strredwolf | Jul. 31st, 2005

After a long day, I read up on Groklaw that Novell has filed an answer to SCO's Unix copyright claims...

...and it doesn't look good for SCO.

In short, SCO tried to pull a fast one, and was caught. They tried to get the System V Release 10 (SVRX) Unix copyright from Novell. Novell constantly refused, even in it's contract for the licencing of SVRX. It turns out SCO's not allowed to even offer Unix licences w/o Novell's permission -- and if it did, it has to pay Novell 95% of the cost.

Ooops.

So Novell's moved to have the judge force SCO to:

Pay up, not just the 95%, but EVERYTHING related to any Unix licence it has. That includes licences done with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.
Own up to it's contract, and do what it says, not what SCO thinks it means.
put all of SCO's assets in a trust until it pays up (because they're selling everything left and right just to pay for the lawsuits)
drop all the Linux silliness with IBM, Sequent, and other SVRX and Linux licences, because they had no authority to even sue them.

Also, it's asked the judge to formerly declare SCO as having no authority to even offer Linux or SVRX licences to boot, and, oh, Novell would like it if SCO got it's wallet taken away for breaking the contract and dissing Novell.

I would not be a lawyer for SCO at this time, because it looks like they're not going to get paid. They really screwed the pooch this time.

I really should start playing around with Novell's SuSE Linux again...