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After Caldera.com's Robots.txt is Removed, Some Evidence Surfaces
Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 02:55 PM EDT

Now that SCO has sold off the caldera.com domain name, their previous robots.txt file no longer blocks access to the legacy Caldera web pages on Internet Archive. And what has popped up?

Some evidence that I believe proves that the SCOsource licensing program in 2004 was a right to use SVRX code, which would make it code SCO has to pay royalties received to Novell and which it must ask Novell's permission to license under the terms of the APA. That is not what SCOfolk testified to at the bench trial in 2008, where they presented the SCOsource license as protection from litigation or in one case as shared libraries. So this is a new piece of evidence to add to the pile that indeed at least some of the SCOsource licenses were right to use licenses for SVRX code.

Here's the page that now resolves properly on Internet Archive: SCO's SCOsource License Program page. The page describes the licensing offering that was SCOsource as of 2004:

Since the license pertains to SCO IP that the end user already received in the unauthorized Linux distribution, the SCO license doesn’t include a media kit.
See? SCOsource was not just about buying SCO off so they wouldn't sue you. The conceit was that Linux users had already received the code, albeit improperly in SCO's twisted thinking, so no code needed to be distributed with the license. They already had it.

Why is that important? Well, for one thing, Judge Dale Kimball ruled otherwise:

Separate from its licensing of products, SCO began entering into SCOsource licensing agreements that were unique in that they did not involve product. Instead, these license agreements were waivers and releases of conduct based on the buyer's use of Linux.
I believe now, based on the resurfaced Caldera web page, that he erred when he ruled that those SCOsource licenses were chiefly about avoiding litigation and not about product. He also ruled:
The central features of the SCOsource agreements are a covenant not to sue and a waiver of claims by SCO for the buyer's internal Linux usage. The agreements grant rights and a license to use SCO IP. "SCO IP" is defined as SCO UNIX-based code, and "UNIX-based Code" is defined to mean "UNIX System V or UnixWare, or (v) any modification or derivative work based on or licensed under UNIX System V or UnixWare." The purpose of these licenses was to excuse the licensee's purported infringement of SCO's IP.

SCO IP is defined in the agreements to include UNIX System V, which would appear to include SVRX. But given the terms of the amended APA between Novell and SCO, as this court has previously ruled, the SVRX copyrights did not transfer to SCO. Therefore, SCO IP cannot include SVRX and can only mean SCO UnixWare....

Because the SCOsource licenses cannot be construed to include a release of SVRX copyright infringement, the court does not find the licenses to be SVRX Licenses that generated SVRX Royalties to Novell under the APA. SCO could not release Novell's rights to claims based on its ownership of the SVRX copyrights. Even if the releases contained in the SCOsource Agreements were considered SVRX Licenses, there is no value in the agreements with respect to Novell's SVRX interests. As such, Novell has no entitlement to monies SCO received with respect to a release of only SCO's rights. The value of those SCOsource releases is a matter between SCO and the parties who entered into such releases. In addition, because the court concludes that the releases in the SCOsource Licenses were not SVRX Licenses, SCO had authority to execute the agreements.

I think that was error too, first because the issue should have been what SCO intended to sell, and at the time it absolutely did claim to own Unix and UnixWare; and second, because I believe the resurfaced web page proves that they meant Unix alone, as a product being licensed, in at least one SCOsource offering in 2004. I'll show you the detail that I believe proves it.

Did you notice the registered trademark symbol after the word UNIX? It's a dead give away, to me, that this is *not* UnixWare being discussed by SCO in 2004, because UnixWare has its own registered trademark, Serial Number 78833448. Unix is Serial Number 73544900, which you can confirm by doing your own search on USPTO.gov. That doesn't match SCO testimony either, of course, since they went on and on about how UnixWare and Unix were the same thing, tree trunks and branches, blah blah. Evidently, the USPTO doesn't agree that they are the same at all, and neither does X/Open Group, which owns the trademarks. And neither did SCO in 2004, when SCOsource was young, judging by its use of the UNIX trademark symbol. That trunk-is-the-tree story came later.

