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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.)
>
> From the mysterious future.
Nuh-uh.
"SCO Versus Novell - case to go the distance"
From the mysterious future.
"Novell wins", "SCO defeated in Novell Case", and "Novell victorious over SCO" can't even appear in the mysterious future until after the trial is over.
IMHO, this could end up being a serious embarrasment to to SCO. Maybe now, they'll crawl away and die.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Like it said in the article, this means that rather than throw out the case based on the definition of malice, they will settle once and for all who owns the Unix copywrite and rights to licence its source code. I think this is a good thing, like when AT&T and Berkeley finally sorted out that BSD was entirely free of any of the AT&T code and could go on with life free of dumb lawsuits like this.
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
does SCO actually legitimately create anything, anymore?
Actually, isn't anything possible in a
- fictional
future?Linux copyrights and patents are safe and companies like IBM, Redhat and Novell will protect them.
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/3110981 SCO also said they were coming after BSD.
You're just completely wrong.
Unix was created by AT&T (supposedly to run a space-war game).
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Do sweat it, though. Mac makes a better Unix anyway so you can always dump your Linux and go with BSD. BSD copyrights and patents are safe and companies like Apple will protect them.
Nice troll.
I have a mac, it runs OSX Tiger. Nice little desktop, but "a better unix?" I don't think so. Let's just say I prefer suse 9.3 on the desktop, and in the server room, there is absolutely no comparison.
There is certainly a place for OSX, but trolls like the parent do nothing to help the mac cause.
1.) SCO sues people for infringing their copyrights
2.) Novell publicly claims SCO doesn't actually own the copyrights.
3.) SCO sues Novell for, erm... "slander of copyright"
4.) Novell files a motion to get the case dismissed. Judge denies but drops hints that it could work...
5.) Novell files another motion to dismiss.
6.) (You are here) The judge says quit trying for a dismissal, it all must to go to trial, presumably to resolve who actually owns the copywrites.
7.) circa 2009, trial begins.
8.) The sun expands and engulfs the Earth in plasma. Utah slagged into a molten puddle.
9.) UT&T, corporate descendent of AT&T, publicly claims Novell does not actually own the copyrights.
10.) An Ixian investment group buys majority shares of GBM, UT&T, Novell and enslaves the entire population inhabiting the artificial planets orbiting Betelgeuse, where the descendents of Darl McBride are rumored to have migrated after Earth was no longer tolerable.
11.) Zarthon declares war on Ix, pointing out that Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy were all genetic plants sent to humanity to promulgate rational computation throughout the universe.
12.) Heat Death overcomes the universe as the Zath-Ix war consumes all Baryonic matter 18.3E21 Earth years early.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
find the dealer that is selling Darl his drugs and shoot him, please? His flights of "fancy" are getting old.
How in the hell can he go after BSD?
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
I used to work with several ex-SCO people in Santa Cruz. Great people to work with. They were all hardcore Linux/and/or/BSD people who were disgusted with the direction/erection that Darl McBride and his sad, Lindon, Utah ward members had taken the company they helped build.
This suit is a joke, and I hope that Caldera gets theirs in the end.
I also will firmly place my tinfoil hat on and assume that M$ has something to do with this...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I agree it sure sounds trollish ;-) However, I'd say an arguement COULD be made. If you start with the fact that BSD "is" unix while Linux is "like" unix, then consider OSX is based on BSD, you could make the above argument.
Now with the inclusion of mach and other features into OSX I'm not sure how valid the above is, but I'm guessing the arguement could be made. Really though it I guess is doesn't matter since Linux isn't a unix so it cannot be the better unix. As I said with the screwing with BSD that OSX did I'm not sure OSX is still a unix or not. Anyone care to chime in on this? In OSX still unix?
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
What if the judge ruled against Novell still owning the copyrights? We've all seen stranger things happen in the Amercian court system.
