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Sinking SCO:The Cnet reports that Novell has put yet another broadside into SCO, filing a countersuit that it has twice violated the Asset Purchase Agreement and its amendment. Both of which govern the Unix assets SCO is based on. Further in the suit, they again refute SCO even owns the copyrights they claim.
Now SCO probably now wishes it had been dismissed, then Novell wouldn't have filed its response with these claims.
Novell: "Not only are we the truthful owners of the SCOUnix license, we want our money owed... and then some more."
We are seeing the last days of the company formally known as SCO.
Back in May of 2003, SCO announced that Microsoft had paid them millions, and we were told this is what they paid for:This is an excerpt...According to a statement from Microsoft, the company will license SCO's Unix patents and the source code.Remember that detail? Patents. Plural. At the time, everyone, including me, took them at their word that such patents existed and had been licensed, even if only as cover.But now that Ninja Novell has put its SCO cards on the table, including at least an implied fraud card, no pussyfooting around, in its Answer and Counterclaims [PDF], it's clear there will be discovery in SCO v. Novell regarding the Microsoft license, and they will be looking more closely at the deal struck. We're all looking more closely. Novell has asked to see the license, and it's very likely they will get to see it. Discovery is very broad, as you may have noticed in the SCO v. IBM case. Anything the least bit relevant is usually ordered turned over. So, if they do depositions of SCO and/or Microsoft employees, here's a question I'd like Novell to ask:
What patents, exactly, did Microsoft license?
According to the employer of PJ from Jokelaw, Lunix infringes on as many as 300 US patents in the kernel alone.