Attachmate To Retain Novell Unix Copyrights

angry tapir writes "Novell's copyrights for the Unix operating system will remain under Attachmate's control as part of the companies' pending merger, a Novell spokesman has revealed. The confirmation, which came in a terse message posted to Novell's website, seems to rule out questions of whether Unix assets are part of some 882 patents being sold to a Microsoft-led consortium, CPTN Holdings, as part of the deal."

Comments

We gotta buy them.

[unity100]

As the internet developer/it communities. and even corporations. its better off outside microsoft's reach, in ANY case, even if a claim cannot be laid.

why cant we set up a consortium to buy it and release it as open source ? and donate to that consortium ?

Re:We gotta buy them.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Because open source sucks.

He says, on Slashdot, on the web, on the internet ...

Re:We gotta buy them.

[Kaz Kylheku]

Unix has already been in Microsoft's reach. Microsoft had a Unix product called Xenix.

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

Xenix is what SCO bought in order to produce SCO UNIX.

Re:We gotta buy them.

[Zero__Kelvin]

Though I am a long time Microsoft basher (with very good reason) I have to totally disagree with you. A small company with nothing to lose run by a moron (SCO anyone?) is much more likely to try the kind of Hail Mary that any such attempt would constitute. Microsoft, while wrong in many ways, is not that phenomenally stupid. They actually have something to lose, and would be going up against Google, Motorola, HP, IBM, and thousands of other companies single handedly, and even they can't t weather the ill will such a stupid move would garner circa 2011. If it gets in the hands of another Darl McBride, it is still a non-issue, because they are guaranteed to lose, whether you think it is because we are right (which we are of course), or because big money talks. Any way you slice it, worrying about said trademark and who owns it is tantamount to complete foolishness.

Re:We gotta buy them.

[Jaxoreth]

Actually, OldSCO was pretty cool, if a little pricey. Caldera Linux, after purchasing the name and UNIX business was a bunch of pricks.

While the Santa Cruz Operation had a legitimate business, SCO UNIX was the most painful operating system I've ever had to use or administer. Out of the box, hitting Delete would backspace over the prompt. Even DOS didn't do that.

Re:We gotta buy them.

[Dr_Barnowl]

This whole "GPL is restrictive compared to the BSD-style licenses" thing seems to be the favourite FUD of the corporate masses now.

It seems to have gained a lot of traction, predictably, because it's true, from a certain point of view.

Yes, the GPL grants you fewer rights than a BSD style license. The most important right that it does not grant you is the right to take the rights of others away by closing the source after you have received it.

So I don't think of GPL as "restrictive" and BSD-style as "permissive". I think of GPL as "freedom-preserving" and BSD as "promiscuous".

Re:We gotta buy them.

[unity100]

freedom nazi eh.... maybe we need that kind of nazi party.

Re:Attach-a-who?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Anyone who uses Linux, BSD, OS X, or any other Unix or Unix-like OS* should care, since the SCO insanity showed that there are numerous bottom-feeders out there who will try to use "owenership of Unix" -- whether or not they actually own it -- as a weapon. It doesn't matter if there's any infringing IP to go after, either; they'll still cause loads of trouble. I have no idea what Attachmate's business practices are like, but Microsoft being able to claim any kind of Unix ownership would be a guaranteed disaster.

*Which, of course, means anyone who uses the internet, even if they don't know it.

"whether Unix assets are part of some 882 patents"

[John Hasler]

There are no Unix patents.

Re:"whether Unix assets are part of some 882 paten

[zzatz]

Sequent patented read-copy-update, now owned by IBM. There may be others. But none from Novell, as far as I know.

