An unnamed Administration source, tom marinis, wrote: % --- Gary Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: % > Novell torpedoes SCO's Unix IP claim % > By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco % > Posted: 28/05/2003 at 16:26 GMT % > % % I read this this morning, but I'd like to ask the others % on this list if it sounds right... % % Kurt, you probably don't know since you've been % out of the Caldera for some time, but does this story % have any merit?
You're right, I don't know. However, Novell's press release makes clear that, in the opinion of Novell and their lawyers, Novell did not sell copyright and trademark rights to SCO, merely the rights to sub-license Unix. http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html "SCO is not the owner of the UNIX copyrights. Not only would a quick check of U.S. Copyright Office records reveal this fact, but a review of the asset transfer agreement between Novell and SCO confirms it. To Novell's knowledge, the 1995 agreement governing SCO's purchase of UNIX from Novell does not convey to SCO the associated copyrights." SCO, apparently, concur: http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=110126 "SCO® owns the contract rights to the UNIX® operating system. SCO has the contractual right to prevent improper donations of UNIX code, methods or concepts into Linux® by any UNIX vendor. Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with. From a legal standpoint, contracts end up being far stronger than anything you could do with copyrights. SCOs lawsuit against IBM does not involve patents or copyrights. SCOs complaint specifically alleges breach of contract, and SCO intends to protect and enforce all of the contracts that the company has with more than 6,000 licensees." So, SCO have basically lied to everyone. At the bottom of their response to Novell's press release, one sees this disclaimer: "UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group." ;-) Kurt -- Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the land He's trying to ignore. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
