Latest on the SCO lawsuit.... (fwd)

[Achim Dreyer]

Hy,

Ich weiss ja das sich alle immer auch auf anderem wege aktuell halten, 
aber diesen Artikel fand ich doch re-posten-s wert.

Ciao
Achim


It just gets better & better!
http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT4842883975.html

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by Bruce Peren (May 28, 2003)

We knew that SCO's attack on Linux was a lie. But we never dreamed of the
big lie behind it.

This morning, Novell announced some of the terms of the company's 1995
agreement to sell its Unix business to SCO. The shocking news is that
Novell did not sell the Unix intellectual property to SCO. Instead, they
sold SCO a license to develop, sell, and sub-license Unix. The title to
Unix copyrights and patents remains with Novell. To back up this
assertion, Novell refers to public records at the Library of Congress
Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent Office.

In their announcement, Novell refers to recent letters from SCO asking
Novell to assign the Unix copyrights to SCO. So, apparently SCO's
management team knew that they did not own Unix while pursuing their sham
campaign against Linux.

Along with this revelation, Novell is reiterating its support of the Linux
and Open Source developer community, and its status as a partner in that
community. Novell rejects SCO's accusations of plagarism. Novell
management says they do not intend to stand in the way of the development
of the Linux kernel, its companion GNU system, and other Free Software.

It would be an understatement to say that this leaves SCO in a bad
position. The company has loudly and repeatedly asserted that they were
the owner of the Unix intellectual property, all of the way back to AT&T's
original development of the system 30 years ago. They've lied to their
stockholders, their customers and partners, the 1500 companies that they
threatened, the press, and the public. Their untruthful campaign caused
the loss of sales and jobs, and damaged Linux companies and developers in
a myriad of ways. And now, SCO will be the lawsuit target. SCO's first
quarterly earnings conference call is this morning, at 9 AM MST (11 AM
EST, 8 AM PST). Call 800-406-5356, toll-free, to participate. You might
even get to ask a question. It should be fun to watch them try to weasel
out of this one.

Microsoft executives also have egg on their faces. The company
self-servingly rushed to buy an SCO license one business day after the
threat letter, bringing a senior attorney to the office on a Sunday to
tell the press how much Microsoft "values intellectual property."
Microsoft's management could have taken the time to analyze SCO's claims,
if the company had wanted this license for practical and technical
reasons. Their decision to buy when they did must have been motivated by a
desire to add to SCO's fear campaign. Of course they'll grab any
opportunity to spread fear about Linux, but this time Microsoft bought a
pig in a poke.

SCO management, if they insist on standing in the way of a train, could
still claim that software they developed in the years since 1995 is being
infringed by the Open Source developers. That claim, always a dubious one,
will be difficult to take seriously now that their prevarication
throughout this campaign has come to light. SCO would be well advised to
drop their suit against IBM in exchange for IBM's agreement not to
counter-sue. But IBM might not feel that charitable toward SCO.

In contrast to SCO, Novell's made a friend among the Free Software
developers. We're always happy to see people using our software. But a
real partnership between an IT vendor and our community is an equal
partnership, with the company donating services and new software in
exchange for the value it receives. Novell has already placed important
software under Open Source licenses. Today, the company has done us a
tremendous service, by stomping upon an obnoxious parasite.

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