In what Bruce Perens is describing as answering “the call of the open source community,” Novell, makers of the popular NOS NetWare, has delivered a letter to SCO challenging their rights to UNIX System V. “Novell has just won the hearts and minds of developers and corporations alike,” Perens continued. Read the article and the letter at Yahoo. Update: SCO’s response.
Novell Challenges SCO Position, Reiterates Support for Linux
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Funniest thing i’ve read in ages!
MS has paid SCO for IP that they don’t own! 😀
This is poetic….
MS paid for a *license* to use SCO IP. Now you are correct in saying that SCO doesnt own the IP, but they do have a contract with Novell to sub-licence the IP. So this is a perfectly valid transaction.
> MS has paid SCO for IP that they don’t own! 😀
No.
SCO’s reponse, if it can be called that, is completely lame. It doesn’t address any of the claims. It just says “We’re doing what we’re doing.”
Lame!
Now they claim the lawsuit was about IBM’s violating a contract with them. Ha ha! They’re screwed, finished. Its sweet it ended this way.
Hmm .. SCO just keeps getting better! Don’t you just love this? SCO is changing its claims again! The new tune is that SCO owns “…the contract rights to the UNIX® operating system..”
Ah!
i wouldent make any assumptions yet as sco haven’t even said what parts of code they claim to ‘own’ and theres so much bleedin code to unix in its different variations going back god knows how far (not an expert here) its impossible to guess really. but aren’t novell talking about system v parts here ain’t they? could maybe someone go into more detail about what scos descended from?
Indeed a very smart move by Novell as Linux is going to be around a lot longer than SCO. Basically, Novell can’t lose anything, but they’ve just won a huge amount of goodwill as far as the Linux community is concerned.
For stating the case so clearly, Novell has just won respect. I for one will be looking into the products that they offer.
If the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit is not about copyrights or patents, then it is highly likely not to be about code.
If it is not about code, then SCO’s “contracts” are hardly likely to be applicable to Linux.
SCO’s approach, no doubt a reflection of the arrogant brash monopoly that put them up to it, has killed any future the company has in the Linux market.
So SCO is stuck in court for the rest of their existence. Which is a fitting place for them as we certainly learned that we don’t want them as part of the Linux community.
It is so very rare for a company to stand up on principle that it means that much more.
And I will certainly be taking a greater interest into what is happening with Novell.
Has a date been set for the SCO-IBM trial? I haven’t even seen a tentative date set in any of the news stories I’ve read.
SCO is screwed.
bwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
you know at first i was skeptical of novell’s intentions with linux… i was wrong and thank god for that…
Well if SCO dosent own the IP to the UNIX code wouldent the letters they sent to the companys be compleatly false I also beleve that it would be illeagle
I like these guys at Novell. I’ll be taking a closer look at their products and services for Linux. Novell rocks.
Even if IBM is in the wrong (in no way i am saying they are). It is still a crime for SCO to send out notices to companies like that without this case even entering court. To me IBM and the Linux companies should sue SCO for wrongfully slandering the names of their businesses with no grounds to do so. I mean if a single person did this, there would be no problem. But for a company like SCO to take IBM to court and send notices that would appear to be legitimate without a case verdict or even a court hearing is absolutely immoral and unjust.
Novell rulez!!! Woooohoooo!!! What SCO did was wrong. What they did is like reporting a stolen car that actually belonged to their neighbour…and then theive tried to cash the insurance…lol…
No, realy, excuse my grammar, I am tired, but this made my day…lol…
As we know, alongside its copyright court battle with IBM, SCO also notified 1,500 of the world’s largest corporations in May that their use of Linux may be in violation of SCO’s rights.
Some of the largest German companies were sent the letter including electronics giant Siemens AG, the German railway system and carmaker Volkswagen.
All part of SCO’s global attack on Linux, doing the bidding of their master Microosft.
And it looks like SCO is going to get countersued, especially given the latest descent into murkiness of SCO’s IP claims. SCO had no legal basis to launch their attacks. Sounds familiar, eh?
So Linuxtag, a German software consortium, is going to take SCO to court as SCO has damaged Linux as well as the companies using Linux.
The full story can be found here:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2135317,00.html
SCO may actually win. For people to write them off after as much of a deal they made about it, there must be more than some fictitious code. Afterall, FreeBSD had this problem in the past, it was only a matter of time Linux would suffer the same fate. Finally, maybe now the BSDs will command the respect they deserve.
You are a troll…please stop trolling, and read the article.
I use linux everday on my machines, I use bsds (openBSD) on servers. But sheesh, isn’t the BSD crowd bitter: “Go BSD! Linux got what it deserves, because it’s more popular than us.” It’s really nice to see how some of our BSD “friends” turn against us, and just because the same bad stuff happend to you a while back, are you going to wish it upon your friends.
