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SCO Files Suit Against Novell Over System V Ownership
nadamsieee writes "Yahoo! Finance is carrying a press release from SCO that details a new lawsuit against Novell for "Slander of Title". It looks like SCO has finally ditched their failing product line in favor of 24/7 litigation and PR work." To recap: Novell and SCO have a lengthy correspondence over the meaning of the contract between the two companies, Novell registers a claim with the U.S. copyright office over the code in dispute, SCO files this suit in response. Update: 01/20 23:04 GMT by M : SCO has placed their complaint (pdf) online.
Now, that's the pot calling the kettle "black".
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Looking at the correspondence Novell's put up, and given that SCO has acknowledged paying Novell royalties for SysV recently, it's hard to see how they can be serious. We can only hope that the judge here doesn't allow McBride & Co. to drag out the disclosure process as they have in the IBM case.
SCO delenda est!
No doubt Novell will file a countersuit. In fact, from Novell's correspondence it looks like Novell was preparing to file a suit over non-compliance with the purchase agreement. Maybe SCO saw it coming, and decided it would be better publicity to file first. Not that such a tactic will do SCO any good in the long run.
No, The SCO Group failed to understand the ramifications of the Asset Purchase Agreement that was signed between Novell and the Santa Cruz Operation, a separate company. Caldera bought the Operating Systems division of the latter, and then changed their name. Confusing the names is their First Line of Misdirection.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
> SCO will be in very hot water, because it could be seen as
> a violation of a court order.
But is there anything that can be done to SCO directly when it comes to violating a court order? What's the worst? a fine? the case is kicked out? They'll still keep suing and litigating and making press releases until there's no more money to do so, or they're forced to shut up about their claims by whatever part of the legal system can do so. So far they've played very close to the edge with respect to real legal action, and it's all been "we are going to sue" and "we have a licence ready to sell" and "you will need indemnification", but they haven't done more than that. So far, that's all press release, but it's a very effective way of spreading FUD, and they can keep that up for a long time.
The cynic in me believes that when January 23 comes around and SCO haven't fully complied with the court order, the judge will nevertheless grant them some leeway, and it'll be another few months until SCO has to again cough anything up. They'll keep up the press releases in the meantime, for sure.
Don't think pump up, think stall. I would bet that in light of the fact that the IP that they claim to own is in fact in dispute, that they file a motion to let them finish this second trial first. It has relevance to the trial and I think it would be hard for the judge to say no to such a request.
Meanwhile, they will be able to extor...er, persuade others to buy into that phantom ip litigation insurance and continue to pump up prices so that they can all sell their shares and get to the bahamas by next winter.
Hopefully Novell will file a motion to keep them from selling snake oi...er ip litigation insurance. Best of luck Novell. Make it quick please.
Nonsense.
Redhat's claims have nothing to do with who owns the property rights to UNIX, and IBM's case is nearly at a close, and doesn't really hinge on whether or not SCO owns UNIX - they've gotten this far, they're surely not going to suspend the case until the Novell/SCO case builds up for a matter of months, etc.
As soon as one case concludes against SCO, SCO is pretty much done for. It doesn't really matter which one, and IBM's is the one that is closest to closure at the moment. Why not let it finish, instead of shutting it down?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
On Friday, SCO has to stand before a Utah court and justify their pathetic little 60-some page document as complying with a court order to come up with some real evidence.
And therein lies the rub.
Think about it - SCO knows that they're in shit, and that they're on the verge of having the suit thrown out.. so enter...
the obvious pump-n'-dump scheme
If you're running a stock scam, and the whole thing is based on a frivolous lawsuit, and that lawsuit is about to come to an end, what would you do?
Answer: do anything you can to keep the case in limbo - including filing another lawsuit and using that as an excuse to delay proceedings.
IBM's discovery demand listed all SCO-owned source code in Linux (whether it was put there with SCO's authorization or not.) Since Novell contests what SCO owns, SCO can now go to the court and say "we can't answer number 12, because the code in question is being contested under another suit."
My guess is that SCO will show up on Friday and ask for the case to be put on hold until their suit against Novell is settled.
They've shown themselves to be:
Copyright violators suing for copyright violation.
Contract violators suing for breach of contract.
Royalty stiffs (withheld payments from Novell) sending fraudulent invoices for royalties.
And now they're slanderers suing for slander. Though technically it's libel.
* Novell's false and misleading representations that it owns the UNIX
and UnixWare copyrights has caused SCO irreparable harm to its
copyrights, its business, and its reputation.
I thought they were doing a fine job of ruining it all by themselves.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep