29 May
2003
29 May
'03
6:16 p.m.
I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
copyright issues.
But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and putting it
into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit upset about it,
after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to compete with a product that's
just about free and contains code that I wrote.
Regards, Rob.
On 29/5/03 8:49 am, "Mike Haertel" <mike(a)ducky.net> wrote:
Here's a
question of interest not to the Linux community but to
the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
2002? Are those agreements really valid?
You can have the right to sublicense something without owning
the copyright. You can even have the right to sublicense the
right to sublicense without owning the copyright, and so on.
It all depends on your contract with the real copyright holder.
This is probably how the contract for Novell's "sale" of Unix
to (old) SCO was written.
But only the real copyright holder can bring a legal action
against copyright violators. And judging from recent press
releases it would seem that Novell feels it is under no
contractual obligation to do so on (new) SCO's behalf.