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Unix Operating Systems Software Government The Courts News

SCO Versus Novell Going All the Way 121

Posted by Zonk from the to-the-wall dept.
Robert writes "Computer Business Review reports that ownership of the Unix System V code copyrights is set to be decided in court after a US District Judge rejected Novell Inc's second request that SCO Group Inc's slander of title case be dismissed." From the article: "Novell's second motion to dismiss SCO's slander of title claim was prompted by an apparently positive response from Judge Dale Kimball to its first request to throw out the case, although he rejected it having concluded that the arguments about the agreements at the heart of the case would be more properly heard on potential later motions for summary judgment or trial."
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SCO Versus Novell Going All the Way More

SCO Versus Novell Going All the Way

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  • IMHO, this could end up being a serious embarrasment to to SCO. Maybe now, they'll crawl away and die.

    • Re:Novell has a very, very strong case. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BlogPope ( 886961 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:10PM (#12965420)
      this could end up being a serious embarrasment to to SCO.

      Those guys are way passed embarassing.

    • Another day, another court case.

      I just...stopped caring months ago. Everybody knows it'll end in nothing happening at all. The only people who walk away happy are the lawyers.
      • "Everybody knows it'll end in nothing happening at all."

        I hope not. I want to SCO be declared bankrupt.
        • Nah. I'm hoping that IBM or Novell is awarded the entirety of the SCO business, and that they release the whole of UNIX into the public domain.

          Put that silly "who owns what" question to rest.
          • Nah. I'm hoping that IBM or Novell is awarded the entirety of the SCO business, and that they release the whole of UNIX into the public domain.

            I think if you look a little deeper you will find that X/Open -> now The Open Group owns the UNIX specs and name and the other court cases will not impact them much. Now if you mean Unix, those are owned by the companies or groups that developed them. It looks like Novell sold most rights except copyrights of their version of Unix to oldSCO. I think SCO would
        • financially or morally?

          I think they were pretty much always morally bankrupt, so we're waiting for a judge to declare that to be so.
    • SCO is irrelevant. They have been for over a year now. How many times have we heard this, and how many times will we hear it before either they lose or someone pulls the plug. It's an out-of-control stock scam, and what needs to happen is for the moron investors to finally get the point that they were duped, and talk to their lawyers about suing these bastards. It's too late to get any money back, of course, but that's what retard investors who think that litigation equals a business plan. I may sound
      • The thing is, some of those investors probably think it's a scam too.

        But, what they really care about is how much they can sell it to someone else. That (and to a lesser extent) dividends are all that matters.

        There's a lot of companies out there that I think are overpriced. It doesn't matter as long as you sell them before the world wakes up (a lot of buyers of stock are sheep).

  • Summary judgement is still possible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gvc ( 167165 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @04:41PM (#12965238)
    Novell can still file for summary judgement. They asked to amend their motion for dismissal to a motion for summary judgement.

    The motion for dismissal and the amendment were denied. However, Novell can still file for summary judgement.

    There are (at least) two separate issues: (a) were the copyrights transferred to SCO; and (b) did Novell claim not with malice.

    The most recent dismissal motion speaks only to (b).

    It seems to me that (a) is a matter of law rather than fact, and might well be decided by summary judgement.

    • Re:Summary judgement is still possible (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      and (c) that TSCOG must have suffered actual damages (I forget the legal term, but in order for a slander-of-title suit to succeed, the plantif must have suffered actual damages; not theoretical or potential, but actual monetary damages).

      TSCOG's first suit was dismissed (without prejudice) because Novell pointed out they did not claim any actual damage. TSCOG's second suit still did not claim any actual damage, only elaborated on their potential damages, but Novell totally ignored that in their motion. I d

      • > TSCOG's second suit still did not claim any actual damage, only elaborated on their potential damages, but Novell totally ignored that in their motion. I don't know why...

        Perhaps they *want* to go to trial? Perhaps they have some cast-iron evidence that TSCOG wouldn't have much of a chance to know about because Novell's UNIX business was sold to the company now known as Tarantella, who then sold it on to the company now known as The SCO Group. There is a large opportunity for discussions between Novel
    • You just like to say "summary judgement", don't you?

