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1991 Letter from O.L. Wilson to Frank Kovacs
Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 05:33 PM EST

Here is a scanned paper exhibit, a 1991 letter from O.L. Wilson to AT&T Bell Laboratories' Frank Kovacs, one of the 33 exhibits SCO attached to its Memorandum in Support of SCO's Expedited Motion to Enforce the Court's Amended Scheduling Order Dated June 10, 2004. Or perhaps I should say it's the memorandum in support of SCO's failed expedited motion to "enforce" the court's amendeded scheduling order. Our thanks to brooker for doing the transcript for us. This is brooker's first time transcribing, so I'll not only say thank you, I'll say thanks for volunteering to help.

It's a very strange letter. First, it's a letter to AT&T. AT&T needed a license from USO? I've missed something somewhere. Then there is no signature page. There are some egregious spelling mistakes and some typos too, but they are in the original. Could it be a draft of a letter, never sent? We know from Mr. Wilson's 2003 Declaration that he retired in 1991. I am only wondering here, but when you read this unfinished letter, I think you'll agree it invites questions.

At a minimum, if I were working on this case, I'd want to look at a lot of other Wilson letters to see if this is typical of his style. You'll note as well that there is a cutoff midsentence at the end of page three, and the sentence isn't finished anywhere. You skip directly to an attachment, which has, by the way, no spelling mistakes. That means there is no signature either. 1 Happily, Mr. Wilson is still living, and so he can answer all our questions.

If all you want is to buy time by raising issues that need looking into further, ideally by a jury, that makes this letter about perfect, from SCO's standpoint. I assume that they present it to the court to show, they think, that the letter contradicts his 2003 Declaration, in which he says says AT&T deliberately wanted to spread Unix on favorable terms to get Unix adopted broadly as a standard "by ensuring that UNIX System V ideas, concepts, know-how, methods and techniques would be widely known and understood by future programmers." The corollary to that adoption, of course, was that a lot of people got to see AT&T's source code, so that today, he says, "it is unlikely that there are many, if any, parts of the UNIX System V source code that could be said still to be confidential." Naturally, SCO doesn't want that to be true, so they submitted this partial letter to contradict. If it's the best they have, things aren't looking so good for SCO.

I've been thinking about educational licenses. IBM's license was commercial. But I noticed in the last article we transcribed, SCO's Memorandum in Opposition to IBM's Motion to Strike Materials Submitted by SCO in Opposition to IBM's Cross Motion For Partial Summary Judgment, in the second footnote, SCO mentioned that Andrew Tanenbaum (they don't mention his name there, but it's obviously who they mean) allegedly had an educational license and that his Minix was "based on and derived from" UNIX. The fact that Tanenbaum has said that isn't a bit true doesn't prevent SCO from making the allegation. That might explain why ADTI's Ken Brown went to the trouble of interviewing Tanenbaum but not Linus. Is it possible these dingbats plan on asserting that their elaborate derivative code theory gets its first ladder rung at Tanenbaum's Minix? I know it seems incredible, but can you see any other reason why they keep harping on educational licenses in connection with IBM? If that is their thinking, they are seriously doomed.

SCO wouldn't be that silly, would they? Well, would they?

Well.

****************************************

*(Date stamped): Jun 18 1991

O. L. Wilson
Division Manager

UNIX Software Operation
[address, phone]

Mr. Frank Kovacs
AT&T BELL LABORATORIES
[address]

Dear Mr. Kovacs:

Re: Licenses for specified UNIX Software Operations (USO)
SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, Letter Agreement Number ATT-452 [*or152?]

Upon your written concurrence as indicated below, USO will make available to you licenses for certain of USO's SOFTWARE PRODUCT under the terms of this Letter Agreement. Each such SOFTWARE PRODUCT shall become subject to this Letter Agreement on acceptance by USO of a Suppliment executed by you that identifies such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and lists the DESIGNATED CPUs therefor. The first Suppliment for a specific SOFTWARE PRODUCT shall have attached a Schedule for such SOFTWARE PRODUCT listing the fees payable by you for the applicable licenses. Any additional terms and conditions set forth in such Shedule shall also applywith respect to such SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Initially, Supplement(s) numbered 1 and 2 are included in and made part of this Letter Agreement.

Additional Suppliments may be added to this Letter Agreement to add additional SOFTWARE PRODUCTS (and DESIGNATED CPUs therefor) or to add or replace DESIGNATED CPUs for other SOFTWARE PRODUCTS covered by previous Supplements. Each such additional Suppliment shall be considered part of this Letter Agreement when executed by you, if required, and accepted by USO. Subject to the provisions of subparagraph (1) below, additional or replacement CPUs shall be deemed to be DESIGNATED CPUs on the date a copy of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT covered by a previous Suppliment is first put into use by you on such additional or replacement CPU, (Terms in capital letters that are set forth in this Letter Agreement are defined in Attachment A hereto.)

