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Novell Pulls Out Their Ace Against SCO
mattOzan writes "Groklaw is reporting that Novell has just filed a reply with an exhibit in support of their motion to dismiss SCO's complaint. The exhibit consists of "1995 minutes from the corporate kit of a meeting of the Board of Directors, which clearly and unequivocably say that Novell was to retain the UNIX copyrights in the sale to Santa Cruz that year."
. . . I owe Novell $699?!
Party's over, let's go home, if there's no SCO to bash there's just no joy in living.
12:50 - press return.
Why didn't Novell bring this up a long time ago? Could have saved everybody a lot of time and money, as well as spared bad PR for Linux.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
and we'll be suing /. to get your IP, you realize?
This will put an end to the malice claim in the copyright dispute, which should unravel the IBM case as well...
SCO's own McBride then retires to the Bahamas where he enjoys a life of luxury until the next major hurricane, which demolishes his house and sends him to the great beyond, not before being tormented by a certain red-colored pitchfork-toting mascot (Oh and being rejected by the Great Penguin in the Sky).
So after SCO has been throwing rocks at the linux crowd for awhile its time someone finally slaps them on the wrists a bit.
p.s. vi kicks emacs' ass
This filing seems to be a little over-hyped here on Slashdot. It most clearly says what Novell's board of directors thought they were agreeing to... but is that what they actually got themselves into? Seeing that statement in a contract signed by both sides would hold a whole lot more value if that can be found.
Now actually why do we care so much about Novell ? Have they done anything spectacular to us that deserves so much hype around them ? Sure they might kick SCO into the butt and might have done the one or other thing that would chill people but thats all.
What I want to say is we should not see Novell as our friends, our buddies or whatsoever these are clear minded people who run all for the big cash. Cash is what matters and not the entire open source movement or whatsoever.
I know a few people from Novell who work for them and they told me that Novell doesn't really give a damn slight fuck for open source, the community or the entire movement. What matters for them is cash and outsourcing. As long as it gets them money in their pockets they do everything it's simply a new marketing segment they invest in.
So before overhyping Novell we should calm down and reconsider again. What ough to be our friend today can be our worst nightmare tomorrow.
Who cares, the fat lady has sung, it SHOULD be over.
Goodbye SCO... Who's next on the chopping block?
I played a lot of Warcraft II back in the mid to late nineties. The mental image of a bunch of Troll Axethrowers surrounding an enemy's farm, the farm in flames, with a continuous stream of axes flying into it just sticks so well in this case...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
From the Groklaw discussion, the real importance of this document is not necessarily that it proves that Novell has the copyrights (that's actually more difficult to prove), but that it does prove that Novell firmly believed that it has them. This is a direct defense against the specific slander charge against them.
Damn, a 33 hour meeting? I can hardly resist falling asleep after twenty minutes in a meeting.
But for the rest of us a link to the actual groklaw story and it's analysis is more helpful. Legalease is too much for me.
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
Any news, even "bad" news, gives SCO more media exposure and more ability to spin to their advantage and manipulate stock prices.
The best way to hurt SCO right now (besides SCO losing the lawsuit) is for the press to totally ignore them.
Slashdot should just ignore SCO stories, especially minor ones like this.
Shortly after disclosure, Novell reps were seen flexing thier arms, feigning a body punch toward SCO reps, and scratching their chins. Something like 'you my itch now' was muttered by a few from Novell. The SCO representives skulked away without comment.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I bet that SCO will pull another "Joker" from their arsenal and will raise the bet. (there are plenty of them working for SCO).
and SCO pulls an argument out their ASS
Groklaw coverage here
a world in progress...
No, the only point that Novell has to illustrate is that they acted without malice and did not willfully engage in deceit. Remember, this lawsuit isn't about whether Novell actuall owns the copyrights, but whether Novell intentionally lied about their rights to ownership to directly harm SCO. So if Novell can convince the judge that they had a good basis to believe they still own UNIX copyrights, the games over.
1995 minutes from the corporate kit of a meeting of the Board of Directors, which clearly and unequivocably say that Novell was to retain the UNIX copyrights in the sale to Santa Cruz that year.
So is that 33.25 hours of a meeting, or was that the minutes of a meeting that happened in 1995?
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
...to fix their copy machine until yesterday when Microsoft settled with them for $0.5BN?
