And we thought they were dead :-)

[Jerry Feldman]

On 07/11/2010 09:24 AM, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
>> If I recall, this is probably related to the original AT&T vs. BSD back
>> in the 90s, but this was settled out of court. If I remember correctly,
>> Eric Raymond wrote a position paper asserting this back in 2003:
>> http://catb.org/~esr/hackerlore/sco-vs-ibm.html
>>     
> As I have written before:
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org/msg28058.html
>
> the original SCO under Doug Michels had given code to "Linux" and had
> taken code from "Linux".  Since this was done freely and without duress,
> I think it would be hard to prove that Linux developers infringed SCO's
> copyrights.
>
> I found this interview with Doug from about 3 years ago....interesting
> to watch for historical value:
>
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2340931131449512735#
>
> 0-15:34 is about the founding of SCO and their dealings with AT&T and
> Microsoft.  15:34 to 18:48 is about why he sold SCO to Caldera.
>
>   
You certainly did. The SCO vs. Novell case is much about whether the
copyrights passed to SCO via the APA.  I really don't know why tSCOG
went after IBM so hard in the first place. I think that they didn't know
what they got from SCO.  Doug was pretty clear that they did not buy
everything from Novell. I believe that the Caldera management may not
have realized that SCO did not own the Unix copyrights. I think that the
original Caldera plans under Ransom Love were entirely different from
the Darl McBride vision.
What amazes me at the moment is why tSCOG under ch. 11 is pushing the
litigation so hard. This is where I see some invisible hand in the
background, such as Yarrow or even Microsoft.

But, while I might agree that it would be difficult to prove both
copyright and patent infringement, it still places a dark cloud over
Linux from the standpoint of businesses who want to use it. Since the
Linux vendors are indemnifying Linux, and have been since the Darl
empire struck, it is still around until a stake is driven into the heart
of tSCOG, whether that will be done by the 10th circuit or yet another
Federal judge who knows. Stewart seemed to be more pro tSCOG than was
Kimball. If the 10th district decides to send it back again, I would
love to see it go back to Kimball.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846


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