P.S: Companies are much more willing to invest in linux, and GPLed products, because they know their comperitior can’t take that and put it in their propriertary product, and they can still sell comercial licences to it (mysql, qt). So, get over it.
The most telling part is that this ‘letter’ was released to the public as news. What a great way to get free PR and win some new support (and ultimately new business) for your company – just look like the good guy and champion of the downtrodden. And while you’re at it add some references to new product lines for anyone unfamiliar with what you’re flogging.
I’m surprised no-one has clued in to this tactic. It remains to be seen if Novell will follow up on anything else besides this little bandwagon-jump-in-the-name-of-PR effort.
Direct Quote:
SCO is the owner of the UNIX Operating System Intellectual Property that dates all the way back 1969, when the UNIX System was created at Bell Laboratories. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, SCO has acquired ownership of the patents, copyrights and core technology associated with the UNIX System. The SCO source division will continue to offer traditional UNIX System licenses to preserve, protect and enhance shareholder value.
This is a flat out lie. Bring on the lawsuits.
No one is blind to it, it’s plain to see.
But, see, Novell’s product has been superior to Windows, and, arguably, Linux and Unix, for years now. NetWare 6 is an amazing network OS. I applaud them for finally learning how to market – which is the ONLY reason they aren’t the #1 NOS right now, in my opinion.
They can have all the PR they want, provided they continue down this path. I knew it was just a matter of time before SCO was put in it’s place, but I’m pleasantly surprised that it was Novell that put the gloves on.
Apple: You stole our GUI!
Microsoft: We have the right: You licensed us…
Apple: No you didn’t…show us the license!
Xerox: Settle. Now. Or else!
“But, see, Novell’s product has been superior to Windows, and, arguably, Linux and Unix, for years now. NetWare 6 is an amazing network OS. I applaud them for finally learning how to market – which is the ONLY reason they aren’t the #1 NOS right now, in my opinion.”
Of course it is, but they are up against a remorseless attacker in Microsoft. They have been badly battered, mainly because they seem to think that people will naturally buy the better product.
The Novell products are too expensive for 2003, IMO. That doesn’t help.
That is flat out wrong…. Micro$oft settled with Apple out of court… nothing to do with xerox. Apple was suing for “look and feel” not the gui concept.
My former boss loved Novell; I think he still does. I liked it, too, but I think my judgement was somewhat clouded in the negative by Microsoft’s behavior of making Netware and Windows not play well together.
Another interesting point: Microsoft’s lackeys in the press (not Microsoft itself, as far as I know,) kept pounding in the idea that NT was far cheaper because, to paraphrase one quote, “Connecting to an NT server will cost pennies a client, while Novell has their expensive per-user licensing scheme.”
But, isn’t a Windows client connected to an NT server supposed to involve a $50-per-seat or so license now?
Please. correct me if I’m wrong.
On Caldera releasing all the UNIX copyrights up to a certain point:
Our strangest dreams sometimes take on a reality of their own. In January, Caldera, the latest owners of the “official” Unix source code, decided to release some of the older versions (up to “V7” and “32V”) under an open source license. While not as significant as it would have been, say, ten years ago, it is nice that everyone now has access to the code that first made Unix popular, and that led to the development of the 4BSD system that underlies FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Apple’s Darwin (which in turn underlies Mac OS X). Since I was active in the computer field through almost all the years of Unix’s development, I’d like to comment briefly on the Caldera announcement in its full context.
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/02/28/caldera.html
So there is some other code that SCO thinks is important, is in the Linux kernel and yet will not mention. And it is very strange that SCO seemingly doesn’t have the copyrights/patents as these stayed with Novell when AT&T sold USL/UNIX to Novell.
As what happens in court is dependent on how much you spend on lawyers and politicians, it will be difficult to predict what happens in SCO’s lawsuit. SCO has Microsoft backing them up but is going against IBM and many other heavy-hitters who will want to put the smackdown on Microsoft/SCO.
Eventually the matter will be settled and SCO will disappear. Let us just hope that they are not as good as RAMBUS at destroying evidence and cheating the legal system.
…It just says “We’re doing what we’re doing.”…
And making more money with scare tactics than with actual product sales.
That’s some good lawyerin’… They will be gone soon.
“That is flat out wrong…. Micro$oft settled with Apple out of court… nothing to do with xerox. Apple was suing for “look and feel” not the gui concept.”
This is a long time ago, and if I”ve got any time, I’ll find the articles.
Meanwhile, I stand by what I said: Xerox people made public statements that Microsoft and Apple had nothing to sue each other over:
– Movable windows
– Overlapping windows
– Corner decorations
– Sizable windows
– a lot of other nonsense.
