17 Jul
2008
17 Jul
'08
2:18 p.m.
Following up to recent questions about whether OpenSolaris might be jeopardized
if SCO didn't have the rights to provide the license, I see that judge Kimball
has ruled on the case, and in discussing its ruling, he mentions the agreement
between SCO and Sun.
Particularly he mentions:
Section 10 of the 2003 Sun Agreement also sets forth
SCO's obligation
to indemnify Sun for any claim brought against Sun asserting that the
Section 4 licensed technology infringes the rights of any third parties.
Section 10 further provides that if the intellectual property rights
in the technology become the subject of a claim of infringement, SCO
shall ensure that Sun has the right to continue to use the technology
or replace the technology to make it non-infringing. The provision has
not been implicated or applied.
I have to change my opinion on SCO to consider them now UNIX zealots. As
I read it, I guess Sun was worried by possibly non-ATT code in SVRX, and
may be by Novell's assertions, so they shielded themselves: if I'm not
wrong that means OpenSolaris is safe and the responsibility for that relies
totally on SCO.
SCO thus was willing to take any risks regarding third parties with respect
to opening up SVRX derived Solaris. That was very bold and valiant (though
seeminglymay be wrong) from them. Why they decided to allow open sourcing
via Sun instead of Unixware is their choice. I guess they thought it would
play better for them to sell a 'closed' Unixware as an 'enhanced' or
'better
product' than open solaris. It also fits within Caldera's previous opening
other ancient UNIX.
My guess is they were for opening SVRX as a way to increase market share
of UNIX against LINUX but preferred Sun to open _their_ version instead of
opening SCO's own. At the same time they must have thought that a combined
attack on Linux would drive most people off Linux towards opensource UNIX
and that corporate interests would prefer SCO's closed Unixware to Sun's
open source solution in line with tradition.
But then comes the last sentence: the issue of opensolaris damage to the
closedness of SVRX was not brought up at trial. May be it wasn't the time
and place, or may be Novell reasoned that it does not matter to them to
offer one open source system (linux) or other (solaris). I'd also guess
given Novell involvement in SuSE that they would have liked to open
SVRX all along but didn't dare to because of possible complains by
existing licensees (like IBM or HP) who might see their licenses as
oblivious, and -most probably- because it was never very clear whether
all code could be open or belonged to them (sort of like Linux going to
GPL3: it's difficult to identify all contributors and ask their permission).
Thus SCO move benefits them twice as now they have two open source OSes,
and should any contributor to SVRX code complain of the open sourcing
SCO would have to take the blame and has already assumed all
responsibility.
BTW, nobody seems to have complained about portions of SVRX contributed
code being in opensolaris, so maybe nobody cared anyway, but it might
also be that they were waiting to see the case unravel. In any case, we
now know SCO has assumed the defense of OpenSolaris, which is a great
thing to know.
My kudos to SCO. They were bolder than I thought. Even if -IMHO- their
strategy against Linux was misled, their willingness to support open
solaris deserves respect.
Or may be they didn't want to but needed so badly Sun's money to follow
their lawsuit against IBM that they were willing to sell their souls
(and IP) in the hope of a big win against IBM. Who knows?
One thing is certain, Caldera/SCO should be thanked for allowing opening
of so much ancient -and modern- UNIX source code. Their war against Linux
OTOH is another issue.
j
--
These opinions are mine and only mine. Hey man, I saw them first!
José R. Valverde
De nada sirve la Inteligencia Artificial cuando falta la Natural
17 Jul
17 Jul
9:55 p.m.
Hello!
Good to know.
However that's only valid for those individuals who are still running older
versions of Solaris.
It would not have impacted any version of Solaris, including the Open one.
And why you are asking? I am glad you asked. It seems that according to the
good people at the Sun offices here in the City, that by the time version 9
was released, that the code base was completely rewritten, and contains
absolutely nothing from BSD, and most certainly nothing from the original
creators of UNIX.
The fact that we can login on to a Sun system the same way we can logon to
an emulated PDP-11 running the Seventh Edition of UNIX is clearly meant to
be that way. (BSD2.11 included but not presumed.)
Besides, those zealots at SCO only wanted to go out of business making all
of us look foolish, I am very glad that it backfired and they are the ones
looking foolish, because in the end it ruined the work habits of a lot of
good people, and destroyed a lot of good software as well. (Not the stuff we
discuss, related in function however.)