The licenses granted to you are to (i) use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on DESIGNATED CPU(s) to modify such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and to make SUBLICENSED PRODUCTS based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT, (ii) distribute such SUMLICENSED PRODUCTS internally and to other end-user customers, and (iii) permit access to SOFTWARE PRODUCT by your contractors and allow use of SOFTWARE PRODUCTS by your contractors on DESIGNATED CPUs, provided such access and use is exclusively for you in connection with work called for in written agreements between you and such contractors entered into before or at the time of permitting such access or allowing such use. Such written agreement, which you shall diligently enforce, shall be consistant with the following:

(1) Contractors shall agree to the same responsibilities and obligations and other restrictions pertaining to the use of SOFTWARE PRODUCTS as those undertaken by you under this letter agreement.

(page 1 of 4)


(2) When a contractor's work for you is completed, all copies of SOFTWARE PRODUCTS furnished to such contractor or made by such contractor and all copies of any modifications or derivative works made by such contractor based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT shall be returned to you or destroyed, including any copies stored in any computer memory or storage medium.

(3) A contractor may not acquire any ownership interest in any modification or derivative work prepared by such contractor based on or using a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this Letter Agreement unless and until such contractor also becomes a licensee of USO for such SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

The conditions under which such licenses are granted to you are as follows:

(a) You will not provide access to any copy of the source code of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (including methods and concepts contained therein), in whole or in part, to anyone other than your organization's employees who have a need to know.

(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of the paragraph above, you may distribute copies of a SOFTWARE PRODUCT, either in modified or unmodified form, to third parties having licenses of equivalent scope herewith from AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY ("AT&T"), or a corporate affiliate or authorized distributor thereof, for the same SOFTWARE PRODUCT, provided that you first verify the status of the recipient by calling USO at 800-328-8849 (or other number specified by USO). USO will give written verification of the recipient's status. You shall maintain a record of each such distribution and include such record in the quarterly report specified below. Such record shall include, for each such distribution, the identity of the recipient, the date of the verification, the name of the person at USO providing werification and the date of distribution. You may also obtain materials based on SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this Letter Agreement from such a third party and use such materials pursuant to this Letter Agreement provided that you treat such materials hereunder the same as such SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

(c) You will restrict the number of copies of both SOFTWARE PRODUCTS and SUBLICENSED PRODUCTS made by you to those necessary (including backup and archival copies) to exercise the license above.

(d) No copies of a SUBLICENSED PRODUCT shall be distributed to a non-AT&T end-user customer unless and until you have entered into a written agreement with such customer that includes the substance of the following provisions:

(1) Only a personal, nontransferable and non-exclusive right to use the software on one machine at a time is granted to the customer.

(2) No title to the intellectual property in the software is transferred to the customer.

(3) The customer will not copy the software except as necessary to use the software on such one machine.

(4) The customer will not transfer the software to any other party unless authorized by you to do so.

(5) The customer will not export or re-export the software without the appropriate license from the U. S. Government.

(6) The customer will not reverse compile or disassemble the software.

Such written agreement may be a document executed by the customer or a "shrink wrap" agreement. However, we prefer that shrink wrap agreements not be used in those foreign jurisdictions where it is not clear that our software is protected by copyright.

If you plan to use distributors, you must insure that such distributors pass on corresponding provisions to their customers. If you permit such distributors to make the copies of the software they distribute, you will need to keep track of the quantities such distributors make

(page 2 of 4)


for purposes of reporting such quantities to us and determining fees payable

(e) The written agreement contemplated in (d) above shall include appropriate disclaimer of any warranty by AT&T or any of its subsidiaries (including USO).