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
for that eventual headline: SCO is toast
I hope Novell prevails, but this ain't no silver bullet.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
INAL, but these are just the minutes to a meeting. They are just evidence to help interpret the real contract, but it is not in itself a legally binding document.
Qxe4
Novell is the defendant in this case. SCO has brought allegations against Novell in another attempt to steal money (basically). SCO has accused Novell of releasing statements to discredit SCO. Early on in the SCO drama Novell announced that it actually owned the rights to Unix. When Novell realized that it may not actually own those rights, SCO sued Novell for publishing those statements with malicious intent. (Whatever the hell that means). Anyway, these records could show that Novell had reason to believe that it still owned the copyrights to Unix. If they can still show they had reason to believe they owned Unix, the case might get thrown out because it will be really hard for SCO to then prove that Novell issued these claims with the intent to discredit SCO.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
This filing seems to be a little over-hyped here on Slashdot. It most clearly says what Novell's board of directors thought they were agreeing to... but is that what they actually got themselves into?
Aaa.. You see this is exactly the point!
SCO didn't file suit against Novell for breach of contract with respect to the alleged copyright transfer.
What SCO sued for was Slander of Title for saying nasty harmful things about SCO, namely that they owned the Unix copyrights.
The problem here is that.. it's not slander if you actually believe what you're saying. And Novell has proved that they have had every reason to believe that they owned the copyrights.
(The Judge himself has indicated that it does not at all appear clear who does own the copyrights. But the copyrights aren't what's in dispute here, even if SCO says otherwise)
It is fairly simple for Novell to beat the slander of title charge. All they have to prove is lack of malace. In other words, as long as they thought they were still the copyright owners, they had a right to assert that claim. That was a slam dunk anyway even without this evidence.
Winning this one won't help the linux community that much though. What we really need is a judgement that linux contravenes no copyrights. That is IBM's counterclaim 10. When that one goes down, then I start cheering.
There are four links listed in that post and none of them are to the actual story at Groklaw. Can you knock off the linking of every term in a post that has a website or at least make sure to give us the one link that's most relevant to a post? Please?
This just goes to show that sometimes my English isn't as good as I want to think it is.
I thought that they had had a home made movie of one of their conferences that was 1995 minutes long.
Man, am I stupid.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
For those slashotters unclear on "minutes", which it appears many of you are, based on the comments I'm reading: "minutes: An official record of the proceedings of a meeting."
* They've made decent-quality products in the past
* They currently own SUSE, which is a very nice Linux distribution, and they've been doing interesting things with it since taking over. Meanwhile they've actively been doing good things for the open source community. So whoever's side they were on before, they're certainly on our side now.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If the agreement that SCO and Novell signed indicates that, or seems to indicate copyright is transferred then SCO still got that ground. If it doesn't say that Novell sold copyrights, if they forgot and omitted a license is being sold no the work of art then it's really left interpretation.
If IBM or anyone actually stole code is another matter.
Awesome troll, my friend. Just beautiful. Congratulations. Now back to the real world...
"I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party."
-- Joseph McCarthy, 1950.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
I find all I am required to understand at SCOinfomercial.con.
All important court documents are available. If they are not there, we simply do not need to know about them.
And there is the pure unadulterated truth to the lawsuits. SCO would not have brought these lawsuits unless they were right, so we should believe everything they say.
I implore you all to stop this blasphemy of the gospel of Darl.
Is it possible that once this slander of title suit is tossed, Novell could actually take steps toward trying to have themselves declared owners of UNIX?
And whether they do that or not, will they at least have the right to say to the public/media, once the slander of title suit is tossed, "we believe we own UNIX"? Since it appears the copyright is, at the least, in dispute?
Is there any way to potentially later challenge the side letter with a "valid Novell signature", the one SCO has a copy of, by which SCO claims ownership of UNIX? Is there any way in corporate contract law to claim something like this side letter was accidental, or unauthorized, in a case such as this when apparently nobody at Novell was aware that someone had signed away the UNIX copyright? Does the fact Novell has not yet done so mean that they don't have a way of doing so, or does it mean they're waiting until an appropriate moment (say, when it comes up in someone's court case)?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
As always there is a good read about this over at LamLaw
Help fight continental drift.
Is that people can have a variety of motivations and still contribute positively on something common.
Novell, IBM et al are part of the community. Like all communities the aims and motivations of individual members do not line up 100%. We should celebrate, support and encourage our commonality, not make a big deal out of or fear our potential differences.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I need to see proof.
wait nevermind, those minutes could be doctored for all I care.
