Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

[Posted March 30, 2010 by ris]

Novell reports that the jury in the District Court of Utah trial between SCO Group and Novell issued a verdict in favor of Novell. "Novell is very pleased with the jury's decision confirming Novell's ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux. Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front."

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 30, 2010 19:58 UTC (Tue) by welinder (guest, #4699) [Link]

And SCOX drops 80%. Still $0.10 overpriced, but someone must be buying.

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 30, 2010 20:20 UTC (Tue) by abadidea (guest, #62082) [Link]

Ars Technica used a picture of a crying baby for this headline, very very appropriate ;)

Every time I hear about what SCO's been up to I just have to shake my head and laugh.

It's Party Time

Posted Mar 30, 2010 20:47 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] (5 responses)

I'm glad I didn't spend $699 on the Linux license :-)

It's Party Time

Posted Mar 30, 2010 20:50 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (4 responses)

So..for the people who did. Do they now have grounds to ask SCO for the money back?

-jef

It's Party Time

Posted Mar 30, 2010 21:03 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] (1 responses)

AFAIU, what you paid for is a promise by SCOX not to sue you over the possible Unix code in Linux. If there isn't any Unix code in Linux, well... they won't sue you. If said Unix code isn't theirs to begin with... well, they don't sue you.

I.e., they keep their end of the bargain in any case: They don't sue you. No refunds.

It's Party Time

Posted Mar 30, 2010 22:26 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Not that they could afford to refund you. Or sue you.

It's Party Time

Posted Mar 31, 2010 1:41 UTC (Wed) by jeleinweber (subscriber, #8326) [Link]

There are two problems with trying to get one's money back. First, SCO never sold any individual licenses, though some people tried. Perhaps they were afraid of the mail-fraud statutes. Second, the license was a promise by SCO not to sue you over any IP SCO owned. It specifically disclaimed refunds in the event that they owned less than they thought.

It's Party Time

Posted Mar 31, 2010 17:26 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> So..for the people who did. Do they now have grounds to ask SCO for the money back?

They can go ahead and try to sue if they want. You can also try to get blood from a stone. Even if they do have a legal right for compensation actually getting the money back is another question. Hell, you can get a Judge to agree with them and award the plantiffs double damages or whatever and that does not mean that they have any chance in hell of actually getting a red cent from SCO.

What are they going to do? Garnish their wages? Send the local sherrif to arrest them for failure of payment? SCO don't got no money. If your lucky you might be able to get a picture of the CEO flipping them off, though. :-)

This is one of those situations were if you were stupid enough to pay them licensing for Linux then they are just going to have to eat it. Stupid tax.

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 30, 2010 20:56 UTC (Tue) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link] (5 responses)

i'll cheer only when SCO is dissolved.

no matter what defeat they are dealt, they seem to be able to find someone to bankroll yet another legal gambit. i'll sleep better when their domain name goes up for sale. until then, i only consider them to be in hibernation until they can hatch another scheme

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 30, 2010 21:38 UTC (Tue) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link] (2 responses)

And, indeed, they're not giving up. Being surgically removed from Novell is apparently barely perturbing them as, like some post-apocalyptic multilimbed zombie leech, another appendage of their long-putrefied flesh merely clings tighter to IBM:

> Cahn said SCO intends to continue its lawsuit against IBM, in which the computer giant is accused of
> using Unix code to make the Linux operating system a viable competitor, causing a decline in SCO's
> revenues. "The copyright claims are gone, but we have other claims based on contracts," Cahn said.

(Groklaw)

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 30, 2010 23:20 UTC (Tue) by arjan (subscriber, #36785) [Link] (1 responses)

it's not like he has any choice given that there are counter claims on the
table.. he can't walk from that lawsuit without IBM consent even if he wanted
to.

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 31, 2010 23:30 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

Regardless of what he told the press, it will be interesting if he petitions the bankruptcy court to release the freeze on the IBM trial. My bet is he doesn't as there isn't anything left of the IBM suit except the counter-claims. Give him a few days, his next logical move (which he hasn't demonstrated a lot of logic lately) would be to ask the BK court to take the company to chapter 7, in fact I would suspect that Novell and IBM will both petition for such as SCO doesn't have a business anymore what with the entire company staked on litigation and the rug just yanked out from underneath them.

First we have to see if the Court will grant SCO's petition for specific performance under the contract and give them the copyrights the jury wouldn't. My hope is the Judge see's that they didn't give them to them intentionally and they don't need them, as Darl admitted as such on the stand.

Then of course Novell was noticed by the SCOTUS that their petition (on the appeal to overturn the appeal court ruling that sent them to the jury trial) was probably going to be reviewed by the Supreme. With a ruling that was contrary to all case law on copyright they have a good chance to have the court overturn the appeal and send us back to the base ruling Kimball provided years ago.

Ralph and Darl

Posted Mar 30, 2010 23:56 UTC (Tue) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

SCO is as much a helpless victim as we are. ("We" being "everybody but lawyers and conmen".) The conmen who took it over, Ralph and Darl, are at fault, and should be horsewhipped out of town along with their lawyers. SCO should be allowed to die in peace.

Decision in the SCO Group vs. Novell Jury trial

Posted Mar 31, 2010 16:35 UTC (Wed) by mto (guest, #24123) [Link]

I will not necessarily be satisfied or happy with SCO being dissolved. They have some claims over Unix, (less so now, but hardly none). If they are dissolved, who gets them? If its a company that will be responsible with them, I will breathe a sigh of relief for a time, but there is no guarantee it will be. Suppose microsoft buys out all their assets?

ok, M$ won't. It'd be too overt, and probably anticompetitive. But suppose Novell takes back all the assets they sold to SCO. Happy? I am not. Novell is not about to go bankrupt, but recent news suggests its financials are not such that it is immune to takeovers, and so we won't know how long they will remain a suitable guardian.