(f) Within thirty (30) days after the end of each quarter ending on March 31st, June 30th, September 3th or December 31st, commencing with the quarter during which this Letter Agreement first becomes effective, you must furnish to USO a written statement identifying:

(1) the make, model, serial number and location of each additional or replacing DESIGNATED CPU on which a copy of a specified SOFTWARE PRODUCT was installed during such quarter and the equivalent inforation for any DESIGNATED CPU(s) which were replaced during such quarter; (2) the right to use fees for such additional DESIGNATED CPUs; (3) the number of copies of each SUBLICENSED PRODUCT put into use by you during such quarter, furnished by you to other AT&T entities or to customers or distributors during such quarter or reported to you during such quarter as having been made and furnished to customers and other distributors by your distributors to whome you have given the right to copy;

(4) the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on which each such SUBLICENSED PRODUCT is based;

(5) the initial sublicensing fee, if applicable, for any such SOFTWARE PRODUCT;

(6) the per-copy sublicensing fees for such copies and, if applicable, whether such fees are based on such factors as a limitation on number of users, a fee for a combination of products or a right granted to a customer to use a copy of a SUBLICENSED PRODUCT on multiple CPUs;

(7) the NET AMOUNT of the quarterly payment relating to per-copy fees; and

(8) the DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE used in calculating such NET AMOUNT.

(g) You may be entitled to a discount on per-copy sublicensing fees payable for SUBLICENSED PRODUCTS distributed during a twelve (12) month calendar year. Such discount shall be based on either the GROSS AMOUNT for such period or the GROSS AMOUNT for the immediately preceding period, if any, whichever yields the greater discount; provided however, that for the period covering calendar year 1990, such discount may, at your option be the grester of the discount calculated per the preceding sentence or forty-five percent (45%).

(h) You may estimate a GROSS AMOUNT for any additional one-year period in which you expect the GROSS AMOUNT to be higher than that for the immediately preceding period. However, if you calculate any quarterly payment during a period based on such an estimate, then the total amount paid after the first, second, and third full quarters of such period must be, respectively, at least one quarter, one half and three quarters of the NET AMOUNT calculated using such estimated GROSS AMOUNT and such corresponding DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE. At the end of each period for which an estimated GROSS AMOUNT has been used, the actual DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE and actual NET AMOUNT shall be determined from the actual GROSS AMOUNT for such period and the final quarterly payment shall be determined by subtracting the total of the quarterly payments previously made for such period from such NET AMOUNT. If such total exceeds the actual NET AMOUNT, the excess shall be credited against future quarterly payments for per-copy sublicensing fees. Such excess shall not be refunded.

(i) If you do not make an estimate pursuant to the paragraph above, then the payment for each quarter in a period shall be calculated by determining a NET AMOUNT from the GROSS AMOUNT for the portion of such period up to the end of such quarter and subtracting from such NET AMOUNT the total of any quarterly payments already made for such period. The DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE used in determining such NET AMOUNT shall either be

(page 3 of 4)


ATTACHMENT A

DEFINITIONS

1. CPU means central processing unit.

2. COMPUTER PROGRAM means any instruction or instructions, in source-code or object- code format, for controlling the operation of a CPU.

3. DESIGNATED CPU means any CPU listed as such for a specific SOFTWARE PRODUCT in a Supplement to this Letter Agreement.

4. SOFTWARE PRODUCT means materials such as COMPUTER PROGRAMS, information used or interpreted by COMPUTER PROGRAMS and documentation relating to the use of COMPUTER PROGRAMS. Materials available from USO for a specific SOFTWARE PRODUCT are listed in the Schedule for such SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Certain SOFTWARE PRODUCTS available under this Letter Agreement may contain materials prepared by other developers.

5. SUBLICENSED PRODUCT means (i) COMPUTER PROGRAMS in object-code format based on a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this Letter Aggreement and (ii) any other materials identified in the "Sublicensing" section of the Schedule for such SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

6. GROSS AMOUNT for a calendar year (or portions thereof) means the total amount of per-copy sublicensing fees accrued during such calender year (or portion thereof).

7. NET AMOUNT for a calendar year (or portion thereof) means the amount determined from the GROSS AMOUNT by the DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE for such calendar year (or portion thereof) and subtracting the result from such GROSS AMOUNT.

8. DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE for a calendar year (or portion thereof) is the percentage calculated from the previous calendar year's GROSS AMOUNT by using the following formula:

DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE= GROSS AMOUNT for previous calendar year
GROSS AMOUNT + 3.75 million X 100%
up to a maximum of sixty percent (60%). The DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE for a calendar year following a calendar year during which the GROSS AMOUNT was less than $100,000.00 is zero percent (0%).


1 Because there is a page missing, and because we obtained this document from the court, we'll double check to make certain that the exhibit is missing page four in the original filed at the court. It isn't missing on our end.


  


1991 Letter from O.L. Wilson to Frank Kovacs | 337 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
OT Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 05:40 PM EST
My first first?

[ Reply to This | # ]

I think it's time to face the thruth, PJ
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 05:42 PM EST
Anyway, we'll remember you.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections Here, Please
Authored by: Griffin3 on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 05:50 PM EST
But not corrections to the abyssmally ungrammatical evidentiary
submission--those are part of its charm.

