Slashdot Mirror
SCO Versus Novell Going All the Way
Robert writes "Computer Business Review reports that ownership of the Unix System V code copyrights is set to be decided in court after a US District Judge rejected Novell Inc's second request that SCO
Group Inc's slander of title case be dismissed." From the article: "Novell's second motion to dismiss SCO's slander of title claim was prompted by an apparently positive response from Judge Dale Kimball to its first request to throw out the case, although he rejected it having concluded that the arguments about the agreements at the heart of the case would be more properly heard on potential later motions for summary judgment or trial."
No matter which side comes out on top, the lawyers still get paid. (Unless the accept payment only with a favorable verdict, but they might be company lawyers.)
Novell can still file for summary judgement. They asked to amend their motion for dismissal to a motion for summary judgement.
The motion for dismissal and the amendment were denied. However, Novell can still file for summary judgement.
There are (at least) two separate issues: (a) were the copyrights transferred to SCO; and (b) did Novell claim not with malice.
The most recent dismissal motion speaks only to (b).
It seems to me that (a) is a matter of law rather than fact, and might well be decided by summary judgement.
It always seemed more about a failed company clutching at straws to get attention and maybe if they could pull it off, a lot of money and control.
- But they never had a good story that would hold up.
Daily News http://newsblaze.com
Those guys are way passed embarassing.
My other car is a Popemobile
Read this closely: Novell is the defendant. Novell doesn't have a choice but to continue to move forward, SCO sued them.
Once Novell has clear title, though, speculation is that they can then claim their legal expenses as special damages and sue SCO for the exact same thing that SCO is attempting to sue Novell for.
My understanding is that SCO is the reseller for Unix licenses but Novell was still holding the copyrights. SCO is just a salesman for Unix and Novell gets the bulk of any Unix sales while SCO gets what appears to be a commission. Since SCO is the only person selling the licenses they needed to have some sort of weight behind their authority to sell licenses which included giving them enough rights to enforce the licensing.
This makes sense.... If I go into a contract with you to become the exclusive seller of your widgets it is important to me to have rights to protect my exclusivity. You may not care if someone else starts selling knock offs of your widgets but I do and I need the legal weight to be able to protect my investments (employees, time and other resources).
I don't think it will come out that SCO owns Unix but it may be possible that SCO does have enough rights to protect the business that Novell gave it. Which may mean that SCO does have the right to revoke IBM's license, at least under some circumstances.
There seemed to be some inconsistencies in the contract and I'd be interested to see how it turns out. Something I read implied that the rights SCO did attain were in an ammendment to the contract that Novell didn't know about? Who knows. I just want this to be overwith and see the idiots on both sides finally shut up.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Holy crap. When did this shit start? Wasn't it like two or three years ago? It's amazing to me that the courts have not asked SCO the question any two year old would have "what code are you talking about"?.
evil is as evil does