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."

Comments

litigous bastards?

[MooKore 2004]

I know that everyone and their dog here at Slashdot hates SCO, but is it really necesscary to call them names? It just makes us look like Mad Zealots. Youd think after the what the BBC published you would try and take this case more calmly?

Re:litigous bastards?

[LearnToSpell]

Or sco.com is down, and Google doesn't link to downed sites. Not much of a conspiracy here, I'm afraid.

How soon we forget.

[NanoGator]

"Novell has released their latest correspondance with the litigous bastards..."

And some of you accused the BBC of making an unfounded claim when they said this:

"If anyone's anger has no measure, it is the wrath of internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all (open source). So, it seems likely that the perpetrators of the MyDoom virus and its variants are internet vandals with a specific grudge."

If you guys don't like having the finger pointed at you, then don't say things like that to attract attention to yourselves.

Re:How soon we forget.

[roman_mir]

I disagree. Linux zealots or not, Sco are litigous bastards. BBC linking Linux users and coders to MyDoom trojan without looking at any other points of view, now that is some 'fair' news delivery.

Re:How soon we forget.

[Surazal]

I worry about arguments like yours because it implies I am guilty of the crime *by default*, which is not the case here.

I don't recall sending out any orders to Russian terrorists to infiltrate our internet with a misleading computer worm.

Re:How soon we forget.

[NanoGator]

"That would be the spammers who only used the DDOS attack on SCO as a distraction to cover up the backdoor they were installing."

DDOS'ing spammers? They're sending out mass mailings to people who've lost their connection? Heh. Okay. I'll run with it.

So ... these spammers are attacking SCO. They chose SCO because it would be a 'distraction', to throw the scent off them. For this to work, that would mean that the overly zealous Open Source Community would have to be the #1 suspect in an attack against SCO, correct? Okay, so tell me again why the BBC cannot report that, keeping in mind that they used the word 'likely' very strongly?

Also, who here really really thinks the community was framed? Take a good hard look at the attitudes around here and tell me that you don't think it was some regular Slashdotter that wanted to be 'cool' for a day. If you can't, then how come you guys aren't more open minded in general? How come you're extremely perceptive to the idea that it wasn't a Linux or Open Source zealot that attacked SCO, but a lot of you are very adamant that there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? (Sorry for invoking a variant of Godwin's law there, so I'll bring up a couple of more points.) Why is Episode III a bad movie even though it's still in the making? Why is any move that Microsoft makes, and I do mean any move automatically some part of a more sinister plot to rule the world? Now if you're hitting the reply button, just stop right there. You have your reasons. You've come to that conclusion, and even though you have no facts to back it up, you have still reached that conclusion. You still feel, that in all likelihood, you believe that there are no WMD/Episode III will be a bad movie/Microsoft is trying to rule the world. BBC reported this just like they reported that the Columbia disaster was caused by a piece of foam insulation striking the wing of the shuttle long before the investigation was over.

So spare me the bs that the BBC was in the wrong. They were not. The right thing to do was to take a more objective and professional attitude towards SCO. The wrong thing to do was to have a story published that referred to SCO as litigious bastards. Why is it the wrong thing? I appreciate that you want to express your views. I encourage that. But the cost of that is it looks like you're blindly defending one of your own. It doesn't help your case, and it closes doors on anybody who is listening to you.

I'm done with this topic. You can read what I said and try to take away something useful from it, or you can reply with some half-baked argument to try to prove me wrong. Consider the value of the first option, and the time you'd waste with the second.

Re:How soon we forget.

[ekuns]

They very clearly said "It seems likely...". So no, they did not report that as fact. Secondly, who has any real motive besides the Linux users that stand to lose the most? BBC did nothing wrong by pointing the spotlight at the people most likely to have done it.

Who has any real motive? How about the folks who have been putting out virus after virus after virus for the past year, where these viruses are really a backdoor to spread their ability to send SPAM? Someone doing that has a motive to hide their real motive. A DOS attack against someone is a perfect extra to hide the motive.

Now, maybe there is some Linux crank out there who is also a Windows expert who was able to do this. And maybe that person is also allied with the folks producing the SPAMbots, because this virus includes one.

But to suggest that whoever created the virus is a MAINSTREAM Linux person is just silly. That doesn't fit any of the facts. In addition, it would be monstrously stupid. However, anyone who wanted Linux users to have a black eye would be able to accomplish that by attacking SCO.

