Submitted by Today, Novell has answered SCO’s complaint alledging Novell slandered SCO’s ownership of the Unix copyrights. Novell claims that SCO approached Novell in 2003 to try and pursuade them to go along with the Linux Licensing Scheme. When Novell refused, SCO attempted to talk Novell into transfering the Unix Copyrights to SCO, which Novell also refused to do. Novell has also filed four counterclaims against SCO, one of them being Slander of Title (for SCO slandering Novell’s ownership of the Unix Copyrights).
Novell Files Countersuit Against SCO
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I thought they would be dead by now.
Maybe they are, but the death throws haven’t ceased yet.
Novell is digging right now, trying to get to the bottom of the Microsoft and Sun deals. Hopefully this suit will either show Microsoft and Sun’s innocence, or will show what part of this scheme they were involved in. Then we can all stop guessing and know the facts.
It does seem suspicious though that SCO would knowingly (and admittingly if you read the countersuit) breach their contract with Novell to hide the Sun and Microsoft deals. Only two possibilities come to mind…
1)They were just funding SCO and didn’t really need to license anything.
2)SCO doesn’t want to give this money to Novell since they can’t afford it.
Sun has a reasonable explanation as to why they paid SCO, so for their case I am leaning towards #2 for them. As for Microsoft, however, I see no reason that they should have paid SCO millions (the day that SCO began collecting Linux license fees I may add) for their Services for Unix product. It is based primarily on GNU and F/OSS that SCO has not (tried to) laid claim to. SCO is attacking Linux, which is not used at all in Services for Unix. SFU uses primarily open standards and F/OSS tools like gcc and csh. So why pay this money? Surely Windows isn’t based on Unix.
Of course, I’m just speculating. I could be way off base. But I just see no reason for Microsoft to have paid SCO that money. What exactly did they license?
Surely Windows isn’t based on Unix.
It could be that they at the time was prepared to do an Apple, i.e. shut down the development of a hopelessly long overdue OS, and replace it with something known to work, and just add a GUI of their own.
I doubt that we would see them pulling an Apple after all of the work they have been putting into their own kernel for NT. After the new license was concluded, Microsoft released Services For Unix (microsoft.com/sfu) free of charge. I would assume, as with Sun, that they at least bought themselves out of further royalties.
After this, we’ll probably see the Sun and MS licenses in court.
> What exactly did they license?
Didn’t SCO license XENIX from Microsoft? Seems like the trail goes round in circles.
>>As for Microsoft, however, I see no reason that they should have paid SCO millions (the day that SCO began collecting Linux license fees I may add)
I guess because this will put some fear in corporations thinking about using Linux (at that time when the case started). You dont want to invest in something like that, and then find out that you need to pay royalties to SCO. Probably I am wrong.
Exactly. This is FUD at its’ finest by the best in the business.
go Novell!!
I second that!
Like the muppet show!
More firms should do this.With SCO’s currently financial status the lawsuit can’t last that long.Finally a firm actively tries to burst the SCO bubble.
Maybe it’s wise to start multiple lawsuits on different continents.Eg: a lawsuit won in Europe would have spoiled SCO’s fairy tale and secured the market for their alledged influence.
> More firms should do this.With SCO’s currently > >< > financial status the lawsuit can’t last that long.
This is a big, gaping and a very undemocratic hole in the American constitution. Why should you have to pay for a lawsuit before the case is settled?!
Apart from that: Go Novell.
Olav
More firms should do this.With SCO’s currently financial status the lawsuit can’t last that long.Finally a firm actively tries to burst the SCO bubble.
While I’d like to see that, exactly what would any other firms have to gain from a lawsuit against a company that will go bankrupt, most likely before the case is over.
SCO
Novell
Microsoft
Sun
um, who else?
Quite a legal morass they’ve gotten themselves into. How many suits and counter-suits? And has there been any real evidence yet?
SCO bought XENIX from Microsoft, and MS agreed not to make a competing nix based OS
Just want to make sure it’s understood that new SCO is not old SCO. Caldera’s new name is “The SCO Group” but Caldera (based in Lindon Utah) is absolutely not the same company as old SCO or “Santa Cruz Operations.”
Caldera simply pirated the SCO name. Caldera also tried to pirate the USL (Unix Systems Labs) name, but Caldera was stopped. Caldera also claims to own “UNIX” although the name UNIX is a trademark of The Open Group.
It was *Old* SCO, not Caldera, that bought XENIX from Microsoft.
Caldera simply pirated the SCO name.
Do you have any evidence suggesting Caldera illegally pirated the SCO name? Santa Cruz changed their name to Tarantella, and Caldera assumed the SCO Group name.
For one, SCO was just a shortening of Santa Cruz Operation, it was never an official name of oldSCO. The SCO Group is an official name of Caldera. SCO does not stand for anything in the new name.
I’ve seen Caldera blamed for a lot of things (rightly so in most cases) but I’ve never heard them blamed for stealing the name SCO.
>>
Do you have any evidence suggesting Caldera illegally pirated the SCO name? Santa Cruz changed their name to Tarantella, and Caldera assumed the SCO Group name.
<<
I didn’t say scox did anything illegal. Maybe I didn’t use use the term “pirated” correctly. “Pirating” actually refers to being on a ship and robbing other ships.
Scox uses the name “SCO” to confuse the public, and for no other reason. “SCO” (as they call themselves) wants the public to think that they are the oldSCO – and they absolutely are not. It may be technically legal, but it stinks of a deceptive tactic used by a scam oriented organization.
For example, scox will issue a press release saying something like: “when SCO bought the rights to UNIX . . ” and then the release will go on discussing oldSCO and newSCO, refering to both companies as “SCO” unless you happen to know the history of the company, you would think that newSCO bought those rights. It is a *very* deceptive practise.
A lot of companies have actually been afraid of migrating to Linux because they’ve been afraid of SCO and their claims. Now if Novell wins the case, and which I think very likely, SCO will run out of business entirely. This should be good news for everyone =) Way to go, Novell =D
@Olav
This is a big, gaping and a very undemocratic hole in the American constitution. Why should you have to pay for a lawsuit before the case is settled?!
You don’t.
However, you do have to pay for the lawyers who argue your case, and SCO hopefully won’t be able to do that, if enough companies turn on them.
everyone knows that sco had the rights to license unix technology.. .and everyone knows the agreement was to allow SCO to do this..
and everyone knows that copyrights are needed (or joint ownership of, or perhaps license rights) are needed to inforce the IP..
so SCO might not even need copyrights to enforce the unix IP, since they acquired “rights to it” although novell may retain the rights as well…
so they both seem to own the rights… and SCO is dumb trying to ask novell to sell them the rights because they don’t need them. According to their agreemnt they have the right to use the Unix IP and license it and enforce it. period.
Now.. there is a noncompete ageement between SCO and Novell, that Novell would not sell a competing operating system.. and SuSE Linux is a competiting operating system. So the suit against Novell is legitament.. but youd wonder why all these lawsuits arent driving sco out of business.
More on the Microsoft technology license from SCO. It appears they licensed patents….which is odd since SCO only owns one patent…which has nothing to do with Unix or Linux. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050730195302181“>Link
In the News 07.13.05 Sun Microsystems, Inc. acquires Tarantella, Inc.
http://www.tarantella.com/