[PLUG] Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights!

Bruce KIlpatrick bakilpatrick at verizon.net
Sat Aug 11 00:39:20 UTC 2007


Matt McKenzie wrote:
> On 8/10/07, Bruce KIlpatrick <bakilpatrick at verizon.net> wrote:
>   
>> Galen Seitz wrote:
>>     
>>> Time to celebrate with a pint or two.
>>>
>>> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070810165237718
>>>
>>>
>>> galen
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> PLUG mailing list
>>> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
>>> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>>
>>>       
>> Okay,
>>
>> I was under the impression that Novell was the "bad guy" since they took
>> SUSE from FOSS to a licensed product.  I got this impression from
>> someone else's opinion of Novell.
>>
>> Please give me the "Reader's Digest Condensed Version" (RDCV) of what
>> the celebration is about.  I admit ignorance and throw myself at the
>> feet of the group's collective wisdom.  I should state for the record
>> that I don't need an excuse to quaff a well bred dark and slightly sweet
>> microbrew!
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>>     
>
> Perhaps someone else can sum it up better, but here is my shot:
>
> First there are a couple different things going on, the SCO vs. Novell court
> case, which has been going on for a LONG time, and the Novell & M$ patent
> deal.
> Completely separate issues.
>
> As for the case, Novell is now confirmed to be the inheritor of the original
> UNIX copyrights, not SCO.  This means that all the claims that SCO was
> making about them owning IP (intellectual property, namely code) that was
> stolen and put into Linux, have fallen to dust.  This means that the other
> major case, SCO vs. IBM, should be over much quicker (relatively), as well
> as any other SCO cases hanging out there (SCO vs. RedHat I think...?).
>
> The Novell and M$ patent protection deal, which many have called a bit of
> extortion, is a whole separate issue.
> Also, SuSE is still FOSS.  They sell it just like SuSE did on it's own
> before Novell bought them, with support contracts, and Non-FOSS software
> along with FOSS software,
> and they have the "community" free edition, with only FOSS software,
> OpenSuSE.
>
> Many people in the FOSS community did not like what Novell did in this M$
> patent deal, but many others saw it as a "necessary evil" in order to
> continue in the corporate world with SuSE being able to inter-operate well
> with M$, and not having to worry about potential patent lawsuits from M$.
> Along that vein, many still doubt the validity of these claims from M$ (they
> have not disclosed exactly what these alleged patents are that Linux
> allegedly infringes on), but for Novell you could say it was a CYA
> maneuver.  Some other Linux vendors have jumped on the bandwagon to make
> deals with M$, such as Linspire, Xandros.  But some of the bigger ones
> refuse to, such as RedHat and Ubuntu (and Debian obviously, though they are
> not themselves a commercial distributor).
>
> So as far as the whole situation of Linux being potentially "tainted" with
> stolen code from SCO, that has been blasted to bits.  For this Novell is
> definitely to be thanked.
> As for the M$ deal, a lot of people will still be weary.  Perhaps in some
> ways, this case finally being won will redeem Novell.
>
> This whole potential legal cloud over Linux had a dampening effect on its
> adoption- though happily it did not completely stop it as no doubt SCO (and
> M$) had hoped.
> Now that the cloud is lifted, more people will be less afraid of adopting
> Linux.
>
> However the case is not completely over- but the main big hurdle is
> crossed.
>
>
>   
Thank you for the response.
I read the Wikipedia article about SCOgroup's history and lawsuits.  I 
seem to have a better understanding now.  I will wait to see other 
responses as they come in.

Bruce



More information about the PLUG mailing list