Now, if there's someone out there who hates Linux and who knows Windows internals in great detail, enough detail to create a sophisticated virus, then that person can accomplish many goals by taking their SPAMbot virus and attacking a site that will divert blame from them.

Mainstream Linux users are not people who advocate this sort of malevolent virus or attack.

Re:How soon we forget.

[Malcontent]

" Sorry bud, it's still not a lie."

It's no a lie strictly speaking. Strictly speaking it conveys no actual information. Saying "the bags may have contained drugs" is the exact same thing as saying "monkeys may have flown out of my butt". Both sentenses are "true" because neither sentense conveys any information.

It's not a lie but it's a sentense carefully worded in order to mislead people. The intent of the reporter was to make people think that some linux zealot wrote the virus. In order to do that he carefully chose his weasel words to convey that information.

In the end even though it's not a lie it's a willfull attempt to deceive people. There is no getting around that.

Re:How soon we forget.

[Catiline]

It's not a lie strictly speaking. Strictly speaking it conveys no actual information.

It may be that most people expect a string words to mean something. It may be that the job title "reporter" might imply certain responsibilities, one of which very well might be "presenting facts rather than speculation"; another could be "reduce or remove personal bias". I would expect most people, most of the time, carry these assumptions whenever they watch, read or otherwise grok news.

Containing weasel words does not magically render a sentence meaningless. Instead, consider it a presentation of opinion; for that alone, I object-- after all, the BBC says they hire news reporters not news speculators.

Re:Meanwhile, back on the western front...

[Anonymous Coward]

the only copyrights SCO claims are to sysV unix (and some older unices that don't matter). They also have contractual rights to *derivative works* made from sysV. IBM's AIX is such a derivative work, and IBM cannot release it without SCO approval - for sure they can't turn AIX into GPL code.

BUT, IBM has independently produced a lot of software that is part of AIX but is not sysV code. This material from NOVELL makes it even clearer (if anything can be clearer than perfectly transparent) that IBM owns this independently developed code and can do whatever it wants with it -- notably, they can contribute it to linux under the GPL. SCO is toast.

Re:Meanwhile, back on the western front...

[Tewara]

Your statement "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" is somewhat off the mark. You might wish to check the IBM quarterly report about their revenue distribution, and a few web pages about their future "direction". A Tewaran of Tewar

Yup, plus...

[Anonymous Coward]

My company competes with IBM on the software side (not going to say what area exactly, since it would narrow the possibilities to about 3 companies) and our licensing AND services revenue together are a drop in the ocean for the overall behemoth that is IBM.

As your sometime competitor I can guarantee to the other /.-izens that IBM wants to make money on software. If this were not the case the IBM sales folks would walk into competative sales situations against our sales guys and tell the prospective customers "This stuff is good and it is free to boot. Welcome aboard." At that point our sales guys would shit their pants and walk out defeated.

Unless the software is crap, free beats not most of the time.

Since this is not what happens, it is obvious that IBM charges for their software just like we do. IBM wins some sales, we win a few more (its the only thing we do, and not IBM's sole focus) and the world goes 'round.

Please don't Googlebomb

[Quantum Jim]

Sigh. Am I the only person who thinks that Googlebombing is childish? It's basically the same technique spammers use to pervert their popularity on the search engine. Worse, it prevents surfers from getting undisturpted, unbaised information about a topic. For instance, how can Bush be both a miserable failure and a great president! These PageRanks make no logical sence when taken together, but googlebombing disrupted the normal weights for Bush on these topics. I don't care what the intentions are, purposely trying to change Google's PageRank is wrong.

Bullshit.

[jotaeleemeese]

You are calling for the law of the jungle, everybody able to be judge, jury, executor and even accusing part.

I don't want part of such world, even evil people have a right to be protected and respected. Those gurantees for the worst in our societies will ensure that we live with freedom and without fear of unfair prosecutions and retribution.

Transcript

[BenjyD]

Man that transcript is funny. The SCO lawyers behave like kids caught not paying attention in class - the judge says his bit, the IBM lawyer gives his part of the case, then the SCO lawyer suddenly notices everyone is looking at him and it's his turn, panics, leaps up and says "Show us the AIX code", sits down and drifts off again.