'Right to use' is a term you see in normal licensing of software. For example, notice the use of the term in IBM's 1985 agreement with AT&T in the Grant of Rights section:

2.01 AT&T grants to LICENSEE a personal, nontransferable and nonexclusive right to use in the United States each SOFTWARE PRODUCT identified in the one or more Supplements hereto ...
And here's the wording in EV1's SCOsource license, in its Grant of Rights section:
2.1 SCO hereby grants Licensee and Licensee hereby accepts from SCO the following limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right and license to use SCO IP ...
They are both, by my reading, offering a right to use software, meaning product. SCO's definition of "SCO IP" in that license reads, "1.10 'SCO IP' means the SCO intellectual property included in its UNIX-based Code in Object Code format licensed by SCO under SCO's standard commercial license." There were two versions of the EV1 license, which you can see compared here, but they both offer a right to use code. So despite SCO's squirrely language, it's talking about code, a right to use the code being licensed, the only difference being that normally one gets the license and code at the same time. SCO's offering was a licensing after the code allegedly was already in hand. If the various restrictions on use of the code were obeyed, *then* in section 3.0, SCO promised not to sue you. But the core of the license was the right to use the code.

Kimball's conclusion led him to rule that SCO didn't owe Novell any of the money it took in from the EV1-style victims or need Novell's permission to sell a license to folks like EV1, in that he had ruled they couldn't be SVRX licenses, in the Final Judgment:

4. With respect to Novell's claims for Declaratory Relief (Count IV), pursuant to the Court's Memorandum Decision and Order dated August 10, 2007, Novell is entitled to direct SCO to waive claims against IBM, Sequent, and other SVRX licensees; Novell is entitled to waive such claims on SCO's behalf; and SCO is obligated to recognize such a waiver. In addition, pursuant to the Court's Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order dated July 16, 2008, SCO was not authorized under the APA to amend, in the 2003 Sun Agreement, Sun's 1994 SVRX buyout agreement with Novell, and SCO needed to obtain Novell's approval before entering into the amendment; but SCO was fully authorized under the APA to enter into the 2003 Microsoft Agreement and the SCOsource Agreements with Linux end-users without any approval by Novell.
But as we've just seen, SCOsource, at least in 2004, *had to be* about Unix SVRX. I think it can be easily discerned, actually, by what he also wrote about Darl McBride's testimony in the Final Judgment:
Darl McBride, SCO's CEO, testified that during his conversations with Greg Jones at Novell he pointed out that SCO's efforts to enforce the intellectual property in Linux would indirectly help the sale of the various UNIX flavors that compete with Linux in the market place and that such a boost would potentially increase the declining SVRX Royalty stream that SCO remitted to Novell from contracts that licensed out the older products.
That would only be true if SCOsource was about SVRX, after all, since SCO owned Novell nothing for UnixWare licenses.

Why does it all matter? It's significant in that if SCO were to persuade Judge Ted Stewart to hand over the copyrights after all, they'd have a green light to sue end users some more.

Kimball believed SCO's testimony about SCOsource, I guess. If you recall, on day one of the bench trial in 2008, Chris Sontag, who was in charge of running SCOsource, testified that the license was several offerings, but that it was basically to protect you from litigation, that it wasn't about SVRX code, only UnixWare and shared libraries.

SCO had blocked access to the evidence Novell could have used to demonstrate the truth of what SCOsource really was by removing pages and blocking access to them on Internet Archive. Now the evidence is out in the sunlight.

And just in case it disappears again, here are more relevant sections of the page:

Here's the explanation for the pricing, and then the part about why you didn't get code with the license, as you would in a normal license deal:

Notice the pricing structure, depending on what you used Linux for and how many CPUs were involved, which would make no sense if what you were buying was simply protection:

As you can see, it absolutely was about code, but about code users had already received that SCO was now making "legal" to use. This doesn't match Sontag's testimony, to the extent I understand it.

So. There. You. Are.

In the old days, it seemed every time Groklaw linked to evidence on one of those Caldera pages, it went to the great 404 in the sky within a day or two. Now, it will be possible to fix all those links. I wish they'd sell the sco.com domain name next. Maybe then we could get the complete historical picture.


  


After Caldera.com's Robots.txt is Removed, Some Evidence Surfaces | 337 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here
Authored by: chriseyre2000 on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:00 PM EDT
...

[ Reply to This | # ]

When could this be considered contempt of court?
Authored by: jesse on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:08 PM EDT
When could this be considered contempt of court?