  • It should have hapened a long time ago (Score:3, Insightful)

    by newsblaze ( 894675 ) * on Friday July 01, 2005 @04:43PM (#12965252) Homepage Journal
    It always seemed more about a failed company clutching at straws to get attention and maybe if they could pull it off, a lot of money and control.
    - But they never had a good story that would hold up.
  • does SCO actually legitimately create anything, anymore?
    • Yes.

      Legel briefs.

      well, at least they make sure they get made even if they outsource the work to another company.

    • They have new releases (Score:5, Informative)

      by burnin1965 ( 535071 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @06:08PM (#12965823) Homepage
      If you look at their product offerings they do have new releases of SCO OpenServer and SCO Unixware. Take a gander at some of their features:

      Optional KDE desktop for modern look and feel
      OpenSSH and OpenSSL
      Includes Mozilla 1.7
      Includes MySQL database (Community version)
      Includes Postgresql database
      CUPS has been added as an alternative to System V LP
      Gimp-print 4.2.5, foomatic 3.0.0-01, and ghostscript 7.05.6

      Now if your a BSD or linux user you may be thinking "hmm, those look familiar" and you would be correct.

      It seems that many of the new features in SCOs software offerings are actually open source software from those same people the SCO CEO says are dope smoking, thieving, pinko communists.

      burnin
    • Not really - I'm starting to get jobs to migrate machines from Netware to Linux, so industry is slowly clueing in.
    • Do aggravation and high blood pressure count?

  • In summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by TopSpin ( 753 ) * on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:03PM (#12965380) Journal
    1.) SCO sues people for infringing their copyrights

    2.) Novell publicly claims SCO doesn't actually own the copyrights.

    3.) SCO sues Novell for, erm... "slander of copyright"

    4.) Novell files a motion to get the case dismissed. Judge denies but drops hints that it could work...

    5.) Novell files another motion to dismiss.

    6.) (You are here) The judge says quit trying for a dismissal, it all must to go to trial, presumably to resolve who actually owns the copywrites.

    7.) circa 2009, trial begins.

    8.) The sun expands and engulfs the Earth in plasma. Utah slagged into a molten puddle.

    9.) UT&T, corporate descendent of AT&T, publicly claims Novell does not actually own the copyrights.

    10.) An Ixian investment group buys majority shares of GBM, UT&T, Novell and enslaves the entire population inhabiting the artificial planets orbiting Betelgeuse, where the descendents of Darl McBride are rumored to have migrated after Earth was no longer tolerable.

    11.) Zarthon declares war on Ix, pointing out that Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy were all genetic plants sent to humanity to promulgate rational computation throughout the universe.

    12.) Heat Death overcomes the universe as the Zath-Ix war consumes all Baryonic matter 18.3E21 Earth years early.

  • Offtopic: Can someone.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nagatzhul ( 158676 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:07PM (#12965406)
    find the dealer that is selling Darl his drugs and shoot him, please? His flights of "fancy" are getting old.

    How in the hell can he go after BSD?

  • Isn't Caldera a medicine for skin rashes? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sir_Eptishous ( 873977 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:09PM (#12965418)
    I used to work with several ex-SCO people in Santa Cruz. Great people to work with. They were all hardcore Linux/and/or/BSD people who were disgusted with the direction/erection that Darl McBride and his sad, Lindon, Utah ward members had taken the company they helped build.

    This suit is a joke, and I hope that Caldera gets theirs in the end.
    I also will firmly place my tinfoil hat on and assume that M$ has something to do with this...

  • What Would Happen (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:33PM (#12965558) Homepage
    What if the judge ruled against Novell still owning the copyrights? We've all seen stranger things happen in the Amercian court system.
    • Then conceivably SCO would still have a chance to knock IBM for continuing to distribute AIX after SCO supposedly pulled their SYSV license.

      With regards to the whole "Linux ate our baby" thing, it's not going to change a whole lot.
    • Well, Hell would freeze over, SuSE would probably cease to exist. I'd be up a creek, because I rely on SuSE as my primary OS. SCO would continue to sue Linux distributors until the end of time, and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars would invade Earth. Let SCO lose. They've had it coming for a while, anyway.
    • SCO would ask Novell for the rights, saying they are "necessary to their business," which is (roughly) what the APA says they need to do to get them.

