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Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Groklaw has posted Novell's motion to dismiss the SCO lawsuit, along with the associated memorandum of support. "SCO admits, they point out, that they are not the copyright owners in the very relief they ask the court to grant them: namely, they ask that the Court issue an injunction 'requiring Novell to assign to SCO any and all copyrights Novell has registered in UNIX and UnixWare.' You can't ask for copyrights to be assigned to you if you already have them, can you? If you don't already have them, you can't scream slander of title if the person you want to assign them to you says they own them."
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Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Posted Feb 13, 2004 16:44 UTC (Fri) by Destructo (guest, #17736) [Link]

... ah this reminds me when I was just a little junior high school jerk in NYC, I claimed that Erica S. was my girlfriend, when in the end , it was wishful thinking. I didnt get the girl, I was embarrassed and eventually got my ass kicked by Butch , Ericas boyfriend. Well I learned one thing; Stop lying.

Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Posted Feb 13, 2004 18:14 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

How about putting Dark Darl in prison... next to a would be new friend called Bubba... they could play lawyers... and doctors,..., and in a bending position for Darl that would teach him the value of truth.

Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Posted Feb 13, 2004 20:03 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

Could we keep the juvenile references to prison rape out of the discussion? It would probably be best to avoid giving the anti-Linux forces any more ammunition for their pimply-teenager stereotypes than they've already gathered from comments such as these...

Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Posted Feb 13, 2004 23:48 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"...avoid giving the anti-Linux forces any more ammunition for their pimply-teenager stereotypes than they've already gathered from comments such as these..."

But you cant control THAT... nobody really can, besides the caracter, rightfullness, and love for the truth, of which the anti-linux forces seem to have none...

There isnt suits and ties, and smooth talking that make good people with lots of good caracter... suits, ties and "serious" talking SCO had presented a lot,... only to reveal instead that they are much worst than dirty street punks...

... and who *really* belives in the more twisted lies of anti-linux forces (speaking of rape), must also somehow be screwed up in the head... perhaps more than those who invent them.

Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Posted Feb 14, 2004 11:35 UTC (Sat) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

Well no the truth is out SCO DON'T own a damm thing ,

They dont have a jot of a claim on AIX or on any other variant of unix
they dont even have a calim on there own breed .

So lets quit the monkeying around and can darl and the rest of the herd
for trying to claim copyright on that to which they do not own copyright
and while we are at it lets clean up a little and can a few more of the
doubters out there .

I dont know about the " Bubba " part thou i had more in mind a troup of
rampant baboons..
..ta.!.

Why did not Novell publish an APA explanation 9 months ago ??

Posted Feb 15, 2004 15:43 UTC (Sun) by neoprene (guest, #8520) [Link]

Without OWNERSHIP of the UNIX Sys-V code SCOX can't really pursue legal action against anyone for purported infractions against the SOFTWARE they are distributors of. These rights belongs to the propertyowner, Novell, who convincingly has demonstrated that the APA contains no such ownership transfer.

One point that may have confused Bride McDarl et al, is the line contained in the APA on page 2 of the Novell Motion to Dismiss:

"...All copyrights ...required for [Santa Cruz] ...to exercise its rights with respect to the acqusition of UNIX and UnixWare technologies..."

The word "All" is a very risky word to use in contracts as it has no limitations, and may be the ONE word that started this whole SCOX-Novell-IBM-RHAT circus. This is very poor lawyering. That word should be "found and replaced" in any contract with a word/s that describe what the contract-author really means. The fact that "All" was not ALL has taken millions of $$$ in legal fees to sort out. "Amendments", "Excluded Assets" et cetera is a band-aid for this poor use of words. Santa Cruz may have finally understood what they bought, perhaps not what they really wanted, but SCOX-McDarl are acting like no-one will understand the APA, perhaps because they have a problem understanding it too.

The NON-transfer of those copyrights, which SCOX repeatedly and publicly has ASKED for, would indeed make SCOX the owner of whats specifically EXCLUDED in the APA. But that was never the deal with Novell. What Santa Cruz bought was a DISTRIBUTORSHIP, not an OWNERSHIP.

Had that DISTRIBUTORSHIP been that profitable, Santa Cruz would likely not have sold it.

In the end, Bride McDarl et al gets an expensive lesson, everyone else gets pissed off, and ALL the lawyers are snickerng running to the bank making deposits.

Novell, who has ownership claims to the Copyrights and Patents to Ancient Unix, should immediately release these under a BSD-style license once SCOX gets their head handed to them. We don't want to see another corporate raider start mukking around with old relics.


/


Novell open-sourceing SysV?

Posted Feb 19, 2004 19:45 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

Novel can't do this. Remember Caldera looked into it, but couldn't because there are lots of copyright holders (intel was the one most strongly opposed, IIRC). Besides, as long as there is a controversy over whatever rights Novell originally got, they can't just go ahead and do this.
Some have speculated that the weasely wording of the APA is exactly because of the huge mess in Unix rights: If SCO (The Santa Cruz Operation, not the SCO Group) really needed some copyrights (presumably they considered this very unlikely, as AT&T/USL/Novell, and even SCO, got along just fine without having to reference them for quite some time), only then would Novell go digging to find out if they owned them and transfer them to SCO if so.

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