Novell Releases SCO Letters

cyxs writes "Here is Novell's page with letters that have been sent back and forth between Novell and SCO. Very interesting read."

Comments

Obligatory Groklaw link

[Farmer Jimbo]

As is usually the case with SCO related news, Groklaw is picking the information apart. For now most of it is transcriptions of the pdf's, but also some first blush analysis.

site was "groklawed" earlier

[inode_buddha]

But here's some text to chew on:

(b) Buyer shall not, and shall not have the authority to, amend, modify or waive any right under or assign any SVRX License without the prior written consent of Seller. In addition, at Seller's sole discretion and direction, Buyer shall amend, supplement, modify or waive any rights under, or shall assign any rights to, any SVRX License to the extent so directed in any manner or respect by Seller. In the event that Buyer shall fail to take any such action concerning the SVRX Licenses as required herein, Seller shall be authorized, and hereby is granted, the rights to take any action on Buyer's own behalf. Buyer shall not, and shall have no right to, enter into future licenses or amendments of the SVRX Licenses, except as may be incidentally involved through its rights to sell and license the Assets or the Merged Product (as such term is defined in the proposed Operating Agreement, attached hereto as Exhibit 5.1(c)) or future versions thereof of the Merged Product.

(from section 4.16 of the Asset Purchase Agreement). Novell was doing a license audit in 2Q 2003.

Re:Why aren't we done with this?

[Moth7]

Or maybe they actually gave the evidence - you don't normally see the huge (or otherwise) dossiers of collected for a trial in media until maybe after the trial as ended. Just because somebody is interested doesn't mean it will change. In fact, it would probably do SCO better to keep it closed so that we can't go grepping through the source tree to find these alleged infringements.

Text files on Groklaw

[mflaster]

Many of the letters have been reformated as text on Groklaw

We can Slashdot them instead... :-)

Mike

Re:Summary from Groklaw

[Troed]

July 17, 2003, Novell: We don't like you. You tell people lies. You thought you couldn't do that, so we didn't pay. Luckily for you we determined you could do that, so we will pay. Also, regarding the audit; we're busy, please come back later.

That doesn't make sense until you replace Novell with SCO.

Re:Why aren't we done with this?

[gowen]

Wasn't SCO supposed to reveal their cards a couple days ago?

They did have to disclose to IBM. But IBM now have to plough through whats been disclosed before reporting back to judge, who then gets to decide if thats satisfactory. Next court date: 23rd January.

*Then* we might now.

This should calm the fears of many

[WebTurtle]

IT managers and and other executive decision makers who have been nervous about all the warning shots fired between the battleships in this war of words can finally feast their eyes on tangible evidence demonstrating the untennable position of Darl McBride.

In particular I point to the letter dated 12 Jun 2003 from Novell to SCO regarding the Asset Purchase Agreement between the Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. and Novell, Inc., September 19, 1995.

In this letter, Jack Messman pretty clearly identifies the absurdity of Darl's claims be referring to very specific portions of the Asset Purchase Agreement, which give IBM "irrevocable" rights, and states that Novell also retains certain rights, over which SCO has no say.

Darl, I don't think this is even a close call. You and I both understand the Asset Purchase Agreement deal: SCO acquired certain assests from Novell but acquired thos assets subject to certain rights of Novell. You can't have one without the other.

[...] Novell takes its contractual commitments seriously. When we enter into or amend a license to make it "irrevocable," we mean what we say, and we expect our customers to be able to rely on what we say. We ask you to do the same.

Now, I ask you, does this not sound like a man who is sure of his position and the position of his company? It seems to me that Linux users (corporate, individual, or those who've ascended to the next plane of existence) should be well in the clear from the majority of any claims SCO might possibly level. This evidence combined with the confidence exhibited by multi-million dollar legal defense funds set up to help those who might be the target of SCO legal action will go a long way to reassuring executives.

Now, if only the judges in this case would hurry up and slap SCO back into the last century, where they should have stayed...

Re:Why aren't we done with this?

[sphealey]

No your house isn't shielded. You are sheilded from loosing basic assets that allow you to continue to make a living. But while you won't lose your house, if there is any equity in your house, that equity will be pulled out to give to your creditors.

There is no federal law defining what "basic living quarters" are, so the federal bankruptcy courts defer to state law. In Florida, the dollar figure is something like 5,000,000 USD. That's why all the big Enron dudes bought houses in Florida and transferred their legal place of residence as soon as the poop hit the fan.

sPh