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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."
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Wasn't SCO supposed to reveal their cards a couple days ago? Haven't seen a lick of news about that... maybe they missed the deadline cuz all the executives have fled to tropical islands without extradition treaties.
Groklaw already has been translating the PDF's into text as well as providing some good commentary.
From the looks of it, it appears that Novell is about to hit SCOX with a breach of contract suit. Additionally, the letters point out that the MS and SUN contracts should pay 95% of the amount to Novell.
With that in mind, it appears that SCO has lied on their latest earnings statement (fraud) as well as withheld information from Bay Star, etc...
SCO is in a lot of touble.
I don't drink because I have to, I drink to stop the voices in my head!
Grin. The following summary from groklaw seems to sum it up nicely.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2004011 30 20257821
May 12, 2003, SCO: We own UNIX. Those Linux thieves stole it. Now we are going to make them pay!
May 28, 2003, Novell: Your letter annoyed us. You don't own UNIX, we do.
June 6, 2003, Novell: Stick to the facts and stop threathening us.
June 6, 2003, SCO: We do own UNIX, stop telling everybody you own it. You did that on purpose on the same day as our earning annoucement. We also want to know what IBM told you and what you told IBM.
June 9, 2003, Novell: You can't just terminate IBM's license, so stop claiming you will. We do have the right to tell you what to do, you know.
June 11, 2003, SCO: We do own UNIX and we can do what we want. Stop telling everybody we can't, or else...
June 12, 2003, Novell: Come on, you can't be serious. When we signed the contracts we promised IBM you could not terminate the license. We at Novell keep our promises.
June 12, 2003, SCO: Okay, now you've done it. You didn't listen, so now we are giving IBM permission to keep using AIX. You may not like it, but it the way it is. The license will not be terminated!
June 18, 2003, Novell: Our press release about the copyrights coinciding with your earnings annouchment was purely coincidental. We do not want to hurt you, we are just protecting our interests.
June 24, 2003, Novell : You signed contracts with Microsoft and somebody else. You can't just do that without telling us first. What's up with that? So, we demand to get copies and demand that you do not do this again. Once we have the copies we will determine if you have to give their money to us instead.
June 26, 2003, Novell: You keep telling you own the patents and copyrights of UNIX. We do acknowledge you had the right to acquire 'some' of the copyrights and we are still looking into it how much exactly you are entitled to. In any case, you do NOT own the patents.
July 8, 2003, Novell: Please stop bothering our former executives.
July 11, 2003, Novell: You haven't paid us in 6 months, cough up the money! Also, we are definitely going to audit your ass.
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.
August 4, 2003, Novell: We noticed you registered the UNIX copyrights. We do not agree with that. You had to demonstrate you needed the copyrights and you didn't do that. Tough luck, the copyrights are still ours!
August 7, 2003, Novell: You withheld our money! No mather what your reasons are, you can't do that. We want assurances that this will never happen again. Compy!
August 20, 2003, Novell: You know what, we have a technology license agreement. We want copies of the source and binary code for all versions of UNIX and UnixWare. We tried to call, but you never called back. We want the code and we want to know when we can have it.
September 10, 2003, SCO: We don't agree with your interpretation of our contracts. You are conspiring with IBM to destroy us. SCO is not going to let this happen.
October 7, 2003, Novell: You seem to think that AIX modifications made by IBM are subject to restrictions. Sorry, but that is simply not true. IBM owns their own code and can do with it what they like. Stop bothering IBM.
October 7, 2003, Novell: You seem to think that IRIX modifications made by SGI are subject to restrictions. Sorry, but that is simply not true. SGI owns their own code and can do with it what they like. Even if SGI did contribute UNIX code to Linux, it was very small amount of code and it was removed very quickly. This simply does not warrant terminating SGI's license, so stop threathening that you will.
October 7, 2003, Novell: We heard you are going to send invoices to Linux u
Basically, Novell says that it's owed 95% of the revenue from the Microsoft and Sun licensees (hmm, SCO already gave a good chunk to the lawyers, oops), and that SCO has failed to make expected payments on revenue from other Unix source licensees (double oops). They want their money, which basically would cut SCO off at the balls.
SCO says that they have the right to enter into new kinds of agreements and that the Microsoft and Sun licenses are not revised versions of the previous unix source licensing arrangements, so Novell can go pound salt.
Novell asks SCO to stop harassing Novell's customers (all existing Unix source licensees) and trying to ammend contracts they have no rights to ammend, threatening to terminate liceneses for IBM and SGI that only Novell has the right to do so, being a general pain in the a**, and that generally SCO are a bunch of lying cheats (yes, it's all in there, fun reading).
SCO doesnt say anything about being lying cheats, but claims Novell's Unix source licensees are their licensees, even though Novell has a 95% revenue interest, and SCO receives 5% "commission".