Continue with the litigating boys
Yours sincerely,
~Darl McBride
All this hush-hush secret evidence. Wow! I think I'm gonna run out and buy some SCOX stock while it's still a bargain. You really made me see the light man. After *all 10* of the pieces of the puzzle you outlined above falls into place, SCOX stock will go through the ceiling. Wow! What an opportunity!
Lol. Truth is, let's say, hypothetically, IBM *did* contribute code improperly to Linux. 1) The violation *has* to be revealed by the court, so that the Linux devs can stop 'harming' SCOX. Linux devs would remove the code in question from the kernel, write around it, and would still distribute it under the GPL. The 'age of free Linux' is not about to end. It *hypothetically* could end up being a gimped linux that is missing stuff that is necessary for higher-end enterprise computing. Linux devs could, theoretically, have to revert to something similar to the Linux 2.4 or 2.2 code-base (SCO said somehwere, somewhen, that Linux pre-2.4 I think it was, is free of Unix code, if you can believe SCO).
2) I suspect that any 'damages' owed to SCO would be payed by IBM, not the rest of the Linux developer and user community. Then, see point 1) above, Linux would clean out any infringing code, and move on.
And I love the following: "I know some lawyers quite familiar with the case, not close to SCO at all.Although they won't say anything publicly lest they get harassed and see their companies' sites knocked offline by open source zealots, they've told me that some of the sealed exhibits deal specifically with code that SCO can prove could only have come from the Dynix code. "
That is hilarious man. No lawyer that is not close to SCO or IBM would have access to the sealed documents. None. They are *sealed*. If I can't see them, neither can any lawyer who is not part of the case.
Go back under your bridge, troll. . .
Someone just filled their shorts...
you have to be crazy...linux has now made it to the cover of almost every business and managerial magazine out there. There's no such things as bad pr. Now novell kills the case...front cover again...linux gets massive mainstream cred.
You see if you don't have an unicode browser or don't understand Japanese, then don't moderate this post.
This is in fact a 250 year old poem of Hinkashu Yunorito which perfectly comments this situation.
Please don't moderate something down because you don't understand it.
Thanks.
Now I can't shake the sound of "The town is under attack!" (Humans) and "We're being attacked!" (Orcs)!!!
Damn you! Damn you damn you damn you!
Document Management System.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
SCO's charges against Novell aren't breach-of-contract or infringement, it's "slander of title". IA so NAL, but it boils down to (a) you're falsely claiming ownership of something and (b) you're spreading deliberate falsehood that the other party that REALLY owns it doesn't.
Well the judge has said ON THE RECORD that the purchase agreement between Novell and Santa Cruz Operation (which Caldera bought then renamed themselves The SCO Group) doesn't appear to be a valid transfer of copyright, so that shoots down the first part, because the copyright ownership is now questionable.
Now these minutes show that Novell believes they would be retaining the copyrights after the deal. If you think you still own the copyrights, claiming so can't be malicious, so there goes the other argument.
Case closed.
The side-effect is that it throws SCO's claims to the copyrights into limbo, which should give the other folks they've dragged into court ammunition to claim SCO doesn't have the right to sue them.
And SCO starting a new suit vs. Novell to force the transfer at this point would just confirm that and scuttle the rest of their cases.
It's time to celebrate! ! ! ! !
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
Novell may be in it for $$; but they do have to pay the bills, they have to answer to stock holders. So whether they like it or not they need to make $$, as does nearly every enterprise.
Your post almost certainly over generalizes the corporate climate at Novell. Heresay in an aggressive post sounds an awful lot like trolling.
Your words would mean a lot more if they weren't hiding behind an AC post. I find it fun to imagine McBride having to resort to AC astroturfing on Slashdot, taking digs at Novell and IBM.
Sure everyone at Novell could be greedy SOB's but thus far their actions have been mostly benificial to the open source community.
Also why is it that if an open-source company trys to make money it is a bad thing? Software should be open, but services and support need to bring in cash. Money is an important and integral part of open source software. The money just comes from differnet sources. the Open Source economy is values information, and the freedom of information. Ultimately, its that information freedom that is leveraged to make services and support more efficient. If Novell can increase profits by selling and supporting Linux more power to them.