I agree it sure sounds trollish ;-) However, I'd say an arguement COULD be made. If you start with the fact that BSD "is" unix while Linux is "like" unix, then consider OSX is based on BSD, you could make the above argument.
There is the "legal" definition of unix aka "UNIX(TM)" and then there is tech definition of unix, aka "genetic" unix, i.e. the set of OSes which are clearly part of the unix family tree.
Neither Linux nor BSD are legally "UNIX(TM)", but both are clearly "unix"; Solaris and HP-UX are both "unix" and "UNIX(TM)".
As far as I'm concerned, OSX is "unix" as well, even though it's not "UNIX(TM)"; OTOH, microsoft windows is an example of an OS that is neither "unix" nor "UNIX(TM)"
Linux is just as much unix as BSD, but linux started out (though inspired by minix) as young Mr Torvalds' clean room implementation of SVR3-ish unix as described by Maurice J Bach in "The Design of the UNIX Operating System"
And trade it for an OS that only has a core that is open source but will not allow anyone to get even close to the realy nice stuf. Darwin isn't OSX if you hadn't noticed, so no thank you. I see little difference between bill and steve in that regard. Can't get more closed than steve is.
to keep this case going.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars just evaporating in court and lawyer costs every month this thing goes on. Is Novell so well-off this won't affect their bottom line every quarter?
If there's any SCO left when they get to the end, they declare bankruptcy. Then what does Novell have? Satisfaction in being right? I wish I could feed my family by just being right.
Or maybe the IP issues are better clarified. Well, Novell can't use that to their exclusive benefit. So where's the money?
What does Microsoft get? One less competitor.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Judge Kimball followed up that Monday SCO v. Novell ruling with a SCO v. IBM ruling today. Here are text and pdf versions.
He granted SCO a four-hour deposition of Sam Palmisano, IBM's CEO and former VP of all things Linux. He denied SCO's motion to belatedly amend its complaint to include a claim for Project Monterey-related copyright infringement.
The order includes a new schedule. The old one had been tossed out in January.
The new schedule roughly matches IBM's proposal (as amended at the hearing; see pages 90-91 of the transcript where IBM says to add two months to everything in the proposal), but with another two months added for most pre-trial dates, pushing the end of discovery to July 10, 2006. He added another couple months for deciding dispositive motions before the trial, making for a trial date of February 26, 2007. He included the interim deadlines IBM wanted for parties to "Identify with Specificity All Allegedly Misused Material", setting December 22, 2005 as the final date for all source code at issue to be identified by version, file, and line of code.
Per Kimball's order back in February there will be no summary judgment motions before the end of discovery, and the new schedule calls for the last brief on post-discovery summary judgment motions not to be due until September 26, 2006, so I think November 2006 is the earliest we could see a summary judgment motion heard and decided.
It's probably more correct to say that OS X has a Unix rather than is a Unix. Most of the nice things that would cause you to purchase a Macintosh have absolutely nothing to do with Unix (an Open API specification).
If you are looking for sh and Apache and MS Office, Mac's the way to go. If you really want a Unix, probably look for a vendor that considers Unix their #1 priority.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I think this is a good thing
I disagree.
It's irrelevant as to whether Novell owns the copyright - they believe they do (and proved that they have a good reason to belive so), and that's all that matters for the case at hand.
Novell didn't want to go the distance, they just wanted this to go away.
By denying their motion, Judge Kimball as put a distinct "screw you" to justice, and given the go-ahead to frivolous lawsuits everywhere.
We *KNOW* that SCO's suits are frivolous, and yet they are allowed to harrass innocent companies.
This reeks of corruption.
You haven't been paying much attention to the SCO plan...
McBride said during a press briefing at the inaugural Enterprise IT Week at cdXpo Conference here. "We have enough sorted out, but we are so focused on the [IBM litigation]. With our limited energies and what our guys are going through, we probably won't file any suits against BSD until sometime in the first half of next year."
