Posted on 08/13/2007 1:04:27 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
SCO Group Inc. does not own the copyright to Unix operating-system software, as it had claimed, and Novell Inc. is the proper owner, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said in a filing in federal court in Utah. SCO Group had sued Novell in 2004 for falsely claiming ownership of Unix.
In 2003, SCO Group filed a high-profile lawsuit against International Business Machines Corp. for contributing code to Linux open-source software that it said included some of SCO's Unix-related intellectual property. SCO claimed to have purchased rights to Unix from Novell in 1995.
That 2003 suit against IBM which has not been resolved, raised questions about the potential for other Linux proponents, such as distributor Red Hat Inc. to face similar legal claims
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
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Now on Sunday....
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Sunday, August 12 2007 @ 11:53 PM EDT |
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Here they are, at last, with a statement. With the loopy bravado of Monty Python's Black Knight, they list all the things they didn't lose. And they are exploring their options. "To be or not to be.... That is the question." Oh, wait. They didn't say that. Here's what they did say: Statement from SCO Regarding Recent Court Ruling "It's just a flesh wound." Here's what I think they should say: "Sorry, everybody, that we caused so much trouble by claiming we owned copyrights we had every reason to know we didn't own. Our bad. And sorry about all the shills. And sorry about that slander thing. And if your company lost business or your reputation was damaged, we are truly sorry. And I guess what SCO wants, it doesn't get after all." Oh, and check the ruling to note where SCO's version diverges from what the judge wrote. |
Bit of an update.....
Wall Street responds with a 71% plunge in SCOX share prices. Last Friday, the company was worth $33 million. Today, it’s valued at $9.6 million.
And its only going to go down, maybe instead of putting together lawsuits they should have been putting together software..
They were, until IBM broke their partnership to build the next Unix, and started peddling the foreign clone Linux instead since their international customers prreferred it being free of charge.
Yes, innovation is the best way for a tech company to survive. I’ve never seen a strategy backfire as badly as the SCO lawsuit has. It will be a sad end to a formerly fine company.
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| Had every reason to know? |
| Authored by: Placid on Monday, August 13 2007 @ 01:45 AM EDT |
| <<Sorry, everybody, that we caused so much trouble by claiming we owned copyrights we had every reason to know we didn't own.>> If I've read Judge Kimball's ruling correctly, they not only had the reason to know, they *knew*. Or am I missing something here? I guess what is below is no longer just Novell's words, it's the Judge's ruling: On January 4, 2003, McBride received an email from Michael Anderer, a consultant for SCO retained to examine its intellectual property. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 12. Anderer stated that the APA "transferred substantially less" of Novell's intellectual property than Novell owned. Anderer noted that Santa Cruz's "asset purchase" from Novell "excludes all patents, copyrights, and just about everything else." Id. Anderer cautioned that "[w]e really need to be clear on what we can license. It may be a lot less than we think." On February 4, 2003, McBride contacted Christopher Stone, Vice Chairman of Novell, and stated that he wanted Novell to "amend" the APA to give SCO "the copyrights to UNIX." Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17; id. Ex. 18 ("Stone Dep." at 108-09). Then, on February 25, 2003, McBride twice called a Novell employee in business development, David Wright, and said, "SCO needs the copyrights." Wright passed on McBride's request to Novell's in-house legal department. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 13. McBride's request was memorialized in an email written that day by a Novell in-house attorney, Greg Jones. Id. Also early in 2003, McBride and Chris Sontag of SCO contacted Greg Jones regarding the UNIX copyrights. Id. Ex. 8 ("Decl. Greg Jones") at 13, 14; Decl. Christopher S. Sontag 6. McBride stated that "the asset purchase agreement excluded copyrights from being transferred" and that it was a "clerical error." Jones Dep. at 182. On February 20, 2003, Chris Sontag also sent a draft letter to Novell that sought to clarify the parties' rights under the APA. Decl. Christopher S. Sontag Ex. Again in March 2003, McBride called Stone to ask him if Novell would "give him some changes so he could have the copyrights." Christopher Stone Dep. at 248-49. Ralph Yarro, Chairman of SCO, requested an in-person meeting with Stone. In that meeting, on May 14, 2003, Yarro told Stone that he wanted Novell to amend the APA to give SCO the copyrights. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17 at 4; Stone Dep. at 137-8. Stone refused. Id. On May 19, 2003, McBride called Stone and Joe LaSala, Novell's General Counsel, and again requested that Novell convey the copyrights to SCO. McBride said, "we only need you to amend the contract so that we can have the copyrights." Stone Dep. 249-250. Stone made notes in June 2003 memorializing both conversations. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17. E. SCOsource Initiative In approximately this same time frame, in January 2003, SCO launched its SCOsource initiative, which was an effort to obtain license fees from Linux users based on claims to Unix System V intellectual property. McBride commented that "SCO owns much of the core UNIX intellectual property, and has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights." [ |
"The project rapidly became unmanageable as all involved attempted to find a niche in the rapidly developing Linux market and focused their efforts elsewhere. Sequent was acquired by IBM in 1999. SCO left the Unix business in 2001; in the same year, IBM eventually declared Monterey dead.[2] Intel, IBM, Caldera, and others had also been running a parallel effort to port Linux to IA-64, Project Trillian, which delivered workable code in February 2000."