MS2k
Exactly that statement is in fact in the contract signed by both sides. The contract explicitly excludes 'all copyrights'.
SCO, bizarrely, is trying to dismiss this crystal-clear statement as some sort of 'scrivener's error', and has offered the statment of a former Novell employee (who wasn't even there when the contract was signed) to the effect that, no matter what the contract says, Novell really meant to transfer all the copyrights. The Novell Board document kills this (already absurdly weak) theory.
They didn't "pull out an Ace". They filed the Ace in good order some time ago and in the latest filing they kind of pointed it out more significantly.
The short-version is that the board of directors meeting the day before the critical Asset Purchase Agreement stuf makes spesific mention of Novell *retaining* all the copyrights, and they have (previously) filed those minutes with the court, so they get to sit their as sort of the last word on the motion to dismiss.
So much so that the court may, in light of SCO's foolish attempt to "add evidence" (in the form of a declaration) during the motion to dismiss, convert the motion to dismiss into a summary judgment.
Whoops. 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
since it took vi 20 yrs to get to where emacs was 20 yrs ago.
"Challenge this, meatheads."
good burn.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As far as I'm concered, anything that kills off this SCO stupidity is a good thing. I don't abide by the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic; that pretty much ended when I worked out that Tweety, Sylvester and the big bulldog weren't real...
If Novell is the agent of SCO's destruction, I'll be happy. However, I'll be no more or less likely to purchase or recommend Novell as a result.
According to CBS, the Novell meeting minutes are genuine and are actually from the year 1995 despite the fact that they contain modern Agfa and Bitstream fonts.
sorry, couldn't resist
Thank God I don't have mod points! I wouldn't of know whether to mod you as insightful or funny... I'm happy thats a decision I didn't have to make.
Something is being "over-hyped" on Slashdot? Never.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
OMG, too funny. The parent post was modded down as off-topic after the troll it was responding to disappeared from the message listing when it became -1 Troll. Either that, or whoever modded this message as off-topic just can't connect the dots to see the relationship. I feel bad you got modded down man, but it's still funny.
1995 minutes? That's one long-ass meeting.
As long as they reflect the intent of Novell at that time who cares? ;-)
How much would it take to pay someone to falsify a document and then take a perjury rap, to make the case seem more legitimate? It seems to me that this is entirely possible, a couple of million dollars in an off-shore bank in the name of the guy who is affirming this stuff? What is the penalty for perjury? We know what Biden ended up paying for plagarism...just a thought.
after the reelection of Bush, all the shit with Theo van Gogh, the burning of islamic schools, fear and today the 15-hour siege in The Hague (Den Haag) this has finally put a big smile on my face again.
Privacy is terrorism.
Thank you! I try...
NOVELL: They finally did it. They killed my fucking car.
DARL: Vee vant zat money, Lebowski.
SCOLAWYER1: Ja, uzzervize vee kill ze girl.
SCOLAWYER2: Ja, it seems you forgot our little deal, Lebowski.
NOVELL: You don't have the fucking girl, dipshits. We know you never did. So you've got nothin' on my Johnson.
LINUXUSERS: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
IBM: They're nihilists, Donny, nothing to be afraid of.
DARL: Vee don't care. Vee still vant zat money or vee fuck you up.
SCOLAWYER1: Ja, vee still vant ze money. Vee sreaten you.
IBM: Fuck you. Fuck the three of you.
NOVELL: Hey, cool it IBM.
IBM: There's no ransom if you don't have a fucking hostage. That's what ransom is. Those are the fucking rules.
DARL: Zere ARE no ROOLZ!
IBM: NO RULES! YOU CABBAGE-EATING SONS- OF- BITCHES--
SCOLAWYER1: His girlfriend gafe up her toe! She sought we'd be getting million dollars! Iss not fair!
IBM: Fair! WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?!
NOVELL: Hey, cool it IBM. Listen, pal, there never was any money. The big SCObowski gave me an empty briefcase, man, so take it up with him.
IBM: AND I'D LIKE MY UNDIES BACK!
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
SCOwned!!!
Judge, please finish these crooks (SCO) off now. It is becoming absolutely clear that SCO's purpose for MS is to open a new era of "IP" predation and a "but wait..." fud objection while MS clears the deck for massive action against free software. Every day the pattern is clearer...
SoftSolutions was a great product.
