Slashdot Mirror
Novell Wins vs. SCO
Aim Here writes "According to Novell's website, and the Salt Lake Tribune, the jury in the SCO v. Novell trial has returned a verdict: Novell owns the Unix copyrights. This also means that SCO's case against IBM must surely collapse too, and likely the now bankrupt SCO group itself. It's taken 7 years, but the US court system has eventually done the right thing ..." No doubt this is the last we will ever hear of any of this.
But at least that part is over. There's still a little cleaning up to do but this one could be over and done with finally this summer. If you like Groklaw, head over and give PJ a pat on the back for her long perseverence.
Congrats to Novell's legal team.
/SCO die,die,die!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Novell wins...fatality!
Hopefully they'll finally die. But surely they'll be back in a George Romero movie.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Remember, It's not *just* Darl McBride, it's also the people that allowed him to do this. That includes the rest of the board and the stockholder of SCO. McBride might be the public figure-head, but he didn't do it on his own.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Unless someone finds a way to remove Darl's vocal cords we'll have not heard the last of this by any stretch of the imagination...
We're doomed to hear SCO's moanings until DNF is released.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Hurray! Just in time for Novell to be bought out by Microsoft.
...is like declaring victory because you're the last person to hit the ground in the plane crash. How much has this cost Novell and IBM in real $$'s? With SCO bankrupt how can either expect to recoup any of the 7 years of court costs?
Error:
"It's taken 7 years, but the US court system has eventually done the right thing..."
This. Is a contradiction. Justice delayed is justice denied. Always.
The jury part of the trial is over, but there are still some issues that are to be decided by the judge. The big one is SCO's claim of "specific performance." Their argument is that if the copyrights didn't transfer (which the jury just said they didnt), that APA2 is a promise to transfer them, so Novell should be forced to transfer them now. If the judge rules against SCO, it's over, barring an appeal that SCO can't afford.
I mean, their livers are probably shot, but I have to believe that there are other organs worth harvesting from the board of directors and the legal firm representing them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Microsoft got good mileage out of SCO in their attack on Linux. Wonder who will do their bidding next?
There are several important ruling that need to occur. There is still at issue a decision of "Specific Performance", where SCO has made an argument that if the Jury says the APA + admendments did not constitute an official transfer of copyrights, that Novell should be required to create such a document to transfer the copyrights since they are "needed".
Unfortunately for SCO's theory on this, old SCO didn't need the copyrights for their business, which is what was sold to new SCO, and Darl himself testified that the business can be run without the copyrights (statements he made after the FIRST time Novell was told they owned the copyrights by the previous Judge in this case). The wording is also to the effect of "copyrights needed at the time of this APA", which is BEFORE the SCOSource business was conceived to sue Linux users. And then you also have to deal with the fact that "Specific Performance" is only enforced when the party requesting "Specific Performance" has itself performed to the letter of the contract, which there is already case law and verdict on file that SCO has not done so, by not remitting the portion of the license buy-out from Sun and the SCOSource license to Microsoft which were both found to be SYSV Unix licenses, not solely UnixWare licenses (as SCO would change their story afterwards when realizing they were contractually required to remit 95% of the funding SYSV licenses to Novell and not keep it for themselves, and after they have filed to the SCC that they were Unix licenses not UnixWare... one of the stumbling blocks they hit when trying to claim otherwise later).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
No doubt this is the last we will ever hear of any of this.
What are you doing? Trying out lines for cheesy movie dialog?
[Novell stands over the fallen body of SCO]
Novell: No doubt this is the last we will ever hear of any of this. Come on everybody, let's go home
[As Novell turns and walks off, the hand of SCO twitches slightly and we hear a sinister laugh.]
[Cut to credits]
Summation 2
How many times have we pronounced the SCO lawsuits dead? I think its more times than Freddy Krugger has been brought back to life. I think Freddy said it best to Jason: "Why won't you die?"
This has been a Microsoft smear campaign again Linux all along, and it's not over. Why do you think that MS has been funding the entire thing?
' The former federal judge overseeing The SCO Group's bankruptcy said a jury decision today that Novell Inc., and not SCO, owns the copyrights to the Unix computer operating system does not end the company's litigation against others.
Former U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn, the trustee for SCO's bankruptcy filed in Delaware, said the company is "deeply disappointed" in the jury's verdict in the dispute over which company owned the copyrights to Unix, which is widely used in business computing.
