or licensed by Sequent form a third party, which Sequent incorporated in its UNIX variant but which itself does not contain proprietary UNIX code supplied by AT&T under the license agreement betwee AT&T and Sequent (Sequent Code), must nevertheless be maintained as confidental and may not be contributed to Linux. As we have said before, SCO's position defies both logic and the terms of the SVRX license agreement.
SCO cites, as support for its position, section 2.01 of Sequent agreement, which, like other SVRX licenses, provides as follows:
Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and to prepare derivative works based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT, provided the resulting materials are treated hereunder as part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
As we have said, however, this provision merely confirms that AT&T retained ownership of its code even if it was incorporated in a derivative work, and does not purport to impose confidentiality or use restrictions on Sequent Code.
In fact, SCO's interpretation of 2.01 is plainly contrary to the position taken by AT&T, as author of and party to the SVRX licenses. AT&T clarified the meaning of section 2.01 in its $ echo publication, which AT&T described as its own newsletter to reach all UNIX System V licensees through one defined medium and keeps them abreast of any product announcements, policy changes, company business and pricing structures.
Specifically, in an edition of $ echo dated April 1985 (the same month that the Sequent license agreement was signed), AT&T announced that changes would be made to hte SVRX license agreement to clarify ownership of modifications or derivative works prepared by a licensee. AT&T said this and other announced changes were in response to direct feedback from AT&T licensees and [were] intended to make the contracts more responsive to the needs of licensees. AT&T then followed up by adding to section 2.01 a sentence clarifying that AT&T claims no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or derivative work that is not part of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Even more clearly, the August 1985 edition of $ echo explained that this sentence was added to assure licensees that AT&T will claim no ownership in the software that they developed - only the portion of the software developed by AT&T. Copies of the April and August 1985 editions of $ echo are enclosed for your convenience.
For these reasons, and the reasons stated in our October 7, 2003 letter to you about IBM-developed code, SCO's position on Sequent Code is unsupportable.
Under Section 4.16(b) of the Asset Purchase Agreement, Novell retains the right at Novell's sole discretion and direction, to require SCO to amend, supplement, modify, or waive any rights under, or...assign any rights to, any SVRX License to the extent so directed in any manner or respect by [Novell]. That section further provides that to the extent SCO shall fail to take any such action concerning the SVRX Licenses as directed by Novell, Novell shall be authorized, and hereby is granted, the rights to take any action on [SCO's] own behalf.
Accordingly, pursuant to Section 4.16(b) of the Asset Purchas
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
> First and foremost, IBM is a hardware and services company; they don't *really* care about software beyond the fact that it helps them shift hardware and services. If they can get revenue from the software, great, but it's a drop in the ocean as far as their turnover is concerned.
c fs.htm
Full disclosure: I work for the IBM Software Group, which gives me some authority to state that our software sales aren't "a drop in the ocean". Our 2003 annual report isn't quite ready yet but look at the 2002 figures:
Total sales - $81.186 billion
Software sales - $13.074 billion
http://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2002/fr_
Not exactly trivial, is it? If I remember correctly, counted as a software company we'd be like the 2nd or 3rd largest in the world. Only MS and maybe Oracle/SAP play in that arena.
Well, IBM did cite a ruling (Litchfield vs. Spielberg), that someone on groklaw decrypted as : "the derivated work must contain parts of the orginal."
Applyed to this case : Just because AIX is derivated from SysV and Linux contains code that is also in AIX does not mean that Linux is a derivate of SysV. To be a derivate of SysV, Linux has to include SysV code.
On the other hand, SCO claims now that this case is not about SysV code in Linux, but AIX/Sequel code in Linux. So if the judge accepts the definition of the Spielberg ruling, SCO has no case left. (IANAL)
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.