Linux adversary the SCO Group sued rival software maker Novell on Tuesday, alleging that Novell has falsely claimed that it controls the Unix operating system.
SCO Sues Novell over Copyright Claims
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It’s just too bad that Novell didn’t start litigation first. They would have had the upper hand. But either way, they both knew it was going to court so ending up there one way or the other was inevitable.
Good luck Novell.
That doesn’t seem very wise, even if they win.
A SCO win would change nothing in the IBM suit nor the RedHat suit, and those are not based on who owns what copyrights at all – but if Novell should win (I’m not a contract lawyer, so in this case I wouldn’t know their chances), it takes a lot of wind from SCO’s sails – and there’s not even a lot of wind there in the first place!
That seems like a bad move for SCO – but then again, Novell didn’t leave them much choice.
A: Iwould like to buy this item here sir.
B: this item is not for sale..but you can buy the name of this item here..you can use the name to make money.you know.. just like renting a location ..you can do whatever you do with it but big but the location still is mine.
A: ok.. let’s have that in ink.
B:ok.sign here.
A: okay.
two days later……..hay Mr B..that’s not nice i thought i just bought the location.
B: no
A: ok am ganna sue you.
SCO has to sue somebody, that’s the only way that company stays in business. In the future they will also sue Microsoft.
Everyone knew this was coming, I only hope it will be over before 2005, I cannot wait that long
Personally I would think if Novell wins then SCO’s lawsuit agianst IBM is gone, if they don’t legally own Unix or System V, what else is there in the suit unless I am missing something.
Best of Luck Novell!
SCO already did sue Microsoft, and they won. At the time they were called Caldera, but the players are the same. And chief among them is Ralph Yarro of Canopy, who controls 46% of SCOX. It was all about some “IP” they bought, a little thing called DR-DOS.
But hey, MS has money to burn, and anyone attacking Linux is a friend of theirs!
SCO will sue anyone who has lots of money, and that is Microsoft, so you can be sure that they will file another lawsuit against them in the future…or anyone else who has lots of money.
SCO makes all of their money from lawsuits, it’s their only reason for existence. So if the US government, which isn’t exactly pro linux, favors the SCO, even though it is absurd, they might try to pass it in order to smother Linux. The SCO will enevitibly sue Microsoft for monopoly tactics or for some odd reason, kind of like they are doing right now. Linux will catch on outside North America, it will be hard to stop, so a title wave could fall ontop of Microsoft, especially if they ever try to enter the Linux market with their own distribution, the SCO will get them. They have to, because that’s their only purpose.
nothing surprising here (yawn)
😛
you can always expect the outrageous to come from SCOX
It’s just too bad that Novell didn’t start litigation first. They would have had the upper hand.
That’s not necessarily the case.
I do not know about the US civil law, however in Oz, the Plaintiff has the Burden of Proof.
If this is the same as US law, which I would be surprised if it isn’t, then by waiting for SCO to make the first move, Novell won’t need to work as hard.
The reason for SCO’s existance is to get possession of the linux kernel and sell kernel licenses to “authorized” firms like IBM, Redhat, Novell, HP, MS, Sun, Intel, others at wholesale rates. *Corporate* users that operate with a distro “retail” license from one of the above firms will probably be safe. It’s everybody else in posession of an “unlicensed” linux distro that stands to get attacked by SCO/BSA. Good for the American big tech firms and their shareholders, bad for freedom. No one will be able to reasonably plead ignorance should SCO attack them, especially with all the media buzz. Hopefully, SCO will dry-up and blow away, but if they don’t, it could get real weird for a lot of independent users out there. I’ve never bought or installed linux on either of my boxes anyway, I couldn’t care less.
Oups… I could be sued by both French Connection UK and SCO for selling those t-shirts
You think your cat has escaped judgment through death? Fool! Even the dead will be judged!
>>SCO has to sue somebody, that’s the only way that company stays in business. In the future they will also sue Microsoft.<<
FYI: scox has already sued msft, and won a huge settlement, about $150 million I think. Scox used to dr-dos, msft had windows 3.1 rigged to produce an error message if windows detected any non-msft dos.
Everybody seems to think that scox files tons of lawsuits. Actually, before scox filed against novl, scox’s lawsuit against ibm was scox only lawsuit in many years.
Scox threatens like mad, but scox rarely ever actually files.
It is too bad that US legal system does not allow one to
sue the whole world at once. I didn’t mean just planet Earth by that.
DG
This was sure to come. Even Jack Messman of Novell said its up to SCO to sue now. I would fully expect a big counter suit on on contract violations and numerous other things in the coming days from Novell. I’m really curious where SCO is gonna get the money to fund all this. If they end up losing to Novell…..and I think they will…..there will be a quite a fire sale.
I hate SCO, they have done all of it wrong.
However, after I reviewed the contracts Novell and SCO have made It seems SCO might win this one.
Apparently, this will be the only case that SCO will win. I hate SCO but that no excuse for me to hope novell wins. We must keep company’s to their words and stop these loop-holes in contracts as novell claims there is.
I’ve looked at the contracts myself, including the amendments, and honestly I don’t know how to call this one.
I think an important aspect to remember was that Novell regained some rights if there was a transfer of the UNIX assets – and there was, despite attempts by “New” SCO (formerly Caldera) to confuse the issue by renaming itself SCO, while the former SCO changed its name to Tarantella.
This just goes to show that you need to make sure that your contracts spell out exactly what is being transacted. If the contract is not clear as to what rights went to SCO and what Novell retained, it will be a long fight. If the contract is clear… well from what Archie mentioned, it may not be.
Someone earlier said that the Linux kernal would be a part of the settlement. How could that possibly be? IBM, Novell, and the rest do not own the kernal. It is not theirs to offer and cannot be offered to anyone without, I believe, Torvalds and the rest of the L community giving it up.
>>>So if the US government, which isn’t exactly pro linux, favors the SCO, even though it is absurd, they might try to pass it in order to smother Linux.<<<
Hmmm…I wasn’t aware that the government was in on this as well. Here I was all along thinking that this was a case for the courts to decide….oh well, we all learn while we live.
How many big companies are you going to sue?
SCO has to sue somebody, that’s the only way that company stays in business. In the future they will also sue Microsoft.
Well if that happens, maybe MS will end it.
Who who the hell owns UNIX? I am not so much worried about Unix code in linux but Novell and SCO both claim they own Unix? I am not sure that if either company owns Unix that they responsible enough to own it.
>>I hate SCO, they have done all of it wrong.
However, after I reviewed the contracts Novell and SCO have made It seems SCO might win this one. <<
Could you please specify what you read that left you with that impression?
It has been verified that scox has been asking novl to transfer the copyrights for months. Why would scox need those copyrights transferred, if scox already owns them?
It has also been verified that scox only gets 5% of the proceeds from licensing unix, novl gets the other 95%. Why does scox give novl 95% of the proceeds, if scox owns the technology?
SCO is not that dissimilar to Big Government, you know, the sort of government that waits until you produce something, then taxes the living daylights out of you. The sort of government that regards 66% tax as a reasonable tax rate, and wonders why people are so unpatriotic as to dig out all these intriguing tax avoidance schemes.