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/3110981
So your precious Mac and BSD aren't safe from these clowns either. But then you likely don't really care since your just a cowardly troll.
burnin
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
FYI: It's copyright not copywrite. I wish people would get this correct.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Certainly few (other than some unethical lawyers of course) want more frivolous lawsuits, but for my part, I would like to see the matter settled on the merits of the case rather than simply throwing it out on a narrow definition of malice. Otherwise this could keep coming back. Let's just have it out and leave a good precident to follow.
If you look at their product offerings they do have new releases of SCO OpenServer and SCO Unixware. Take a gander at some of their features:
Optional KDE desktop for modern look and feel
OpenSSH and OpenSSL
Includes Mozilla 1.7
Includes MySQL database (Community version)
Includes Postgresql database
CUPS has been added as an alternative to System V LP
Gimp-print 4.2.5, foomatic 3.0.0-01, and ghostscript 7.05.6
Now if your a BSD or linux user you may be thinking "hmm, those look familiar" and you would be correct.
It seems that many of the new features in SCOs software offerings are actually open source software from those same people the SCO CEO says are dope smoking, thieving, pinko communists.
burnin
Yep, here's a version of it ported to Java.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
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
Now IBM will just try and make SCO spend as much money as they can to comply with thier timetable and milestones. They will continue to push Linux in the meantime and since the judge is using thier plan I am betting the IBM QA department will be giving SCO orders from now on.
I belive SCO has acted like Cuba during the cold war (all the really stupid stuff is done by proxy). The real struggle is MS vs IBM. MS want time to catch up with *nix like tools built in to the CLI and IBM wan't to push Linux because they are Integrators and realise they no longer need to build thier own basic components. When I worked there in the late nineties, Lou Gerstner declared "All code has been written, it just needs to be managed." I thought it was kind of humurous at the time, but now I think he was right when looked at form a "big picture" point of view .
You can't beat the borg by using thier plan!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Quick update: IBM wins most of the motions heard at the 21 May 2005 hearing in SCOvIBM. SCO's try to add more claims to the suit was denied, and IBM gets a deadline for the parties to disclose "allegedly infringing material." SCO does get to depose IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, but only for four hours. I'll post explicit dates from the new scheduling order once I've gotten a chance to read it.
Current events:
SCOvIBM: Judge Kimball has considered the motions discussed at the 21 May 2005 hearing, and has now ruled . He denies SCO's motion to amend their complaint, adopts the features of the scheduling order prefer by IBM, grants IBM's motion to narrow, but grants SCO's motion to depose IBM's CEO. Discovery continues. Redacted and unsealed motions are dribbling out. The parties seem to be still consulting with each other on the priviledge log issue. Finally, a fully briefed, completely sealed discovery motion awaits a ruling, though no hearing date is yet set.
SCOvNovell: Judge Kimball has denied Novell's motion to dismiss. The likely next step here is for Novell to file an answer to SCO's complaint.
RedHatvSCO: This case remains stayed. However, Judge Robinson indicated that if "it would no longer be an inefficient use of judicial resources" or "there is evidence that SCO has misrepresented the issues," Red Hat can refile their motion for reconsideration to lift the stay. The parties are instructed to update the court every 90 days on the other related actions in which SCO is involved. The next update was due approximately 30 June 2005.
SCOvAutoZone: Judge Jones stayed this case "pending further order of the court" and the parties are instructed to update the court every 90 days on the other related actions in which SCO is involved. The next update is due around 11 July 2005.
In summary:
actually... there is a little bit of gray area in the Novell SCO case as to who owns what.
Which is precisely why the case should have been dismissed.
Please re-read my post, you seem to misunderstand what I wrote.
That doesn't make a lick of sense. You agree that there are some gray areas. That's what the court case is for, to clear those up. What you originally wrote was
"It's irrelevant as to whether Novell owns the copyright - they believe they do (and proved that they have a good reason to belive so), and that's all that matters for the case at hand."