--
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon(a)worldnet.att.net
"The Force will be with you always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
-----Original Message-----
From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org]
On Behalf
Of Jose R. Valverde
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 4:18 AM
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] IANAL. Kimball has ruled
Following up to recent questions about whether OpenSolaris might be
jeopardized
if SCO didn't have the rights to provide the
license, I see that judge
Kimball
has ruled on the case, and in discussing its ruling,
he mentions the
agreement
between SCO and Sun.
Particularly he mentions:
relies
Section 10 of the 2003 Sun Agreement also sets
forth SCO's obligation
to indemnify Sun for any claim brought against Sun asserting that the
Section 4 licensed technology infringes the rights of any third parties.
Section 10 further provides that if the intellectual property rights
in the technology become the subject of a claim of infringement, SCO
shall ensure that Sun has the right to continue to use the technology
or replace the technology to make it non-infringing. The provision has
not been implicated or applied.
I have to change my opinion on SCO to consider them now UNIX zealots. As
I read it, I guess Sun was worried by possibly non-ATT code in SVRX, and
may be by Novell's assertions, so they shielded themselves: if I'm not
wrong that means OpenSolaris is safe and the responsibility for that totally on SCO.
SCO thus was willing to take any risks regarding third parties with
respect
to opening up SVRX derived Solaris. That was very bold
and valiant (though
seeminglymay be wrong) from them. Why they decided to allow open sourcing
via Sun instead of Unixware is their choice. I guess they thought it would
play better for them to sell a 'closed' Unixware as an 'enhanced' or
'better
product' than open solaris. It also fits within
Caldera's previous opening
other ancient UNIX.
My guess is they were for opening SVRX as a way to increase market share
of UNIX against LINUX but preferred Sun to open _their_ version instead of
opening SCO's own. At the same time they must have thought that a combined
attack on Linux would drive most people off Linux towards opensource UNIX
and that corporate interests would prefer SCO's closed Unixware to Sun's
open source solution in line with tradition.
But then comes the last sentence: the issue of opensolaris damage to the
closedness of SVRX was not brought up at trial. May be it wasn't the time
and place, or may be Novell reasoned that it does not matter to them to
offer one open source system (linux) or other (solaris). I'd also guess
given Novell involvement in SuSE that they would have liked to open
SVRX all along but didn't dare to because of possible complains by
existing licensees (like IBM or HP) who might see their licenses as
oblivious, and -most probably- because it was never very clear whether
all code could be open or belonged to them (sort of like Linux going to
GPL3: it's difficult to identify all contributors and ask their
permission).
Thus SCO move benefits them twice as now they have two
open source OSes,
and should any contributor to SVRX code complain of the open sourcing
SCO would have to take the blame and has already assumed all
responsibility.
BTW, nobody seems to have complained about portions of SVRX contributed
code being in opensolaris, so maybe nobody cared anyway, but it might
also be that they were waiting to see the case unravel. In any case, we
now know SCO has assumed the defense of OpenSolaris, which is a great
thing to know.
My kudos to SCO. They were bolder than I thought. Even if -IMHO- their
strategy against Linux was misled, their willingness to support open
solaris deserves respect.
Or may be they didn't want to but needed so badly Sun's money to follow
their lawsuit against IBM that they were willing to sell their souls
(and IP) in the hope of a big win against IBM. Who knows?
One thing is certain, Caldera/SCO should be thanked for allowing opening
of so much ancient -and modern- UNIX source code. Their war against Linux
OTOH is another issue.
j
--
These opinions are mine and only mine. Hey man, I saw them first!
José R. Valverde
De nada sirve la Inteligencia Artificial cuando falta la Natural
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
9:58 p.m.
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:55:53AM -0400, Gregg C Levine wrote:
It would not have impacted any version of Solaris,
including the Open one.
And why you are asking? I am glad you asked. It seems that according to the
good people at the Sun offices here in the City, that by the time version 9
was released, that the code base was completely rewritten, and contains
absolutely nothing from BSD, and most certainly nothing from the original
creators of UNIX.
Nonsense. Read bmap.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
10:18 p.m.
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:55:53AM -0400, Gregg C Levine wrote:
Hello!
Good to know.
However that's only valid for those individuals who are still running older
versions of Solaris.
It would not have impacted any version of Solaris, including the Open one.
