Novell says SCO doesn't own Unix

[tom marinis]

--- Gary Wilson <usrlnx at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Novell torpedoes SCO's Unix IP claim
> By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
> Posted: 28/05/2003 at 16:26 GMT
>

I read this this morning, but I'd like to ask the others
on this list if it sounds right... 

Kurt, you probably don't know since you've been
out of the Caldera for some time, but does this story
have any merit?

I mean, after all, Unix ware and Openserver has been
out there for a while, so I'm really curious as to how
SCO/CALDERA could operate under these conditions.

I thought originally that Caldera bought SCO, and that 
SCO held the rights to the UNIX sourcecode for whomever
had the funds to buy a license.

Rest of REGISTER Article quoted for reference;

> In the latest installment of "The Canopy Family" - a
> drama to rival the The Magnificent Ambersons - Novell
> has rebuffed SCO's claim to hold Unix copyrights and
> patents.
> 
> SCO recently filed a billion dollar suit against IBM,
> claiming that Big Blue had violated SCO's intellectual
> property by incorporating elements of UnixWare into
> Linux. It's a contract dispute, but SCO's case is
> holed below the waterline if Novell's claims are true,
> and SCO's bag of "intellectual property" is found to
> be empty.
> 
> In a prepared statement , Novell doesn't pull its
> punches.
> 
> "Novell challenged SCO's assertion that it owns the
> copyrights and patents to UNIX System V, pointing out
> that the asset purchase agreement entered into between
> Novell and SCO in 1995 did not transfer these rights
> to SCO."
> 
> Novell also discloses that SCO has been begging Novell
> for the rights to IP that SCO claims it already has:
> 
> "Over the last few months you have repeatedly asked
> Novell to transfer the copyrights to SCO, requests
> that Novell has rejected."
> 
> And that, in British tabloid parlance, is a bombshell.
> 
> "Apparently SCO's management team knew that they did
> not own Unix while pursuing their sham campaign
> against Linux," observes Bruce Perens.
> 
> The dispute has the character of a family affair,
> which perhaps goes some way to explaining SCO's
> dysfunctional behavior.
> 
> Former Novell chief Ray Noorda founded Canopy Group in
> 1995, and one of his first investments was Caldera, a
> company founded by Novell employees and Linux
> enthusiasts. Caldera acquired the Santa Cruz Operation
> two years ago
 

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