I have nothing to declare apart from a chocolate eclair - Oscar Wild Thing
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SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights
THE YEARS LONG court battle over who owns the Unix copyrights is finally over. The jury in the SCO v. Novell trial decided that Novell did not transfer those, so SCO doesn't own them.
Seven years ago SCO started threatening Linux users with court cases unless they paid it off.
When Novell said that it didn't sell the Unix copyrights to Santa Cruz the long running battle, which only the lawyers seem to have won, was on.
Yesterday a federal jury found that the Unix SVrX copyrights belong to Novell and not to SCO.
There are some minor issues that are still before the US District Court in Utah, plus another lawsuit that SCO filed against IBM seven years ago, along with SCO's likely dissolution fairly soon in a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, but it is all over bar the shouting, really.
The bottom line is that Linux users will not be getting any more calls from SCO wanting cash for any licences. µ
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"The point is that SCO would not have entered into the contract to purchase other rights over marketing names etc if they did not think they were buying the copyrights. It appears the jury was instructed to consider only the narrow issue of 'what exactly does the bill of sale say' rather than the wider point of whether there was an accidental, or deliberate, omission of the copyrights from the contract. The question is whether a drafting error (being charitable) should allow Novell to effectively nullify the intent of the contract long after completion."
That's completely false. The jury instructions (Instruction No. 32 in particular) say in no uncertain terms, "With respect to who owns the copyrights at issue, you may consider what is called the "extrinsic evidence" of the intent of the parties to the amended Asset Purchase Agreement. Extrinsic evidence is the evidence of what parties to a contract intended apart from the language they used in the contract."
The jury heard (and read) that instruction, and decided nonetheless that Santa Cruz did not get the copyrights.
Even without that instruction, it would be absurd to claim Santa Cruz got scammed. The original APA was perfectly clear on this issue, and Santa Cruz had expert counsel to advise them. It's not like Santa Cruz had the clerk in the mail room give it the once-over. They knew what the deal was.
Moreover, contemporaneous Novell records (such as a board meeting) show that Novell was consciously retaining the copyrights. /Novell/ wouldn't have done the deal if they lost the copyrights.
Finally, Santa Cruz got along fine for years without having any occasion to use them. It's only when they radically changed their business model to copyright troll that it became an issue. At that time, SCO actually asked for Novell to assure them SCO had the copyrights. Of course, Novell refused.
It's the Evil Empire Redmond that has won because all this legal crap has helped making Linux look an unsecure platform. Microsoft put 50$ million into SCO by use of Baystar as a proxy and thereby funded the whole show.
You are so far from any truth it is difficult to know where to start, but here goes:
_IF_ no copyrights were an oversight and SCO prevailed, it would overturn a very important feature of USA copyright law: certainty - because copyrights go on for a very long time, and if you can't rely on the instrument, you can't rely on anything else.
IF SCO made a mistake, that's their problem akin to examining their change before leaving the store
EVEN IF SCO should have got the copyrights, they released their code under the GNU GPL
IF SCO made a mistake, that's their problem akin to examining their change before leaving the store
And the "mistakes" are beginning to stack up
However SCO have already stated in open Court that they didn't need the copyrights for their Unixware business
Moreover, the records show that SCO didn't have much money so Novell didn't sell them very much, but did promise to transfer any copyrights they needed to operate, but see above.
Are you getting there yet?
When you learn to think, think about reading Groklaw.
Yes, by the letter of the contract Novell didn't sell the UNIX copyrights to SCO. That's what the lawsuit was about. I wouldn't expect the jury to return any verdict other than that the wording of the contract doesn't transfer UNIX copyrights to SCO.
The point is that SCO would not have entered into the contract to purchase other rights over marketing names etc if they did not think they were buying the copyrights. It appears the jury was instructed to consider only the narrow issue of 'what exactly does the bill of sale say' rather than the wider point of whether there was an accidental, or deliberate, omission of the copyrights from the contract. The question is whether a drafting error (being charitable) should allow Novell to effectively nullify the intent of the contract long after completion.
Namely, Microsoft, which has been financing the SCO vs. Novell action. Yes, that is the same Novell that Microsoft pretends to be "cooperating" with. Microsoft certainly makes a nice, ethical business "partner".
If you demonize SCO, you might as well also demonize the ISO organization, which was similarly duped (or paid) to approve Microsoft's flawed, proprietary MSOOXML document format as an ISO "standard" (to compete with the existing ISO ODF standard, which works just fine, thanks).
Microsoft reminds me of an unscrupulous lawyer who misleads and encourages the worst in a client in order to benefit themselves. Sure, SCO acted like a bunch of greedy, lying fools. ISO wound up losing international respect as an impartial organization. But the sinister "man behind the screen" pulling the strings in both cases was none other than the Bill G./ Steve B. team. Perhaps think about that before funding them with your next IT-related purchase.
You don't really understand this.
Even if Intel bought Novell it would not have the slightest effect on Linux, Android, or ARM. It's all Open Source.
Intel can prevent Microsoft upcoming action and will own entire UNIX codes for x86. Intel can use the base UNIX codes from Novell to support Google Android. The upcoming Google Android will be coded for Intel Atom as its main processing it Android OS, so Google can dump any ARM codes in its OS. Google and Intel alliance will kill both Microsoft, AMD an all ARM licensees. I think this action can make my dream comes true when Intel Inside everything is happening to everything and everyone.
Yea!
1-Find a US Corporation with cash
2-File frivolous lawsuits until you find an incompetent and/or crooked judge, drag out proceedings, transfer all cash to lawyers with judge's blessings
3-Lose lawsuits, meet lawyers in dark alley, split up cash
4-Profit!
The case is not dead yet. Badly, possibly fatally, wounded yes. But still a way to go. The so called trustee still wants to attack IBM. Suicide, I'd say.
Easy - sell the rights to SCO ;)
"sco used to be a decent company before this lawsuit."
That was "old SCO", Santa Cruz Operation.
This evil incarnation of SCO started out as Caldera, which bought the Unix business from old SCO and renamed itself to The SCO Group.
See all the gory details at groklaw.net.
Finally the "fat Lady" can sing "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead"
sco used to be a decent company before this lawsuit. I'm curious what Novell plans to do now. They were kind of the hero of the story but now that the case is won and they are now all kissy with microsoft..?