Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights!

[Jerry Feldman]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:34:05 -0400
"Bill Bogstad" <bogstad-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> Of course, Sun also paid lots of money (along with Microsoft) to SCOX
> to buy out of any license issues.  If SCOX didn't actually own what
> they sold, Sun probably has a countersuit.  I don't think the actual
> terms of the Sun/SCOX or Microsoft/SCOX deals were ever fully
> revealted.  I wonder if Sun could have already covered themselves
> against anything related to Tarantella.  This is starting to make my
> head hurt...

Like IBM, Sun's license was originally issued by AT&T, and quite
possibly was a perpetual license, but at the time, Sun was a new
startup.  However, one of the Novell counterclaims is to seek unpaid
royalties under the APA for agreements including Sun and Microsoft.
This is one of the reasons that the SCO vs. Novell case moved ahead of
the SCO vs. IBM.=20
----
Under =C2=A7 B of Amendment No. 2 to the APA, SCO is obligated to consult
Novell and obtain Novell's approval before concluding any potential
buy-out transaction with an SVRX licensee. SCO did not perform its
corresponding duties under =C2=A7 B of Amendment No. 2 and substantially and
materially breached =C2=A7 4.16(b) by entering into the 2003 Agreement with
Sun without consulting Novell or securing Novell's prior approval.

Novell pleads in the alternative for a declaration pursuant to 28
U.S.C. =C2=A7 2201 that SCO had no authority to enter into the Sun and
Microsoft SVRX Licenses, as well as the Intellectual Property Licenses
with Linux end users and UNIX vendors.=20
---------------

For the most part, the establishment of the copyright ownership
tilts the field in favor of Novell's counterclaims, and reduces some of
the other SCO claims which are still on the table since no other
motions have been ruled on.

These 3 cases (SCO vs. Novell, SCO vs. IBM and SCO vs. Red Hat) have a
very significant affect on the entire Linux community where SCO was
initially trying to enforce Unix licenses on Linux users causing major
vendors to issue indemnities to their end users.=20

At this time, we cannot say that SCO is toast, because Boies, Schiller,
& Flexner are a very smart law firm.=20

--=20
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9