[ Reply to This | # ]

1991 Letter from O.L. Wilson to Frank Kovacs
Authored by: droth on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 05:58 PM EST
Okay, this is purported to be a 1991 letter from Mr. Wilson at USO to Mr. Kovacs at AT&T.

Two things about that confuse me:

1.) I'm assuming USO stands for UNIX Software Operation. That was a division of AT&T, wasn't it? Kind of odd that the letter makes it seem as if they are two distinct companies. Then again, IANAL, so perhaps these kind of intra-corporate communications are common.

2.) USO changed its name to UNIX System Laboratories in 1990. See this link at AT&T. Why is Mr. Wilson still using the old name instead of USL?

[ Reply to This | # ]

1991 Letter from O.L. Wilson to Frank Kovacs
Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 06:06 PM EST
"It's a very strange letter. First, it's a letter to AT&T. AT&T
needed a license from USO? I've missed something somewhere. Then there is no
signature page."

SCOG is trying to enter an unsigned letter as evidence?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Not so strange
Authored by: codswallop on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 06:10 PM EST
I think this is partof the USL spinout. Bell labs would need license for their
copies of System V. Before, they were the same company, so there were no existen
licenses.

SCO's intent with this letter is to show that it waas still putting the methods
and concepts language in a commercial license in 1991. If they were still doing
so, the argument is that it was felt to accomplish something. otherwise, why
bother? A minor point is that if they were still putting this langfuage in
contracts with themselves, they must be doing so with external customers a
fortiori.

There's not a lot of contradiction between the various declarations and
depositions. It's mostly a question of lawyers knowing what questions to ask to
get the answers they want. After all a plan to make your methods ubiquitous but
still protected would be unsurprising if it came from Microsoft.

The concepts of being ubiquitous but protected and customer code being customer
owned but AT&T controlled aren't contradictions if you want to behave in a
sufficiently disingenuous way.

Remember if emperor AT&T had no clothes, he'd have to cancel the planned
rummage sale. The methods and concepts stuff added value. Would you expect them
to say: "Well there are no secrets left, and we don't have clear
copyrights. Most everything has leaked out or is encumbered, but you'll pay us
the big bucks anyway, right?"

Besides, they'd been using that language (or the like)since the 70's. How likely
is the legal department of a huge bureaucratic monopoly to be in a hurry to
change anything, particularly if the effect is to weaken the company's rights -
however illusory. We can ask our legal contingent what they think.


---
IANAL This is not a legal opinion.
SCO is not a party to the APA.
Discovery relevance is to claims, not to sanity.

[ Reply to This | # ]

1991 Letter from O.L. Wilson to Frank Kovacs
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 06:20 PM EST
This was 1991. When was the AT&T anti trust investigation completed? This
could simply be a "before and after" issue, not a contradiction at
all. Policies change all the time.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Off by a decade - Authored by: JScarry on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 09:56 PM EST
  • 1/1/84 -- - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 10:03 PM EST
There's a page missing.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 06:29 PM EST
The original had four pages + attachement.

Look at the upper right corner, you see the page numbers from the fax mahcine.
The first three pages are numberes P24-P26, and have "page n out of 4"
at the bottom. The attachment has P28 at the top right, and NO "page 4 of
4" at the bottom (whoever transcribed this made a serious mistake...)

So I don't know where page 4, AKA P27, is gone, but when this was faxed on June
15 2004 it was still there.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here
Authored by: aussiedave on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 06:35 PM EST
SCO's strategy hinges in its entirety, I think we all agree, on getting at least
one of these cases in front of a jury. All these red herrings, non-sequiturs and
plain outright manipulations of opinion into fact can then be brought into play.
Emotion will be used ("we're only little and they're big bullies") to
transform every one of these fragments into being part of a pattern of
suspicious behaviour ... "it's a conspiracy to undermine the capitalist
system in general and us poor hard-working Americans in particular."

In short, I think we are guilty of trying to impute sanity into their
never-ending submissions and over-length memoranda. We pore over every new
document looking for a logical fit with an intelligent defense or offense, when
there is no such intention. Maybe we should concentrate on the most absurd
individual elements of their case, and assess how they, when collected together,
might play in front of a carefully selected non-technical jury.

[ Reply to This | # ]

License what?
Authored by: Christian on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 07:23 PM EST
The letter starts with "Upon your written concurrence as indicated below, USO will make available to you licenses for certain of USO's SOFTWARE PRODUCT under the terms of this Letter Agreement."

