SCO/Caldera letter (AD2002)

[Robert Brockway]

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, JoeHill wrote:

> > http://www.lemis.com/grog/UNIX/
>
> Waitaminnit, doesn't this mean that SCO, formerly Caldera, has already
> released their supposed IP, the UNIX source, under a BSD license,
> meaning it is essentially freely distributable?
>
> Or does "ancient UNIX releases (V1-7 and 32V)" *not* include the SysV
> code they claim is still theirs and has been copied into the Linux
> kernel?

I wondered the same thing but honestly have no idea.  I suspect that parts
of SysV would be identical to the earlier versions and that those parts
would now be completely under a BSD licence.  As for the rest of SysV I
can't comment.

This all assumes that they can produce a shred of evidence of course.  A
list of files doesn't cut it unless they plan to claim complete ownership
of the files, which they haven't done afaik.

Caldera/SCO don't seem to be good at tracking the code they release under
the BSD licence though. I think they were embarrassed when it was shown
within hours that the code they showed during the Road Show had in fact
been released under a BSD licence by themselves (but was released
seperately to the code mentioned above).  Their subsequent revisionist
history[1] didn't convince anyone I know.

[1] They denied making the claim that the code was an example of the
"stolen" code and instead claimed it was just an example of code in the
kernel.  Lamest attempt to hide a mistake I've ever seen.

Rob


-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
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