Novell & Idam

[narkotix]

i'd say the identity management offerings from Novell are what Microsoft are after. Novell's idam system is superior to pretty much anything bar TIM/TAM or OIM/OAM.

why should BSD care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who uses Linux, BSD, OS X, or any other Unix or Unix-like OS* should care, since the SCO insanity showed that there are numerous bottom-feeders out there who will try to use "owenership of Unix" -- whether or not they actually own it -- as a weapon. It doesn't matter if there's any infringing IP to go after, either; they'll still cause loads of trouble. I have no idea what Attachmate's business practices are like, but Microsoft being able to claim any kind of Unix ownership would be a guaranteed disaster.

*Which, of course, means anyone who uses the internet, even if they don't know it.

Why exactly should the BSDs care? They were cleared by the original lawsuit many years ago, and every line of code can be accounted for since as they've been using a version control system every since so that it wouldn't happen again (which is what got Linux in trouble in the first place because a lot of things could not be tracked back to its origins). Logically (which is sadly not the way the world works) if there's a dispute in the BSD code an CVS / SVN "annotate" command can trace it back and things can be cleared up.

Apple's Mac OS X should be similarly clear to a large extent as well, as they've used FreeBSD (as have Isilon, Cisco, etc.).

Solaris should be okay because Sun (when it existed) would get licenses for all of these things to be on the safe / paranoid side. It's why they indemnified their customers, as they were fairly sure they had everything they needed (in so far as even getting a license from Xerox PARC for the GUI AFAIK). I would bet that similar things could be said about AIX and HP-UX, but I don't have as much experience with those.

Properly run organizations can deal with any such Unix IP claim with little to know effort (though it's still a hassle). AFAICT, Linux is the main Unix-y system that has a problem because of a lack of organization, especially on the documentation side of things during its early development.

(This is for copyright and trademark claims of course. Patents are a whole other kettle of fish.)

Re:why should BSD care?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Your arguments are logical, well-thought-out, and eminently fair.

Which is why they would be utterly irrelevant to Microsoft.

Too late, it is already taken care of

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue of copyrights and unix has been taken care of already. Both SCO and Novel released the linux kernel and other parts of the operating system under the GPL. Any claims for copyright infringement are rendered moot. Once those codes were released under the GPL by the "owners" of the copyright then the game is over. Thank you Novel for buying and releasing SUSE under the GPL. (Never thought that I would be glad about anything done by SUSE but there you go....)

Re:Too late, it is already taken care of

[postbigbang]

Patents under Unix as rendered into the GPL by Novell, the ostensible owner, are real, but mooted by the GPL.

But Novell has plenty of other IP, including its directory services, communications patents, software patents, and so on.

I want to say, if Microsoft has bought some of those and intends to troll the patents (the non-Unix ones), then it's proving once and for all it's no longer inventive, just a patent troller. They've fallen behind in so many ways, and have become so incredibly in-grown.

I don't think the Linux and FOSS communities has to worry much about Microsoft Unix-related litigation, but there's more to Novell than SUSE and Caldera contributions. Lots. Consider, however, that Oracle, Google, IBM, HP, and many others passed up these patents. And they sold for a comparative song. Might not be worth as much as everyone thinks. Perhaps only the lawyers make money on this one.....

Re:Too late, it is already taken care of

[marcosdumay]

The patents that apply to current versions of Linux (or any software distributed with SUSE) can't be used in a court case against this software. If it applies to a GPLed software it also can't be used against any derivative software.

Now, Microsoft had lost a case against Novell based on a few patents that weren't disclosed*. I bet this move is mainly** protective, as MS would not like those patents to get into the hands of anybody else.

* That was what caused that cross licensing when Microsoft started spreading that SUSE had licenses to use their patents. It looks like MS lost a case, and signed a cross licensing deal while paying Novell to use its patents. Of course, the details are secret, but the money flow is not.

** It is probably being made with the intention of being protective. But in the future, MS may find itself with some patents it can use...

The Missing Link

[rec9140]

Here is the MISSING LINK:

http://www.novell.com/company/ir/message.html

And this is still NOT GOOD.

