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Novell Claims Ownership of UNIX System V
Bruce Perens writes:
"We knew that SCO's attack on Linux was a lie. But we never dreamed of the big lie behind it.
"This morning, Novell announced some of the terms of the company's 1995 agreement to sell its Unix business to SCO. The shocking news is that Novell did not sell the Unix intellectual property to SCO. Instead, they sold SCO a license to develop, sell, and sub-license Unix. The title to Unix copyrights and patents remains with Novell. To back up this assertion, Novell refers to public records at the Library of Congress Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent Office.
"In their announcement, Novell refers to recent letters from SCO asking Novell to assign the Unix copyrights to SCO. So, apparently SCO's management team knew that they did not own Unix while pursuing their sham campaign against Linux.
"Along with this revelation, Novell is reiterating its support of the Linux and Open Source developer community, and its status as a partner in that community. Novell rejects SCO's accusations of plagiarism. Novell management says they do not intend to stand in the way of the development of the Linux kernel, its companion GNU system, and other Free Software.
"It would be an understatement to say that this leaves SCO in a bad position. The company has loudly and repeatedly asserted that they were the owner of the Unix intellectual property, all of the way back to AT&T's original development of the system 30 years ago. They've lied to their stockholders, their customers and partners, the 1500 companies that they threatened, the press, and the public. Their untruthful campaign caused the loss of sales and jobs, and damaged Linux companies and developers in a myriad of ways. And now, SCO will be the lawsuit target. SCO's quarterly earnings conference call is this morning, at 9 AM MST (11 AM EST, 8 AM PST). Call 800-406-5356, toll-free, to participate. You might even get to ask a question. It should be fun to watch them try to weasel out of this one.
"Microsoft executives also have egg on their faces. The company self-servingly rushed to buy an SCO license one business day after the threat letter, bringing a senior attorney to the office on a Sunday to tell the press how much Microsoft values intellectual property. Microsoft's management could have taken the time to analyze SCO's claims, if the company had wanted this license for practical and technical reasons. Their decision to buy when they did must have been motivated by a desire to add to SCO's fear campaign. Of course they'll grab any opportunity to spread fear about Linux, but this time Microsoft bought a pig in a poke.
"SCO management, if they insist on standing in the way of a train, could still claim that software they developed in the years since 1995 is being infringed by the Open Source developers. That claim, always a dubious one, will be difficult to take seriously now that their prevarication throughout this campaign has come to light. SCO would be well advised to drop their suit against IBM in exchange for IBM's agreement not to counter-sue. But IBM might not feel that charitable toward SCO.
"In contrast to SCO, Novell's made a friend among the Free Software developers. We're always happy to see people using our software. But a real partnership between an IT vendor and our community is an equal partnership, with the company donating services and new software in exchange for the value it receives. Novell has already placed important software under Open Source licenses. Today, the company has done us a tremendous service, by stomping upon an obnoxious parasite."
ROFLM~F~AO!
:))
Like everyone else I got all got all pissed off with Caldera/SCO for their petty, vindictive & malicious behaviour. But now look at 'em... the management team will never work again in corporate America, the company will be bust quicker than you can say "busted flush", and the shareholders (if there's any justice) will be left with nothing. How hilarious!
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
While this may be true, any and all complaints against the distributors and users of linux is completely and utterly shot down. They also can't even ask for the offending code to be removed, since they don't own the patents or copyrights to it.
Buttsex.
It's useless to call in and try to ask questions about this. I'm sure it'll be brought up by the financial analysts dialed in, and the SCO people will weasel out with something like "This just came to our attention today. We will be looking at the validity of the claims but are confident blah blah blah..."
You won't today be hearing a full-out apology to the OSS community, if ever at all. They might just quietly drop the whole thing while they figure out the next best lawsuit.
Colocated Linux Servers - From $60/mo
This will be one of those saga's that become a part of computing history.
The plot twists and turns are making this into a very intersting story.
"Things that you own end up owning you" - Tyler Durden (via Diogenes of Sinope).
While I don't discount the possiblity, I find it hard to believe. Not only has Novell given the linux community its blessing, it's building the new Netware 7 OS on top of linux. If it were to come up that Novell's UNIX code was stolen at some point, Novell would be just as guilty as anyone as distributing copyrighted code under the GPL. They couldn't pull a SCO and sue every corporation, because they'd end up suing themselves.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with.