In short, this correspondence provides a foundation for Novell to say SCO is in violation of the original Unix purchase agreement, and could form the basis for Novell to have SCO's rights to Unix terminated. Since SCO knowingly failed to list money potentially owed to Novell on either their earning statements and their official SEC filings, or the potential risk to loosing most of their recent income, SCO is probably in deep sh*t SEC-wise, which probably explains the mysterious exit of that SCO employee in charge of doing the SEC filings right before their last earning report was do. Naturally he would not wish to be the one to sign a false earnings statements.
I guess looking at this, Bubba will soon have a new "Mc"-bride at club fed.
From the letter dated 12 June 2003, from Novell and IBM:
Accordingly, pursuant to Section 4.16(b) of the Asset Purchace Agreement, Novell, on behalf of The SCO Group, hereby waives any purported right SCO may claim to terminate IBM's SVRX Licenses enumerated in Amendment X or to revoke any rights thereunder, including any purported rights to terminate asserted in SCO's letter of March 6, 2003 to IBM.
This, in a nutshell, is Novell withdrawning SCO's right to terminate IBM's license, which was reported last year on Slashdot. What I really want to see, however, is the ubiquitous Asset Purchase Agreement, which appears in both this letter and most of the other ones; the whole dispute (at least, between SCO and IBM) appears to hinge on this agreement. Unfortunately, the agreement will probably never see the light of day, for reasons of corporate confidentiality.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
"Similar to analogous efforts underway in the music industry, we are prepared to take all actions necessary to stop the ongoing voilation of our intellectual property or other rights."
And in response to the specific piece Jack Messman says in his response:
"In your letter, you analogize SCO's campaign against the Linux community to that of the record industry against major corporations whose servers contained downloaded music files. There are crucial differences between the two campaigns. The record industry has provided specific information to back up its allegation, while SCO steadfastly refuses to do so. In its allegation letter, the record industry provides evidence of allegedly infringing activity that is specific to the targeted company. This offers the company real notice of the activity, sufficient information to evaluate the allegation, and an opportunity to stop the activity if it determines the allegation is true. If SCO wants to compare its actions to that of the record industry, it should follow the example set by that industry and present specific evidence of the alleged infringement."
At the very least, read this entire response from Novell to SCO regarding it's letter to Linux customers. Jack has pretty much voiced *all* the concerns that the Slashdot community has come up with in a direct letter to Daryll.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Some might not argee with me, but I think this lawsuit by SCO was inevitable for the Linux community. I have believed that Linux couldn't be considered a completely viable choice for many companies until something like this happened. Why? Because it hadn't been tested.
Linux is based on a new concept that many people don't understand. The right to freely use and change and redistribute doesn't make the Cooperate heads comfortable. Add that to the fact that most, if not all, distributions claimed not to take legal responsibility for their products. I believe that after SCO loses their lawsuit that companies will start providing legal immunity to their customers. In fact this is already starting to happen. Novell with their move into the Linux world has started to do this, IBM I believe is starting in some form or another and there could be others that I am not aware of.
Linux is going through its growing pains and afterwards it will be better for it. Once Linux moves through this, it will be well into it's young adult life. There will still be a lot of growth and "pain" involved but it will move on. While I know many will say, "But Linux has been around for many, many years," I say to them that yes, but it hasn't been tested legally. This will give it the legal ground to move forward and grow.
I remember several years ago during my early years in college one of my professors saying some time soon somebody would try to profit off of Linux's growth, they would take legal action and try to undermine the base that Linux is founded on. He also said that Linux wouldn't, and in reality, couldn't be a heavy weight contender in the marketplace until something like this has happened.
I believe that when all is said and done with the lawsuit Linux will be a better off and will show to all the skeptical CEO's and anybody else that is listening that Linux is a great foundation to build their network on and more.
Art by Mindy Herman, my wife.
Much of the copyrighted work is not Novells for Unix 386. The copyright is invalid. I have source code to prove it.
I see your point, but AT&T tried essentially the same case with FreeBSD a while back, and that hindered BSD development and take-up very much. The situation is a bit different now, with a lot more people having commercial interests in Linux than in FreeBSD, and Linux just has a lot more momentum than FreeBSD did at the time (it essentially was just a research project for most folks). Linux himself has written essentially that he never would have written Linux, he just would have used FreeBSD (Net/1 anyway) if it wasn't for the shadow of the lawsuit over it.
Did you really register just to write that?
1. That's what MD5 signatures are for
4. # tar -v -z -x -f foo.tar.gz bar/foo.c
bar/foo.c
GNU tar has become defacto standard
try foo.gz.tar if you are complaining about other overhead.
2. is rare and you've provided alternate.
3 is readily granted, which is why I only use tar.gz for things intended for a unix audience.
Your final comment proves advantage of separating compression from tarball. swapping in various algorithms with ease. Long live the | !
At least you have valid factual points to back up your assertion, much unlike moronic parent. Lawsuits != Stock Through the Roof in all cases.
The movement to link litigious bastards to http://www.sco.com/ would be more interesting if we all let SCO know exactly how you feel. Make sure your link says http://www.sco.com/?sco=litigious%20bastards. (The query parameter will naturally appear in their server logs.)
