Joseph A. La Sala, Jr. Senior Vice President General Counsel and Secretary
NOVELL VIA FACSIMILE AND CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED
February 6, 2004
Mr. Ryan E. Tibbitts General Counsel The SCO Group [address] 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 Secptember 2, 2003 if Sequent did not remedy certain alleged breaches of the license agreement. On Agust 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 from a third party, which Sequent incorporated in its UNIX variant but which itseld foes not contain proprietary UNIX code supplied by AT&T under the license agreement between AT&T and Sequent ("Sequent Code"), must nevertheless be maintained as confidential 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 section 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 the 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 the 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 g
Wonder of wonders, an AC actually used "affecting" correctly, and I'm responding...
/me weeps for this world... (tolerant non-kiddie)
Re:Bill Gates, Hall of Fame Hacker? (P.S. First Po
on
Hackers Hall of Fame
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I agree with the parent post about Bill bringing computing to the masses even though my earliest computing experiences have nothing to do with wintel or even PCs for that matter. IMHO BillG's single greatest hack isn't technological; it's social/business.
Yer not trolling at all; I'm going through the same thing with my linux boxes. All these bounce mails with some weird MS exe file in them, WTF am I going to do with an exe? So basically, I sympathize and agree. And I *know* I'll be getting a few calls in the AM from my favorite users...
Without even getting into whether the programmer was unscrupulous, I'd say he was just plain stupid for doing this. You don't need to post your data set to ask a question.
Also, he just opened the whole thing up to a potentially massive class-action suit by the parents; I live in upstate NY and I've seen how those things go here. I'd be surprised if these companies or their projects/contracts are around in a couple of years. They'll be sued to death is my guess.
possible uses of nano-tech to track the chemistry of various things throughout digestion. And also identify what brand/year of truck radiator was used to distill the cheap stuff. If you drink anything that had sugar in the mash, yer *not* on my friends list, FWIW. Think Jack Daniel's or a fine scotch, straight no ice. And no fake ID required.
As if governments were accountable. All I'm thinking is that at least you can tie the power motive to the profit motive with business and industry. You can't always say that about government; I've seen plenty of bureaucrats get their rocks off on power per se - on the ability to be absolute and arbitrary with no justification other than the fact that they can. That is what spooks me more than anything. It speaks volumes about human nature perhaps just IMHO.
It may be fucked up now, but how much do you want to bet that Gov't can fuck it up even more? At least business and industry consortiums have a profit motive; governments only have a power motive.
Thanks - I'm not surprised really (no pun intended). I was relying on the idea that "Many eyes make all bugs shallow", and also on the traditional *NIX permissions. I've yet to figure out how to build it all properly from CVS. It's a bit strange to admit that, since I'm so used to just getting a big tarball and doing "configure, make, make install" etc. Thanks for confirming it all tho. FWIW I run ok behind my home-made firewall on Fedora (with updates and hacks) and use Helix/Real to watch the TechNet Cast videos of LinuxWorld keynote speeches, etc. if the Helix/Real community is interested in knowing that.
I didn't see any vulns mentioned for the linux Helix client, tho IIRC there's plenty of RP8 and G2 installs. I don't imagine that Helix would be any more vulnerable than RealOne if they have that much in common, and it'd still be restricted to my user and home dir (linux). Ideas?
Slashdot Mirror
Stuff like this happens and we wonder why PHB's don't trust IT as much as we'd like.
/me remembers those days of wider safety margins, and associates them with fewer memories of blackouts...
JDS Uniphase's stock start to go up on this. Me, I'd love to go optical. And I'm sure JDS wouldn't mind selling some fiber and related supplies...
... is L_O_N_G_E_R than yours! Order your F.R.E.E. herbal Generic software NOW!!!
They'll "realize it" when there's a single company and someone to blame/sue. But then, I'm feeling cynical. You should hear what I go through at work:
Them: "So, what kind of Windows do you use?"
Me: I don't use windows.
Them: "But I thought you were into computers!!??"
Joseph A. La Sala, Jr.
Senior Vice President
General Counsel and Secretary
NOVELL VIA FACSIMILE AND CERTIFIED MAIL
RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED
February 6, 2004
Mr. Ryan E. Tibbitts
General Counsel
The SCO Group
[address]
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 Secptember 2, 2003 if Sequent did not remedy certain alleged breaches of the license agreement. On Agust 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 from a third party, which Sequent incorporated in its UNIX variant but which itseld foes not contain proprietary UNIX code supplied by AT&T under the license agreement between AT&T and Sequent ("Sequent Code"), must nevertheless be maintained as confidential 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 section 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 the 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 the 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 g
I agree with the parent post about Bill bringing computing to the masses even though my earliest computing experiences have nothing to do with wintel or even PCs for that matter. IMHO BillG's single greatest hack isn't technological; it's social/business.
Yer not trolling at all; I'm going through the same thing with my linux boxes. All these bounce mails with some weird MS exe file in them, WTF am I going to do with an exe? So basically, I sympathize and agree. And I *know* I'll be getting a few calls in the AM from my favorite users...
was posted right here a while back. Googling for SubSeven and disassembly turned it up.
Also, he just opened the whole thing up to a potentially massive class-action suit by the parents; I live in upstate NY and I've seen how those things go here. I'd be surprised if these companies or their projects/contracts are around in a couple of years. They'll be sued to death is my guess.
Oddly, I have *never* had an employer (of any kind) who wasn't always "tightening the screws".
Yep, I meant added. That cheapo stuff makes one forgetful...
Now *that's* some serious detox...
End of the mash, but intended for corn or rye; whiskey IOW. You can work the yeast and increase the yield that way.
possible uses of nano-tech to track the chemistry of various things throughout digestion. And also identify what brand/year of truck radiator was used to distill the cheap stuff. If you drink anything that had sugar in the mash, yer *not* on my friends list, FWIW. Think Jack Daniel's or a fine scotch, straight no ice. And no fake ID required.
that this gives a whole new meaning to the idea of being "pissed".
As if governments were accountable. All I'm thinking is that at least you can tie the power motive to the profit motive with business and industry. You can't always say that about government; I've seen plenty of bureaucrats get their rocks off on power per se - on the ability to be absolute and arbitrary with no justification other than the fact that they can. That is what spooks me more than anything. It speaks volumes about human nature perhaps just IMHO.
It may be fucked up now, but how much do you want to bet that Gov't can fuck it up even more? At least business and industry consortiums have a profit motive; governments only have a power motive.
OT, but where could I find a copy of that DU half-life clip that was on about 2 weeks ago? TIA
Thanks - I'm not surprised really (no pun intended). I was relying on the idea that "Many eyes make all bugs shallow", and also on the traditional *NIX permissions. I've yet to figure out how to build it all properly from CVS. It's a bit strange to admit that, since I'm so used to just getting a big tarball and doing "configure, make, make install" etc. Thanks for confirming it all tho. FWIW I run ok behind my home-made firewall on Fedora (with updates and hacks) and use Helix/Real to watch the TechNet Cast videos of LinuxWorld keynote speeches, etc. if the Helix/Real community is interested in knowing that.
What if yer the pool cleaner for the Score magazine's Boob Cruise?
FWIW, I play *all* those with mplayer in moz. Or just save them to a file and play later.
I didn't see any vulns mentioned for the linux Helix client, tho IIRC there's plenty of RP8 and G2 installs. I don't imagine that Helix would be any more vulnerable than RealOne if they have that much in common, and it'd still be restricted to my user and home dir (linux). Ideas?