Thes items were all mentioned in the lawsuit, and Xerox warned both companies they were pressing the wrong buttons. This is what I recall.
If Novell still retains rights, then couldn’t Novell revoke the agreement with SCO and thus, in essence, void all of SCO’s rights to the IP/technology? Or sue SCO for breach of contract for its current behavior?
It is quite possible that Novell does actually own the UNIX patents, they are listed. It is possible because we technically do the same thing. My company produces custom Applications for our clients. The clients tell us what they want we develop it, now, they bought it. They own it but we copyright it and apply for patents for the technology. We give our clients the source code, but if they decide to distribute it they must let us know in writing who is getting it. Novell is basically asserting the same thing. What I find funny is that SCO CEO Darl McBride stated in an interview that he has to pay Novell and Veritas royalties with every OS that he ships, if SCO truly owned the patents then why would SCO have to pay Novell Royalties ? he wouldnt. So I think Novell is right and I think SCO does realize they messed up. And now they are suing IBM for breach of Contract again, and their story totally did a 360 Degree turn around. Be prepared for SCO stock to drop again. Because it went up because everyone was expecting a big payoff, either SCO would be bought out or SCO would win its suit. For stockholders it was a WIN/WIN scenario but now that someone has come along and is fighting FUD with FUD people will start to pull out now.
Novell just won some good faith in a bunch of people who’s not willing to pay crap.
LoL.. is that being fooled or what!
sco haven’t even said what parts of code they claim to ‘own’
Right, & they haven’t even said anything that says where the “code” is. As far as I am concerned this is just a lot of bs.
SCO does not own all the UNIX trademarks. The UNIX trademarks and standards belong to the Open Group.
I actually submitted this (the OG’s statement) as news; don’t know why it didn’t make it.
As of May 28, 2003 14:56 ET Market Open:
SCOX $6.91 -20.67% 1,219,659 shared volume
When I looked an hour earlier it was at $8.10 with about a volume of about 670,000. Someone’s dumping SCOX stock.
URL: http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?mode=stock&page=quick&symbol=SCO…
SCO sucks, they challenged a whole comunity… and now they realized it was too much for them. From now on Novell is going to make really good friends between the open source community.
Novell’s intervention tells us not to forget that although we are talking about open source, the deals between corporations (IBM, Novell, SCO, etc.) aren’t a matter of public record. We read press releases but still, those of us who are neither employees nor shareholders of these companies don’t really get all the information necessary to fully understand situations like the SCO case against IBM.
GO NOVELL!!! Cool company, nice reply!
f*cked!
SCO Stock has gone down 2.00 and Red Hats has gone up
<<totally did a 360 Degree turn around. >>
You understand that 360 degrees is a full circle? It should be 180 degrees. Or maybe you meant something like “chasing ones own tale”. If so I’m sorry and don’t let me stop you.
Could IBM have bought perpertual irrevocable licenses from NOVELL that SCO did not know about?
I don’t want to be in McBride’s shoes this moment.
Well its Novells new strategy isn’t it?
Two weeks ago thy announced that they will port their applications to Linux.
So this is maybe like an away to tell the opensource world “You can trust us”.
“Novell just won some good faith in a bunch of people who’s not willing to pay crap.
LoL.. is that being fooled or what!”
And…what part of the Linux kernel did Novell pay for?
I would assume the part they worked on.
So, Novell is being fooled because…?
“SCO Stock has gone down 2.00 and Red Hat’s has gone up”
It’s nice to see the capitalist enthusiasms of the Free Software community. 😉
This is amusing – a GNU/Linux Free software advocates avidly watching the stock market?????
As of May 28, 2003 Market Closed: SCOX $ 6.60 -24.23% 1,978,948 volume
Putting http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/quotes_news.asp?symbol=SCOX%60&select…
and http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?page=charting&mode=basics&symbol…
together, I dunno, …. the story may just end with actual conviction for criminal activity.
As the plot thickens, I’d also like to mention the V word… Veritas — could that be it perhaps …..(LVM?)….. to, erm, substantiate anything in court? Just thinking out loud now. I was surprised to see the V word pop up in an earlier post.
BTW I’m not a GNU/Linux Free software advocate. I’m one of those dreadful BSD bigots 😉 I was reading the latest diSCOveries here and got interested in how their stocks were doing. Then I saw it changing faster than I could reload and thought it might be worth posting.
Scrolling back, I seem to have been mistaken. I read a reference somewhere that sco (unixware) was paying royalties to novell and veritas. Must have been /. and no, I’m not going to look it up
Anyone has some info on this?
If Novell are serious about Linux ports, then it makes sense to defend Linux against SCO.