I have looked over this twice, and I don't see any description of what is being licensed. It just says that it is some piece of software from USO. I can't find where it says that UNIX is involved at all, except as part of the name of UNIX Software Operations (USO).

For that matter, I have searched through the memorandum to which this was attached and I can't find where it is referenced.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Wilson letter -- Who found it?
Authored by: rand on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 07:48 PM EST
This was sent from Boise, Schiller & Flexner (note their fax number on the
top margin) to SCO (That's their fax number in the bottom margin).

Whatcha bet the "successors in interest" didn't know about it 'till
some clerk at BS&F came across it?


---
The wise man is not embarrassed or angered by lies, only disappointed. (IANAL
and so forth and so on)

[ Reply to This | # ]

1991 Letter from O.L. Wilson to Frank Kovacs
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 09 2004 @ 11:51 PM EST
even if this 1991 letter is correct and USO is licensing Unix to ATT(though the
letter never says it is licensing "unix"), isnt this letter still
chronologically before the ATT/USL vs BSD court case?

if so, then what relevance does this letter have to do with the SCO vs IBM case?

[ Reply to This | # ]

O.T.
Authored by: jim Reiter on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 12:53 AM EST
Here are some bits from the reorganization Plan/Merger agreement.

Note: the focus on Group Products. The list of Group Products is in the
Documents that TSG is hiding.


The Reorganization Plan/Merger Agreement may not have handled The SVRX Licenses
correctly and this is why TSG is hiding the Exhibits.

As always, the question is what does TSG own and how did it (TSG) come to own
it?

TSG is dead.

4.19 SCO IP Rights. As soon as feasible after the date hereof SCO and Caldera
shall confirm whether the Intellectual Property Rights and Intangible Assets
required for the production, development, marketing and support of the Group
Products are included in the Intellectual Property Rights included in the Group
Assets duly transferred to Newco pursuant hereto. If additional items not so
transferred are discovered, then the Group Assets shall
be expanded to include, and there shall be duly assigned to Newco by the
appropriate Contributing Company, all such additional Intellectual Property
Rights and Intangible Assets required for the production of the Group Products.
If the Intellectual Property Rights and Intangible Assets included or added to
the Group Assets are also required for the production of the products produced
by SCO and its subsidiaries (other than the Group Products) then Newco (or its
subsidiary, which receives said Intellectual Property Rights and Intangible
Assets constituting Group Assets) shall provide SCO, or its designated
subsidiary, with a fully paid, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable license to
use such Intellectual Property Rights and Intangible Assets for


45
<PAGE> 53

the purpose of producing such other products. SCO agrees that if Caldera
determines, in its sole judgment to register the copyrights assigned to it
pursuant to the Copyright Assignments, then SCO shall take all reasonable
actions to assist Caldera to register such copyrights.


Definitions:

"Group Business" means the business of SCO and its direct and indirect
subsidiaries with respect to (i) the Group Products, as reflected in the 2000
Group Balance Sheet, including without limitation the business of developing,
manufacturing, marketing, licensing, distributing, using, operating, installing,
servicing, supporting, maintaining, repairing or otherwise using or commercially
exploiting all or any aspect of any or all of the Group Products or
of any Intangible Assets or Intellectual Property Rights related to any of the
Group Products, and (ii) the professional services division, but excluding the
SCO Retained Business.

"Group Products" means the operating system software and other
products listed in the Group product list attached hereto as Exhibit 13.15D
marketed or sold by any member of the Contributed Company Group or the
Contributing Companies and all software under development for or licensed by
the
Group Business (together with all derivative works, upgrades, modifications,
enhancements and configurations of any of the foregoing now existing or under
development and all software and components included in any configuration of any
of the foregoing, and all development and QA tools, utilities and diagnostics
used to develop any of the foregoing, in each case whether or not ever
commercially offered or price-listed, and whether or not in development).

