Did some reading today, curious on the current state of things with AT&T's UNIX
copyright genealogy. The series of events as I understand it are:
AT&T partners with Novell for the Univel initiative.
Novell then acquires System V and USL from AT&T.
Novell sells UNIX System V's source to SCO, but as the courts have ruled, not the
copyright.
Novell gets purchased by Microfocus.
Microfocus gets purchased by OpenText Corporation.
Does this make OpenText the current copyright holders of the commercial UNIX line from
AT&T.
What got me looking a bit closer into this is curiosity regarding how the opening of
Solaris and the CDDL may impact publication of UNIX code between System III and SVR4. I
then felt the need to refresh on who might be the current copyright holder and this is
where the trail has lead me.
My understanding too is that Sun's release under the CDDL set the precedent that
other sub-licencees of System V codebases are also at liberty to relicense their
codebases, but this may be reading too far into it. There's also the concern that
the ghost of SCO will continue to punish anyone else who tries with
costly-but-doomed-to-fail litigation. Have there been any happenings lately with regards
to getting AT&T UNIX post-PDP-11 opened up more in the world? Reading up a bit on
OpenText's business, they don't seem like they're invested in the OS world,
seems that their primary sector is content management. Granted, there's certainly
under-the-radar trading of bits and pieces, but it would be nice to have some more
certainty about what can happen out in the open.
- Matt G.