SCO Seeks to Block Novell-SUSE Deal(Sco may go after Apple OS X)

Eweek ^ | November 18, 2003 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[FreetheSouth!]

The SCO Group has announced it plans to take legal action to block Novell Inc.'s proposed purchase of SUSE Linux AG. The company claims that it has inherited a non-compete agreement, which was part of a broader agreement signed between Novell and one of SCO's ancestors, The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., when Novell sold Unix's intellectual property rights.

[Scannall]

Another great reason for tort reform. What a load of BS. Kinda funny how SCO started going after all of Micr$oft's competitors right after SCO got a big check from them.

Dan

[Only1choice____Freedom]

If you're gonna sue, SUE EVERYBODY!!!!

[FastCoyote]

The lawyer is David Boies, he's just been paid $9 million by SCO in cash and stock options. Microsoft has ponied up $50 million. If these extortionists aren't put down hard, they will own the computer world. Fortunately, I think they are about to implode, they are now roundly hated by their own customers.

[Timesink]

I think this has proceeded to the point where there are only two possible outcomes: 1) SCO wins a 100% victory; 2) Most SCO management ends up personally bankrupt, in jail or both for breach of fiduciary responsibility and whatever fraud or extortion charges they end up getting hit with.

[for-q-clinton]

So a company doesn't have the right to enforce the contracts they signed with another company?

[Liberal Classic]

Grist for the mill thread linky.

[WL-law]

Another great reason for tort reform.

Well, that's kinda not the point, since none of these claims by SCO are negligence-based torts of the type targeted by the tort-reform movement.

SCO's action against IBM is a contract action, as would also be the case in this threatened action against Novell.

The way to stop this type of action is to grant summary judgment against these "novel" types of litigation that I associate with David Bois. Just like the bogus legal theories he floated in the 2000 Election case, he needs liberal judges to let him get away with it.

[Golden Eagle]

he needs liberal judges to let him get away with it.

In this case a conservative judge would probably be more in SCO's favor, I've heard other lawyers say...

[WL-law]

In this case a conservative judge would probably be more in SCO's favor, I've heard other lawyers say...

I'd say that Bois has been "creative" (read:'liberal') in his interpretation of standard non-disclosure agreement clause language at the heart of the SCO action against IBM, and thus the gravaman of the SCO complaint is an example of Bois' "creative" (read: stretched) arguments.

Specifically, Bois is reading into the text of the NDA what he will argue are "implied" meanings and obligations, i.e., meanings that are not in the plain text of the document. Succeeding will require a liberal judge to play along with that game, and Bois will try to leverage his "big-time" reputation to bully the judge into countenancing his theories.

A strong-willed conservative judge (ie, not the Florida Supreme Court types) should shut him down.

[HAL9000]

(Sco may go after Apple OS X)

Boies vs. Gore? Sounds like a material conflict of interest to me.

[FastCoyote]

"So a company doesn't have the right to enforce the contracts they signed with another company?"

If you've never written computer code, you may not realize that it all is cross polluted with other intellectual property at some point. SCO itself has stolen plenty of open source code. How do you think beginning programmers get good enough to even work for someone like SCO? Microsoft steals tons too, your IE browser is based on the original mosaic (don't quote me on that name). SCO hasn't added squat to the body of knowledge that makes up linux and bsd and now wants to steal it all. It would be like the Wright family claiming title to the Space Shuttle.

[Southack]

"In addition, since Apple Computer Inc.'s ,Mac OS X is based on BSD Unix, Apple too could be targeted."

It's pretty sad when tech reporters don't even know that OS X was based on Carnegie Mellon's Mach engine *instead* of BSD.

What utter nonsense for an article.

[Southack]

Kernel
A key factor in the stability of the system is Darwin’s advanced memory protection and management system. Darwin ensures reliability by protecting applications with a robust architecture that allocates a unique address space for each application or process. The Mach kernel augments standard virtual memory semantics with the abstraction of memory objects. This enables Mac OS X to manage separate application environments simultaneously, while presenting users with a seamless experience.

[Dinsdale]

Mach kernel, BSD core functions. Crapple UI.

[Southack]

It was the phrase "is based on" that got me. OS X is based on its kernel, which is the CM Mach engine.

I mean, claim that some FreeBSD features are in the OS X API, but don't claim that the freaking kernel is BSD!

[Dinsdale]

I'm not sure where the Mach kenrnel was developed and first deployed but I would'nt be surprised if it was a flavor of BSD.

In any case OSX is based on BSD. The kernel is not the OS.

It's not just BSD features (FreeBSD<>BSD). It's BSD code, the stack, file systems etc...

[Southack]

"I'm not sure where the Mach kenrnel was developed and first deployed but I would'nt be surprised if it was a flavor of BSD."

You must be young. Carnegie Mellon developed the Mach engine, Berkeley developed the BSD engine. The only relationship that they share is that they both got their start from AT&T's original Unix code back when AT&T was prohibited from competing against IBM in the software field (Divestiture and all that jazz).

And without a kernel, you have no OS.

[Southack]

"It's not just BSD features (FreeBSD<>BSD). It's BSD code, the stack, file systems etc..."

From www.apple.com

The most widely-distributed UNIX-based operating system, Mac OS X offers a unique combination of technical elements to the discerning geek, such as the fine-grained multithreading of the Mach 3.0 kernel, tight hardware integration and SMP-safe drivers, as well as zero configuration networking. Panther integrates features from state-of-the-art FreeBSD 5 into Darwin, the Open Source base of Mac OS X, to provide enhanced performance, compatibility and usability.

[Dinsdale]

Berkeley unix was/is more then just a kernel. BSD running a Mach kernel is still BSD.

Are you saying that Mach was first developed and deployed under System V?

There is no OS called Mach. Mach kernels have run under many different OS flavors.

What's your definition of engine?