"Intellectual Property Rights" means, collectively, all of the
following worldwide intangible legal rights including those existing or acquired
by ownership, license or other legal operation, whether or not filed, perfected,
registered or recorded and whether now or hereafter existing, filed, issued or
acquired: (i) patents, patent applications, and patent rights, including any and
all continuations, continuations-in-part, divisions, reissues, reexaminations
or
extensions thereof; (ii) inventions (whether patentable or not in any country),
invention disclosures, industrial designs, improvements, trade secrets,
proprietary information, know-how, technology and technical data; (iii) rights
associated with works of authorship (including without limitation audiovisual
works), including without limitation copyrights, copyright applications and
copyright registrations, moral rights, database rights, mask work rights, mask
work applications and mask work registrations; (iv) rights in trade secrets
(including without limitation rights in industrial property, customer, vendor
and prospect lists and all associated information or databases and other
confidential or proprietary information), and all rights relating to the
protection of the same including without limitation rights under nondisclosure
agreements; (v) any other proprietary rights in technology, including software,
all source and object code, algorithms, architecture, structure, display
screens, layouts, inventions, development tools and all documentation and media
constituting, describing or relating to the above, including, without
limitation, manuals, memoranda, records, business information, or trade marks,
trade dress or names, anywhere in the world; (vi) any rights analogous to those
set forth in the preceding clauses and any other proprietary rights relating to
intangible property, including without limitation brand names, trademarks,
service marks, domain names, trademark and service mark registrations and
applications therefor, trade names, rights in trade dress and packaging and all
goodwill associated with the same; and (vii) all rights to sue or make any
claims for any past, present or future infringement, misappropriation or
unauthorized use of any of the foregoing rights and the right to all income,
royalties, damages and other payments that are now or may hereafter become due
or payable with respect to any of the foregoing rights, including without
limitation damages for past, present or future infringement, misappropriation or
unauthorized use thereof; and (viii) rights under license agreements for the
foregoing.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Maybe AT&T needed a license because...
Authored by: dwandre on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 01:17 AM EST
I may be wrong but I believe by that time AT&T had set up USO as a
separately-audited subsidiary in preparation for selling it. If so they would
have wanted to keep all dealings between AT&T and USO at arms length, such
as requiring AT&T to have licenses for all USO software that they were
using. It would also make USO's books look good with all that revenue.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO wouldn't be that silly, would they? Well, would they?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 03:13 AM EST
We all know the answer to that one:

Of course they would.

Oh, that was a rhetorical question?

Sorry, nothing to see here, move on then...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Seriously doomed...?
Authored by: Groklaw Lurker on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 06:12 AM EST
"...Naturally, SCO doesn't want that to be true, so they submitted this
partial letter to contradict. If it's the best they have, things aren't looking
so good for SCO..."

But then, SCO should be used to that. Pump and Dump schemes, particularly ones
designed to curry favor with a certain wealthy monopolist, were never likely to
withstand scrutiny in the full light of day, much less the billion candle power
laser Groklaw has brought to bear. When I think of SCO, the word 'corpse' keeps
coming to mind...

---
(GL) Groklaw Lurker
End the tyranny, abolish software patents.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Seriously doomed...? - Authored by: frk3 on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 10:41 AM EST
  • SCOrpse? - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 10:44 AM EST
I wish I could figure out why...
Authored by: eggplant37 on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 07:35 AM EST
A company would keep a draft letter once the final copy is finished? I have and
still do work as a transcriptionist, both in the real world and for the military
long ago, and I cannot fathom a reason to keep a document that is neither final
nor complete. When I complete a job, my files only contain the finished
product. The development stuff either goes into the bit bin on the computer or
the shredder.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why a company would hold incomplete paperwork in
their files? *If* this is an example of a draft contract that was left laying
around during development, why would someone stuff it in the files, and wouldn't
it eventually be pruned out? Or am I just an example of a very tedious keeper
of my filing cabinet?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sounds completely uninteresting to me
Authored by: Thomas Downing on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 09:17 AM EST
I don't see anything strange about this letter, as far as normal corporate operations go.
The first thing I notice is that the first concern of the letter is with outside contractors. AT&T/USL policy may have required a license in this case. Second, there is alot of talk about 'shrink-wrapping' and distributors. Was there some more commodity oriented development in the works by AT&T at that time? Something like a desktop UNIX perhaps? Might be a good avenue to research.
Further, inter-divisional contracts, licenses, and bill-backs are normal fare in corporate organizations.
I have to agree with PJ, if this is a sample of SCO's best, it's looking pretty week.

---
Thomas Downing
Principal Member Technical Staff
IPC Information Systems, Inc.

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At one time, AT&T was going RETAIL with it's OS. This was most likely a license template for...
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 09:49 AM EST
By going to records of AT&T board of director minutes regarding anything
UNIX you will find some answers!

During this time I remember that AT&T was looking to come out with a retail
UNIX product, this idea sputtered, USL vs BSDI presented the AT&T board of
directors with some facts that they were not aware of (until the legal team for
USL spelled it out for them), so when Novell came along, AT&T punted (they
had no other choice, as doing anything UNIX long term was a, down by 14 points,
4th a very long with 1 minute to go situation, basicly AT&T took a knee).

