On Mon, 2 Sep 2024, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:
> The Caldera license is somewhat problematic. My take on the situation is that
> old SCO had the rights to issue source code and binary licenses, even though
> they didn't actually have the copyright to the code (at the time Novell did).
That's my take as well.
Caldera would assumedly have inherited these rights when they bought old
SCO. But as you said, they didn't have the copyright - and the copyright
notice and the Third Clause on the Caldera license require a copyright
attribution to them.
Plus, Novell knew about these licenses, so the principle of latches would
likely preclude any legal action as well... Or at least make it more difficult
to do so. So even if the copyright didn't transfer, and the rights to sublicense
were somehow exceeded their grant and someone wanted to make trouble,
it would be a very tricky case.
The Caldera license does include 32V as well as V7, so the 2BSD line, which
is based heavily on V7 unix + bug fixes and big code flows from 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD
and 4.4BSD, is also a bit in limbo.
My stance is: While we can't be 100% sure on 32V, it's probably the
_safest_ place to start, if one were to pinch from pre-S3 Unix. If Xinuos
or another claimant were to come at someone over it, it would put the
"invalid copyright" theory to the test.
Yes. Xinuos showed up at a FreeBSD vendor summit some years ago when
they launched their latest thing, based on FreeBSD. The story at the time
was they were super keen on putting the past in the past.
I'd say that either there's no copyright at all on 32V (since it was authored
before the US was signatory to the Berne Convention, and since it relied
on trade secret for its protection and since it was distributed without the
proper notice for hat) or if there is, Caldera license covers it. And since the
ruling was in 2010 and nobody has shown up to contest the Caldera
license, it would be tricky to to show up now that the cat is substantailly
out of the bag. One might speculate that the Caldera license might
not be valid after that, the matter hasn't been litigated and IANAL, but
since we can only speculate whether or not Caldera exceeded its
rights in granting the license. I think that one relying on the Caldera license
to govern their actions would have a good faith defense should the situation
change, but I'm not sure how much that would mitigate the consequences.
But if Xinuos don't own the copyright, then it's the residual of Novell, which
according to Wikipedia:
The company was an independent corporate entity until it was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary by The Attachmate Group in 2011. Attachmate was subsequently acquired in 2014 by Micro Focus International which was acquired in turn by OpenText in 2023. Novell products and technologies are now integrated within various OpenText divisions.
So maybe OpenText owns Unix. There were efforts to clear things up with
MicroFocus before Covid, that last I heard had gone nowhere. There's also
this post, which I ran into 3 or so years ago...
But OpenText sold its AMC business to Rocket Software May 1, 2024, the press release in parts ays:
"Closing the acquisition of the Application Modernization and Connectivity (AMC) business of OpenText, formerly part of Micro Focus, Rocket Software now offers customers"
So maybe Rocket Software owns Unix now? Or maybe OpenText retaineed it.
So the plot thickens, eh?
Anyway, copyright on the actual AT&T code is a rat's nest and I actually
started trying to come up with an analog so as to avoid getting finked
over the code.
Yes. At best, a researcher could get by with some kind of 'fair use' defense, and anybody not basing a System Vish product not on OpenIndian (and its kin) would be significantly exposed...
Warner