It doesn't matter one bit if Novell believes they own the copyright or if they believe they have good reason to. What they believe doesn't matter. SCO believes they have certain rights too and they believe they have good reason to believe that. There's that bit in the contract.
When two parties have a contract and they are in dispute you need to have a third party intervene. In this case the court. Now, the problem is that in the US courts, if there's a contract dispute and there is something unclear in a contract, the court favors the party that didn't write the contract, in this case maybe SCO? I don't know.. I'm not a lawyer. I wasn't involved in the contract.
Just because Novell is the good guy and SCO is the bad guy doesn't mean the case should be dismissed no matter what Novell believes.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
If this were a copyright lawsuit, you would be correct.
But it is not a copyright lawsuit. It is a slander of title lawsuit.
For SCO to win, they must prove several things including that they own the copyrights and that Novell knew that SCO owned those copyrights when they made their statements that they owned them.
Thus, if Novell's belief that they own the copyrights is reasonable, then as far as this lawsuit goes, Novell should win regardless of whether or not they own the copyrights.
One other thing.
I am curious whether or not SCO can/will use this as a reason to delay the IBM suit.
If the IBM suit depends at all on who does own the copyrights, what do you bet SCO will ask the court to delay until after their lawsuit against Novell is decided.
Do not trust the litigation robot. He is malfunctioning.
English is easier said than done.
WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn] caldera n : a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression
Sorry to correct you, but scox certainly is disputing the legitimacy every single GPL project in existance.
Scox has declared the GPL, not only illegal and unenforcable, but actually unconstitutional.
These accusations by scox are in their court filings, and in a letter to the US congress.
But, that doesn't stop from distributed GPL projects, and bragging about it.
eom.
Yes. The same Merkey that you're talking about is suing the world and its dog because ...well...nobody can figure it out. He's suing Perens for having a killfile, for one.
Go Figure.
--
BMO
"I am curious whether or not SCO can/will use this as a reason to delay the IBM suit."
I think the copyright issue may only have relavance in the IBM case in regards to SCO trying to revoke their license. I think SCO might have had a case against IBM if they stuck with project monterey. Not that they would win but that they would have some legitimate reasons for pursuing a case and I wouldn't put it past IBM to screw them over like that. Wouldn't have been so bad for them if they weren't grandstanding about everything. Instead they just went nuts.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
I'd like to ask you a question. This is not a troll, I honestly want some information.
I am a long time Mac developer. I have written or contributed to many commercial software applications for older versions of Mac OS and also for MacOS X. I have some experience with Unix (and getting more all the time with OS X). I am not, nor have ever been a system admin. I don't think I really "grok" the kinds of issues that system admins have to deal with.
So, my question is this: what specifically is better about suse 9.3 (or any other distro) than MacOS X?
To my non-system administrator eye, the X Serve looks pretty damn cool. I watched the webcast of the event where they introduced them and I was impressed with the ease at which you could "get at" the hardware other features of the system. In the past, I have "administered" (purchased, helped setup, etc.) a Mac file server running MacOS 9 for a Mac development team. I can easily see that some of the features of the XServe would have been very helpful in overcoming problems we had then. For example, the XServe runs nicely when "headless" whereas our old desktop Mac cum server did not run well at all when headless - we had to buy a special piece of hardware into tricking it to run headless and it didn't work very well. The ease of setting up RAID on the XServe would have been nice. Our (3rd party) backup system did not work very well on our "server" (which was a plain G4 tower). We mainly used it to serve some internal web pages, hold our source code repository, and hold various files for the group to access. For our needs an XServe, had it been available at the time, would have been better.
I have heard, though, that real system admins are *not* impressed with the X Serve and think its either a joke or way overpriced for what you get.
I would be very interested in hearing specific things that my non-admin mind can understand about what kinds of features system admins are looking for in Unix systems.
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