But Cahn said SCO intends to continue its lawsuit against IBM, in which the computer giant is accused of using Unix code to make the Linux operating system a viable competitor, causing a decline in SCO's revenues.
"The copyright claims are gone, but we have other claims based on contracts," Cahn said. '
So, a victory, but not quite the end. Still, my money's on IBM...
No! You must kill it! Kill It With FIRE!!!
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
"Cahn said SCO intends to continue its lawsuit against IBM"
Keep in mind that USL vs BSDI settlement (secret and first published on GROKLAW), did not give the IP or copyrights for all of Unix to USL (USL was owned by Novell at the time of the settlement). The settlement when made public showed us that indeed much of Unix was not proprietary at all. So, it is no wonder that Novell didn't transfer to Santa Cruz Operations, as they didn't have all the marbles to transfer, so they didn't want everyone to know this, so they didn't transfer any (otherwise, then they would have to let the world know about the USL vs BSDI settlement (and everyone then would stop paying any money to Novell or any UNIX tax collector)... when BSD was free !
So - saying that Novell has all the IP marbles in the Unix world, and that Novell OWNS the Unix copyrights (all of them), is not exactly correct.
You forgot Slashdot dupes!
http://www.linux.org/news/2004/03/12/0006.html
I've only been waiting six years to post this.
All the Linux-related claims were dismissed long ago. This case has not been about Linux for years. Even if SCO had won this trial they could not have done anything to Linux.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Fuck PJ. She's a publicity whore no better than Darl. Shameless publicity whore. She profited in a grand way from this too-doo. Point. Of. Fact.
And "who is PJ"? Just some Small Town Paralegal *that just happened to be interested in Linux*? - YEAH RIGHT. I got a bridge.
Reasonable people understand that PJ works for IBM. Reasonable people understand that there is no "PJ", that IBM spun up a screen name and went to town.
Even if your claims about PJ were true (and I do say if) what difference would it make? Why do you care? Why are you so angry?
Can you point out anything that PJ posted that is not true, or not fair?
THIS IS NOT TRUE! Linux uses Unix copyrights! - Daryl
In other news: Hell has declared a snow emergency. Souls will only be picked-up on snow routes.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Cahn has never heard of the Nazgul?
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
All that we can be sure of is that several million dollars of Microsoft money will be going to a few private individuals for the fantastic work they have done in destroying the reputation of the open source concept.Ask any drone in a large company, Open Source is bad news because there are law suits against it. I expect that they can get pretty well paid jobs with Scientology next.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
position? Maybe not now, maybe not in a few years, but you never know what happens or who buys what company..
Hopefully by then software patents will be invalidated.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ah, shaddap and be happy for once. You can go back to playing prophet-of-doom tomorrow :D
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
That's what we've been asking SCO for the past 7 years.
Groklaw's input:
'It's over. The jury has found that the copyrights did not go to SCO under the APA or anything else. The verdict is in. Novell has the news up on their website already, but I heard it from Chris Brown also. Here's the brief Novell statement:
"Today, the jury in the District Court of Utah trial between SCO Group and Novell issued a verdict.
Novell is very pleased with the jury’s decision confirming Novell’s ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux. Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front.
This decision is good news for Novell, for Linux, and for the open source community." '
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100330152829622
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Waste of money if they do. All this has achieved is to clearly establish that SCO has no claims against Linux users. Well, that's not entirely true; it's also given rise to Groklaw and generally raised awareness of legal matters in the Free Software community. But maybe you're right. Maybe this is the best they could hope to achieve...
Which is why those misty-eyed dreamers at the London Stock Exchange recently dumped Windows for Linux. But what do they know about the realities of modern business?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
While it may hold true for quick-change artists, it won't stop true sociopaths like Darl McBride.
Scammers like McBride believe that everyone is as evil as they are, and that if someone else failed, that they just weren't smart enough. Their rationale goes something like "I can see what they did wrong, so therefore I'm smarter than they are, so *my* scam will succeed!"
Just like career criminals - fines, prison sentences etc. don't act as a deterrent - they do it because they don't believe they'll be caught.
To this day, Darl believes that IBM is guilty of *something* - and that he only failed because IBM played dirty (see this troll for the "dirty tricks" that IBM used.) The dirty tricks that Darl himself used? (Lies, threats, the entire lawsuit) He believes they were justified because he needed something to fight IBM with.