Also, even though SCO’s change of tack towards IBM (“breach of contract”) may just be a more precise legal definition, ie., it was IBM’s breach of contract that led to SCO/Novell code entering Linux, they still need to explain the purpose behind those letters they sent to companies using Linux.
SCO are idiots: not for trying to sue IBM, but for their tactics. Even if they have a case, the SCO brand is finished. I think they’ve made too many enemies; they seem to have a friend in Microsoft, and we all know how loyal and trustworthy Microsoft is!
XBe writes:
“Novell just won some good faith in a bunch of people who’s not willing to pay crap. LoL.. is that being fooled or what!”
I almost fell over laughing that was so funny
Anywa. Yea lets see if this get’s them customers
Perhaps now we’ve seen the basis for this entire opera. Maybe IBM did break a contract with SCO by releasing certain licensed code as OpenSource. Perhaps SCO does have a contract breech situation with IBM…
It seems IBM and SCO could have figured this all out behind closed doors with an arbitrator. Much too late now.
If only SCO hadn’t been publicly spewing that diarhea about “owning” Unix…
Anyway, IBM can probably show that they obtained the code in question from a source outside of the SCO contract, for example from a Novell contract or a CorelLinux CD that pre-dates the contract.
And what did SCO hope to gain by sending threatening, unsubstanciated letters to the world’s largest corporations? What a way to make friends.
Hats off to the OSNews readers who last week predicted the reaction lawsuits that have begun to pop up, beginning in Germany today. Expect more.
If Novell wanted to really muck things up good, and really stick it to SCO, they could release the code as OpenSource. So SCO would still hold the license for redistributing Unix, but no one would pay a nickel for it.
-Bob
This was posted on lwn.net
“…SCO never owned Unix; it just does the paperwork for a 5% cut. (Thanks to Karsten Self, who posted this to the linux-elitists list)” …
They had this link to SCO’s annual report filed with the SEC:
http://ir.sco.com/EdgarDetail.cfm?CompanyID=CALD&CIK=1102542&FID=10…
The document has a section called the “Restricted Cash and Royalty Payable to Novell, Inc.” where it clearly states that SCO acts only as an administrative agent for Novell.
Good one, Pepeco.
That’s consistent with what Novell says, that Novel licensed the code to SCO with a redistribution agreement. SCO doesn’t ~own~ anything.
-Bob
So I went through the Linux kernel source and found a snippet of code which SCO claims to be almost verbatim to theirs:
In ofw-shark.c:
m=0xffffffff;
for (i=0;i<(unsigned int) buffer[0];i++){
if (buffer[2*i+1]<m) {
m=buffer[2*i+1];
k=i;
}
}
What if Steve Ballmer just wanted to make a quick buck by transferring some of his investments from MSFT to SCOX seeing as how that stock has gone on the rise, 😉
From marketwatch.com (today)- “Novell challenges SCO’s Unix claims” (at the very bottom):
“McBride added that unless more companies start licensing SCO’s property, he may also sue Linus Torvalds, who is credited with inventing the Linux operating system, for patent infringement.”
Good grief!
I’d assume friendly parties buying stock when it drops (perhaps due to timely securing of pension plans of certain people — particularly if one has several wives hehe) to make it not drop so hard yet, or for the spirit of UNIX(TM), or perhaps to get $5 mln back, who knows… there’s always reasons to try to hold back a landslide in stock value, especially when minus.
this is getting way out of hand, the community should buy SCO and tar and feather the lot, then fire them and put them on display as well.
i meant LINUS, this has got me as wound up as Eric Raymond got on Revolution OS with the communism comparison to Open Source
Megol:
> MS has paid SCO for IP that they don’t own! 😀
No.
Yes.
XBe:
Novell just won some good faith in a bunch of people who’s not willing to pay crap.
You forgot to add the “for” between “pay” and “crap”. You’re welcome.
<<SCO has the contractual right to prevent improper donations of UNIX code, methods or concepts into Linux by any UNIX vendor.>>
The above quote, from SCO’s response to Novell’s claim that the former does not own patents or copyrights related to Unix, gives the impression that SCO can take legal action against only Unix vendors who have licensed Unix code from SCO (or its predecsssors in interest). That is, SCO can take action against vendors like IBM, Sun, HP, SGI etc. if it can be proved that any one of these licensees has donated SCO code to Linux. If any one else, who does not license anything from SCO, has donated SCO’s code to Linux then SCO cannot take legal action against that individual or entity because the latter has no contractual obligation to SCO. Copyrights and patents become relevant in such a situation but SCO does not own them, according to Novell.
Anyone seen the SCO stock price graph next to the press release? Notice the precipitous drop that happened throughout Wednesday? Heheh.
Boy, this one is a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal hooooooooooot!!!!!
Man, Novell is going to be laughing all the way to the bank…I’m sorry…they are already laughing in the bank!