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| First Reactions to Groklaw's Publishing the USL-UCal Agreement |
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Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 12:52 PM EST
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If you wish to read some reactions to Groklaw's obtaining and publishing of the 1994 USL-Regents of the University of California settlement agreement, Robert MacMillan has written a very comprehensive article, entitled "Unix lawsuit agreement raises questions for SCO --
A 10-year-old settlement agreement grants developers the right to redistribute much of the Unix source code that SCO claims to own." It's on Infoworld, Techworld, and ComputerWeekly. MacWorld has a brief article, too.
He interviewed an IP attorney, Jeff Norman, Bruce Perens, Kirk McKusick, and analyst Dion Cornett, and they all agree that the agreement terms raise questions about SCO's rights. SCO declined to comment. I consider that Groklaw's greatest achievement yet.
Bruce Perens: "The agreement actually gives people rights to redistribute [Unix] software that they were not previously aware of," said Bruce Perens an open source advocate and one of the founders of the Open Source Initiative. "It makes it very clear that some of the Unix software that SCO is currently claiming as their own is distributable by the public as open source."
Attorney Jeff Norman:
Should SCO's claims prove true, the agreement's copyright notice clause could present problems for Linux developers [but not users], said Jeff Norman, an intellectual property partner with the Chicago law firm Kirkland Ellis. . . . But even if its allegations are proven, SCO might have a hard time convincing a jury that it suffered damages. The fact that the contract allows for such widespread distribution will also make it difficult for SCO to argue that the files include trade secrets, an argument that SCO has made in the past, Norman said. "Anything derived from those files is fair game," he said. "If USL allowed this code to be released and they say they're not going to sue people who used it ... it's not a secret anymore."
Kirk McKusick: Publication of the settlement agreement also serves to answer the long-standing question of whether or not the 10-year-old agreement applies to SCO itself, said Kirk McKusick, a BSD developer who was involved in the USL case. "The agreement makes it binding on all successors of USL and the university," he said. "That means that this agreement has full force and effect on SCO." This is an important point because it makes it clear that the code that was specified in the USL agreement can be freely redistributed in software like Linux and BSD, McKusick said. "Companies that use BSD have a rock solid defence if SCO were ever to go after them," he said. According to Norman, the question of whether or not SCO, which is not mentioned in the agreement, is actually bound by its terms could be debated.
Dion Cornett:
"It makes it much more burdensome for SCO to try and make their case when big chunks of what they claim to have copyright for are clearly, per this settlement, in the public domain."
There is lots more in the article, so I encourage you to hop on by and read it all.
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| Authored by: psgj on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 12:54 PM EST |
| Patrick "Office his rocker" Jacobs [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 12:56 PM EST |
| To assist PJ in her quest for accuracy. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rjamestaylor on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 12:56 PM EST |
"I consider that Groklaw's greatest achievement yet."
My thoughts exactly. For years the terms of this settlement have been sought out
and now it is published.
As one site puts it: "impacting hard..."
---
SCO delenda est! Salt their fields![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 01:07 PM EST |
| ... by Robert MacMillan. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the reason why
Unix has been passed on from one actual or alleged owner to another so
frequently in recent years is that the economic value of the source has been
seriously undermined by the BSDI settlement, with the loss of much of the
copyright and trade secret protection. The bits which IBM and others have
added remain their property, as has been fairly well established, but the
foundation code, for want of a better term, is virtually worthless, so ATT
offloaded it to USL, who offloaded it to Novell, who dumped it on the
SCOundrel's predecessor...... All because no-one was able to satisfactorily
derive profit from a "worthless" piece of code. By the way, the software is of
considerable intellectual and educational value as a piece of code, even if it
is of very limited economic value, so its best place, when this is over, and SCO
is bankrupt, would be in the public domain. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 01:12 PM EST |
| Or rather, lack thereof: "SCO declined to comment on this story." [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 01:21 PM EST |
| It's Kirk McKusick not Keith. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:27 PM EST |
If all these recent news are so bad for SCO (and i can't see otherwise), why its
stock is going to the Moon?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- i'm clueless - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:30 PM EST
- i'm clueless - Authored by: frk3 on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:31 PM EST
- Or 4) - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:52 PM EST
- Or 5) - Authored by: thinman on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 03:16 PM EST
- i'm clueless too .... but I was told - Authored by: savage on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:57 PM EST
- oil is down, wall street is up - Authored by: ray08 on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 04:37 PM EST
- i'm clueless - Authored by: lordshipmayhem on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 05:35 PM EST
- i'm clueless - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 06:03 PM EST
- i'm clueless - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 06:55 PM EST
- i'm clueless - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 07:00 PM EST
- i'm clueless - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 09:45 PM EST
- Christmas Bonus from their puppet masters? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 03 2004 @ 12:27 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:33 PM EST |
SCO declined to comment. I consider that Groklaw's greatest achievement
yet.
