Hello, all.
In 2002, Caldera released Ancient Unix code under Caldera
license:
<https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf>
based on the four-clause BSD license:
<https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-4-Clause.html>
Consequently, it was used by derived projects, such as
Traditional Vi:
<https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/>
This proect having been abandoned and orphaned since 2005, I
wanted to host it on GNU Savanna and there to breath some
life into it. Unfortunately, the 4-clause BSD license is
incompatible with GPL:
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OriginalBSD>
The incompatibilty is due entirely to the infamous third
clause about adverising. Three years prior to Caldera's
release of old Unix code, The Berkley Univercity removed
this clause, producing the GNU-compatible modified BSD
License:
<https://opensource.org/license/BSD-3-clause>
They published a notice to that effect on their FTP:
<ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change>
Although it has been taken down[1], copies exist all over
the internet, e.g.:
<https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abbrev/punix/refs/heads/master/README.Impt.License.Change>
That said, is there a chance that the copyright holder of
Ancient Will agree to release a similar note regarding
everying released under Caldera license? If there is, whom
shall I contact about it? It will benefit everybody using
Ancient Unix code.
That's a complicated question. Does 32V have a valid copyright? Maybe, maybe not. There is a preliminary ruling suggesting no that effectively forced AT&T to settle with the Regents, but it was never finalized. There's good reasons to believe its logic and fact pattern would apply to 7th edition and maybe 6th.
Putting that aside, there has been a dispute over what copyrights transferred from Novell to SCO. A judge said no for System V, undermining SCO's case. But older copyrights weren't explivitly named, but the same thing: the facts patterns for System V likely applied to older Unix.
So, Novell's assets have been sold 4 times or more. Finding the right people inside the current company to talk to is hard. It's not their promary business. It's not clear how many rights they have. It's hard to show how it could benefit them. And even if you could, another sale might happen in the mean time.
People have been teying to get even a statement that old SCO legitimately granted the Ancient license to no avail.
So I'm doubtful. Your best bet is to not make your changes available under the GPL. They cut against the spirit of 4 clause BSD and step in the middle of a very old Stallman vs Berkeley dispute from the 4.2 era...
At this point, it's a mess
Warner
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1. Why the murrain of FTP servers all over the world?