26 Jan
2004
26 Jan
'04
2:54 p.m.
It's a bit more complicated than that, so no one should rush out and claim that
System III is public domain. Omission from this set of documentation does not
mean that no one owns it. Instead, it means that the original owner still owns
it. Whether that is AT&T, Unix Systems Labs, now defunct, or the lawful owners
of its assets, Lucent Technologies, Novell or SCO is uncertain, but there is an
owner.
In my opinion, the original asset purchase agreement and follow on amendments
were poorly written and do not address the actual ownership of intellectual
property. It is my opinion that they have confused license to use and
distribute with ownership, i.e., copyright. They would have done well to look
at book contracts and author agreements for a model.
Of course, that is my opinion, not that of HP or anyone associated with HP. In
addition, I am not a lawyer and anyone affected by these matters should seek
legal counsel prior to taking any action.
Pat
Wesley Parish wrote:
I just thought of a reason _why_ Caldera was unable to
clarify the status of
System III - if you look at the documents on Groklaw.net,
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=legal-docs
one of them's a document between Novell and SCO Original, where the System V
releases are enumerated. Another is a similar document which mentions the
Ancient Unix and their manuals as being part of the deal.
Neither document that I can recall, mentions anything about System III - and
apparently Warren Toomey had to supply them with that, so it would appear
that System III is - quite literally - unclaimed by anyone, apart from its
copyright notices, and thus - since neither The SCO Group nor Novell has laid
claim to it in their copyright battle - it could well be considered Public
Domain.
Just a thought, and don't take my word for it.
--
Things could always be worse; for instance, you could be ugly and work in the
Post Office. -- Adrienne E. Gusoff