[olug] I'm one of the nails in SCO coffin...

[Daniel Pfile]

Luke -Jr wrote:
> On Thursday 23 August 2007, Daniel Pfile wrote:
>> "If information relating to a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this Agreement
>> at any time becomes available without restriction to the general public
>> by acts not attributable to LICENSEE or its employees, LICENSEE'S
>> obligations under this section shall not apply to such information after
>> such time."
> 
> Note it says "available without restriction", not merely "available". I don't 
> see AT&T granting a restriction-free license to anyone here.
>
>> When bell labs began getting rid of their old computers with copies of
>> the source code on them they made the code available.
> 
> But not available without restriction.
>
>> When that happened, the license that the code was under allowed the
>> recipients of the code to disclose it. So, disclosure would not be copyright
>> infringement.

I think I'm wrong on the infringement part, since the person who got the
code would just get the default copyright license and not be able to
copy it. However, they wouldn't be bound to the same license/nda that
ibm was since they received the code without a restriction. You'd still
have all the rights normal copyright law/fair use grants you.

> This is not like the GPL where the license is granted to anyone and everyone. 
> *Only* IBM has this license, and if the code were made available without 
> restriction, this clause would permit *only* IBM to disclose it.
> 
> Of course, for the code to be available to the public "without restriction" 
> also implies there is no longer a restriction to not disclose it in 
> general... But that has not happened either.

Right, IBM was the target of the lawsuit.

-- Daniel