Join Tor today!
The real question herein is not 'how long before SCO is a smoking crater?' but 'how long until the Canopy Group is a smoking crater?'.
Whatever Daryl may do, it seems that Canopy Group benefits from this. IBM's discovery has gone after all the documents regarding SCO's plans to launch the lawsuit, specifically including any collaborations with Canopy.
Given the apparent grounds for fraud and financial chicanery charges, we will likely see Daryl cooling his heels at club Fed. But if, as seems likely, Canopy Group had any part in this, Daryl's puppet masters may join him there.
It would be good to see the old adage "crime doesn't pay" play out. The mills of the justice system grind slow, but they will probably grind exceedingly fine with IBM pushing and oiling the wheels.
Is it just me, or does it seem like every time we saw back-peddaling or inaction from SCO on some assinine demand it's because Novell beat the slop out of them with "Section 4.16(b)" of thier software agreement on UNIX licensing?
They even cracked SCO upside the head on behalf of IBM once or twice about SVRX licensing.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
And such a lawsuit would breach a huge hole in any SCO vs Linux end-user lawsuit. Such a suit would almost certainly gain a quick, long-term stay pending the outcome of Novell vs SCO battle for the Unix copyrights. (aw geesh your honor, I didn't really know who owned the copyrights, I don't know who to pay, there's a battle going on in court for it right now, etc). And that litigation would probably take years. Meanwhile IBM and Red Hat vs SCO would continue....
I'm affraid of a system that allows corporations like SCO to exist. They should have been forced to put up or shut up, like they were in Germany. But here in the US our legal system offers no protection to businesses or consumers from corporations that behave like SCO. Even worse our leading technology corporations, Sun and Microsoft, are only too happy to support the enemy of their enemy, no matter what the consequences might be to honest hard-working Americans. So if you want to build something and make some progress against these stagnant giants be prepared to build a multi-million dollar legal defense fund to protect your interests.
These unethical capitalists and their actions make me very affraid for the future and welfare of our society. Don't forget these corporations have a lot of influence in the media. How far do you think they'd be willing to go to make a profit? Judging from America's favorite "reality" shows I bet most people would do just about anything for money. Even if it means selling us all out, selling our children's future, etc, etc, etc.
Doesn't this bother anyone? This is a very serious social and psychological problem. And it is a feedback loop that won't fix itself. The media, education system, judicial, legislative, and executive systems all rely on the status quo for job security. What incentive do they have to improve things or change? In fact, they lie to us in order to maintain the status quo (Advertisements, War on Drugs). This is a cycle of continuous manipulation that's called capitalism.
Watch the movie Grass sometime, maybe it will make a little more sense to you.
SCO looks like it's trying to make a final hurrah to ensure it has a legacy with which it will be remembered.
Why are they doing this? Are they aware of their company crumbling from the inside *before* this Linux attack started?
Yes, the claim to copyright of Unix based on Amendment 2 is murky, but it may take teams of lawyers fighting it out to clear up. The Asset Purchase Agreement states that SCO is buying the assets listed in Schedule 1.1 (a), excluding the assets listed in Schedule 1.1 (b). Later Schedule 1.1 (b) was amended by "Amendment 2".
The gray areas are that Schedule 1.1(a) includes "all rights and ownership of UNIX and UnixWare", then Schedule 1.1(b) excludes "All copyrights and trademarks, except for the trademarks UNIX and UnixWare". They'll fight over whether "all rights" includes "copyrights" - and which takes precedence.
But then Amendment 2 adds to the exclusion clause about "all copyrights" the following: "except for the copyrights and trademarks owned by Novell as of the date of the Agreement required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition of UNIX and UnixWare technologies". That gives SCO plenty of leeway to claim that they have to own the UNIX copyrights in order to make use of the UNIX technologies.
Like I said, very murky, room for SCO to press their case for copyright ownership. Unfortunately.
OTOH, since there has been a Change of Control of SCO since the agreement (hard to argue with - they're really Caldera, and bought SCO), Novell therefore now has "an unlimited royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license to the Licensed Technology" - as stated in section 1.6 of the APA, "License Back of Assets". Since Novell also owns the copyright, they could now give away Unix for free. Or at the least, the code from Unix that is in Linux, should it be proven that there is such code in Linux.
I found that quite interesting, mainly that this appears to directly contradict SCO's claim that they own all AIX code as it is derived from "their IP"
If you're interested in this letter, it's the Novell to SCO letter
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Fascinatingly, SCO reports that the discovery materials exceed "more that 60 pages", i.e., presumably less than 70. This is to cover 11 interrogatories that they have not answered with the necessary specificity, according to the courts.
Those interrogatories compel SCO to identify, in particular and among other things:Those two interrogatories alone would require more than 60 pages to answer, especially considering SCO's claims of "millions of infringing lines in Linux". I mean, seriously, how did they identify all those lines, *and* answer the rest of the interrogatories, in less than 70 pages? Really, really small fonts?