I remember that with all the other OS's at the personal computer level... ie:
Microsoft, Apple, etc... that AT&T was going retail with it's UNIX product?
My bet is that this letter is part of that effort and that they were looking to
rope up some of the language to do so. AND in order to do so they had to first
take care of the BSD variant situation, where they discovered that it was
impossible to OWN UNIX (due to past handling of UNIX from the perspective that
it was out there as a produced on the side tool of a major phone company!

Side note that many advances of a certain Photocopier company who had a
developement lab in California, also were ignored due to home office "not
getting IT". Many of these companies were run by blockheads from sales who
were trained to focus on numbers of sales of the "mainstream" product
lines. They were blockheads, as that certain photocopier company seemed to have
the inside track on develpment of windows technology, ethernet, and other
wonderful stuff, all ignored by home office (but not ignored by Steve Jobs of
Apple)!

Back to At&T, and their attempts at taking UNIX retail... Then, Novell
stepped in, and from the discovery of what was going on in the USL vs BSDI case
(note that some of the code that USL's expert examined was BSD/386, evidence
that they were looking long term RETAIL with UNIX in the Intel space) anyways,
AT&T's lawyers that were advising the board of directors and CEO at the
time, in the end, realized that the Unix IP horse was out of the barn and
running wild, with no possibility of getting it back into the barn (where they
could then try to train it to win any future race with Apple or Microsoft), and
since the main AT&T phone call related product line was doing fine, they
said... what the heck we will sell it.

Novell, at the time, would only be too glad to buy a potential competive product
and put it in the Novell steel walled barn to just sit there and not give them
any more problems. The income from this UNIX product was still there as others
were not of a full understanding of the scope of how baddly that AT&T had
failed to keep that horse in the AT&T barn (thus the reason why USL agreed
to the hush hush settlement of the case with BSDI)... the idea that the horse
was still AT&T's, then Novell's was still producing income from those that
did not know what had happened in the USL vs BSDI case. The income was like
unexplained water flowing from the ground that just landed in the income
bucket for Novell. However, it Novell ever took UNIX retail vs Microsoft, they
still would have had the same problems as AT&T did... BSD code that was
free!
So, wisely, Novell didn't go that route (the programmers and coders of UNIX that
worked for AT&T, or Novell, didn't understand the problems... due to the
fact that they never saw the "hushed settlement" either. Darl when
he worked at Novell didn't see it at all either! One wonders if Nordal did?
If he did then, this Canopy/SCOx run at IBM and LINUX most likely was a bet that
the settlement would never see the light of day.

------------------------------------------------
Here was AT&T's basic problem with Unix (from
<a
href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930303.ruling.txt">
;Civ. No. 92-1667 OPINION</a>

"To begin with, it is important to compare Net2 side-by-side with 32V.
Net2 has far outgrown 32V and now weighs in at nearly ten times the size of its
parent. The alleged overlaps between parent and child probably amount to less
than a percent of the total. (Joint Decl. at  12, 13.) Indeed, ignoring
header files and comments (see below), the overlap in the critical
"kernel" region is but 56 lines out of 230,9995, and the overlap
elsewhere is 130 lines out of 1.3 million. However, as both sides argue (but to
different effect), the nature of the overlap is more significant than its
size".

here was the focus of AT&T's case:
from same url as above

"In summary, Professor Carson has examined the traits
shared by Net2, BSD/386, and 32V, and detected a common lineage".
--------------------------------------------
THE judge did not see the Professor Carson code examination as a material fact
that supported the USL case, due to the problems that AT&T had in the past
with NOT keeping it's IP/IT horses in the barn. AT&T was afterall, first
and foremost, a communications company, and not a computer company!
-----------------------------------------------


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Strange Tanenbaum argument
Authored by: PolR on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 10:08 AM EST
Does the University that employs Tanenbaum have an Educational license? Can it
be argued that Tanenbaum is somehow bound by such a license?

I hate to raise the point, but this looks very much like SCOthink. The sad part
is even if this argument fails, it will cause some trouble to an honest Computer
Science professor. If I were him, I would ready my legal preparations just in
case.

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When was the SCOG IP plan conceived?
Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 01:27 PM EST
I've posted these links before but can't remember what became of it.

Essentially after the purchase of the Unix technologies from Novell and the imminent demise of Monterey, SCO had as they perceived it a situation where their Unix revenue was flat and they could not see a way to improve it. They appointed Ray Anderson to examine the business and come up with new ideas. I "don't know" but it "fits timewise" that he was the person who asked for the infamous, discredited internal code comparison between Unix and Linux.

