11 Mar
2003
11 Mar
'03
10:11 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy(a)alcatel.com.au>
To: Jeffrey Sharp <jss(a)subatomix.com>
Cc: UNIX Heritage Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] SCO sues IBM?
I can assure you that the email from Dion Johnson was and is genuine.
The release of "Ancient UNIX" under a BSD license was agreed to by
Ransom Love (then president and CEO of Caldera), Drew Spencer
(then CTO of Caldera), Dion, myself and others.
I realise that some people are concerned that they can no longer find
the "Ancient UNIX" license on the SCO web site - I wouldn't read too
much into that - the "Ancient UNIX" stuff was always tucked away in
an obscure corner - I suspect that the link to it just got lost when we
stopped doing free evaluation licenses for the current product.
Anyway, as I said, I will try to get an "official statement" about the
"Ancient UNIX" license by the end of the week - I expect that statement
will simply re-affirm what you already know - ie that it has been released
under a BSD license, and possibly re-emphasize the fact that System III,
and System V are *NOT* covered by that license.
(However, I am *not* in a position where I can make such a statement
on behalf on SCO which is why I'm afraid you will have to wait a few
days so that I can get you the "official" position).
On 2003-Mar-10 14:21:00 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp
<jss(a)subatomix.com> wrote:
>On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Michael Davidson wrote:
>> I will, however, ask for an "official" statement of SCO's current
position
>> on "Ancient UNIX"
>
>But once they've released it under a BSD-style license, it is released.
They
>simply can't unrelease it. They don't
have to continue distributing it,
but
>they can't stop me from doing what the
license explicitly allows. So
their
current
position WRT ancient UNIX may not mave much legal weight. IANAL,
TINLA.
AFAIK, the only evidence we have that it is released under a BSD-style
license is an e-mail allegedly from an authorised person within SCO.
Warren has not been able to find an equivalent statement on their
website. I suspect Warren is concerned that they could claim it was
never released - ie the e-mail is a faked/forged or the sender didn't
have the authority to make the claims therein.