And why you are asking? I am glad you asked. It seems that according to the
good people at the Sun offices here in the City, that by the time version 9
was released, that the code base was completely rewritten, and contains
absolutely nothing from BSD, and most certainly nothing from the original
creators of UNIX.
That is, of course, absurd, and whoever told you that doesn't have much of
a grasp of the source base. Yes, gobs of stuff has been rewritten --
but plenty of code dates from Back in the Day, especially in userland.
For evidence of this, I point (as I often do) to troff, and files like
http://src.opensolaris.org/source/xref/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/troff/n5.c,
which has had very little modification in the 18 years since The Merge,
and still contains comments like this gem:
/*
* The following routines are concerned with setting terminal options.
* The manner of doing this differs between research/Berkeley systems
* and UNIX System V systems (i.e. DOCUMENTER'S WORKBENCH)
* The distinction is controlled by the #define'd variable USG,
* which must be set by System V users.
*/
And those who know their history already know the punchline: much of
that code isn't going to change because (1) it basically works and (2) the
engineer who wrote it -- Joe Ossanna -- is dead, having died of a heart attack
in 1977. (This code is legend among Solaris developers; see, for example,
http://blogs.sun.com/eschrock/entry/real_life_obfuscated_code.)
- Bryan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan Cantrill, Sun Microsystems Fishworks. http://blogs.sun.com/bmc
11:12 p.m.
Bryan Cantrill scripsit:
but plenty of code dates from Back in the Day,
especially in userland.
For evidence of this, I point (as I often do) to troff, and files like
http://src.opensolaris.org/source/xref/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/troff/n5.c,
which has had very little modification in the 18 years since The Merge,
Another example, at the opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum, is cal,
which does exactly what it is supposed to and has not been changed
since at least 7th edition days, except to add a modest amount of i18n.
The GNU version has a few more options, as is typical, but still produces
exactly the same output as the 7th Edn. running under apout.
and still contains comments like this gem:
Indeed, both ditroff and Plan 9 troff are directly descended from
JFO's code. Only groff is independent, which just goes to show what a
heroic programmer (in a quiet way) James Clark really is (as do nsgmls
and jing/trang).
The Law of James Clark: If you think James is wrong on a matter of fact,
you have another think coming.
--
But you, Wormtongue, you have done what you could for your true master. Some
reward you have earned at least. Yet Saruman is apt to overlook his bargains.
I should advise you to go quickly and remind him, lest he forget your faithful
service. --Gandalf John Cowan <cowan(a)ccil.org>
11:27 p.m.
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:12:05PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
Indeed, both ditroff and Plan 9 troff are directly
descended from
JFO's code. Only groff is independent, which just goes to show what a
heroic programmer (in a quiet way) James Clark really is (as do nsgmls
and jing/trang).
As a still-using-troff sort of person, I can vouch for James. Wow.
Cool stuff. And groff really is mucho better than the original.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
11:32 p.m.
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)bitmover.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:12:05PM -0400, John Cowan
wrote:
Perhaps, but it's not as good as Heirloom Troff, which is based on the
"real" sources, but adds lots of groff's features PLUS adds a new font
system that allows for the trasparent use of unmodified Type 1,
Truetype and even OpenType (including all the fancy stuff) fonts AND
tweaks the various typesetting algorithms for MUCH nicer results.
Indeed, both ditroff and Plan 9 troff are
directly descended from
JFO's code. Only groff is independent, which just goes to show what a
heroic programmer (in a quiet way) James Clark really is (as do nsgmls
and jing/trang).
As a still-using-troff sort of person, I can vouch for James. Wow.
Cool stuff. And groff really is mucho better than the original. 
10:33 p.m.
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008, Jose R. Valverde wrote:
I have to change my opinion on SCO to consider them
now UNIX zealots. As
I read it, I guess Sun was worried by possibly non-ATT code in SVRX, and
may be by Novell's assertions, so they shielded themselves: if I'm not
wrong that means OpenSolaris is safe and the responsibility for that
relies totally on SCO.
SCO thus was willing to take any risks regarding third parties with
respect to opening up SVRX derived Solaris. That was very bold and
valiant (though seeminglymay be wrong) from them. Why they decided to
allow open sourcing via Sun instead of Unixware is their choice. I guess
they thought it would play better for them to sell a 'closed' Unixware
as an 'enhanced' or 'better product' than open solaris. It also fits
within Caldera's previous opening other ancient UNIX.
