Novell to SCO - Pay Up

gosherm writes with word that, now that the dust is beginning to settle on the long-running SCO case, Novell wants to get paid. Now. They're requesting that the customary stay on SCO's finances (as a result of their bankruptcy) be lifted so that Novell can begin recouping some of its losses from the protracted legal battle. "'We need to adjudicate if this is money owed to Novell or if it is Novell's property,' said Bruce Lowry, spokesman for Novell. That could determine how quickly Novell can recover those funds. And time is of the essence since there's a possibility SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize,' Novell said in court documents filed Thursday. Novell is also trying to protect royalties SCO collects from Unix and Unixware software licensees and remits annually to the software developer. SCO is required to continue to remit between $500,000 and $800,000 annually to Novell -- the next payment is due Nov. 14. SCO remitted $696,413 to Novell between the third quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year."

Comments

First thing that comes to mind

[ZiakII]

First thing that comes to mind...

out of money

[CaptainPatent]

there's a possibility SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize, We can only hope.

Re:out of money

[ZachPruckowski]

there's a possibility SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize, We can only hope.

Actually, that's the last thing we want. If SCO goes Chaper 7 (gets dismantled) before Novell gets a ruling against it, then they've won a partial victory.

Right now, SCO hasn't yet been defeated completely in the courts. They're mortally wounded but still standing. SCO needs to be an instance where they're made brutal example of. The result can't be "SCO ran out of cash arguing its claims", but rather "SCO's claims were baseless and found so by the courts". Given the power of the spinmeisters, the issue isn't resolved until the Novell case and ideally the IBM case are decided against SCO.

Then there's the SCO execs themselves. Personally, I think that they need to be brought to justice for their perversion and mockery of the US judicial system, and also for their stock antics. People like Darl McBride have gotten rich off of this whole thing. I want their butts behind bars, or at least under suit for malpractice or whatever. If they can walk out profiting from riding SCO into the ground and attacking Linux, it'll just encourage other trolls.

SCO is using this bankruptcy time to spend their money in a way that either enriches them or enriches their partners. They're trying to steer their allies onto the bankruptcy committee, and giving huge bonuses to their execs, and hiring temps at exorbitant fees.

Finally, if they run out of money, they can't pay Novell and IBM anything. They owe Novell millions of dollars, with only the amount now in dispute. Essentially, this is Novell's money they're burning through, according to the Novell v. SCO judge. They probably owe IBM some money too on the counterclaims (if they ever get to them).

Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[timmarhy]

Haven't heard from you in a while McBride, cat got your tounge?

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually the guy wrote a funny interview a few days ago, on Computerworld. Here it is: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=operating_systems&articleId=9040239&taxonomyId=89&intsrc=kc_top On October 1, McBride claimed that the rumors of SCO demise are greatly exaggerated.

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[debilo]

Haven't heard from you in a while McBride, cat got your tounge?

You must have missed this recent interview where Darl once again confirms that most assholes take pride in their self-righteousness and delusion. I especially enjoyed this part:

WN: You knew you'd be vilified?

McBride: In this particular case we're talking about, I joined the company, and we had problems with our intellectual property.... I said we should protect our rights.... The former CEO said, if you do that, you will be vilified by the Linux community. The Linux community will attack you. You will be hated. Don't go down that path.

Well that's not a reason to not step up and defend your property. That's not a reason to stand back and say, "I'm not going to fight." We got attacked, vilified and we got branded as pariahs. When you pay 149 million dollars for a property, do you have the right to defend it or not? I think it's a matter of principle. I think anybody in their right mind who was in my position would have done the same thing if they had half a backbone.

Beautiful, innit?

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[heinousjay]

(This is not a defense of Darl, although I'm sure many of you will take it as such in a blind nerdrage.)

So basically, he's saying he did what he believes is right in the face of opposition, and you call him a self-righteous asshole.

Tell me, when RMS does what he believes is right in the face of opposition, what is he?

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[tmjr3353]

A smelly, hippie, self-righteous asshole? ;-)

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, he's saying he did what he believes is right in the face of opposition, and you call him a self-righteous asshole.

The question is did he believe it? What was his so called belief based on? The evidence is that he knew that his belief was not backed up by facts and proceeded anyhow.

He had reports from his own company specialists saying there was nothing yet he gave interviews stating he had a team of MIT deep divers that has found millions of lines of evidence but he couldn't produce either the evidence or the deep divers in court. Why was that?

I and many others don't think he had a belief in the justice of his cause. I think as do others that he was trying to get IBM and others to pay them off without having to prove anything. It obviously didn't work.

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Ostsol]

I believe his point is that there's is nothing wrong with McBride's statement. This is, of course, assuming that SCO did in fact truely believe that they owned what they claim to have owned and that said intellectual property was indeed being infringed upon. Ultimately, the conclusion was that both were false and that they knew it. If anything, it is the latter that they should be villified for. One should not be attacked for simply protecting what one owns as long as one does so in an honest manner. Once again, though, it appears that SCO wasn't exactly being honest. . .

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Znork]

"Tell me, when RMS does what he believes is right in the face of opposition, what is he?"

Usually he's right.

See the difference?