How can their stock price still be $4.something? They have no revenue stream! They spend WAY more in legal fees than they bring in in service / software revenues! Look at their annual report... look at the P/E ratio? WHAT justifies that share price? Do shareholders believe the lawsuits have a chance of being settled / won? Why does SCO's website advertise jobs? What self respecting nerd OR LAWYER would apply?! Maybe I'm missing something.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
He may be a jerk and is certainly making many lives miserable, but somehow you have to admire the genius of coming up with a way to turn a worthless company into a pile of cash (either by winning or being bought out)...maybe he also owns SCO's law firm!
Since I know no one here RTFA, it might be nice if they'd given any indication of why this is some kind of trump card.
:] Of course, that's just good lawyering, and they do have good lawyers.
Frankly, the corporate kit isn't much of anything new (see Groklaw if you want to know what the hell the kit is--PJ explains it well). Novell already lined up pretty damn near everyone who had anything to do with that agreement to testify that SCO is full of it. SCO found *ONE* person who was part of the early part of the deal, who LEFT during it, and wasn't really able to contradict any of what Novell's witnesses said anyhow. Yeah, I know, it really does go to show you that Novell's stance on what they own isn't new, but they've already established this to my satisfaction six ways from Sunday...
Now then, let's go on to the actual trump card. Novell found SCO including information outside of its original complaint. So what, you're probably thinking, but this is important. Due to some legal stuff (rules on parole evidence or something), Novell found a case that calls doing what SCO did a poor tactical maneuver. Basically, because of the crazy court rules for these things, the Court can convert Novell's motion for dismissal to one for summary judgement.
If they dismiss it (as they would now), SCO could refile with new, weird allegations they pull out of a hat (unless the judge dismisses it with prejudice, but then they have to show that *no* set of claims SCO could make could prevail... hard to do without ruling on the facts of the case, not just the law, as the jury has dominion over the facts).
If they go the summary judgement route, as Novell is urging, the Court gets to rule on the case here & now. Forget further wrangling, with that, the Court could rule on the case directly and SCO would have to appeal if the ruling went against it.
Now then, I don't claim to be a lawyer (I just read Groklaw, which is about as close as Slashdot often gets to having one), so I have no idea whether or not the Court will buy this. All I know is that it's an opportunity for the Court to get rid of SCO; something I'd do in a heartbeat, personally.
> Not everyone speak English natively on slashdot, so those that don't know
> exactly what that means: minutes means a referendum of a meeting
Isn't it ironic that a post about the English language is moderated "informative" by
people who do not know the difference between a referendum and a memorandum?
MOD the above post UP!
If you don't already have strong feelings one way or the other, you're probably pretty new to the Linux game, so I'd suggest SuSE out of the two choices.
I'm typing this on my Gentoo laptop, which is awesome, but a bit unwieldy for newcomers. My top choices would be Fedora or Mandrake, but it's been a long time since I've used SuSE.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
OT but true.
...is that SCO, using MS money under-the-table to start this mess is about to be pounded by Novell, who is now also using MS money, acquired through a legal action.
There really *is* balance in nature...
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I think you may be mixing up your lawsuits. IBM has been parading witness after witness (in depositions) while SCO has only found one or two that kind of buy their story. This article is about the Novell case.
The Novell case (Slander of Title) hasn't seen too much movement in the last while, so this is an important step. Especially since the outcome of this case can have a huge domino effect on the rest of the cases. ie if Novell can get a judgement that SCO doesn't own the copyrights, then the IBM lawsuit will most likely just go away...
Well Novell might be getting some killer PR recently. Their still a for proffit corps. They are having to enhance the standing of stakeholders. When the SCO game is over then they'll go back to business as usual.
SCO is trying to claim that Novell was malicious in knowingly publishing a false claim (that Novell owns Unix copyrights). Novell says that it had every right to publish its claim and it has reason to believe that the claim is true.
The particular memo doesn't prove anything about ownership but is one more (small) piece of evidence that Novell sincerely believes its claim (of ownership of copyrights), and so are in no way guilty of knowingly publishing a falsehood.
Novell's case is overwhelming, but this particular document is part of a filing in response to a filing by SCO alledeging that Novell knew it didn't own the copyrights.
I could be entirely misunderstanding things. There will certainly be a compentent analysis on groklaw soon enough.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Hopefully these minutes weren't typed by Bill Burkett on his P4 using OpenOffice and then printed from his Canon PIXMA iP5000...