Funny, I thought "Contracts" were a method for doing business in good faith with people, not just something to be used for frivolous lawsuits....
Novell not suicidal.
Going up against IBM in an IP suit means that you have nothing to lose. SCO is a rapidly sinking ship trying whatever they can to stay afloat, last I checked Novell still had something to actually lose.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
SCO is the owner of the UNIX Operating System Intellectual Property that dates all the way back 1969, when the UNIX System was created at Bell Laboratories. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, SCO has acquired ownership of the patents, copyrights and core technology associated with the UNIX System
I.e. they're fucked.
Many kudo's to Bruce Perens for his obvious behind the scenes lobbying and to Novell for trying to pamper the community (hope they succeed, they're a cute, insignificant little friendly, furry, huggable company and deserve a profitable niche in todays market).
It was brought up on the day of the earnings call you silly.That is the only reason for the delay ;-)
It is called "Open fire with the main armament from point blank range".
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
"All I want to know is, who's idea was it - Microsoft's? ;)"
I know your joking, but once a company lies to the court, fakes videos in court, and has dead people sending letters to the Attorney General of Utah, can you trust them not to do anything that's illegal?
Microsoft has proven without a doubt they are one of the most immoral, corrupt, and untrustworthy companies in the world. After their trackrecord of lies and illegal acts it really couldn't be a surprise to anyone that Microsoft was behind this whole thing.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If this is true (and it almost certainly is ... Novel, unlike SCO, may not be thriving, but they aren't facing immenent bankrupcy either), then the fact that SCO lied to their shareholders is an SEC violation. It is fraud (among other things) and the perpetrators could be looking at a prison term (hopefully in a cockroach ridden, butt-slamming Pen, rather than Club Fed).
The first thing the SEC will look at is "WHO sold stock during this time?". Was this lawsuit simply a trick to get the stock price to jump up a little higher, sell and come out, or short it now, and come out?
As Rush would say, follow the money trail....
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
"And the stock has tripled in value since this whole thing started".
Cool. So now might be a good time to short it, since it will probably fall back to where it was before this whole thing started.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
This morning would be the best time to do so because SCO is already comitted to a press conference that they cannot cancel or delay.
lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
Oh, man I sooo want to source a class-action libel suit against SCO.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Migrating away from Linux would be a mistake. This is probably the most concerted, well thought out, and dangerous attack against Linux that has ever been launched. It did not succeed. The people who are adopting Linux for the first time (corporate red-hatters), will not understand the vagaries of the constant gear-changing behavior of the open source community at large. We all use particular software, often for "religious" reasons, such as my use of Mandrake because it's not a US based Linux distro. If you go down the list of why people use BSD, Debian, etc., you'll have a laundry list of geopolitical, IP law, and every other sort of activism expressed in what is installed on our PCs and servers.
I realize that it may be distasteful to some of us to support something precisely because of popularity, but if we truly care about the freedom that open source represents, then we should try to make sure that as many people as possible get a chance to try the red pill. That means sustaining the open source revolution, which is, as far as the rest of humanity is concerned, a Linux revolution.
Indeed, if the open source community retracts from Linux, and kills its gathering market momentum, we will have accomplished what the world's most best IP attorneys bankrolled by the world's most evil corporation could not achieve. How does one defeat Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt except by choosing to be unafraid?
Even if this is the case; Novell can simply GPL the relevant code (IF there is any) or release it into the public domain.
It is probably of little (business) interest to them anyway.
Of course, SCO might still then have a case against IBM, but Linux would be safe.
Unless, of course, what SCO means by having the "contract rights" to Unix involves having the exclusive right to license the source (but if so, why didn't they say so?). And, how exactly would posessing the exclusive right to license be different from copyright itself?
It's different because SCO's agreement with Novell is a contract that can be renegotiated or terminated (non-sequitur: I wonder if Novell can use SCO's claims regarding Unix to claim breach of contract and yank those "exclusive rights"?) whereas Novell's rights under copyright are in extent until the expiration of the copyright -- that's 100 years for corporations, thanks DMCA!