They should have turned this over during discovery - wasn't
this part of the information that they were commanded to
turn over?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Is that finally criminal fraud?
Authored by: dyfet on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:12 PM EDT
So basically they offered knowingly false testimony about what in fact was an
illegal "conversion" of Novell funds. Does that finally constitute
criminal fraud, and not simply a civil matter?


[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic Thread
Authored by: Marc Mengel on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:28 PM EDT
Please post anything topical elsewhere... er... you know what I mean.

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Pick commentary here
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:29 PM EDT


---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This is why I save pages locally
Authored by: tknarr on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:32 PM EDT

Things like this are why I save copies of Web pages and sites locally when I foresee a need for their contents later. I've seen too many places make embarrassing or incriminating evidence disappear when it's under their control. It's hard to back up your claim about what the terms of service you agreed to were, for instance, if you're dependent on the vendor's current copy. Better to have your own, taken at the time you signed up, so if the vendor changes them you can pull your copy out and go "No, this is what you presented when I signed up, and I have a copy to prove it.". And of course evidence needed for legal proceedings is even more critical.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Didn't SCOG claim IBM destroyed evidence?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:32 PM EDT

It was decided that IBM did no such thing. Doesn't not turning over the evidence and blocking it from discovery when it's requested constitute a sanctionable act as well?

Wouldn't this "fresh discovery of evidence" potentially be sufficient for Novell to initiate either a damages lawsuit against SCOG (not counting the hold by the Bankruptcy Court of course) or initiate potentially their own appeal? For example, is there an exception to the Statue of Limitations with regards appeals when new evidence comes to light? Criminally, I think there is in order to prevent someone going to the death chamber at the last moment. But Civily?

When will SCOG face the reality they have so very little in their own claims yet there is so much stacked against them it would surely be better off to organize an end to this farce?

Curious minds may never know the real answer to these and other questions surrounding why SCOG seems intent on self-destruction.

RAS

[ Reply to This | # ]

Assumption that may not be valid
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:36 PM EDT
PJ, you seem to be assuming that SCO's web pages from 2004 are telling the
truth. I find that assumption, shall we say, rather optimistic.

I think that my reading of the situation fits the facts better. In my reading,
SCO knew in 2004 that there was none of their code in Linux. But they made loud
claims that the code was there. The SCO Source license, then, really was
lawsuit protection rather than an actual license of anything, because SCO had
nothing to license.

And that means that Kimball got it right, and that SCO was lying on the web
page, rather than to the court. Well - not lying to the court on this
particular issue.

To take your position, it seems to me that you have to be saying one of two
things. The first thing you could be saying is that SCO really did have
something to license. I don't think you actually believe that.

The second thing you could be saying is that SCO told the court, not just that
SCO Source was a license not to sue, but that SCO had never claimed anything
else. If that's what you're saying, then, yes, this web page clearly proves
otherwise. But, as far as I saw, your article didn't say that the issue was
that SCO claimed that they had never claimed that SCO source was about SysV
code.

MSS2

[ Reply to This | # ]

Error or not, it's too late to do anything about it
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 03:53 PM EDT

I believed now, based on the resurfaced Caldera web page, that he erred when he ruled that those SCOsource licenses were chiefly about avoiding litigation and not about product.

Novell didn't appeal that ruling. It's unappealable now.

[ Reply to This | # ]

what has popped up? ditto...
Authored by: hAckz0r on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 04:01 PM EDT
Not wanting to detract from this story, but how is that any different from this:

http://www.sco.com/scosource/license_program.html

Yup, UNIX(tm) and all, and that's on SCO's very own website 'even to this day' (they seemed to like that phrase, so I thought it appropriate here too). Ok its not identical, after all, as you can't currently buy a one year desktop license like you used to be able to. pitty. Perhaps having to do business with slime each and every year must have had a negative customer satisfaction? Go figure. ;)

To find it all I did was type in some boiler-plate sentence from the above screen capture into Google and up it came.

