It's pretty straightforward. Novell and Microsoft and SCO represent the original PC server software companies, and they want to be make money from the new "free" PC server operating system if possible. Unfortunately for them, it was mostly created by a bunch of anti-capitalist "free software" fanatics, who want to put them out of business instead. These two opposing forces are now separating, by the announcement of this deal, and the forthcoming GPLv3 license by free software leader "RMS". One side capitalist, one side anti-capitalist. But only the capitalists are the ones with capital, of course, in all its different forms.
SCO does not belong in that group. SCO was originally a Linux company named Caldera and has nothing to do with the original SCO Unix.