Memorandum is an INFORMAL collection, in the US corporate world, minutes of a meeting are quite formal, and legally required in some cases. Referendum is generally accepted as a popular vote, as in of the people. This term is equally incorrect. Memorandum does come closer. But only slightly.
I could've sworn there were some Novell ones in there, but you may be right about me being confused.
Anyhow, the Court has already said that Novell had a "persuasive" arguement, so how can the Court find malice in Novell's words but not its own?
*shrug* So that news still doesn't do much for me, but you may be right. I have a lot more hope about seeing this thing hit summary judgement, so that SCO gets only a (hopefully futile) appeal and is done (unless they were to win, which I personally find unlikely).
Haha - you make funny - but here on
Don't believe me? I'm not saying that SCO isn't slimey evil, just that it sounds like your smoking the good stuff.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
The minutes do NOT conclusively prove that Novell owns Unix, only that they believed they did, and were acting WITHOUT malice, but in good faith.
Or at least that the board didn't authorize the sale of any portion of the copyrights.
However the sales contract has words to the effect of Novell retaining copyrights etc. EXCEPT those necessary for SCO to enforce their ownership of the Unix business. And it seems pretty clear that's the hook SCO is hanging their claims on - that they DID get enough of the copyrights to go after Linux.
If I (who ANAL) understand this correctly: If the Novell execs thought the wording didn't pass any copyrights and the SCO execs thought they did, and the words could be interpreted either way, the contract will be interpreted depending on which side proposed the wording - with the runling in favor of the other side's position.
The Novell minutes serve merely as proof that the Novell board didn't authorize the execs negotiating the fine print to hand over any copyrights.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
IBM has answered SCO's complaint and lodged several counterclaims against SCO. So, even if *all* SCO's claims against IBM are disposed of before any trial, the lawsuit won't end there. IBM will be entitled to have its counterclaims against SCO adjudicated. And before IBM is done, SCO will be in receivership and quite possibly some people will be facing jail.
The story is neither about Disney, nor about Corel...
the movie rights?
C'mon, get your links right. Where is the link to the groklaw report?
Am I the only person that noticed that these are just minutes from a Novell board meeting? So, they agreed internally that they want to keep the rights. I don't see anything here saying that SCO agreed to the terms.
I'm not trying to defend SCO (!), but this doc sure doesn't seem _to me_, a NOT-lawyer, to be a smoking gun of any sort.
I hope that I'm wrong...
KRvW
I wouldn't want to spoil your party but the sentence is not at all clear, at least to me:
"Novell will retain all of its patents, copyrights and trademarks (except for the trademarks UNIX and UnixWare), a royalty-free, perpetuel, worlwide license back to UNIX and UnixWare fo ri nternal use and resale in bundled products, Tuxedo and other miscellaneous, unrelated technology."
SCO lawyers will try to show that it says "that Novell keeps the copyrights except for UNIX"
I agree with Novell but how about the jury ?!
Of course, that's just good lawyering, and they do have good lawyers.
Score: -1, Oxymoron
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
Suicide is Darl's only option!
As much as I think your advice is true and correct I think you should leave the AC alone before he, and his army, beat down on your low UID elitist ass.
Does that make me a bad person or a terrorist?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better :)
It seems IBM is not alone in the artful game of reeling fools in. And Boies and Co. shrug and take the money home.
Game over, man, game over.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
In 1996 they clearly and unequivocably transferred the copyrights to SCO in that Ammendmant to the sale.
Nothing new,
Novell producing documents from 1995 completely ignoring the fact that Amendmant X which is not disputed by Novell that they gave up their copyright hold on UNIX.
edits with an coil of wire wrapped around an iron pole and flips the mains power as needed
(IANAL - I just read groklaw)
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
is simply legalize for the phrase, "Screw you guys. I'm going home!"
But, does that mean that SCO was actually STUPID enough to only buy the right to the NAMES and a COPY of the code that they can legaly make a new dev branch on? RTFLMFAO
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Literacy is on the wane, it seems.
:D
Or is this interesting meshing of unequivocal and irrevocable actually new English? Dictionary.com begs to differ.
iqu
"Somebody needs a hug."
Me! Me me me!
Uh... "Jamie" is a chick name, right? RIGHT?!?
(dammit)
bada-boom.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I'm no fan of SCO, but what exactly did SCO buy? And who owns the rights to any additions that SCO made?