IBM did not start this project with the SCO group, they started it with Santa Cruz Operations. Which other then selling off their UNIX rights to Caldera -> SCO Group has no relation.
SCO 'disappointed' as shares plunge 70 per cent
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Mimicking a scene from Monty Python's The Holy Grail, the SCO Group has issued a statement declaring that it's not dead yet.
Last week, a judge dealt a devastating blow to SCO's legal actions against both Novell and IBM. He ruled that Novell does in fact own the copyrights to Unix and Unixware. In addition, the judge gave Novell the go ahead to tell SCO to drop its claims against IBM and said Novell is owed some money from SCO's licensing deals.
All in all, many industry watchers pegged the decision as the wooden stake driven through the heart of SCO's ghoulish penguin hunt.
Not so, according to SCO. Probably . . .
"The company is obviously disappointed with the ruling issued last Friday," SCO said today in a statement. "However, the court clearly determined that SCO owns the copyrights to the technology developed or derived by SCO after Novell transferred the assets to SCO in 1995.>................
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Novell's Victory Over SCO Could Have Downside For Linux Users
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Posted by Paul McDougall, Aug 13, 2007 10:42 AM
The free software world spent the weekend celebrating after a judge nixed SCO's ownership claims over Unix and, by extension, Linux. But the ruling did not specifically address SCO's charge that Linux is a Unix knock off--and a case that could have settled that question for good may now fade away as a result of Friday's decision.
To recap, Utah federal court judge Dale Kimball on Friday ruled that SCO does not own the Unix operating system and that the rights belong to Novell. The decision eviscerates SCO's four-year-old lawsuit against Novell.
Kimball said that an asset transfer agreement between Novell and SCO did not give SCO ownership over Unix, as SCO claimed. End of story.
What Kimball did not rule on, however, was SCO's allegation that Novell's SUSE Linux distribution is a Unix rip off and thus violates what SCO said was its copyright over Unix. Kimball had previously punted that aspect of the case to an arbitrator in France. A hearing is pending but is now likely moot.
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Linux backers are reacting with glee to all of this news. An anonymous blogger who goes by the name 'Pamela Jones' on the anti-SCO Web site Groklaw said over the weekend that he or she would "eat chocolate" to celebrate Novell's victory.
But hold the Godiva and Toblerone for a moment. If I'm a Linux user, do I really want SCO v. IBM to be called off without a definitive ruling on SCO's claims?
A victory by IBM could have quashed for good the notion that Linux infringes on Unix. If the case is dropped, then questions will still linger and might later be revived—by Novell or someone else.
To boot, IBM was winning. Judge Brooke Wells last year tossed 187 out of SCO's 298 claims in the case. Now it appears the game will be called off in the top of the fifth with IBM ahead on the scoreboard.
Novell has not threatened to sue Linux users, but what happens if the company, or its Unix rights, are at some point sold to a more, uh, territorial organization. You know, like Microsoft—which says other parts of Linux infringe on Windows. Indeed, Judge Kimball's affirmation of Novell's ownership of Unix makes the company a more attractive takeover target starting Monday.
And whoever picks up the gauntlet next time may have deeper pockets than SCO to go up against IBM. (Or they might be smart enough not to name as primary defendant a company with $90 billion in annual revenues.)
Bottom line: Novell's victory over SCO could result in one of the big questions around Linux remaining unanswered. That's not good if you're a corporate IT manager contemplating a deployment of the open source OS. Better if SCO v. IBM had been allowed to play through.
The vast depth and breadth of not only your ignorance but your abject stupidity is not only breath taking but beyond encyclopedic!
I constantly marvel at the fact that you have enough semi-functional brain cells to even type in a response to the subjects about which you know absolutely nothing. But still you struggle mightily to prove that you have no knowledge of the subject matter, and wouldn’t understand it if it was explained to you in first grade level reading matter- something that I’m beginning to feel that would still be so far above your minimal comprehension level as to be virtually incomprehensible to you.
At least most of the people here have a small understanding of your lack of intelligence and always share a good laugh or two over your attempts to prove, again and again, said lack.
Thanks for the good laugh...
A related opinion:
http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS3180933176.html
Wouldn’t it be ironic that Novell turned on Sun (or was purchased outright by IBM so IBM could kill Sun’s unix business).
The vast depth and breadth of not only your ignorance but your abject stupidity is not only breath taking but beyond encyclopedic!
Sun bought out their Unix licensing obligations many years ago and can do with the source code whatever they want.
What did they buy from SCO?
The facts just keep digging you in deeper, GE.
If I am understanding your question correctly, they bought the rights to some device drivers needed to run on x86 (Intel) processors. Obviously Sun can write their own device drivers for their SPARC systems.
I constantly marvel at the fact that you have enough semi-functional brain cells to even type in a response to the subjects about which you know absolutely nothing. But still you struggle mightily to prove that you have no knowledge of the subject matter, and wouldn’t understand it if it was explained to you in first grade level reading matter- something that I’m beginning to feel that would still be so far above your minimal comprehension level as to be virtually incomprehensible to you.
At least most of the people here have a small understanding of your lack of intelligence and always share a good laugh or two over your attempts to prove, again and again, said lack.
Thanks for the good laugh...
Well said, here we have living proof in reincarnation, Golden Eagle, NOBODY can get that dumb in one lifetime!!!
Typical Linux fly by. All insults and no facts.
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