Trial Set To Determine What SCO Owes Novell

BobB-nw writes with word that this April will be the trial date for SCO's financial reckoning. Novell will discover via the courts how much (if anything) SCO is going to be compelled to pay in compensation for the lengthy trial over Unix code rights. The NetworkWorld piece also offers an overview of the case. "In September, The Wall Street Journal described the ruling against SCO as 'a boon to the open source software movement.' But experts say Unix is filled with technology that carries copyrights tied to many different companies and that it would be a nightmare to open source the Unix code collectively. Instead, Novell would have to pick and choose pieces to open-source, a process that could begin once the trial has ended."

Comments

Re:Make the law firm pay Novell.

[Ngarrang]

In a 'corporation', though, the company is an entity unto itself. The stock holders are not liable for legal damages assessed, right? The personal assets of the employees, chiefs and boards would also safe, unless they were gained through illegal means.

Re:Quick question

[RichMan]

There are many types of IP.

Trademark - to brand a product in a particular category
Copyright - particular text experssion
Patent - invention

Novell used to own the UNIX trademark. They passed it to the OpenGroup when the sold the UNIX business to Santa Cruz Operating Systems. OpenGroup certifies systems as meeting the UNIX standard.

SCO has 2 versions of UNIX, I believe one is UNIX95(tm) compliant, the other UNIX98(tm) compliant.
IBM AIX UNIX is UNIX2003(tm) compliant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Property

Re:I hated SCO first

[ashridah]

That would mean you probably hate Tarantella. Hate to tell you, but they still exist.

Shake your fist in impotent rage!

Re:Make the law firm pay Novell.

[qbwiz]

The law firm is a partnership, but SCO is not: SCO is probably a limited liability corporation, which would limit any investors' liability.

it's not compensation for the trial

[lophophore]

The description here is incorrect.

SCO does not owe Novell any compensation for the trial or lawsuit.

They owe them something like 95% of the Unix license fees they collected from Sun and Microsoft, as well as some others.

Re:Make the law firm pay Novell.

[RobertLTux]

point of interest Boies has redone that agreement to drop the stock part out. The Big Money in this is targetting various payments that TSCOG has done to various folks (including Darl and the rest of the CxO group)

Judge Gross does have the power to require a ROLLBACK of some of this money.

Oh and Novell would not be A Creditor since the funds have been ruled to be "converted" (humans would say STOLEN)
so Taxes and Novell get paid first then the creditors list rolls down.