Hello all. I have some concerns about the Caldera's Ancient UNIX License.
According to the 2010 jury, Novell owns the UNIX copyright, and since the BSD 4-clause Ancient UNIX license was issued by Caldera, is it still valid?
Or what about this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/135959/n ... ights.html ?

Is it legal to have Unix 1-7 and 32v source code (including *ancient* BSD)?

Can anyone explain this to me?

Indeed, I can't be too sure about the Caldera license's validity.
Afterall they don't own any patent or copyright on UNIX, so why should it be valid anymore?
Note that this would not affect your legal position in a significant way, because, even if your UNIX use would not be covered by a proper license anymore, you'd still have the certainty of not being sued by Novell, because, you know, they don't care about UNIX anymore.
So don't worry and enjoy the software.

Well, I have sent an e-mail to Novell regarding this, and lets see what they will reply. Till then, I will retain the ancient UNIX sources which I have.

Mah, Novell's intellectual properties have been bought by Attachmate, whom probably don't have a clue about what they got on their hands.
You may receive an answer email asking you what is this UNIX anyway (kidding).

Well, the issue here is a moral one, and is of a legal character to some extent (if something is not legal, it is not moral too, but not always vice versa). I know that having Mac OS X or Windows source code (without their permission) would be stealing, but what about a source which at first was freely redistributed and then it became copyrighted, and now, we don't even know who really holds the copyright, who has the right to license it, etc...
I definitely wouldn't want to steal someone's else work, but this about UNIX is really unclear. But something in me still believes that Caldera's license is still valid.
But if I don't solve this thing, if it is or it is not morally correct to have it, I will not be able to have it, because of conscience which is bugging me all the time.

I have moved all UNIX sources that I have (except for the BSDs) to a folder called "UNRESOLVED" and I won't touch them until I resolve this stuff.

I just pray that God would help me find out what should I do, because if the conscience is acting on behalf of God's Holy Spirit, I better not go against it.

After all, honestly, all I really need UNIX for is just educational purposes. I want to learn more about it, more about operating systems, and the way UNIX is programmed, designed, etc.. Maybe that would be fair use.

Anyway, lets see what will Novell say to this. Maybe they won't have anything against it. Maybe they will validate Caldera's license, and maybe give us an extended license for other UNIXes..
Let's hope their answer would be positive.

Ah, the moral high horse, it's a beautiful thing.

On topic: I have also sent an e-mail to Groklaw's Pamela Jones and see if she can help me on this research.

I also sent an e-mail to TUHS mailing list, and let's see what will happen. Maybe someone more experienced in the legal field can clarify this.

I have a feeling that if a god really does exist, he has far larger things to worry about than software piracy.

Keep the code!

Even if they say the license is unvalid now. You took it when it was free, so no worries.
It's like if the creator from QDOS gave it to you for free and now MS claims money from you. Screw them, they have come too late.
When it would be about drugs that becomes illegal to have it's a different thing of course.

So don't be too moral. Keep it, and if it's only for educational purpose you need to keep it for sure.
It looks like you are now even refusing to watch at the code, it's not like god is going to burn you eyes if you look at some code

That is another thing. We can discuss that privately. But copying (stealing) someone's else work (ie. software) without permission is really bad.



Well, I didn't take it when it was free actually, but since the license gives some kind of a redistribution right, I think that may be it, that may be the legal basis for the validity of the license. After all, Novell never said that the license is invalid. But lets see what will they say.



But I want to get a legal advice, either from someone experienced in this stuff, or from the legal department of Novell.

I will keep this thread updated. Maybe they would give us a free license for SYS V, who knows.

Definition of "copying":

Definition of "theft":

Is it me, or are copying and theft totally, completely different?

You having code you shouldn't have + creating software from it = bad
You having code you shouldn't have + learning from it = you learned -> nothing wrong with you learning

Now think of this. You have the capabilities to remember all of the code and you learned it when you were still allowed to have it. You can also perfectly reproduce the code now. Is that illegal? No it isn't! Furthermore the end product is the same: you having the code. They can take the original code from you, but they can't take your memories.

Also when you learned back then what you want to learn from it now the end product is still the same.

Well in software (or maybe more general) terms, I think that copying would have a different meaning. You have copying as copying ideas, etc.. and you have copying as copying files.