      Novell would say, "no, they're not," since they weren't necessary for the prior decade, and they'd be right.

      SCO sues Novell for breach of contract, and the fun starts over again.
    • The american justice system (I can't help but snicker every time I say that) has proven itself to be a gigantic crapshoot where anything can happen to anybody at any time.

  • Novell's Very Foolish.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:41PM (#12965611) Homepage
    to keep this case going.

    Hundreds of thousands of dollars just evaporating in court and lawyer costs every month this thing goes on. Is Novell so well-off this won't affect their bottom line every quarter?

    If there's any SCO left when they get to the end, they declare bankruptcy. Then what does Novell have? Satisfaction in being right? I wish I could feed my family by just being right.

    Or maybe the IP issues are better clarified. Well, Novell can't use that to their exclusive benefit. So where's the money?

    What does Microsoft get? One less competitor.

  • SCO v. IBM ruling today: trial set for Feb 2007 (Score:4, Informative)

    by petrofsky ( 702225 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @05:49PM (#12965681)

    Judge Kimball followed up that Monday SCO v. Novell ruling with a SCO v. IBM ruling today. Here are text [scofacts.org] and pdf [scofacts.org] versions.

    He granted SCO a four-hour deposition of Sam Palmisano, IBM's CEO and former VP of all things Linux. He denied SCO's motion to belatedly amend its complaint to include a claim for Project Monterey-related copyright infringement.

    The order includes a new schedule. The old one had been tossed out in January [scofacts.org].

    The new schedule roughly matches IBM's proposal [scofacts.org] (as amended at the hearing; see pages 90-91 of the transcript [scofacts.org] where IBM says to add two months to everything in the proposal), but with another two months added for most pre-trial dates, pushing the end of discovery to July 10, 2006. He added another couple months for deciding dispositive motions before the trial, making for a trial date of February 26, 2007. He included the interim deadlines IBM wanted for parties to "Identify with Specificity All Allegedly Misused Material", setting December 22, 2005 as the final date for all source code at issue to be identified by version, file, and line of code.

    Per Kimball's order [scofacts.org] back in February there will be no summary judgment motions before the end of discovery, and the new schedule calls for the last brief on post-discovery summary judgment motions not to be due until September 26, 2006, so I think November 2006 is the earliest we could see a summary judgment motion heard and decided.

    • Now IBM will just try and make SCO spend as much money as they can to comply with thier timetable and milestones. They will continue to push Linux in the meantime and since the judge is using thier plan I am betting the IBM QA department will be giving SCO orders from now on.

      I belive SCO has acted like Cuba during the cold war (all the really stupid stuff is done by proxy). The real struggle is MS vs IBM. MS want time to catch up with *nix like tools built in to the CLI and IBM wan't to push Linux becaus
    • Holy crap. When did this shit start? Wasn't it like two or three years ago? It's amazing to me that the courts have not asked SCO the question any two year old would have "what code are you talking about"?.

  • Question (Score:2)

    by mcc ( 14761 )
    So since this is going forward,
    1. Could the slander of title case end with the decision that SCO does not own UNIX?
    2. If so, what happens to SCO's other lawsuits?
    • > 1. Could the slander of title case end with the decision that SCO does not own UNIX?

      It is possible, but I think the judge could find in favour of Novell without making any statement about the copyright.

      > 2. If so, what happens to SCO's other lawsuits?

      They sue Tarantella for everything they've got.

  • Current events, calendar (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Quick update: IBM wins [groklaw.net] most of the motions heard at the 21 May 2005 hearing in SCOvIBM. SCO's try to add more claims to the suit was denied, and IBM gets a deadline for the parties to disclose "allegedly infringing material." SCO does get to depose IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, but only for four hours. I'll post explicit dates from the new scheduling order once I've gotten a chance to read it.

    Current events:

    • SCOvIBM: Judge Kimball has considered the motions discussed at the 21 May 2005 hearing, and

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