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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.
Pssst, Darl.. Some 17 year old punk named Mike Rowe is running his website on Linux! You better file suit against him, too!
Trolling is a art,
Oh yeah. Novell had to be the last company I thought SCO would sue. How can anyone really feel good about working for these guys? Granted, jobs in IT are harder to come by as of late, but I would be absolutely embarrassed to say "I work for SCO"....... They are less and less a tech company every day and more and more a front for litigious action that appears to pump up their stock and dump shares as quickly as possible given the SEC filings over the past little while. Come on now, these guys split off from Novell via Noorda who almost ran Novell into the ground after fightin' it out with Microsoft and tried under the guise of Caldera to sell (rather unsuccessfully) a Linux distro, almost killing another company yet again. Darl McBride then thought "I know what let's do, let's build a business model based upon legal action. Hell, we don't need no stinkin' IT product. We've got lawyers .
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I think we are at a point where it is easier to list the companies that SCO has _not_ sued. I'm waiting on them to bite the hand that feeds them by taking a shot at Microsoft and Sun. Hell, they may even end up suing themselves!
Could this be a last ditch effort to bump their stock so they can sell the last few shares...
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding SCO's lawsuit against Novell.. . . These forward- looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, the risk that SCO may not be successful in its claims against Novell and that the pursuit of protections for SCO's copyrights will require the expenditure of resources and may result in further litigation.
They have my nomination for understatement of the year (& it's only January). Second, anyone?
It's a bad sign when you start putting disclaimers in your press releases.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain
I don't know how SCO possibly hopes to sustain another lawsuit, with the IBM one and all the counter-suits against them still pending. They have basically no cash flow (and their SEC filings confirm) that they probably won't see any additional revenue this quarter.
Looks like another publicity ploy to divert attention from the amended S3 filings they made last week that announced all the risks they "forgot about" in the original filing.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
Now, finally, a good test case for the Lie Detector Glasses for sceptical Slashdot readers!
Now, that's the pot calling the kettle "black".
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Figures.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
How long until the BSA starts conducting raids on businesses without SCO "liceneses"? By the BSA's standards, unlicensed software will get you audited, and they like to bring in their pet cops to do these raids. Novell lawsuit is probably good though as it will help force closure on the great IP landgrab on the century.
The FSF and the kernel hackers could have a field day with SCO right now. This, along with the aborted attempt to sell binary run-time licences that restrict rights in a similar fashion, may be exactly the mistakes the GNU/Linux copyright owners have been waiting for. I'm pretty sure SCO's public statements about the invalidity of the GPL, combined with the GPL's own statements that any disagreement over the terms of GPL-code distribution kicks the whole package back to standard copyright and thus makes SCO's own continued distribution illegal as hell, will make this case a laugher. For all of SCO's claims that the GPL is anti-copyright and unconstitutional, the licence itself makes clear that if the conditions can't be fulfilled or the licence is found to be unenforceable, standard copyright law applies--which means, unfortunately for SCO, the code they're trying to distribute is not automatically public domain, and thus they have no right to distribute any code they can't claim direct ownership for. It just means the authors would have to come up with another way to licence their code, either collectively or individually--and SCO would be in no position to make demands. Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
SCO to IBM: "Hold on a sec while I go and steal something from this guy so I can say you stole it from me."
I bet that will fly.
..."a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions"
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Funny one PR... funny..
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
I think SCO is in this for a long time, and they won't go away. Judging by 2003 and the last month's efforts, they will stick about and sue anyone and everything vaguely related to them.
And when their stock finally takes a plummet back under a dollar... they'll sue their investors and anyone who ever traded on them!
I guess it's a smart move by them to get in first before Novell acted. If Novell had acted in suing SCO for claiming to own Novell's UNIX when they didn't, it would give the worldwide impression that SCO is using IP illegally. As SCO has taken the first step of taking legal action against Novell, it now looks all the more (even if only to the clown troup of DiDio and Deutschebank) like SCO is the one working to protect THEIR ip.
Can a company sue another company for being plain stupid? I mean, SCO thought they were getting all of System V because they failed to grasp all of the ramifications of the contract they had with Novell. The only argument that they might have is the claim that Novell tricked them into a contract that they thought was more inclusive. From reading the correspondence, I don't think this is the case. It was just a matter of shear stupidity on SCO's part to agree to a contract under their assumption that it was more inclusive than it is.
