Free Republic

The president of a Houston energy company disappeared in New Orleans early Friday, according to police who are trying to get surveillance video from the Bourbon Street area where colleagues last saw him. Douglas Schantz, 54, is president of Houston-based Sequent Energy Management, one of the largest wholesale gas marketers in the country. Colleagues last saw Schantz wearing a blazer and tie between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Friday in a Bourbon Street bar, Assistant Police Superintendent Marlon Defillo said on Saturday. His wife reported him missing after he failed to meet his daughter for a flight home later that...

Novell says waiver cancels SCO's claims on Linux By Bob Mims The Salt Lake Tribune     Novell Inc., claiming it sold only limited rights to the Unix operating system in 1995, has issued a waiver it says negates the SCO Group's claims on the offshoot, freely distributed Linux operating system.     Claiming the purchase excluded control of "derivative works," or improvements to the program's code by independent developers, Novell had given SCO until noon Wednesday to retract its claim that Unix code was illegally imported into Linux.     That allegation is at the heart of SCO's federal lawsuit against...