When SCO is nothing but a bitter memory, Novell can contract those "exclusive rights" to IBM, Sun, Microsoft, or say "the heck with it" and release the code into the wild under an open-source license.
Jay (=
I also listened in on the conference call; wanted to ask a question but didn't get a chance.
The parent poster already said this, but given the size of the post and the fact that it was being written during the call (and thus somewhat stream-of-consciousness in style), I wanted to emphasize one thing: SCO's CEO McBride stated during the call that they're confident that they do own the copyrights (which would mean Novell's claim of ownership in the press release must therefore be false, if SCO were correct).
Hints, horeshoes and hand granades are all useless in court. What wonders and marvels does he have that have yet to be expressed in any SCO product besides Caldera Linux? It's not there.
Why is it that they don't point to it explicitly? Surely it's not to protect publically publishes source code, nor can they care much about actual damages if they don't send specific cease and dissist orders. Anything they point to can be rewritten without trouble. The only reason is that it's not there.
It's not here, it's not there it's not anywhere. The whole case is some kind of weird sham for the M$ PR department.
Still want that $100 one time fee, McBitch? Yeah, that's what I thought. Why don't you go buy me a happy meal and we'll call it even.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Note the difference in language. SCO is being extremely weasly here. Novell is talking Patent and Copyright rights, SCO is talking "contract" rights. Presumably they have the right to subcontract their rights to IBM and others. However, this isn't what SCO has been complaining about mostly.
Their problems with IBM may be a contract dispute but they've been actively claiming IP rights to all kinds of things to discourage Linux use. This may have something to do with the Monterey project and IBM pulling out of that. If so SCO may have a case if IBM used some of that work in Linux but this has nothing to do with System V work previous to that project. As such Linux wouldn't be in any bind except with respect to work provided by IBM with regards to the Monterey project. If SCO is claiming IBM violated rights with respect to Unix System V work, the IP rights of which are held by Novell, than SCO is going to get crushed like a bug.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
On the basis of OSX being built on BSD, I don't see Apple needing such a license. BSD cleared these hurdles in (I believe) the early 90's. Therefore Apple should be clear of this mess. Unless Apple is re-introducing some odd code (which is possible when you consider NeXT could be in the mix).
Why stop there?
According to SCO's response, "SCO has the contractual right to prevent improper donations of UNIX code, methods or concepts into Linux by any UNIX vendor."
Protecting their code is understandable, but "methods and concepts" is dangerous ground. If a court interprets this the way SCO hopes they do, then the owners of Multics IP could turn around and sue SCO. This could work all the way back to the guy who first came up with the idea of binary representation for instructions and data in digital computer systems, at which point no-one can write a simple "hello world" program without violating someone's IP.
And all of this comes to us via a system that supposed to foster innovation. It's not hard to see that something is seriously messed up.
On the other hand, trade secrets don't have any legal protection, but you don't have to disclose anything to the public. The only way to protect a trade secret is through contracts, made with everyone that the secret code comes into contact with. If you make these contracts, then you can sue for damages if the secret is leaked (assuming you were smart enough to put that provisio in your contract).
SCO seems to want to have it both ways; they want the legal protection of a patent, and the ability to sue people associated with Linux for patent violations, but they also want to not disclose anything about their technology. In essence, they seem to want to sue Linus for something he had no control over, and no way to know that he was doing anything wrong (if there was any wrong committed; it could be that, as a poster on the LKML noted, the similarities are like having "her bosom heaved in anticipation" in two different cheesy romances; the similarity is coincidental and rather likely, given that the two OSes implement similar concepts).
Note that although they can't have patent protection on their software, SCO may still be able to sue IBM for contract violations. If IBM did indeed leak SCO's code into Linux or elsewhere, they could be liable for damages (although almost certainly not $1 billion; no sane judge or jury would award that much to a company who hasn't sold that much software over the past few years, even when it was dealing in Linux itself and thus getting the benefit of IBM's supposed evil machinations)
As an aside, does anyone else find it perversely enjoyable to refresh the Yahoo ticker constantly and realize that for every cent SCOX loses, the bastards who started this whole thing are probably out tens of thousands of dollars?
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.