LOL, not sure if you meant this the way it sounds, but it
sounds HILARIOUS! Now if only we could shut them up permanently.....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brain1 on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:37 PM EST |
Great job, PJ and all who contributed to making this document public!
My mind boggles at the benefits to all in the open source community that this
will bring, well beyond the present fiaSCO.
Groklaw continues to serve the community of us open-source developers in ways
that are hard to express.
A very hearty thank you! Keep up the good work!
-Dave [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: star-dot-h on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:41 PM EST |
Goog to see Groklaw can retain its humour:
"SCO declined to comment. I consider that Groklaw's greatest achievement
yet."
Another laugh out lound moment from PJ - thanks.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- hehe - Authored by: Observer on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:50 PM EST
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| Authored by: Observer on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:45 PM EST |
| I have to agree. I've seen some pretty astounding stuff here, stuff that made me
raise my eyebrows, stuff that I might even consider "historical", but nothing
like this. The sealed BSD agreement has been a piece of UNIX history for many
years. It's not on the same level as the Berlin Wall coming down, but it's a
similar sort of feeling -- a fundamental bit of history that just crumbled right
before our eyes.
Nice work! ---
The Observer [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 02:48 PM EST |
| It's a good piece of sarcasm to say that getting SCO to decline to comment is an
achievement. But getting the agreement _is_ Groklaws greatest achievement.
However, we have to remember that it would not have happened had there not been
wave after wave of smaller achievements that came before. I'm sure dburns would
not have gone to the effort otherwise. (dburns, are you reading, do you have a
comment?)
Tom Mathews (some day I'll open a real account) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: StLawrence on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 03:10 PM EST |
Message to SCO: "All your bits are belong to us."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 04:26 PM EST |
PJ, you greatest acomplishment is the founding of a whole new way of doing law.
This is just an example of its outcome.
On Groklaw, all FUD is shallow![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Christian on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 05:58 PM EST |
| For example, from the Kirk McKusick article: "Publication of the settlement
agreement also serves to answer the long-standing question of whether or not the
10-year-old agreement applies to SCO itself."
This and many of the comments
above seem to be written assuming that SCO in fact owns the SysV copyrights.
Isn't the successor in interest to the agreements Novell?
Am I missing
something?
SCO is so wrong that even if they were right, they'd still be
wrong. In other words, IBM can argue certain things saying that SCO does not
have the copyrights, but even if they did, it wouldn't matter because of this
agreement. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 06:05 PM EST |
"Bruce Perens: "The agreement actually gives people rights to
redistribute [Unix] software that they were not previously aware of,"
So there is code that people have not been distributing but could? Important
code?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Trepalium on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 10:06 PM EST |
Gazing into my unreliable crystal ball, I have to wonder if any of the following
are possible next moves for SCO.
- Further trying to link Groklaw and PJ
to IBM, and by that link try to insinuate that the settlement is fake. (The
press has sometimes bought this without any real evidence)
- Claim that IBM
leaked the document to Groklaw (SCO's recent filing have accused IBM of
'hacking' their FTP site, so no lie is too ridiculous for them)
- Trying to
file a lawsuit against Groklaw to get the settlement removed (even though it's
too late. The cat's out of the bag)
Then again, predicting SCO's actions
is a little like trying to predict the weather. You can try your best and still
get it completely wrong.---
$ apt-get moo [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tredman on Thursday, December 02 2004 @ 10:09 PM EST |
It's getting late, and being Thursday, almost all my brain cells have started
shutting down.
Somebody correct my memory if I'm off my rocker here, but didn't Darla McBride
mention in the beginning of this three-ringer that much of the bedrock of this
case rested on the BSDi/AT&T sealed agreement, and that if people knew what
was in that agreement, they would see how solid SCOX's beef was? Is this the
agreement he was speaking of?
Granted, the whole BSDi v AT&T spat was because of the educational license
instead of the commercial one, as I understand it the educational license was
actually more restrictive than the commercial one.
This is precisely why most lawyers would have shut Darla up the minute he
started opening his mouth.
Also, if this is what we have to look forward to in the event that G2 actually
succeeds and gets some of the privileged information unsealed, this case might
be over by Easter, at this rate, anyway.
Tim[ Reply to This | # ]
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