---
DRM - As a "solution", it solves the wrong problem; As a "technology" its only 'logically' infeasible.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCOsource was not stopped
Authored by: ak on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 04:05 PM EDT
One example from http://sco.com/scosource/:
Many IT users are concerned about using Linux since they have become aware of the allegations that Linux is an unauthorized derivative work of the UNIX® operating system. Users have come to SCO asking what they can do to continue to run their businesses. SCO has created the SCOsource business division in response to these needs.
SCOsource is a SCO business division that manages its UNIX® System intellectual property and contractual rights. The charter of this division is to create new and innovative licensing programs to meet the changing demands of today's market and to protect its intellectual property-related assets.

That is what they publish now.

[ Reply to This | # ]

FUDware defined
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 04:38 PM EDT
Note that it was not called SCOsource back then, but was called the SCO Intellectual Property (IP) License Program.

And that the license provided no right to the alleged IP in source form, nor the right to re-distribute even in binary form.

And that there was a conflict with GPL. But since newSCO themselves distributed said "IP" under the GPL, they shot themselves with their handy-dandy footgun.

They were basically trying to con everyone into believing there may have been some "IP" of their's in Linux, and that you should pay their extortion fees to prevent getting sued. Of course, they have never proven there was any of this alleged "IP" in Linux, even after much deep diving. But even if there was, they distributed under GPL anyway.

It was a FUD tactic to scare people away from Linux and GPL.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Bug exploitation
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 05:01 PM EDT
Is it a good idea to exploit a bug in the Internet Archive like this? They allow
people to opt out for a reason and the domain name changing hands doesn't remove
that.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comment about robots.txt
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 05:09 PM EDT
robots.txt doesn't prevent downloading files from a web server. It is just meant
to communicate to well-meaning "Web Robots (also known as Web Wanderers,
Crawlers, or Spiders)" -- see http://www.robotstxt.org -- that they should
ignore the files indicated.

So I guess it is convenient that archive.org reflects the changes, once
robots.txt changes, since it makes it easy to see all the files.

But it is not as if robots.txt hides files, or makes them inaccessible.

At least I think so.

[ Reply to This | # ]

After Caldera.com's Robots.txt is Removed, Some Evidence Surfaces
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 05:17 PM EDT
Hey anyone out there met Pamela Jones or can we set up a meeting with her. I
keep seeing all your work and would like to meet.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Question On Sealed Filings
Authored by: sproggit on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 05:27 PM EDT
The chances are that any answers to this question are going to be speculation,
but I want to ask it anyway.

Back during the original days of the Novell and IBM cases, before Judge Kimball
had recused himself, SCO filed quite a bit of evidence under seal. Some of it
was released in heavily redacted form, but a good portion has not yet seen the
light of day.

We had a wonderful insight to some of the content, thanks to that rather sharp,
"Is this all you've got?" question from Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells,
but little outside of that.

Now we've had a case before Judge Ted Stewart that affirmed Novell's position
that Novell and not SCO owns the copyrights to the allegedly infringing code.
See where I'm going with this?

Assuming that Novell is not compelled to transfer copyrights to SCO, what scope
do Novell have to say, "You know what, since we own the Source Code to
Unix, and since Sun already released a bunch of it thanks to OpenSolaris, we -
Novell, as copyright holders, are going to grant permission for IBM and the
Court to release those filings in non-redacted form. We are willing to let the
public record show the code which we own the copyright to and which SCO claims
infringed Linux."

OK, so I would be the first to concede that Novell are unlikely to make such a
bold statement... but public disclosure of the source code - provided it did not
breach any contractual obligations they had back to the original copyright
holders - may be possible. Releasing source code in public does not, after all,
infringe copyright. Only the subsequent use of that code by someone [without
license] constitutes the infringement.

I ask this only because I am curious to know if this community - an organisation
that has proven so capable of debunking all other SCO myths - would be able to
disprove their claims here, as well?

[ Reply to This | # ]

I respectfully disagree
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 06:21 PM EDT
Darl McBride, SCO's CEO, testified that during his conversations with Greg Jones at Novell he pointed out that SCO's efforts to enforce the intellectual property in Linux would indirectly help the sale of the various UNIX flavors that compete with Linux in the market place and that such a boost would potentially increase the declining SVRX Royalty stream that SCO remitted to Novell from contracts that licensed out the older products.

That would only be true if SCOsource was about SVRX, after all, since SCO owned Novell nothing for UnixWare licenses.

