[CLUE-Talk] [Fwd: [linux-elitists] SCO: SEC letter]

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

Thought this might be of interest to CLUEbies. 

Z

-----Forwarded Message-----

> From: Don Marti <dmarti at zgp.org>
> To: linux-elitists at zgp.org
> Subject: [linux-elitists] SCO: SEC letter
> Date: 10 Sep 2003 09:19:04 -0700
> 
> Well, I took a stab at a letter to the SEC.  Anyone who wants
> to grab it, change it, and send a derivative work is free to
> do so.
> 
> 
> 
> Securities And Exchange Commission
> Division of Enforcement
> 450 Fifth Street, N.W.
> Washington, D.C. 20549.
> 
> 
> To whom it may concern:
> 
> In its Registration Statement on Form S-3 dated July 8, 2003,
> The SCO Group writes:
> 
>   One of the assets we acquired from Tarantella was all right,
>   title and interest in and to UNIX and UnixWare, including source
>   code and intellectual property rights.
> 
> This statement is incorrect, because several forms of intellectual
> property rights clearly apply to UNIX, and of these, The SCO Group
> holds only copyright on the original implementation of UNIX.
> 
> 
> 1. The SCO Group does not hold the UNIX trademark.
> 
> UNIX and UNIXWARE are trademarks of The Open Group.
> 
> http://www.opengroup.org/comm/press/unix-backgrounder.htm
> 
> Any software that complies with The Open Group's standards for UNIX,
> called the Single Unix Specification, may be sold as UNIX.  The SCO
> Group has no control over the standard or trademark, and itself
> uses the trademark UNIX only under a license from The Open Group.
> 
> 
> 2. The SCO Group does not hold UNIX patents.
> 
> According to the US Patent and Trademark Office's CASSIS2 system, in
> November 1995, Unix System Laboratories Inc. assigned three patents
> to Novell: 5,652,854, 5,265,250, and 6,097,384.  When Novell sold
> software copyrights to The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., it did not
> assign these patents, and still holds them.
> 
> The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. later sold the UNIX copyrights to
> the company now known as The SCO Group.
> 
> Other patents related to UNIX are held by other companies including
> IBM.
> 
> 
> 3. UNIX trade secrets existed in the past, but have been published
> with The SCO Group's approval.
> 
> On January 23, 2002, Bill Broderick, Director of Licensing Services
> for The SCO Group, made copyrighted source code versions up to and
> including "32-bit 32V Unix" available under a license that allows
> users to read, modify, and redistribute the software, for commercial
> or non-commercial purposes.
> 
> While the letter does not affect the fact that The SCO Group holds
> its copyrights, the letter clearly shows that if the company does
> have any trade secrets in its copyrighted source code the trade
> secrets would only include new information introduced in versions
> after the ones listed in the letter.
> 
> The market price of the SCO Group's stock depends largely on the
> company's misleading statements regarding UNIX intellectual property.
> The SCO Group should be required to file an amended Registration
> Statement to state correctly the copyright it actually holds instead
> of the broader and incorrect "all right, title and interest" it
> now claims.  Thank you for your attention to this matter.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> -- 
> Don Marti                Reform copyright law -- return abandoned works
> http://zgp.org/~dmarti   to the public domain after 50 years:
> dmarti at zgp.org           http://www.PetitionOnline.com/eldred/petition.html
> KG6INA
> _______________________________________________
> linux-elitists 
> http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net