Question
What do you have the best chances of seeing this year?
A) - The Easter Bunny
B) - Cupid
C) - SCO's compelling evidence against Linux.
D) - Another John Woo movie, including his signature cinematic touches such as; crossed guns, the boot, the villain's outer garment whipping in the wind, and, oh yeah.....those fucking birds !!!
Answer D - BECAUSE THE REST ARE FUCKING FIGMANTS OF YOUR IMAGINATION.
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.
aaahahhahahahahaha. *breath* aahehehehahahehe
yeah sure, Novell was the cause of the irreparable harm! ahahahhahahahe!
I think this explains why they didn't have time to correctly respond to the Judge's request that the produce evidence in the IBM case. The were apparently already working on their next frivolous lawsuit.
Finkployd
Round and round they go... being sucked inexorably to the bottom of the funnel, at which point they die.
SCO's updated SEC documents found it necessary to state that they can't afford to pay their lawyers in cash, so they're using stock instead. So it makes a lot of sense to take on a new lawsuit... Oh, except they have to, to defend their other lawsuits.... And they don't seem to be noticing anything *wrong* here. Either they or us are missing something.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
By suing they have effectively lost it IMO. If you read the Asset Purchase Agreement over at Groklaw, it's fairly clear that Novell is correct. Also Novell has claimed in the past that SCO has asked them to transfer the copyrights, but they (Novell) refused. If they can bring hard evidence of this out (and I would bet they can) then that proves SCO knew Novell retained the copyrights. Also look out for the Novell counter-suit about SCO's actions in claiming the Novell acquisition of SuSE violated the non-competition portions of the (old) SCO-Novell contract. Novell have played a vital role over the past few months in hastening SCO's demise. If SCO hadn't sued Novell they would still not get the UNIX copyrights. SCO can't win this one either way, much as they can't win the IBM suit. Ha ha.
Since this goes to the heart of SCO's claims against IBM and also of Redhat's suit against SCO, I predict that both sides in both lawsuits (SCO vs IBM and Redhat vs SCO) will ask for the respective lawsuits to be suspended (on-hold) until this is resolved. Bottom line: several more years of drawn out FUD with no resolution in sight.
http://ichart.yimg.com/y?s=NOVL&z=b&t=1d&c=SCO X
A couple of minutes later, however, prices were back at the level as they were before.
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.
The word SCO is in danger of becoming a synonym for sue. Some thing like "Oh yeah, well I am going to SCO your ass off, buddy" Sorta like google became a standardized verb.
Pay a wire service $3500. If it's properly formatted, anybody can do it.
The title of the page will display whatever you put in the path name
Jesus Christ! Is there anyone SCO won't sue? I can just imagine the next ./ article
SCO's next lawsuit target CmdrTaco's Aunt Tilly for her recipe for Scones since the first three letters in it are SCO. Aunt Tilly gives SCO the finger and states "Come near me and my recipe book and I'll let you have it with a rolling pin you bastards"
Phoenix
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
At SCO Countdown, I have a countdown to SCO's self imposed deadline for suing a Linux end user (I doubt that a Novell lawsuit can be counted as a end user suit), so remember, SCO has to file another lawsuit in 28 days or it misses it's deadline. In addition, after that litigious bastards campaign that was started on /. a few days ago, I acquired that domain and threw up a quick page.
Remember, link link link!
They have my nomination for understatement of the year (& it's only January). Second, anyone? It's a bad sign when you start putting disclaimers in your press releases.
I realize you may be joking but in the interest of being sufficiently pedantic, SCO actually is legally required to put disclaimers like this in. Whenever a company releases information about the managament's expectations for future events they have to identify "forward looking" information with a disclaimer like this. If they do not put this sort of disclaimer in the press release, the could be subject to discipline by the SEC or shareholder lawsuits. (I know, I know, that would be a good thing here...) SCO is just following the law and giving investors a disclosure of risks.
In other words nothing to see here. Move along...
The asset purchase agreement in a much more readable form than the scrambled PDF on SCO's site:at Groklaw
I don't think I've seen attachment E before, but it appears to be a list of documentation, not software. I wonder if SCO thinks that owning the documentation for the ABI gives them ownership of the ABI itself?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Lie detector glasses that work on press releases, coming soon from Nemesys-co!