The way I'd interpret the original quote is "Darl McBride, SCO's CEO, thought that spreading FUD about Linux and/or increasing Linux's price by $699 would hurt Linux's adoption. So more people would buy Linux's competitors, including Windows, BSD and the proprietary UNIXes. Whilst some of those proprietary UNIXes have "bought out" their SVRX royalty obligations, some of them still have to pay ongoing SVRX royalties to Novell. So the increased sales of these proprietary UNIXes would lead to more cash for Novell."

If you look at it that way, it really doesn't matter what SCO was selling, it's the FUD and cost that have the (indirect) effect.

[ Reply to This | # ]

An epiphany?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 07:25 PM EDT

To quote a certain pirate on a certain Peter Pan movie:

    My brain has just been struck by lightning!
I was debating over the last little while whether the anonymous posters indicating they want to contact P.J. are either:
    Very nervy
or
    Very stupid
I thought: Could they really be so stupid as to think that, after all their previous behaviors, anyone that is aware of the history who visits Groklaw is really going to respond to an anonymous post asking for contact with actual contact information?

Then I thought: wait... that level of stupidity could actually explain why, with everything arrayed against them, they could still think proceeding with a ??? (arrrggg... I can't think of the term that represents "nice shop ya gots 'ere, too bad if sompin were to 'appen to it, ya could pay me to protect it") strategy is a good idea.

That thought made me wonder: I wonder if their average I.Q. hits 85..... oohhh... perhaps in that other reality of theirs they live on an abandoned planet with a Lead Works facility.

Caveat: for the movie-imaired (aren't we all?), the reference is to the movie Alien 3.

RAS

[ Reply to This | # ]

Lordy lordy, are you accusing tSCOg of lying :)
Authored by: dmarker on Wednesday, May 05 2010 @ 08:04 PM EDT


Heaven forbid such an evil accusation against little tSCOg. I am sure in tSCOs
eyes such charges against them are more evil that what any alleger sees in their
spoken & written words over the past few years :) :) :)

DSM

(isn't it a crime to lie in court ?)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judge Dale Kimball - SVRX - Nice to see evidence - Thanks
Authored by: SilverWave on Thursday, May 06 2010 @ 03:22 AM EDT
Yes!

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

Did he really "err"?
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Thursday, May 06 2010 @ 11:49 AM EDT
"[...]that he erred when he ruled that those SCOsource licenses were
chiefly about avoiding litigation and not about product"

I think it would be more fair to the Judge to say that he was tricked. In light
of the available evidence, he did not err, did he? Maybe my usage differs, as
English is not my native language, but I definitely would not say that he
"erred".

SCO erred in hiding/concealing the evidence, as it would eventually show up
anyhow. It was after all electronic evidence.

Hmm. Maybe I am missing something here.


.

---
______
IMANAL


.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This is awesome news, I knew we'd find some gems if we see the Wayback Archive of the SCO Site
Authored by: Davo.Sydney on Thursday, May 06 2010 @ 12:46 PM EDT
This is awesome news, and I mentioned a few articles back, the one where Groklaw was to be included in the Library of Congress's Historic Internet Materials Collections, that it would be good if some day we get to see the SCO site included in the Wayback Machine again. It's a very nice surprise to see that it's happened a lot sooner rather than later :)

However I thought it would be the SCO web site we get to see, I didn't even think about the Caldera one. (What other sites would be good to see I wonder...? I might have a look at the Tarantella (sp?) web site's press releases if I get time.)

I was on the right track, but the fact that the Wayback Archive didn't delete the material, just blocked it from being scene is interesting thou. But I'm happy it's back in the open again. I know there are some Gems to be found there too. And again if the other 'team of IBM Laywers' (joke joke) had someone take a snapshot of the SCO site all those years ago, it might be a good time to take another look at it now too. Even if we can't see it I just know there would be some items of interest in there.

Here's where I mentioned it in the earlier article.

I read just about every article and also try to read every post, and your articles PJ are fantastic, it's great to be able to see this saga unfolding with such great commentary. Thank you :)

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO IP, EV1 Internet & The Law
Authored by: sproggit on Friday, May 07 2010 @ 01:51 AM EDT
PJ's article does a terrific job of adding to the documentation and historical
record of the shifting sands that has been SCO's position on what it owns or
claims.

But let's see if we can explore this for a moment.

