Oracle's lead attorney, Daniel Wall, called that clause of the deal "brief, breezy language" and said actual porting contracts are far more detailed, covering the scope, time period and monetary terms of an agreement, among other things. Catz, Livermore and the other high-level executives and lawyers who crafted the Hurd Agreement lack the knowledge to hammer out such a deal, Wall said. With all due respect to them, "they couldn't negotiate a porting agreement on a dare," Wall said.

Instead, the Hurd Agreement was chiefly a deal involving personnel, not software porting, Wall said. "It's a tiny fraction of this bargain," he said.

The IDG News Service