From: Mike '/m' 

On Wed, 28 May 2003 18:51:32 -0400, "Geo."  wrote:

>"Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
>news:3ed4f458$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
>> Anyway so because Novell has said "oy we own the copyright you lying
>> blackmailing B*stards" they have no stepped right back & are now in
>> effect saying "we never intended any Patent or copyright suits just a
>> "breach of contract" wrt IBM.
>
>So since SCO was distributing something they didn't own the copyright to,
>couldn't they be in big trouble?

A miscellaneous comment from one of the mailing lists I subscribe to:

===
Although getting waaaaaaay OT and although no fan of SCO's actions, the
desktoplinux.com story
(http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT4842883975.html) glosses over a lot.

SCO's main claim has little to do with the original UNIX code but rather
the large and significant Project Monterey which was a collaboration with
IBM to merge UnixWare and AIX and port it to the Itanium architecture. The
suggestion is that when that project ended, IBM lifted portions of that
work (which SCO says they did not have the right to do under the terms of
the contract between SCO and IBM) and put it into Linux so as to give Linux
enterprise-scale functionality. And obviously I'm glossing over a lot of
details also.

So ownership of the original UNIX stuff is tangential, the point is more
whether or not IBM violated its contract with SCO and whether or not the
stuff SCO added to Unix AFTER it licensed the stuff from Novell has found
its way into Linux (with or without IBM's assistance).

Being a fan of neither company's business practices a curse on both their
houses. They deserve each other....
===

 /m

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