1. The perpetual license that IBM purchased happened at around the time of Santa
Cruz (OldSCO) purchasing the UNIX business from Novell. We can check the record,
but to the best of my knowledge the time interval was sufficiently short that
Santa Cruz (OldSCO) did not produce a "new release".

I mention this because it's the closes I have to concrete evidence that the code
base that IBM has/had was a UNIX code base and not a Unixware code base.

2. The recent Court Case before Judge Ted Stewart has affirmed Novell's position
that Novell and not SCO own the copyrights to UNIX. Now, irrespective of what
may or may not happen to those rights in the future, at the time that NewSCO
sent their "We own IP in Linux" to 1,500 companies, including EV1
Internet, they knew (or should have known) that they did not own the
intellectual property that they claimed to own.


Let's consider recent history from the perspective of the Technology Manager at
EV1 who paid up and signed the deal with SCO. He paid SCO money for alleged SCO
code in Linux.

Even if there is improperly contributed code in Linux (which has yet to be
proven) that code is under the stewardship of Novell. Quite a careful choice of
words, because in an early post I asked about the possibility of Novell being
able to un-seal SCO's previously sealed filings on the basis that they, not SCO
owned the IP and they were willing for the sealing to be reversed. The response
I received from wiser Groklawrians was that this may not be possible because
even though Novell had purchased UNIX from AT&T, that did not mean that
Novell owned the copyright to every line of code and therefore would have to
determine who owned the code under seal - a task that we've still not done yet.

But I digress.

That would only be relevant to this question if NewSCO owned the code. I think
we've established that they cannot and they do not.

So that means - by my train of tenuous logic - that EV1 Internet is one of the
companies who paid SCO under the SCOsource or SCO Intellectual Property License
program.

So does this mean that EV1 may potentially be a victim of fraud? Does this mean
that EV1 may be a victim of criminal acts as defined under RICO?

Could EV1 - or others - now step up and take issue with SCO?

Could we even see a class-action suit if there are more parties in the same
position?

I ask all these questions because it seems to me that there must be broader
consequences for SCO because of the most recent ruling against them. It can't be
right that they just shrug, mutter, "Oh well" and go home. There has
to be some restitution, under law, for all the harm they have caused.

[ Reply to This | # ]

After Caldera.com's Robots.txt is Removed, Some Evidence Surfaces
Authored by: jsusanka on Friday, May 07 2010 @ 08:33 AM EDT
"That is not what SCOfolk testified to at the bench trial in 2008, where
they presented the SCOsource license as protection from litigation or in one
case as shared libraries. So this is a new piece of evidence to add to the pile
that indeed at least some of the SCOsource licenses were right to use licenses
for SVRX code."

Isn't this perjury? Or are corporations above the law and can tell the court
anything and how they view the world?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Much Ado About Nothing
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 08 2010 @ 01:43 AM EDT
See? SCOsource was not just about buying SCO off so they wouldn't sue you. The conceit was that Linux users had already received the code, albeit improperly in SCO's twisted thinking, so no code needed to be distributed with the license. They already had it.

Why is that important? Well, for one thing, Judge Dale Kimball ruled otherwise:
Separate from its licensing of products, SCO began entering into SCOsource licensing agreements that were unique in that they did not involve product. Instead, these license agreements were waivers and releases of conduct based on the buyer's use of Linux.
SCO source was just about buying SCO off so the wouldn't sue you for the code that supposedly used their IP, but which you received with Linux. Since you already had Linux, they wouldn't need to distribute any code a second time. There is no contradiction there.

Judge Kimball didn't rule otherwise. What he said was perfectly correct. SCO didn't package up some code and market it as SCOSource. There never was any SCOSource product that you could buy and take home or have shipped to you. All you got with SCOSource was some legal paperwork. You had to get the Linux product some other way.

You have made a big deal of the fact that SCO never revealed what code was supposedly infringing. If they had ever created a SCOSource product, it would have contained the code and people would have known what code SCO was talking about. However, as Judge Kimball said, there was no such SCOSource product.

The rest of the article is just as bad. Novell rebranded SVRX as UnixWare when they added the NetWare stuff to it. If you license UnixWare, SRVX is there. That has been discussed over and over again.

It's nice that you can look at the archived Caldera webpages, but it looks like you haven't found anything significant so far. Hopefully there is something there.

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