Via the process of mentioning "rights" without context surrounding either IP
or Licensing - in and of itself - could be an innocent mistake. Not likely
given the context that "rights" predominantly shows up in the context of
trademarks, copyrights and/or patents.
But then to mention "Unix was
sold" within the context that other points were presented, including the
"rights" mentioned earlier, easily leads one to the mistaken impression that it
was Intellectual Property rights that were being discussed.
So yes,
everything you state is - on it's surface, without the context of who owned the
Intellectual Property - factually correct.
I simply disagree with the
misrepresentation inherent with the specific choice of the words in the article
and the likely intent for confusion behind them. As the saying
goes:
There's a little water under the bridge with regards Tom
Harvey.
You state:
They owned the UNIX business as they came to
call it.
However, it is not in the context of the "business" that
the article speaks:
rights to the Unix computer operating
system
To correct the point on "rights to license":
the
right to market it and collect license fees
Of which they were
supposed to turn over 100% to Novell and Novell reimburse 5% as administrative
fees. Their "right" was as Novell's agent... they didn't have any rights to
keep those license fees they had the "right" to collect. If I recall correctly,
Mr. Cahn - as Bankruptcy Trustee - decided SCOG would quite such a service and
leave Novell holding the bag for the responsibility of collecting the license
fees. As a result, this was not "part of the Unix Business" that they sold.
Caveat: that's my non-legal understanding about the confusion that happened
surrounding that. As a result, my understanding could easily be just as wrong
as to innocently insinuate that SCOG sold the Unix copyrights.
They
did not own the underlying copyrights to the earlier versions of Unix but then
neither did ATT nor Novell own all of those copyrights.
While true,
the facts missing are:
AT&T owned some versions of the compilations
called "Unix".
Novell owned some versions of the compilations called
"Unix".
SCOG owned some versions of the AIX-analogous compilation
called UnixWare.
If you wish to disagree, please point out a single
compilation for Unix Sys V that SCOG owns Copyright title to. Or perhaps
they've decided to rename UnixWare to Unix Sys VI or similar?
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