[TUHS] Current Status of AT&T/USL Licensing?

[Warner Losh]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 2:25 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> Where I'm going with this is just another angle on the whole "who owns
> System V"
> question which comes up in my mind all the time.  Knowing the specific
> legal
> entities involved in the most recent licensing documentation would
> certainly
> factor into understanding the landscape a little better.
>

We don't even know, for sure, who owns Unix, apart from The Open Group
definitely owns the trademark and the whole POSIX stuff. Though we can
make some good guesses.

Novell had the copyrights, as far as anybody could tell. Let's assume that
was
true (not a big leap, but a point that's been contested in the past). They
sold
it to attachmate, who sold it to MicroFocus who sold it to OpenText. At
least
that's the paper trail, except the last step, that I think I can document
on the
US copyright registration web site. There's changes that release interest
in the
copyright filed 1/31/2023, which corresponds with the sale to OpenText. But
I can't find OpenText's name on the new copyright paperwork, which is a bit
weird
since the older filings for the sale to MicroFocus have their name on it.
It's part of
a huge bundle of works transferred (like 1800 works). It includes System V,
System V
release 2; release 3; release 4, unixware and a couple of other things
you'd expect
to find here. But nothing for OpenText or Open Text that I saw. I'm sure
those
more skilled than I will surface those records.

https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search%5FArg=Unix%20System%20V&Search%5FCode=TALL&CNT=25&REC=0&RD=0&RC=0&PID=Yig8CwgSX_JCL5yGUgrC0eBzQf4i16&SEQ=20250408171535&SID=3
might be useful to people to mine further.

I imagine that OpenText is still getting at least a tiny royalty stream
from sales
of System V derived software, but I can't imagine that would be very large
since
I recall reading IBM, Digital, Sun and SGI all getting "paid up" licenses
that required
no future royalty. But I have no original sources for this information.

Interestingly enough,on the above loc.gov web site, there's nothing for 6th
edition, 7th
edition or 32V or any of the variations I could think of. This fits with
Clem's assertion
that these were only trade secrets whose secret status was blown up decades
ago.
System III also has no registration (though System 3 found too many IBM
System/3
systems to be a useful search).

Warner
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