Hey, i dont do business, but i read the book. (Covey - 7 habits of highly effective people) he said effective people aim for an outcome that benefits every partner. a bit like open source then. sadly the win-lose outcome is not sustainabe without forming a "winner takes all" society. oh wait, it already is :-(
I've sat in on some long meetings, but this one takes the cake!
it's: a contraction for "it is" It's also a contraction for "it has".
Anonymous Coward, capitalization. Capitalization, Anonymous Coward.
=)
--LordPixie
Doesn't that mean Linuxusers ends up dead of a heart attack? =-o
the sales contract has words to the effect of Novell retaining copyrights etc. EXCEPT those necessary for SCO to enforce their ownership of the Unix business
No, it doesn't. The sales contract explicitly states that SCO gets no copyrights, period.
Amendment No 2. (which took effect over a year after the sale was executed) said that SCO gets some copyrights, if they can show they "need" them.
Well, yes, of course, just like IBM. The reason for this is that it is the law: Novell and IBM are both public owned companies, and therefore every person who works for them has to spend every waking moment thinking about how to increase shareholder value. Note they don't have to give a damn about the product or -- oh horror! -- the customer, because these are just means to an end. The moment Novell stops thinking about how to make cash, they get sued.
The best introduction to this, as to most things in life, is of course Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Check out where he explains business plans.
This, by the way, is the reason that Microsoft is getting slowly cut into bits by Linux: Microsoft's first and foremost worry always has to be shareholder value, not the quality of the product. Spending money for security is bad for them because they don't make more money from it: If they can get by without it, their profit is higher. The Linux people are free to concentrate on the product. On the long run, this makes a difference.
How about Bill's OS for IT -- BillOSIT...?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
If Novell wanted to make use of outside evidence (before SCOX's tactical blunder), Novell would have had to make a reply to SCOX's pleading (which they haven't) and would have to start submitting to discovery from SCOX.
Novell isn't bending backward for SCOX, and has shown they will put up a good fight, but at the same time Novell is being as conservative as they can to try to keep their business from being interfered with, and to not waste money on legal fees.
As to why Novell didn't release this to the press, that could have opened the door for SCOX to actually get a trial on the Slander of Title case.
No, not a trump, just an ace.
So if SCO can pull a trump, they win the trick.
I hope its not the ace of hearts, as we know SCO is heartless.
Gotta have sixty fingers to create a new file, and two more if the filename includes a capital letter.
Everyone know that EMACS stands for [Escape][Meta][Alt][Control][Shift]
--
Honk if your keyboard has a [meta] and [alt] key
Who cares what the Board Meeting minutes say.... It is what is in the contract that matters... If the Novell executives and business development team were not smart enough to put it in the contract, it doesn't matter what their intent was. Novell did retain rights to the Unix patent library, but may not have properly covered their bases with respect to the copyrights to the source code.
Daryl McBride and company may not be on your Christmas Card list, but they have shown that the Open Source movement doesn't have very strong legs to stand on when it comes to proof that donated source code does not contain tainted IP. This is true whether or not it is ultimately shown that the linux kernel contains elements of the Unix source code.
As I don my asbestos suit in saying this, please note that I have contributed thousands of hours to open source development for the Macintosh, AIX, HP, and Sun platforms, but I have been careful to make sure that the code I contribute is done without violating agreements with my employers, and that I have not developed source code in areas which contain IP where it could be construed that I was relying upon trade secrets learned in the course of my employment.
However, there is no formal documentation mechanism in place for most Open Source projects (including mine) which creates a paper trail where contributors warrant that the IP is theirs to contribute (and is thus unencumbered). Besides which, for the assertion to have any legs to stand on, each developer contributing to the project would have to indemnify users (and subsequent developers) so that those using or expanding the source code would be protected against lawsuits from people like SCO, who are attempting to prove a claim of IP theft. (This fails because most of us don't have enough personal wealth to make any sort of meaningful warranty of indemnification.)
Unless the laws are changed, SCO or some future claimant will forever doom Open Source to the legal quagmire of lawsuits against individual developers, and thus force people out of the open source world.
Thoughts?
How about Bill's OS for IT -- BillOSIT...?
Don't forget the silent 'H'
This sig is intentionally blank
SCO won't pull any weird fillings out of their hat. It will come from the same place that all of SCO's legal breifs come from, from their anterior oriface.
Paul E. Bahre