If you check the web page for SCO, you will see some of the supporting documents claiming linux copyright infringement. The one I looked at was very circumstantial, but nevertheless, the actual case was never completely closed.
see the link The SCO Group, Inc. | Company | Legal | SCO Grows Your Business for some of the background info on the cases. I personally do not think the SCO group had much of a case, after all they also sold linux under the name “Caldera,” thus it seems they should have sued themselves first! Plus it was “sourgrapes” by SCO - after all who uses openunix 8 anyway? Only a moron would when the same user could use openBSD or freeBSD instead!
In a order entered on 21 September 2007, Judge Kimball administratively closed the case of SCO v. IBM due to SCO filing for bankruptcy on 14 September 2007. This means that all action in SCO v. IBM is stayed until SCO emerges from bankruptcy proceedings. If and when it does, the case SCO v. IBM will resume where it left off.
On August 10, 2007 Judge Kimball, who also presides over the SCO v. Novell case, ruled that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. The court also ruled that “SCO is obligated to recognize Novell’s waiver of SCO’s claims against IBM and Sequent”. After the ruling Novell announced they have no interest in suing people over Unix and stated “We don’t believe there is Unix in Linux”
From an article in “The Salt Lake Tribune” dated 11/24/2008,
The first line is
“The Utah-based SCO Group has been cleared to appeal a court ruling that might lead to a revival of its dispute
with IBM over copyright claims to the freely distributed Linux operating system.
Utah Federal Judge Dale A. Kimball has signed a final judgment in a case involving Novell, in which he had
awarded Novell $2.5 million for some of the revenues The SCO Group obtained in licensing the Unix computer
operating system.”
Thus I am not 100% certain the IBM case is dead, although it would take a serious cash infusion to SCO in order to ever revive it.
In a order entered on 21 September 2007, Judge Kimball administratively closed the case of SCO v. IBM due to SCO filing for bankruptcy on 14 September 2007. This means that all action in SCO v. IBM is stayed until SCO emerges from bankruptcy proceedings. If and when it does, the case SCO v. IBM will resume where it left off
the IBM case is put on hold if and when SCO comes out of bankruptcy protection. If SCO is interested in perusing the case, the case goes on, if not, IBM wins. Also, there is still the Red Hat Vs SCO case which has to be settled AFTER the IBM case. This all true, if SCO doesn’t sink
EDIT: to add further, SCO HAS to win the Novell case first or its claims against IBM automatically fall
That was my understanding, following the Judge’s ruling for Novell and against SCO. After that if they lose the appeals, SCO has effectively had it as far as the IBM case goes. Good riddance!
Yes, because at the core, their claims against IBM are based on ownership of the UNIX copyright. One of their arguments were/is that SCO never gave permission to distribute AIX since it “uses” copyrighted code owned by SCO and SCO never gave a license to IBM.
So, if again the judge rules in favor of Novell, all these SCO claims will fall and SCO can be counter-sued again for spreading lies and burning other people’s money - they can seek damage money
Now, what they are trying to do tomorrow, is refute Kimball’s ruling that Novell is the copyright holder. So far, their case has been full of manipulations; first they stated that there’s copyrighted code in Linux coming directly from their UNIX. Then they retracted such claims but insisted that even if there was no such code, they are the UNIX owners and believe that certain implementations in Linux (like SMP, NUMA, etc) are derived works from its own which it holds the copyright to. They went as far as saying the the XFS filesystem, donated by SGI from IRIX, is somehow also infringing… I fail to see how, if you consider that XFS and IRIX are much older than their stuff
The court can force SCO to sell off its assets/business and pay back the money, as was ordered by the judge in the Novell case (2.5 million). This all, if SCO gets out of Chapter 11 (which protects it) and again loses the appeal it goes for tomorrow
btw, I should mention that the Novell damage money is not because Novell is asking for damages made due to this case but because it holds the copyright and SCO never payed money to Novell for the MS or Sun Micro deals it did
On Tue, 05 May 2009 17:56:01 +0000, microchip8 wrote:
> The court can force SCO to sell off its assets/business and pay back the
> money, as was ordered by the judge in the Novell case (2.5 million).
> This all, if SCO gets out of Chapter 11 and again loses the appeal it
> goes for tormorrow
Depends on the order the creditors get paid in, Novell may not be first
in line for those funds.
On Tue, 05 May 2009 18:16:02 +0000, microchip8 wrote:
> yup, if there’s something left over
That’s always the catch, and it seems SCO is trying to do everything they
can to shift assets so they can’t be touched. I’m glad the court is able
to keep up, at least it seems so.
Here it is, the moment many of you have been waiting for: the U.S. Trustee’s office, through its counsel Joseph J. McMahon, Jr., has filed a motion in the SCO bankruptcy proceeding to convert the SCO’s Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. And I think this will be your favorite sentence:
Additionally, not only is there no reasonable chance of "rehabilitation" in these cases, the Debtors have tried — and failed — to liquidate their business in chapter 11.
I won’t celebrate until SCO = corpse. I feel sorry for Novell as the ability of SCO to pay-up fades further. However, it may focus the minds of SCO execs away from fruitless litigation, back onto the task of paying the creditors, and leaving their ridiculous soapbox.
