sco

Novell wins in court; SCO eyes new fights

SCO's seemingly endless legal campaign over the copyrights to Unix may finally be over.

On Tuesday afternoon, a federal jury found that Novell owns the rights to the operating system, foiling SCO's plan to seek millions of dollars in licensing fees from companies it accused of illegally distributing its proprietary Unix code with the Linux OS.

Great news for the open-source community and for the long-suffering Novell, which has been battling SCO for quite some time now.

"Novell is very pleased with the jury's decision confirming Novell's ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had … Read more

The difference a few years makes to open source

For those new to open source, whether on the business or development side, it's hard to appreciate just how far the movement has come in the past few years.

In 1998, when I had my first taste of open-source software through my company's investment in Cobalt Networks, virtually no one knew what open source was, including now-common projects like Linux. Things were a little better in 2000, when I joined a Linux start-up (Lineo), but I spent much of my time working with prospective customers to ease their concerns over open-source licenses like the GPL.

By 2004, when … Read more

BOL 1049: The Pirate Bay will never die.... and neither will SCO

Monarchy, mercantilism, and Talmudic tech are on the table today. We get a little obscure in our references...at least I do...but Leo and Brian keep us on track talking about the new Sony Reader, and how the Pirate Bay is unkillable. In bad news, SCO is back, and this time it's personal.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1049

Sony unveils three would-be Kindle killers--Pocket, Touch and now, 3G Wireless with AT&T http://paidcontent.org/article/419-sony-unveils-new-reader-digital-books-pocket-touch-and-now-3g-wireless/ http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=23187 … Read more

SCO Group wins Unix copyright appeal

SCO Group, whose 6-year-old legal case arguing Linux infringes its Unix copyright hasn't been enough to keep it from bankruptcy court, nevertheless won an important victory in its case Monday.

A skeptical federal judge earlier had ruled that Novell had retained Unix copyrights when it sold its Unix business to the Santa Cruz Operation, a company whose Unix assets SCO Group later acquired. But the appeals court overturned that decision, based in part on a close reading of the Unix asset purchase agreement, sending the matter to trial for a decision. The appeals court did uphold a ruling that … Read more

Judge prevents SCO from selling off assets

A bankruptcy court judge has denied a request by the SCO Group to sell off part of its business, a move that could have helped it pursue court cases against Novell and IBM.

SCO, which has been in bankruptcy court since 2007, had proposed to sell off most of its Unix business assets to a company called Unxis, the latest in a series of proposals aimed at allowing the company to exit bankruptcy and continue its high-profile Unix litigation.

IBM and Novell, on the other hand, had requested that SCO's assets be liquidated, effectively putting an end to the … Read more

Ding, dong SCO is dead

Though SCO still has the option to appeal, a federal district court judge Dale Kimball has now effectively written its death sentence in the form of a somewhat blistering final judgment (PDF), as Groklaw reports.

SCO, once the bane of the open-source world, is effectively dead. The company, which long ago stopped trying to make useful products and instead morphed into a boutique law firm, has seen its revenue slide into oblivion while Novell, which stood up to SCO and has now won in court, has seen its Linux revenue jump.

Lesson? You can only milk a weak intellectual property … Read more

Justice is served: SCO ordered to pay Novell millions

It's true that we haven't been forced to put up with SCO for a year or two, but I will admit to still feeling annoyed by the festering cesspool of greed that leaked from SCO's boardroom into the software industry for several years. These guys deserve to pay.

And so they will. Unfortunately, not very much. $2.55 million.

Still, the irony is sweet, as Groklaw suggests:

So, SCO breached its fiduciary duty to Novell, converted funds, and so it has to pay. That is ironic, in that this case started with SCO accusing Novell of slander … Read more

Unfairly indicting Sun for its SCO testimony?

Pamela Jones of Groklaw rightly takes umbrage that Sun Microsystems apparently stood by while The SCO Group attempted to foul the pedigree of Linux, but how much righteous indignation is warranted is debatable. Jones writes:

And what an icky role Sun played, to judge from (Novell's Greg) Jones' description of the agreement. Look at all the damage that resulted from Sun's silence, the litigation that never had to happen....And as far as Linux is concerned, why didn't Sun speak out to help?

It had in the power of its hand the ability to protect Linux users. … Read more

Microsoft hires SCO veteran as its Competitive Strategy guru

You can't make this stuff up. Sandy Gupta, whose UNIX experience was thoroughly discredited while at SCO for the paucity of his "analyses" of Linux's alleged infringement of SCO's UNIX code, has been hired by Microsoft as its director of Competitive Strategy within the Server & Tools Division.

From the press release:

Sandy Gupta is the kind of technology expert that Microsoft prides itself on having inside the company.

Well, no, Microsoft. This isn't, or should not be the kind of "expert" on which Microsoft prides itself. Microsoft has does so many … Read more