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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."
Google has apparently noticed, and now neither litigious bastards or just plain bastards comes up with SCO. (This may not yet be true on all Google mirrors.)
The google bomb is not going to work when you misspell litigious bastards.
Think of how many links you could have generated if you had of spent some time with the dictionary.
*sigh*
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
"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.
"Derp de derp."
is that freaking e-trade doesn't have SCOX on its list of shortable securities.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
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.
www.sco.com is a weapon of mass destruction.
Do read the last Solution (#5)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
and a 1 ...
and a 2
"Na na naa naaa..., na na naa naaaa..., heyyy eyy eyy, GOODBYE!!!!!
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
According to one of SCO's lawyers, in a letter published on Groklaw, SCO only managed to sell three "Linux licenses".
Yes. Three (3).
He says: "At this juncture, I am only aware of a license with Computer Associates, Questar and Leggett & Platt."
I'm betting you can get a good price on a used Linux license from them by now...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
As seen here one of the benefits is "These security features guard against business interruption, denial of service attacks and protect against identity or corporate information theft." (emphasis mine) It makes one wonder why they don't run their web server on it instead of linux?
"The road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think." - Picard
Maybe IBM will use the licences to create GNU/UNIX to spite RMS.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
> 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.
So multitasking, like talking to your wife and thinking about your mistress
That's dangerous; human brains don't have memory protection.
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.
Darl:
"Yes, your honor.. I was beaten up by hooligans, no doubt in the employ of IBM, seeking to damage me physically as well as in the press. I was helping an old woman cross the street this morning.... How do I know they were IBM hooligans? Well, they were well dressed, and attacked me without the slightest provocation once they realized who I was."
IBM Attorney:
"I submit the videotape from camera 3, on the northwest corner of the 7-11 at 202nd Ave and Mormon Way. Here, at 3:12:08, we see Darl exiting the store with a burrito. At 3:12:30, Here we see Darl speaking to an elderly woman carrying a stuffed penguin. At 3:12:57, we see him attempting to take the woman's stuffed toy. By 3:13:09 we see he's given up on trying to steal the penguin, and instead is reaching for the womans purse. At 3:13:26, we see two well dressed gentlemen attempting to stop a robbery. At 3:14:40 the store clerk joins the two gentlemen in suits and the elderly woman, with a baseball bat. Conclusive proof that this man not only lies in front of the court, he tried to steal a penguin and when he couldn't get away with it, tries to steal this poor woman's purse!"
.sig: Now legally binding!
I cannot speak for the previous period. But recently, SCOX restructured their PIPE finance/loan from Baystar/Royal Canadian Bank to have a floor price of conversion for the $50 Million invested. Thus, Baystar would be guarentee of their initial investment. Should the stock price falls below the floor price, SCOX have to pay the difference.
Since the trade volume is so light, it doesn't take much effort of trading amounst friends to maintain the price.