Let's see Friday is court day on IBM's case. I smell a pretty bad debacle for SCO there.
Novell's been doing a pretty good job harrying SCO's flanks to the point where SCO is probably getting nowhere selling "licenses". They HAD to sue Novell to keep the pretense up.
I've noticed that their PR releases don't list a PR agency anymore. I used to work for a PR firm and usually they'll handle or coordinate media queries. Being done in house now. Hmmmm.... Maybe they can't find a flack who'll touch them.
My guess is that it's all about the stock price now but... The PR machine is losing steam. Like a junkie they need more drugs/PR to keep going.
Don't worry about the stock price, that's trailing news. There's so little stock being traded relative to amount outstanding that it doesn't take much to support it and the press releases are getting less effective. It'll crash rather spectacularly when there's a completely adverse opinion in one of the cases.
Friday will be fun to watch!
Pssst, Darl.. Some 17 year old punk named Mike Rowe is running his website on Linux! You better file suit against him, too!
Don't get him started. There's probably some kid out there S. C. Oh with a website...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In viewing SCO Group's actions, a quote from Babylon 5 comes to mind.
In the words of Londo Mollari: "only an idiot fights a war on two fronts; only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts."
I think that we have found the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots. I have lost track on how many entities they are really going after and how many they are threatening to go after.
said Mark Heise, partner, Boies, Schiller and Flexner, LLP. "We encourage the public and commercial Linux users to read the Asset Purchase Agreement from 1995 (including Attachment E found at www.sco.com/novell) and Amendment 2 so they can see for themselves that SCO owns the copyrights to UNIX and UnixWare."
...Besides the fact that Novell just bought into the Linux sector with it's purchase of SuSE. This debate apparently stems from something well before Novells involvement with Linux.
What does a copyright violation case between Novell and SCO have to do with Linux?
Save it for the judge pall, I know we slashdotten have uber legal skills, but thank your lucky stars that it won't be up to us.
Seriously though, why point out Linux users specifically? Why not just leave it at "public" instead of "public and... "
SCO and lawyerfriends are now just perpetuating a flame war.
Maybe I'm confused, but shouldn't SCO have sued Novell first? If they go to trial with IBM before the Novell suit is worked out, then the Big Blue Bulldozer can ride right over them with the ol' "SCO is tied up in court to prove they own the rights to the code that they say they own, but Novell says differently, and it's still up in the air, so they can't touch us" argument. Therefore, SCO better pray that Novell loses (yeah, that'll happen) quickly (Oh wow I can't stop laughing) before IBM gets in front of a judge to have SCO's claims dismissed while Big Blue can continue with its counterclaims. Put simply, SCO just found out, or realized, that they put the cart in front of the horse...not that they own any such horse, cart, or are even on a road anybody recognizes...
Everybody who thinks IBM's lawyer's bust out a Big Blue Grin when this came out, raise your hand.
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
This is all a little strange. It seems to me that the IBM case would have to be set on hold until after the Novell case is settled. I mean how can you finish suing IBM for misuse/misappropration of IP until you've settled who the actual owner of the copyrighted material is? (That of course assumes any of said copyrighted material can be proven to belong to anyone in particular or that it has actually been misappropriated into other software ;-)
Bull. Caldera got DOS quite a bit after it was founded. Caldera started as a company bundling the Looking Glass desktop interface on top of Red Hat Linux! DOS wasn't even in the picture then.
:)
Getting history straight on this whole convoluted mess is not the easiest thing in the world. But seeing some of it first hand helps...
Agent: This is a simple lie detector. I'll ask you a few yes or no questions and you just answer truthfully. Do you understand?
McBride: Yes.
(The polygraph explodes.)
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
.. on SCO before now. From my reading of the asset purchase agreement(s), Novell retained certain rights over SCO, including the right to "undo" certain things that SCO might do to their licensees, e.g. SCO revokes IBM's license, Novell un-revokes it. I find it surprising that they have not been able to just pull the plug on SCO for all of their recent behaviour. It's a shame, but I'm sure that if they could have done, they would have.
like SCO has a reputation to uphold at this point...