A copy of a file is identical to the original, isn't it? So that means that you can copy files from a CD or some other media without permission from the author, and that would be stealing, would it?

Even photocopying is illegal (and a thief, I think) if you have no permission.

True they can't take your memories, but some of the code may be patented, and if you implement it, you still will have to appear before court, etc..

Actually, I am really against such restrictive laws about copyright, licensing, patents and etc stuff, but since they exist and I can't do anything about it (I can't change it), I am to obey it. (That's why I prefer open source. Open source is a good community service.)

Actually, the UNIX copyright is holded by people who contributed really little to the actual OS.
Research UNIX (we're not talking about SysIII or SysV) was developed by AT&T guys and AT&T could never commercialize it (because of the antitrust).
So source cose was made [semi] freely available to universities for research and academic use.
Where on earth is the moral issue?

On the legal side, it's good you asked Pamela Jones about this.
She is probably the most qualified person for answering your question.
Even if I don't think her answer will be much more different from mine.

Well, if that's the case, since Dennis donated most of the ancient UNIXes to TUHS, it would mean it is freely available to public. But still the copyright holders are those who tell if it is freely available or not.

If you paid for the license and obtained a legal software key or what have you, then you have the right to use the software until said license expires. Novell may have bought the patents, but they can't end a licensing agreement just because of that (unless said agreement allows them to, but that's a whole other issue). So if you paid for it, you're clear to use it without having to buy a new license.

stealing is taking something away so that the original owner does not have it anymore after the theft. in copying, the original owner does not lose anything, this is the difference. (That doesn't mean copying is never bad, of course not, but this illegal act is not called stealing but copyright infringement)
don't be fooled by large content producer's lobbying

Look, Dennis is (sadly) already dead, Ken, Doug, Brian and all the other guys don't even work with research UNIX anymore (and they haven't been for over 20 years, and that's v10) and even if they did, they wouldn't care or even welcome you having the source. You're not stealing anyone's work because, as other's have pointed out, stealing is different from copying. What AT&T/Caldera/SCO were (even understandably) protecting was a commercial product (SVR4) that they made money from and they didn't one anyone else to have it so they were the only ones to sell it. Since SCO doesn't own the copyright anyway, Novell doesn't even use the source code for anything and it's even been open sourced by Sun, there can no longer be any commercial interest in the source code, not in the "ancient" (v1-v7, 32v, bsd) source code anyway.
So, don't throw away what you have, it's perfectly alright you have it (SysIII and SysV are another thing but I wouldn't worry about them either).

Actually the fact that Caldera licensed Research UNIX (even if they weren't allowed to) creates some sort of ambiguity.
Because of that, one could think that the copyright holder for UNIX (SYSIII and later) also holds rights on ancient UNIX.
Probably it's true.
Of course there's nothing to worry, as common sense tells us.

the lord forgives all, you do not need to worry about not sinning.

Legally having a personal copy of the code released by Caldera under their terms is fine. It was redistributing the source that required a license in the old days and could theoretically cause a problem now, although no one is legally going to pursue the matter ande you could say that code before the Berne Convention is in the public domain.

OP: The moral thing is your issue to work out to your own satisfaction. What are you looking to do with the bits? If you want to build a classic UNIX system thats freely redistributable with no legal worries use the BSD Lite code as a base. You'll want to check out how Free or Net filled in the few missing pieces.

This would be more than challenging enough for you and you wouldnt have to rewrite bits that were in PDP assembler language.

I just got a reply from Novell's Legal Vice President. I won't copy the message here but I will say that he said that while Novell retains certain copyrights over UNIX, they also acknowledge and recognize the validity of certain legacy SCO/Caldera licenses regarding UNIX technologies.

It seems that he was unsure which particular license was I referring to, so I just sent him the license pdf, as provided by the TUHS archive, but I believe he surely knows what was I asking them about, so his answer was positive, and I believe I am finally free to use ancient UNIX source code.

Glory to God!

I would never have expected such an answer.
I don't think Novell/Attachmate is supposed to recognize SCO license's validity, as SCO didn't have any right to license ancient UNIX.
They're probably embracing it because it comes in pretty handy for them.
There's not other similar license out there, so it's the only way to clarify ancient UNIX's legal status (as they can't be bothered writing a new one).
So far so good.

You were free to do so as well, you just stubbornly chose not to - but glad you've gotten permission from "the man", I suppose.

Praise almighty Zeus!