SCO Comes Back from Dead, Could Threaten Novell UNIX Control -- Redmond Channel Partner

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SCO Comes Back from Dead, Could Threaten Novell UNIX Control

So, who saw this coming? Bankrupt and defeated vendor SCO, which lost a lawsuit it filed against IBM in 2007 and at the same time lost claim to ownership of the UNIX copyright (which went to Novell), has won a stunning reversal in a federal Appeals Court. Now, not only can SCO get back to suing IBM (if it can raise the money), but Novell seems to have lost its unique copyright on UNIX. Goodness. Do stay tuned on this one.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 27, 2009 at 10:31 AM

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Reader Comments

Mon, Aug 31, 2009 Lee

Tabloid reporting like this just caused me to unsubscribe from the Redmond Channel Partner Update.

Fri, Aug 28, 2009 George grimes Dallas, TX

Your reporting on this is sensational but inaccurate. I expected better as it only took few minutes for me to check the facts. Was that too much for you to do before reporting?
The inaccuracies are well covered above so I won't repeat them. This is very disappointing behavior on your part.

Thu, Aug 27, 2009 Someone Else Earth

Reality check. 1. Copyright ownership still in dispute. To be decided at a jury trial unless Novell appeals to the Supreme Court. 2. A Chapter 11 Trustee is now in control of SCO. He will evaluate the probability of success and you can be sure he's not going to recommend continuing to pursue frivolous litigation. Speaking of frivolous litigation, even if SCO is ultimately ruled to have the copyrights, they still have the following hurdles: 1. SCOG amended their case against Novell to include copyright infringement, after Novell bought SUSE GmbH. That dumb decision triggered a clause in an agreement that SCO, nee Caldera, was a party to when they were founding members of United Linux. If SCO ever exits bankruptcy, the arbitration is Sweden, suspended due to SCO fleeing to bankruptcy court, resumes. In that proceeding, Novell is seeking $ 100 Million in damages. 2. Next, there is the hopeless IBM litigation. To prevail, SCO must prevail in every single one of these: a) Undo the USL/Novell vs. BSDi and Regents of the University of California settlement agreement. The judge in that litigation opined it was unlikely USL could prevail. A judgment could have put Unix in the public domain. Consequently, Novell settled with BSDi. I recommend you read a summary of the settlement terms here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_v._BSDi b) Undo AT&T's loose practices with regards to the Unix source code -- evidence before the court clearly showing that AT&T was very liberal about spreading Unix to all and sundry and did not wipe source code containing devices and media it sold to the public. c) Put Unix "methods and concepts", including POSIX and related specs back in the bottle. See (a) and (b). d) Explain why they sold Sun Microsystems the right to open source Solaris, for $ 10 Million, but IBM owes them $ 5 Billion for donating IBM developed and patented technologies from OS/2 to Linux. e) Explain why they, as originally a Linux company that developed, distributed (under the terms of the GPL), and encouraged the adoption of Linux, should not now be estopped from claiming infringement for something they themselves contributed to, just because they bought the Unix business of the Santa Cruz Operation and now claim amnesia concerning their activities of earlier decades. Heck, even Santa Cruz contributed to Linux! f) Provide justification for why the meager 300 lines of code (essentially unprotectable header files and comments) it produced in response to discovery, which falls far short of the millions of lines of code Darl and gang were chirping to the media, is worth $ 5 billion. g) Prevail against IBM's six counterclaims arising as a result of SCO's scorched earth tirade to try and burden IBM into a settlement. The mountains of evidence against SCO on this matter is overwhelming. Methinks the Chapter 11 Trustee is not going to share SCO's optimism. Their original name, Caldera, was so prophetic.

Thu, Aug 27, 2009 Peter Hohaus Melbourne, Australia

The only Unix I care about these days is the one embedded inside the Apple Mac Operating system.... the others are "just interesting to know about"....

Thu, Aug 27, 2009 Mario

This is not correct. The copyright issue was deemed to critical to be decided by a summary judgment. The court instead sent it back so that it can be heard bu a Jury and the copyright attributed by a Jury. Novell has not lost anything yet. A Jury's expertise in this matter is usually nil, however. So it is now more problematic for Novell, but also for Cash strapped SCO.