The title is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO collects fees for Novell. There is no disagreement about that. What Novell is asking for is that those fees be paid through to Novell. This has nothing to do with the major claim, tens of millions, about the Microsoft and Sun licenses. This is just about the routine license fees that continue to roll in.

AllParadox described it best. He likened SCO to a store clerk. The money the clerk collects belongs to the store owner. The clerk has no claim to it at all. If the clerk goes bankrupt, the trustee can't claim that it is part of the bankruptcy estate.

The reason that SCO jumped (or tried to jump, it hasn't been granted yet.) into chapter 11 was that the Utah court was about to apportion the amount of money it had to pay Novell for the Microsoft and Sun licenses. Because of that, Novell has warned that it is going to file something claiming that SCO acted in bad faith. My WAG is that the bankruptcy judge will allow the Utah case to go forward so as to determine the amount of money SCO owes Novell. Since SCO has little chance of being a successful business, I am also guessing that they will be put in chapter 7. In other words, they won't be re-organizing, they will be liquidating.

Development of MS-Novell relationship

[maiki]

Emporer Ballmertine to Novell: "Good! Use your aggressive feelings, boy! Let the hate flow through you"

Comical Ali lives?

[Epsillon]

if you look inside that appeals process and you take a microscope and look at the record of Kimball's summary judgment rulings that have gone to appeals, he gets overturned the vast majority of the time. It's nearly two-thirds of the time.

Um, Darl, this isn't the sort of thing you say about someone holding the contents of your codpiece in his hands. He's already ruled that your company, of which you are CEO, with responsibility for the company's actions, has committed conversion and you may just have annoyed him a touch with that quote. I really do hope the Honourable Dale A. Kimball sees what you said. The result could be rather interesting.

Not to mention the ratio of appealed to non-appealed cases might have some bearing on the soundness of his judgments. Sometimes it helps to know just how many of these summary judgments have people "banged to rights" before we start looking at the appeal successes.

But best of British to you, old son. You really are quite, quite funny. Erm, is that a tank in the background?

SCO got that wrong, too

[Animats]

Somebody went through Judge Kimball's entire summary judgement appeal record and posted it. No, he doesn't get reversed two-thirds of the time.

Re:Novell to become the new SCO?

[Meltir]

i don't think your looking at this from the right angle.
just for a second, lets assume that novell isn't a linux distro company, and that they don't want to make it up to the linux community out there for the microsoft deal, and lets forget that sco is the personification of evil.
they have a company that they've sued and won.
whatever the reasons:

1) sco owes novell money.
2) sco is going broke.
3) novel wants their money before sco goes down.

id imagine the phb's in novell are looking at the situation exactly this way.
its cool that they come out to be the linux advocates, and taking down the bad guy - free good publicity and so on.
but that's just a side-effect, they would go after sco regardless of the circumstances.

aside from that - i wouldnt consider novell to be the new 'stewards' of linux.
i don't have all the data - so this is just my impression, but....

we have all seen IBM fight the good fight with sco for more than just a few months... i mean - its been years, and lets face it - it would have been cheaper for them to just buy sco, instead of fighting them.
novell noticed whats going on with this linux thing, and they manage to make a profit while creating contributing back to the linux community.
but IBM is investing a lot more then their getting back (i may be wrong here, as we(i) don't know whats in their agenda for the years to come - this could be one of those investments where you loose money for 10 years, and start making money in 20 - IBM is a company that can afford a business plan like this), and novell is just doing business like everyone else (it may sound cold, but there is no shame here - we all benefit from what they do, so cudos to them).

(-1, Wrong)

[cduffy]

Except that he is wrong about what SCO purchased. What SCO purchased was the exclusive right to license and rent UNIX, as well as decide what OSes can and cannot be referred to as UNIX.

No, they didn't get that -- The Open Group held (and holds) the UNIX trademark, and they decide what is and isn't a UNIX. And you're quite wrong in stating that a copyright can't be purchased -- they can indeed be transferred, but that transfer needs to be explicit, and the APA didn't qualify.
(IANAL)

Who Will Get Unix?

[Doc Ruby]

One issue of the SCO/Novell suit is whether SCO owns the Unix System V code (by owning its copyrights), or whether Novell still does instead. Novell didn't seem to be doing any business depending on owning the Unix copyright, so even if this suit is settled (probably by the judge, in a binding decision) specifying that Unix belongs to Novell either because SCO never owned it, or that SCO did own it but must surrendered it to Novell as compensation for damages, Novell will probably own it. But what will they do with it?

Will they sell it "again", this time retaining their rights to use it that will prevent any attempt at the kind of extortion SCO attempted (whether or not it was legitimately based)? Will they keep it and use it themselves, other than to protect their right to include it in Linux? Will they kill it so it doesn't cause any problems in the new market Novell is in (maybe because Microsoft wants it out of the way once and for all)? Or will they perhaps kill just the copyright, and put it all into the public domain, or under GPL - perhaps just including it in a revised Linux kernel?

Will Novell perhaps release a Linux compatible layer made of Unix that interoperates with only the Novell distro, and with Vista?

The SCO/Novell suit could turn out to be just a preliminary battle. The next chapter of Unix's history could turn out to be the really interesting one. Which, with that kind of relativity, could be extremely interesting.