[TUHS] SCO sues IBM?

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2003-Mar-10 14:21:00 -0600, Jeffrey Sharp <jss at 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.

What would you do if SCO's lawyers came knocking on your door and
demanded you cease distributing ancient UNIX or derived products?
Whilst you could probably prove the authenticity of the e-mail, this
would cost real money - and SCO probably can afford to spend a lot
more money than you can.

The date of the e-mail may also be a crucial issue - since IBM would
presumably have the right to use the code after SCO changed the code
to a BSD license.

IANAL, TINLA etc.

Peter