SCO (SCOX) has recently announced a change in the mission of the company. Citing failures to produce revenue growth chairman Darl McBride has decided to initiate a corporate injury law firm. "We already have several important clients (SCO v. IBM,SCO v. Novell, Redhat v. Novell) and this is proof that we can draw out lawsuits for many years, producing extraordinary increases in stock value." In other news the recently bankrupt Redback Networks has filed with SCO to sue Cisco for alleged patent infringement. When the Redback CEO was asked about the details of this infringement he replied "due to the potential damage to Redback such details cannot be provided. However we recognize that the corporations who purchased infringing hardware from Cisco did so without prior knowledge, so we are introducing a new licensing fee of $500 per unit until the end of the summer, at which time the said fee will be raised to $1000".
projection (pr&-JEK-sh&n): The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or desires to someone or something as a naive or unconscious defense against anxiety or guilt.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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
Caldera as a company was split shortly before filing suit - it was split into (at least) Caldera and Caldera Systems. Caldera Systems was the Linux part, Caldera was a holding company that existed solely to sue Microsoft. In fact, they filed suit against Microsoft the very day they purchased DR-DOS from Novell...
Apparently Caldera Systems as a compnay didn't profit from the MS settlement at all (only Caldera stockholders did, MS nemesis and Novell co-founder Noorda chief amongst them), but their IPO was on the exact same day Caldera announced the MS settlement, hehe...
The parallels are eerie though...
1. Buy "dead" technology from Novell...
2. Sue
3. Profit!
You're so vain, I'll bet you think that OS is about you
Don't you? Don't You? Don't You?
SCO had some dreams they were flushed down the toilet, flushed down the toilet, and...
If IBM is an 800lb gorilla, and their lawsuit was their weapon, then they essentially are asking the gorilla for a stick to hit them with.
If Novell is the 400lb cousin of the 800lb gorilla, then SCO just shot it with a BB gun and is expecting it to drop.
If you locked John Grisham in a room blaring Rage Against the Machine and hooked him up to an IV drip with LSD filled in the bag and gave him some Nicotine gum to chew and no sleep for 10 days, he wouldn't come up with this mess in a million years.
SCO should still have to show IBM what, exactly, IBM illegally included in Linux.
Then, the legal agreements regarding that material can be judged. It might be that SCO doesn't even have a case against IBM, even if SCO did have the patents.
SCO should get a hold on the IBM case only after SCO has shown what was "stolen" and the contracts have been found to support SCO's case and the "stolen" material is part of the Novell case.
IANAL so feel free to ignore me.
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
SCO sues Novell, but won't disclose its copyrights in Linux, even though it has to defy a court order.
In its press releases and letters to its customers, SCO claims that violations of its copyrights are in the Linux kernel. On December 5,SCO's lawyer, Keven McBride, said in court that SCO would be filing copyright claims against IBM. He also objected to the requirement to specify copyrights, but, after the judge insisted, said that SCO would comply. SCO was compelled by court order to answer ALL IBM questions with specificity by January 12. One of those questions was:
INTERROGATORY NO. 12: Please identify, with specificity (by file and line of code), (a) all source code and other material in Linux (including but not limited to the Linux kernel, any Linux operating system and any Linux distribution) to which plaintiff has rights; and (b) the nature of plaintiff's rights, including but not limited to whether and how the code or other material derives from UNIX.
On 1/12/04, SCO responded with an affidavit, a 60 page supplemental response, and some documents. Like everyone else, except IBM, I am still waiting to see the 60 page supplemental response, but I have additional information from public statements by SCO.
On 1/13/04, in the interview "SCO shows IBM the code", SCO spokesman Bruce Stowell said: "Monday's response included no examples of copyright violations. We've not introduced copyright infringement as part of our case with IBM. We've tried to make it clear that it's a contract issue."
SCO could have made arguments like this before it was ordered to respond to IBM's questions without further discussion. Now it's too late.
The order said to identify all rights that SCO claimed. It was not limited to rights that SCO was currently claiming as part of its suit against IBM, and, in my opinion, even includes the code contributed by SCO to Linux.
If, as Stowell said, SCO did not specify any copyrights that it owns in Linux, then either it is not claiming to own any such copyrights, or it has not complied with the court order.