My guess is they were for opening SVRX as a way to increase market share
of UNIX against LINUX but preferred Sun to open _their_ version instead
of opening SCO's own. At the same time they must have thought that a
combined attack on Linux would drive most people off Linux towards
opensource UNIX and that corporate interests would prefer SCO's closed
Unixware to Sun's open source solution in line with tradition.
Caldera/SCO was trying to get everything opensourced. They released
OpenUNIX 8.0 which was UnixWare 7.1.2. They had reached an agreement with
every one and were about to release everything a the big expo in Jan/Feb
east cost. It was to be a joint IBM/SCO announcement, when IBM suddenly
decided against it and were addamanly now doing everything to stop it.
IBM was the "big bad guy". What I never could understand is how the roles
got reversed and IBM the anti opensource and SCO the pro opensource
changed places. I was working with both groups and could not understand
why IBM was being such a big pain. Shortly after it came the SCO law
suit. I thought it was going to be about IBM renigging on making things
OpenSOURCE. I really can not understand just how the roles were changed
so much. It was my understanding that the SUN deal was to add to the big
change and making things better for UNIX in general.
I am grateful to SCO for their attempt to make UnixWare/OpenUNIX
opensource. I just wish it had succedded.
--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb(a)zenez.com>
ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047
11:04 p.m.
Quoting Boyd Lynn Gerber, who wrote on Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 10:33:12AM -0600 ..
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008, Jose R. Valverde wrote:
** lawyers **
that is the keyword here :)
Wilko
I have to change my opinion on SCO to consider
them now UNIX zealots. As
I read it, I guess Sun was worried by possibly non-ATT code in SVRX, and
may be by Novell's assertions, so they shielded themselves: if I'm not
wrong that means OpenSolaris is safe and the responsibility for that
relies totally on SCO.
SCO thus was willing to take any risks regarding third parties with
respect to opening up SVRX derived Solaris. That was very bold and
valiant (though seeminglymay be wrong) from them. Why they decided to
allow open sourcing via Sun instead of Unixware is their choice. I guess
they thought it would play better for them to sell a 'closed' Unixware
as an 'enhanced' or 'better product' than open solaris. It also fits
within Caldera's previous opening other ancient UNIX.
My guess is they were for opening SVRX as a way to increase market share
of UNIX against LINUX but preferred Sun to open _their_ version instead
of opening SCO's own. At the same time they must have thought that a
combined attack on Linux would drive most people off Linux towards
opensource UNIX and that corporate interests would prefer SCO's closed
Unixware to Sun's open source solution in line with tradition.
Caldera/SCO was trying to get everything opensourced. They released
OpenUNIX 8.0 which was UnixWare 7.1.2. They had reached an agreement with
every one and were about to release everything a the big expo in Jan/Feb
east cost. It was to be a joint IBM/SCO announcement, when IBM suddenly
decided against it and were addamanly now doing everything to stop it.
IBM was the "big bad guy". What I never could understand is how the roles
18 Jul
18 Jul
2:51 a.m.
Boyd Lynn Gerber <gerberb(a)zenez.com> wrote:
Caldera/SCO was trying to get everything opensourced.
They released OpenUNIX 8.0 which was UnixWare 7.1.2.
They had reached an agreement with every one and were
about to release everything a the big expo in Jan/Feb east
cost. It was to be a joint IBM/SCO announcement, when
IBM suddenly decided against it and were addamanly
nowdoing everything to stop it. IBM was the "big bad guy".
What I never could understand is how the roles got reversed
and IBM the anti opensource and SCO the pro open source
changed places.
It wasn't as simple as that - I was there (at SCO) at the time and,
while it is true that the Caldera management at the time they
acquired SCO's UNIX business (Ransome Love) was in favor of
open sourcing everything it never came even close to actually
happening. The main reason was that both SCO UnixWare and
OpenServer were heavily encumbered with lots of bits of third
party code and their associated licensing agreements and it
was, for practical purposes, impossible to either negotiate
agreements with all of the third parties or remove the code in
question,
As for why Caldera/SCO changed their position - that is simple.
It happened overnight when the management changed and
Darl McBride replaced Ransom Love.
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9 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Boyd Lynn Gerber -
Bryan Cantrill -
Gregg C Levine -
John Cowan -
Jose R. Valverde -
lm＠bitmover.com -
Michael Davidson -
Michael Kerpan -
Wilko Bulte