Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
Posted Jun 11, 2010 10:44 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)In reply to: Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw) by lkundrak
Parent article: Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
Basically, the history is AT&T spun "all things Unix" into Unix System Laboratories (USL). They formed a joint venture with Novell called Univel, which Novell then bought out, taking over USL.
So, at this point, Novell owns all things Unix. At about this point, they also folded in the BSD lawsuit. This placed the legal ownership of the Unix copyrights in considerable doubt (AT&T had sold Unix as a "trade secret". In doing so, they stripped ALL copyright notices. Note that it's illegal to remove someone else's copyright notice ... Then they decided to sell Unix as a copyrighted program so they put THEIR OWN copyright notices on everything. Note that it's illegal to stick your copyright on someone else's work...)
When Novell sold to Santa Cruz, they sold the "ongoing business" but explicitly did not sell any copyrights other than the documentation. Caldera/SCOG then bought that business from Santa Cruz, claimed that they owned "the Unix copyrights", and started suing world+dog.
So all this ruling says is that (a) SCOG didn't get the copyrights because Novell didn't sell them, and (b) they had no right to do what they've done because the Novell/SantaCruz contract said they couldn't do it. The ruling says absolutely nothing about what Novell owns, it just says that, whatever that was, Novell didn't sell it. And the majority opinion on Groklaw is that "whatever Novell owns" is pretty much "whatever Novell wrote" ie their own Unixware code and that's it.
Cheers,
Wol
Posted Jun 11, 2010 10:52 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Again, the answer is "no-one knows".
The *suspicion* is that all the ancient stuff THAT WAS OWNED BY AT&T was Public Domain before Caldera released it. The problem is, that a lot of it was copyright other people, so neither Novell NOR Caldera actually had the legal right to release it. That doesn't matter much, though, because nobody actually cares.
And I think Novell are on record as giving Caldera permission - INASMUCH AS THEY HAD THE RIGHT TO DO SO. So no, I don't think Caldera had the *right* to do as they did, but they did have Novell's *permission* to do as much as Novell could do. And I don't think any of the affected third parties (eg University College London, Wollongong University, etc) gives a monkey.
Cheers,
Posted Jun 11, 2010 12:13 UTC (Fri)
by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452)
[Link] (8 responses)
I thought this was long settled. A wikipedia article states, that USL had to put the UCB copyright notices back into their source files. I was told that in U.S. you can actually sell/transfer copyright. Is that false? So, in case Novell could tell which code is from UCB, which is from USL and which is from UnixWare, would they be able to distribute the USL and UnixWare code and license it to someone else? I mean, would they be able to e.g. open its source under a free license?
Posted Jun 11, 2010 14:31 UTC (Fri)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
[Link] (1 responses)
AFAIR, there was a dozen or so files in BSD that had to be redone before releasing the whole under the BSD license. For me this means that whatever little Unix source code property was in USL's hands was probably obsolete even then. Too many hands had had their go at it (somewhat like the current Linux situation, just not on the Internet for all to see). Later Unices (e.g. SVr4) were a remix of 5 parts BSD + 1 part USL + new organization for managing largeish "server" systems.
As I see it, part of the reason why Novell didn't sell the copyrights to SCO way back then was that nobody really knew what they owned, and finding out was too expensive (and might even have backfired, as in "we don't own anything worthwhile").
Posted Jun 12, 2010 20:05 UTC (Sat)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
That doesn't mean that BSD doesn't contain large chunks of UCL, Wollongong etc code. All the BSD settlement said was that "if AT&T want to claim copyright the onus is on *them* to prove it" and "AT&T can only *prove* ownership of - I think it was six, actually - files".
The thing that really killed AT&T in court was when they presented vi as code they owned the copyright on. Berkeley promptly produced their own guy, Bill Joy, and proved he wrote it. From that point on, AT&T's claims lost all credibility.
Cheers,
Posted Jun 11, 2010 15:52 UTC (Fri)
by clugstj (subscriber, #4020)
[Link] (1 responses)
Without their permission, that is.
Of course you can sell/give away your copyright.
Posted Jun 19, 2010 3:14 UTC (Sat)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link]
Posted Jun 11, 2010 16:55 UTC (Fri)
by xtifr (guest, #143)
[Link] (3 responses)
If you buy the copyrights, then it's no longer someone else's work.
As for opening UNIX code, the problem is that it's not clear who owns the copyrights to which pieces. This case established that Novell didn't sell whatever copyrights they <em>do</em> to own to SCO, but didn't establish (since nobody asked) exactly which copyrights those were. If SCO had won either the jury trial (which asked whether the copyrights were transferred way back when) or the latest ruling (which asked for the copyrights to be transferred now), then the question of what Novell actually owns would have become very important, but as it is, it remains irrelevant.
Posted Jun 11, 2010 17:22 UTC (Fri)
by dmarti (subscriber, #11625)
[Link] (2 responses)
Anyone at Novell want to put up a similar letter?
Posted Jun 12, 2010 12:06 UTC (Sat)
by dandoernberg (guest, #67517)
[Link] (1 responses)
The rights situation re: UNIX is indeed very relevant to us. I don't think there is any question about reprinting the paper edition of the current book, but we'd want the rights issue to be 100% clear before we could (1) issue an ebook edition or (2) perhaps release an updated edition (with new features, new commentaries, additional whatevers).
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Lions' Commentary on UNIX: ISBN 978-1-57398-013-5
Posted Jun 14, 2010 8:29 UTC (Mon)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link]
Posted Jun 11, 2010 17:56 UTC (Fri)
by marduk (subscriber, #3831)
[Link]
At this point, I think it's pretty much only the lawyers who really care.
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
Wol
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
At about this point, they also folded in the BSD lawsuit. This placed the legal ownership of the Unix copyrights in considerable doubt (AT&T had sold Unix as a "trade secret". In doing so, they stripped ALL copyright notices.
Note that it's illegal to stick your copyright on someone else's work...)
Unix copyrights?
Unix copyrights?
Wol
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)
When it might matter: Reprinting the Lions Book
When it might matter: Reprinting the Lions Book
Dan Doernberg, Publisher
Peer-to-Peer Communications LLC
http://www.peerllc.com
ARPANET Sourcebook: ISBN 978-1-57398-000-5
Complete April Fools' Day RFCs: ISBN 978-1-57398-042-5
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When it might matter: Reprinting the Lions Book
Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED! (Groklaw)