Shortly following the announcement that Bernd Korz was calling a halt to ZETA development, there has been some new information from ACCESS Ltd. regarding ZETA’s legality. BitsOfNews.com has posted an interview with David “Lefty” Schlesinger, Director of Open Source Technologies at ACCESS, prompted by a recent comment he made regarding ZETA. From the interview:

We have, however, sent “cease and desist” letters to YellowTab on a number of occasions, which have been uniformly ignored. If Herr Korz feels that he holds a legitimate license to the BeOS code he’s been using, we’re completely unaware of it, and I’d be fascinated to see him produce any substantiation for that claim.

The question of ZETA’s legality has been around for quite a while – Palm purchased Be Inc.’s intellectual property assets in 2001 and the development of (what became) ZETA was announced shortly afterward, but this is the first definitive answer we’ve seen from either side.

There’s also some good news in the interview: Schlesinger mentions that he believes “Haiku _does_ represent original work.” In addition to the recent disussions between ACCESS and Haiku developers, it appears that the Haiku Project is not in any legal dangers related to BeOS copyrights.

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