An open letter to SCO

Posted Jun 12, 2003 9:43 UTC (Thu) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]

I really would like to see that part of the license that say that SCO can't do what they want with the code they own.

Not all of the System V revision 4 source is SCO or Novell copyright. Parts that came from Xenix, for example, are copyright Microsoft.

Besides, it's possible that some of the major vendors would have wanted assurances, before they paid millions of dollars for Unix rights, that the owners (whoever they were) wouldn't then give those rights away for next to nothing to the vendor's biggest competitor.

These licences aren't your standard Microsoft EULA: if a potential Microsoft end user objects to the terms, Microsoft doesn't have much financial interest in rewriting the terms. If a potential Unix licensee objects to terms in a multi-million-dollar licence agreement, AT&T / Novell / SCO / Caldera / SCO Too will look very closely at whether changing the agreement allows them to keep the deal and / or charge them more...

We've seen some of the language from Novell's and SCO's lawyers in the titbits of the ownership transfer agreements. Are you surprised that even the SCO lawyers aren't sure about what they can and can't publish?

James.