[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[Robert Tillyard]

I believe the legal action is over breach on contract with IBM and not on
copyright issues.

But if it turns out the IBM is guilty of lifting SCO code and putting it
into Linux I think SCO does have the right to get a bit upset about it,
after all I wouldn't be to happy if I had to compete with a product that's
just about free and contains code that I wrote.

Regards, Rob.

On 29/5/03 8:49 am, "Mike Haertel" <mike at ducky.net> wrote:

>> Here's a question of interest not to the Linux community but to
>> the TUHS one: if, as Novell now claim, the 1995 agreement didn't
>> convey the UNIX copyrights to SCO, under what right did SCO issue
>> the Ancient UNIX Source Code agreements, whether the restrictive
>> version of early 1998 or the do-as-you-like Caldera letter of early
>> 2002?  Are those agreements really valid?
> 
> You can have the right to sublicense something without owning
> the copyright.  You can even have the right to sublicense the
> right to sublicense without owning the copyright, and so on.
> It all depends on your contract with the real copyright holder.
> 
> This is probably how the contract for Novell's "sale" of Unix
> to (old) SCO was written.
> 
> But only the real copyright holder can bring a legal action
> against copyright violators.  And judging from recent press
> releases it would seem that Novell feels it is under no
> contractual obligation to do so on (new) SCO's behalf.