Regardless of whether these are valid or not, and regardless of whether there even should be IP, trademark, or copyright... at this point in time this BS still exists and "The Unix Patents" that novell own[s|ed] need to be in the hands of FRIENDLY *NIX entities and most definitely NOT MS, EVER, PERIOD!

Turn them over to the EFF, OSF, or Linus himself, but this needs to be put to bed to kill off any more SCO Zombies in the future.

There are also needs to be disclosure on exactly what it is ms is getting.

Pretty obvious this is a way to kill off the WordPerfect litigation. But what else?

Oh... and Attachmate you STILL BLEW IT! Send monoboi packing! ! ! ! ! We don't want him or his disease! He desperately wants to work for ms, so grant his wish already.

So SUSE is still embargo'd and can't be used. Sad, really sad, for a once great distro.

Re:"whether Unix assets are part of some 882 paten

[Anonymous Coward]

You are assuming all patents on any portion of Unix were taken out on it's original creation date, which would be a bad assumption to make. Unless you are saying nothing of importance (or nothing that could be patented) was ever done to unix in the past 20 years, or improved upon in the past 20 years. I wouldn't want to bet on that.

Re:Mono Framework

[noidentity]

I am wondering what happens to Mono?

I don't know; are you?

Re:Who takes WordPerfect patents?

[bobdevine]

Hard to tell which patents are included in the purchase.

The most detailed document is the 8-K filing but it doesn't list the patents

http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/758004/000119312510266513/d8ka.htm

Re:Attach who?

[rubies]

The name is a blast from the past for anyone who worked in IT in the 1980s.

They sold a line of IBM 3270 terminal emulation software and some IBM PC compatible communication cards so you could work at your new fangled PC while still looking at the corporate software on the IBM mainframe. I thought they died when 3270 comms protocols went TCP/IP but apparently a shell of the company has struggled on for years sitting on a bunch of acquired patents from subsumed competitors.

Their SDLC cards were a total bitch to work with too - especially if you were a gumby like me and had never seen a 3270 terminal or mainframe but the sales guy wanted to ship a bunch of PCs into some government department "ready to wear". For this reason the company name gives me the shudders.

To be more precise

[eric76]

Novell's Chief Marketing officer stated:

Here's a message from Novell about the merger, from John Dragoon, Chief Marketing Officer: On November 22, 2010, Novell issued a press release announcing a definitive merger agreement under which Attachmate Corporation (“Attachmate”) would acquire Novell for $6.10 per share in cash (“Merger Agreement”). Novell will continue to own Novell’s UNIX copyrights following completion of the merger as a subsidiary of Attachmate. Novell filed a Form 8-K/A with the SEC on November 22, 2010, with respect to the Merger Agreement.

That is, Novell will be a subsidiary of Attachmate and Novell will continue to own the copyrights.

Re:"whether Unix assets are part of some 882 paten

[arivanov]

Wrong.

At least a couple of the networking patents (the really scary ones) apply to any network device there including some of the fundamentals on the way iptables, marking and QoS are interfaced. You can basically wipe out the current prevalence of Linux in the home networking market in no time with these and a suitable budget to back the effort.

There are other scary ones there as well from the days when Novell still did networking.

Then why did Microsoft want them?

[plastick]

A terse message posted to Novell's website? Look, Novell... you sold patents to Microsoft period. Of course people are worried. Shame on you.

Microsoft wouldn't buy them if the patents were completely worthless.

Patents far more dangerous than copyrights

[Daniel Phillips]

Regardless of validity or value, patents in Microsoft's hands are far more dangerous than copyrights. By abusing legal process as has been its habit Microsoft can employ its huge cash reserves to cause a great deal of trouble for honest competitors, including volunteers.

In my opinion, Microsoft gaining control of Novell's patent portfolio is a gross violation of antitrust law and this violation should be pursued vigorously and immediately, not in reaction to dirty tricks that are sure to follow (caveat: I am not a lawyer).