SCO vs. Novell; Novell wins.

[Jeffry Smith]

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> On 03/31/2010 07:27 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
>> On 03/30/2010 08:31 PM, Bruce Dawson wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, its not over; SCO plans on suing IBM next. (Or at least SCO's
>>> lawyers plan to - I suspect they're the only ones left given that
>>> they're getting paid.)
>>>
>>>
>> It's really up to Judge Cahn (chapter 11 trustee) and the bankruptcy
>> court. The IBM case was stayed when SCO filed chapter 11 as was the SCO
>> vs. Novell, but that stay was lifted because the original case also
>> included a financial claim against SCO.
>>
>>
> Reading further in this morning's updates it does appear that SCO will
> pursue the IBM case, and there are a few other cases with claims and
> counter claims.  SCO's agreement with its attorneys, Bois Schiller,
> obligate them to the end of the case. While this verdict does remove
> some of the supports from it's IBM case, the underlying issue in the SCO
> vs. IBM is the contract. SCO is claiming that IBM, in violation of its
> contract contributed 3 derivative works, (1) SMP, (2) NUMA (through its
> acquisition of Sequent), and (3) JFS - IBM claims the Linux JFS comes
> from OS/2, not Unix. This actually goes back to the old AT&T Unix
> contracts that had a 'derivative works' clause. IBM also has counter
> claims against SCO.  Additionally, SCO can appeal this verdict, though
> that is unlikely.  I think we will see in a few days what Judge Cahn
> decides to do. While the IBM litigation is the major one, there is still
> a few others under stay including the SUSE vs. SCO arbitration in Europe
> regarding United Linux. I'm sure that IBM and Novell will push their
> motions in the bankruptcy court to force SCO into chapter 7 now with
> Novell clearly holding ownership to the copyrights.
>
If I read the documents at Groklaw right, IBM had a clause in their
contract (and was confirmed by a Novell publication in I think it's
called "Echos" - the publication of Unix, that stuff they owned was
theirs.  The Sequent contract did NOT have such an explicit statement.
 However, they also didn't have an explicit "we own the derivitives"
clause.  Also, Sequent, and now IBM, own the patents on NUMA.   IBM
not only claims Linux JFS came from OS/2 - they showed it in
discovery.  Actually, their current AIX JFS comes from OS/2 - IBM
reimplemented it from scratch in OS/2, and it was better than JFS1, so
they ported it to both Linux and AIX.  TSCOG has been claiming since
they put it in AIX, they couldn't put it in Linux.   Strange, but then
again, TSCOG is living in a different world from reality.

In addition, Novell had in the contract the ability to waive all
claims - which they invoked.  Another get

TSCOG is claiming that they own also the "methods and concepts" of
Unix - not certain how this rulling will effect that, but it can't be
good for TSCOG.

Bottom line, Kimball through out most of TSCOG's charges, this shoots
down most of  the rest, what's left is IBM's counter-charges, to
include the misuse of IBM's GPL'd code (by attempting to extort Linux
users in contravention of the GPL).   IBM's legal ground has gotten
better as more courts have explicitly recognized the GPL because of
stupid people challenging it (according to the GPL itself, you don't
have to accept it, but nothing else gives you distribution rights on
copies - catch 22 - either follow the GPL, or be guilty of copyright
violation).

jeff