There is nothing that will stop a sociopath from being a sociopath. If there was, they wouldn't be sociopaths.
...that even a lay-person jury could see that SCO's case was worthless. I'm a lawyer, and I'm here to state the obvious: juries take longer than 8 hours to decide many petty theft cases. Trustee Cahn, who is effectively running SCO, needs to wake up and smell SCO's dead feet. SCO is dead, dead, dead I say!
1) The 1994 Sun-Novell license agreement prohibited Sun from disclosing SRVX code for a period of 20 years. It's not 2014 yet.
2) The jury just said Novell retained copyright to Unix, so SCO had no title to SVRX, and so no power to license SVRX except as provided in the Novell-SCO APA.
3) Under the APA, SCO "shall not, and shall not have the authority to, amend, modify, or waive any right under or assign any SVRX License without the prior written consent" of Novell.
As a result, SCO neither had the contractual right (under the APA) nor right of title in SVRX necessary to license the release of any SVRX code by Sun prior to 2014. If there is any SVRX in OpenSolaris, then, Oracle is in violation of its SVRX license agreement with Novell, and its right to distribute Solaris (assuming Solaris contains any SVRX) is, as a result, questionable.
Now, yes, the 2003 SCO-Sun agreement requires that SCO indemnify Sun against any claims arising under the agreement . . . but SCO is too bankrupt for that indemnity to have much value.
A bullet.
Three fragments, actually. "Justice delayed is justice denied." was the only complete sentence.
"This." "Is a contradiction." and "Always." are all fragments.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Which is why those misty-eyed dreamers at the London Stock Exchange recently dumped Windows for Linux. But what do they know about the realities of modern business?
They know not to trust their data to a system built with Microsoft Technology. Even if the "stellar minds from Microsoft" come and help fine tune it.
vi +
Follow The Money Mike Anderer March 2004
An e-mail from consultant Mike Anderer to SCO's Chris Sontag revealing Microsoft's channeling of US$ 86 million to SCO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak
On Monday, court documents from the ongoing court case between IBM and SCO claimed Microsoft had encouraged financial firm BayStar to invest in SCO. The claim was made by BayStar founder Larry Goldfarb, who said Microsoft's vice president of corporate development and strategy, Richard Emerson, had offered to underwrite BayStar's own investment in SCO.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/more-microsoft-sco-links-emerge-339271604.htm
Has Microsoft's money been a significant resource for the financially ailing SCO?
Without a doubt. In early 2003, Microsoft started paying SCO what eventually grew to $16.6 million for a Unix license, according to regulatory filings. Only longtime Unix fan Sun Microsystems previously paid close to that, with a $9.3 million license deal.
Microsoft provided a second, though indirect, boost in August or September of 2003, when it referred SCO to BayStar Capital, a fund that arranged a $50 million investment.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-139743.html
There is a lot more evidence, but I will leave further research up to you.
Even if the judge doesn't force a transfer, Cahn has said they'll still continue the IBM suit on contract grounds. SCO's arrangement with its lawyers can keep this going (as well as an appeal) even if they're broke. This definitely has a ways to go, alas...
"No doubt this is the last we will ever hear of any of this."
You fool! You've doomed us all!
I have finally found my inner-peace.
I held back on paying SCO for licensing since I've been using a Linux desktop for a while on my personal desktop. I couldn't stand it anymore - sleepless nights, the shakes, sweating, and I took up smoking and booze. I was about to rip out the credit card today after work and pay them. Good thing I read Slashdot first!
I call dibs on the hearts. Been wanting a blacker, more evil model for awhile.
Judge Kimball split that bit off from the rest of the case since by the contract the matter is subject to arbitration. The arbitration was stayed by the Bankruptcy Court (it had been scheduled to run in parallel with the jury trial in Utah), but can now go forward.
In fact, the stuff of most interest to Linux users is still to come! The bulk of Novell was about copyrights and SCO-as-fiduciary. Without evidence of infringement, these are directly of interest to Linux users. But the GPL is about to get a hearing. That is of considerable interest!
You can't take the sky from me!
...and they're still trying to sell "SCO Source". http://www.sco.com/scosource/license_program.html
Anyone feel up to cutting them a check?
that this case actually reached a verdict before the contested copyrights expired!