Compu tergram June1999

Santa Cruz Operation Inc has put its top thinker Ray Anderson in charge of new business opportunities as senior VP of new ventures. It wants to be able to turn on a dime and exploit new internet technologies and other potential revenue sources more quickly than its current ad hoc approach..............

The mentioned Mike Orr leaves after setting up Tarantella.

Santa Cruz, CA (March 8, 2001) - The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOC) today announced that Mike Orr is leaving his role as president of the company's Tarantella Division to accept a position as CEO of a start-up company. SCO further announced that it has realigned the Tarantella Division's sales and marketing organization to increase its focus on enterprise accounts. Consistent with this realignment, the company has taken actions to meet its goals, including streamlining its marketing and sales effort, immediately reducing expenses in that area by approximately 20% for the division.

Tarantella/Santa cruz Press release 2001

Other related news and people 1998- 2002

ItWeek

Practical-tech.com

Practicle-tech.com

Tarantella

Tarantella

"We taught the Linux boys everything they know – SCO exec
By Ray Anderson, SCO
Published Thursday 17th December 1998 10:52 GMT"
The Reg. December 1998

All that was left by 2002 was to appoint Darl to finish the job that Ray Anderson started.

(sorry if the timeline order may not be quite correct with the links)

Brian S.

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Ghosts of UNIX 's past
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 04:11 PM EST
Does the end justify the means?

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More O.T.
Authored by: jim Reiter on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 06:17 PM EST
I went over the list of Documents submitted by Jeremy
Evans and lo and behold, not one the listed documents
contains any proof of ownership of anything Unix by TSG.

Apparently TSG intends to pursue these cases without ever
establishing that they (TSG) actually have ownership of
any part of Unix.

The question that continues to plague this case is "What
does TSG own and how did they (TSG) come to own it?"

The answer may be not much, which explains why TSG is
hiding documents.

BTW what does the Reorganization Plan/Merger Agreement say
about SVRX Licenses?

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1991 Date Stamp Wrong? -- Letter from O.L. Wilson
Authored by: rand on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 06:49 PM EST
I didn't see where anyone had mentioned this, so here goes.

The letter couldn't or shouldn't have been sent from USO in June, 1991. Why? Because USO had been converted to USL a year earlier:

FOR RELEASE MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1990
MORRISTOWN, N.J. -- AT&T's UNIX Software Operation today was renamed UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.

Surely the Division Manager would be using the correct stationary.

---
The wise man is not embarrassed or angered by lies, only disappointed. (IANAL and so forth and so on)

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SCO and USL name
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 07:31 PM EST
It is interesting that Caldera is trying to masquerade as
Santa Cruz Operation by renaming itself SCO and was trying
to aquire the brand name USL to masquerage as Unix System
Labs. Who are they trying to fool? Certainly a court of
law will not buy it.

I wonder if the whole re-naming thing was pre-planned well
ahead of the lawsuit, and was carried out precisely
because SCO knew all along that they had no case, and
needed the SCO and USL names to con a few half-witted
journalists in their media circus into believing that SCO
was actually the Santa Cruz Operation and Unix System
Labs, and therefore had more than the zero Unix copyright
ownership that SCO has now been shown to have. The
premeditation seems to show intent to sue and had
knowledge all along that they lacked ownership of Unix
copyrights.

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  • SCO and USL name - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 08:42 PM EST
  • Yes and no... - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 11 2004 @ 04:40 PM EST
OT: SCO puts its stock-incentive plan into high gear
Authored by: belzecue on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 08:35 PM EST
Interesting --

On the day SCO announced the date for its 4th quarter results conference call, these Form 4s (STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP) show up on the SEC:

"Grant to Reporting Person of nonqualified stock options to buy shares " -- ($4.85, exercisable 8 Dec 2005) -- "of Common Stock under the Company's 2004 Omnibus Stock Incentive Plan. The option vests over a four-year period commencing from the Option date or fully vests upon the occurrence of certain specified events."

CAMPBELL DANIEL W - 30,000
HUNSAKER JEFF F - 25,000
MCBRIDE DARL C - 100,000
YOUNG BERT B - 150,000
TIBBITTS RYAN E - 150,000
SONTAG CHRISTOPHER - 25,000

Is this just SCO warming up their money-printing machine -- ahem -- stock incentive plan in the hope that they will actually get to sell those shares before the axe falls?

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OT more history
Authored by: jim Reiter on Friday, December 10 2004 @ 09:15 PM EST
A nice short history of Unix.

http://snap.nlc.dcccd.edu/learn/drkelly/hst-hand.htm


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  • Link - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 13 2004 @ 07:22 AM EST
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