SUSE Requests Arbitration with SCO

rm69990 writes "In response to SCO's amended complaint against Novell alleging copyright infringement, Novell subsidiary SUSE has requested from the International Chamber of Commerce that SCO be barred from asserting copyright over SUSE Linux due to the UnitedLinux agreement between Caldera, SUSE, Connectiva and Turbolinux. This agreement requires that SCO arbitrate with SUSE instead of filing claims, removes the copyright from any work SCO produced while in UnitedLinux, gives SUSE sublicensing rights to SCO's copyrights, and constitutes an SCO commitment that any code released under an OSS license in UnitedLinux remain Open Source. Novell has filed a motion to stay SCO's claims against Novell until the outcome of this arbitration. So now it looks like Linux users are protected both through the APA between Novell and SCO, but the UnitedLinux agreement as well."

Comments

SCOX hosed either way...

[rkhalloran]

Novell has claimed the UNIX copyrights never went to SCOX/Caldera because they didn't go to Santa Cruz that Caldera acquired. And with this they can claim whatever copyrights SCOX *does* have are subject to the terms of the UnitedLinux agreement with SuSE that Novell now owns.

Rock, hard place, SCOX.

Re:Who are the REAL pros here?

[IamGarageGuy 2]

You have brought up a bit of a quandry here. When all is said and done and SCO is officially dead, and the lawyers have to find other work, will this be a feather in their cap with SCO on their resume or will they be seen as the bottom feeding scum that they are. You may not like the job they are doing but they are certainly doing it rather well.

Re:Who are the REAL pros here?

[PietjeJantje]

Somewhere there must be a dark cynical joke in this.
Here we have Linux, the accumulation of many volunteer hackers, and the only ones earning big, BIG money are... the lawyers.
The GPL didn't mention anything about THAT!

It gets much, much worse

[overshoot]

This is one of those "knew or should have known" slam dunks. Judges aren't terribly fond of finding lawsuits frivilous, but a case where there was a clear contract estopping the plaintiff from the exact actions they took goes well over the bar. Boies, Schiller & Flexner could end up paying all of IBM's, Novell's, and Red Hat's legal bills.

Then there's the SEC disclosure requirements -- the fact that SCOX' stock runup happened while the Management sat on a contract that gutted the basis of the whole lawsuit lottery makes them personally liable. Even the SEC might wake up for that one, but the NYAG's office must be smelling blood in the water.

Re:It gets much, much worse

[ZachPruckowski]

But can MS get caught in all that? I mean, that's a lot of liability to hit a tight wallet (SCO's basically broke, I think). So if the Baystar/MS funding angle that IBM is working pans out, is there a way some of the "leftover" liability can hit Microsoft?

Re:It gets much, much worse

[overshoot]

This "new" contract revelation only applies to the updated/new claim brought by SCO - it doesnt spoil their ongoing IBM case with regard to their other (bogus) claims.

Actually, it does. A finding against them is in effect a judicial finding since Judge Kimball will effectively read the arbitration ruling into his Court's record.

"So?" you say. However, the UL agreement included sublicensing rights. Which means that any IP Caldera had that appeared in the UL distribution was sublicensed under the GPL -- and IBM therefore has rights regardless of SCOX' claim that they ceased distributing Linux (OK, that was proven bogus. Still ....)

Re:Who are the REAL pros here?

[jhines]

It is American tradition.

Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.

Haven't gotten anywhere? YMMV

[Luban Doyle]

They haven't gotten anywhere so far, so what makes them thing they'll achieve something now?

When Darl took over as CEO it was estimated that the company would be bankrupt within 7 months. Since then they have received $60 million in PIPE funding. They did have to pay back $13 million to Baystar, but that's still a pretty good payday for making a bunch of claims that so far haven't been substantiated.