If SCO now officially declines to claim ownership of any such copyrights, then it is hard to see how they could claim them in any later suit against a Linux user or distributor.
If SCO does claim ownership of any copyrights in Linux, it has blatantly defied the court order, and the judge can order sanctions. My guess is that part of the sanctions would be to bar SCO from suing anyone on any claims that it failed to specify in its 1/12 response to the compel order. The judge might also order SCO to show cause why it should not be held in contempt, and why it should not suffer sanctions for failing to comply with the order.
I wonder if SCO will now claim that it does not own any code in Linux, but it owns the copyrights that Novell claims. It would be typical of the way SCO has been making and revising claims.
Yeah, it sucks. The really scary thing is that this "system" works better than anything else that has been tried. Live with it.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
As I understand it, Novell had two key bits of Unix, the old SysV codebase and the newer Unixware. SysV wasn't under active development and had mostly been used as a base platform on which companies built their own customized Unix versions. Most of the big Unix vendors had to pay SysV licensing fees to continue selling their Unix variants. (Many other companies had in-house versions of Unix and also had to pay licensing fees. Companies were allowed to buy out their licenses for a lump sum, and I think that most of the big vendors have already done so.) Unixware was an actively developed system that was sold by Novell to end-users as a fully fledged operating system.
SCO (and it's important to note that this was "Old SCO", which is now Tarantella, not the company now calling itself SCO, which was then called Caldera) bought different rights to the two codebases. Unixware was the main point of the sale, and SCO got the essential rights to Unixware. As I understand it, that included the right to all the earnings from sales of Unixware and the right to develop the codebase further. SysV was seen as being something of a dead end, even though companies still had to pay licensing fees for it, so SCO bought much more limited rights to it. SCO collected the licensing revenue, but it then paid all that money straight back to Novell. Novell then turned around and gave 5% of the SysV money back to SCO as an agent's fee.
It seems pretty ludicrous to think that SCO bought full rights to SysV. There would be no reason for them to agree to a 5/95 split with Novell if they were actually buying the SysV codebase lock, stock, and barrel. NewSCO clearly has an uphill battle to convince anyone that the agreement with Novell constitutes a sale of the full rights.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
The Santa Cruz Operation paid $150M to Novell for Unixware, etc. Caldera paid $30M to SCO for these contracts, and SCO changed their name to Tarantella, and then Caldera changed their name to The SCO Group. Novell holds that The Santa Cruz Operation paid that money to become Novell's exclusive agent in selling Unixware, and related products. Caldera believes that they bought the copyrights. SCOldera is playing a name game here, hoping to muddle the issue further. They talk to the press as if Old SCO and New SCO are one and the same. They say incorrect things like they paid $150M to get the contracts, when they truth is they paid only $30M.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
or else
I really think Linus should file a similar suit. He has been slandered and the proof is in the public domain. If SCO fails to deliver the goods on the 23rd - case closed. If nothing else he could donate the judgement to some worthy cause like groklaw, OSDL or FSF.
Caldera as a company was founded with the sole purpose of suing Microsoft over DR-DOS.
Unless you have insider evidence that proves otherwise, that's simply not true. Caldera was founded in 1994 by the programmers who were working on Novell's original Linux product in the early '90s, which Ray Noorda wanted to bundle with DR-DOS and make a "Windows 95 killer" before Windows 95 got to market. Infoworld did a fair amount of reporting on this back in the day, referring to it as "the Corsair Project." Caldera's original web site talked about this project originally, and had internal logos that they were using for the project, although they were referring to it as "Expose." When Noorda was forced out and the project was canned, the programmers took what they could and built a Linux distribution from it.
Caldera acquired DR-DOS in 1996 from Novell, and Novell had already laid out the groundwork for the litigation, which they had chosen not to pursue. Caldera did pursue it, and frankly, they were right to. At the time, I can assure you the general feeling on Slashdot was, "Yeah! You go!" Seven or eight years ago, these were the good guys. Caldera certainly wasn't sitting around and waiting for a big payoff, though--they were actively developing both Caldera Network Desktop and embedded systems based on Linux and DR-DOS.
Last but not least, what you really must remember is that the current SCO Group has no executives, no products--and quite possibly no employees at all--in common with Caldera Systems. For all practical purposes, they're a completely different company.