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Novell Sued Microsoft Through Caldera?
cheesedog writes "The intrigue increases: According to this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, the secret terms of the sale of DR-DOS to Caldera included the provision that Caldera would have to sue Microsoft (for Novell by proxy) over the OS and that they would have to do so without revealing Novell's hand in it. Did Novell indirectly create a monster? Caldera's 300 million winnings against Microsoft are now being used to fund lawsuits against Linux (and Novell)."
it has to be said, innocent until proven guilty.
The US funds Saddam Hussein against war with Iran. Saddam and the US later go to war. (Twice.)
The US funds the Afghans against the Russian army. The Afghans later turn all kooky and "kinda" go to war with the US.
I think that this corporate thing just reaches to the roots of the problems in American society -- one person "helping" another by fuelling their hatred against a third party, only to have it backfire on them.
Your enemy's enemy is potentially someone who will sneak up behind you when you least expect it and stab you in the back.
Seems quite a few people need to learn that lesson.
Dan.
This falls under the catagory of "who cares". I mean,the SCO group coming out and saying there was an "unwritten agreement"...geez, they make up stuff about the written ones...let alone the unwritten ones.
Actually, no. A portion (and I suspect a very significant portion) of Caldera's $300 million winnings against Microsoft went to Novell. That is the entire point of Novell's current lawsuit against Caldera. From the linked Salt Lake Tribune article, "Novell wins breach-of-contract dispute with Canopy Group":
As stated in paragraph 5 of the opinion of the Utah Court of Appeals in Novell, Inc. v. The Canopy Group, Inc. (see also here):
Novell may have created a monster, but not a $300 million monster. Indeed, Novell received some undisclosed portion of Caldera's recovery against Microsoft, which Novell can now use to battle... Caldera.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
The overwhelming majority are innocent. Thus the presumption is based, not on some act of misplaced kindness that permits wealthy and influential to escape justice, but a simple acknowledgment of the true fact. Such injustice happens by other means. The presumption of innocence allows people to exist without be harrassed in the absence of reasonable evidence to the contrary.
And you are flat wrong about the government, anyway. The government prosecutes as a direct result of their presumption of guilt based on its unproven evidence. The Law, and not the government, presumes innocence. It is always a scary thing when people confuse government with law, even scarier when they equate the two.
But perhaps most frightening of all is when poeple confuse law with morality and uprightness. These are independent concepts, and as with intergalactic comets, only rarely do they meet each other.
It's nice that you want to keep an open mind, but paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of Judge Jackson's findings, Novell did indeed arrange secretly for Caldera to sue Microsoft, essentially on Novell's behalf. I think that qualifies as "proven guilty."
And we all know how impartial Judge Jackson was. Jackson's improper conduct tainted the anti-trust trial, resulting in a situation that was neither fair to Microsoft or to the consumer. if Jackson had been professional, perhaps tougher punishments would have befallen MS.
Any rational person will take anything Jackson says as suspect. Once a judge shows complete disregard for impartiality, how can he ever be trusted to be impartial again?
Caldera became the SCO Group. This soap opera is complicated.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I really actually like Novell more after this. MS fucked them and they knew it, and they also knew that to retaliate against MS would mean their end. This is not an "Novell is evil" story, this is a "Microsot is so evil that even when we KNOW they are in the wrong we can't do anything because they can destroy us" story. Look how they wiggled out of monoply stuff as strong as ever, and don't seem to be acting any differently.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
The politicians dream up the laws, the lawyers write them, more politicians decide if we should live by them, and we can gradually swing the system around by firing or hiring the occasional politician. You should be voting for people who share your morality as best you can, or else you're going to end up living by someone else's.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then through mirad stupidity and laywer speak we end up with todays chinese fire drill. All because AT&T did not think to guard their original IP by copyrighting it. Then allowed several groups to modify it without central control.
AT&T did not think to copyright UNIX for a number of reasons. One was the legality of a copyright on software was still very questionable; remember when you "leased" proprietary software for 99 years? Another, was that AT&T was not allowed to sell hardware or software because of the settlement that had split off the hardware division, creating General Electric. A company that still today is somewhere in the list of the top five largest in the world.
Besides, UNIX would never have been a success if they hadn't decided not keep centralized control. No one uses CP/M or VAX OS today by choice. Even Microsoft works hard to keep developers interested in their platform, they just keep expanding the core too quickly because they are too paranoid for their own good.
Who's morality? Who's "rightness"?
Everyone has their own values, usually more or less derived from their parents and their religion/church. That's one of the important things about Democracy: Majority rule helps uphold the views of as many people as possible.
Certainly, most people will feel themselves limited in one form or another by the law. (Take speed limits, for example.) However, for any given specific matter, under ideal conditions, democracy helps gaurantee that most people will agree with the Law's view.
I won't go so far to say that we live under ideal conditions.
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