Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

[Posted September 16, 2005 by ris]

Groklaw has posted a chart showing SCO's answers to Novell's Counterclaims. "These are not the complete documents, just the section on counterclaims by Novell and SCO's answers to them, which is another reason I will be putting up the SCO Answer on its own next. SCO has ten affirmative defenses listed as well, for example, and they both have Wherefore clauses and prayers for relief, and that kind of thing. But this presents the claims/counterclaims side by side, so it's easy to see what SCO is denying and admitting."

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Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 16, 2005 18:45 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] (12 responses)

Interesting !

To the extent that SCO admits, i belive that is easy to conclude that Santa Cruz Unix business was hold *by tail and by throat* by Novell. I belive Santa Cruz was getting into a dead end for further Unix licencing , because it for certainty would fall into the APA and into Novell lap. Santa Cruz depended on Unixware becamming a *Top Hit* for keeping a viable business and not on licencing which would be just most certainly an extra controled in its most extent by Novell.

Without a solid and profitable Unixware product Santa Cruz Unix business was as dead in the water as any piece of wood at the mercy of the currents. That is why they were so eager to sell it, tradename included. Better i belive they would never thought they could ever sell it. Unixware was to die slowly, keeping Tarantella as the only profitable income.

When SCO was incorporated its management surely knew this situation. It was a BAD BUSINESS from any angle you look at it, and from the very begining. I dont belive that Darl&Cª had ever the defect of being stupid.

To the extend admited by SCO, and admiting also that Darl&Cª are not stupid its easy to conclude, IMO, that Santa Cruz was purchased and SCO formed only to launch the SCO Intellectual Property campaingn, and that they where counting on the complaisance of Novell, or were leaded into beliving in that as more or less guarantied.

The question that i pose is that if there wasent a Ma$ter, a ubber motiv, by what strange kind of force was Darl&Cª persuaded into jumping out off the cliff ?

Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 16, 2005 19:21 UTC (Fri) by rm6990 (guest, #30921) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't think they anticipated Novell becoming a Linux company and defending Linux the way they have. Although, if you read the publically available correspondence between Novell and SCO, you will see Novell was defending Linux even before they aquired Ximian or SUSE.

I think SCO was banking on Novell's co-operation. They probably saw it as a win for both companies....Novell getting license fees through SCOSource and SCO getting a big pay-off from IBM. IBM and Novell didn't see things the way SCO did though.

Anyways, SCO's "cash cow" (if you could call it that) was always OpenServer, an OS developed completely independant of Novell and not subject to any royalties (except, of course, the royalties for using Unix System V code, just like AIX and Solaris). Unixware was never very popular and Unix System V was dated technology. I don't see how SCO (old or new) thought they could sustain a company on these products. Even tSCOg is pushing OpenServer right now.

Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 17:24 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

hmmm... belive it dosen't change anything!

Better,... belive that with an agreement like that with Novell, they didn't had to pay royalties for OpenServer either.

Bottom line... they had to sell right and good, their Unix products, and not resort to licencing as a mean of income. It was clear thought that OpenServer had a very short but fauthfull list of good costumers as had Unixware,(who had more is irrelevant) their business was declining slowly.

They were not only unable to make a dent in the Solaris, AIX or HP-UX, as they were more positioned in the low end of the market, but they were also unable to grow it, and i belive, the original SCO was convinced they could.

Your "easy conclusion, IYO", is, sadly, inconsistent with history.

Posted Sep 16, 2005 19:36 UTC (Fri) by rev (guest, #15082) [Link] (5 responses)

its easy to conclude, IMO, that Santa Cruz was purchased and SCO formed only to launch the SCO Intellectual Property campaingn

At the time of the Santa Cruz Operation purchase, Ransom Love was CEO of Caldera. McBride was nowhere to be seen at that time. Love's primary interest in the Santa Cruz deal was the Santa Cruz's resellers channel.. to sell Linux. See this interview.

Your "easy conclusion, IYO", is, sadly, inconsistent with history.

Posted Sep 16, 2005 19:55 UTC (Fri) by rm6990 (guest, #30921) [Link] (4 responses)

Ah, but you are wrong. As shown in the Davidson Email (linked to on Groklaw here http://web.archive.org/web/20200528231032/http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050714144923365 ), SCO management was convinced as early as 1999 (before the Caldera purchase) that Linux contained stolen code and hired a consultant to do the comparison. This is what the email is about. I think this has been in planning for quite some time.

Also, Caldera did not aquire Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz sold their Unix business to Caldera and then changed its name to Tarantella, which was later aquired by Sun Microsystems. Caldera, after purchasing Santa Cruz's Unix assets, changed its name to The SCO Group.

Boy, you are confused (oldSCO aka Santa Cruz vs newSCO aka Caldera)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 11:00 UTC (Sat) by rev (guest, #15082) [Link] (3 responses)

Look, the assertion was Caldera bought Santa Cruz, aka oldSCO, in order to launch the anti-Linux campaign. I.e. that Caldera (the buying party) had this as it motives.

The Ransom Love interview, CEO of Caldera at the time, shows that Caldera had a different motive in purchasing Santa Cruz, aka oldSCO, namely it was intereset in Santa Cruz's resellers channel.This falsifies the above assertion.

How does the fact that within the ranks of Santa Cruz, aka old SCO, the purchased party, prior to the Santa Cruz - Caldera deal lived some anti-Linux sentiments imply that Caldera was primarily interested in these sentiments present in what it sought to buy? It doesn't.

However, it seems likely that years after the Santa Cruz - Caldera purchase, and some time after McBride became CEO of Caldera, these sentiments surfaced within Caldera/newSCO and became its core business.

Boy, you are confused (oldSCO aka Santa Cruz vs newSCO aka Caldera)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 18:34 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] (2 responses)

" The Ransom Love interview, CEO of Caldera at the time, shows that Caldera had a different motive in purchasing Santa Cruz, aka oldSCO, namely it was intereset in Santa Cruz's resellers channel. This falsifies the above assertion. "

No, i never said that Caldera had that intention. What i said was that when the NEW SCO was incorporated (the name changed from Caldera to SCO) it was already with the intension of delivering the SCO source campaingn...

I dont know no one personaly but i belive Ransom Love had a completely different idea, and was unjustly removed...

And even if i'm wrong and was not "Darl&Cª" who finneshed the deal, i make no delusions, because no senior manager makes **such a mistake** of resorting to a strategy (like the SCO source) to make another company rich. Because if "SCO source" could ever had been such a clear shot, as "Darl&Cª" makes belive, other much bigger institutions like Sun or even IBM, would had pick it up long before Caldera. I repeat:

"When **(new)SCO** was incorporated its management surely knew this situation. It was a BAD BUSINESS from any angle you look at it, and from the very begining. I dont belive that Darl&Cª had ever the defect of being stupids."

... unless there was another business after all... And that would VERY VERY hardly be the substancial grow of the OpenServer/Unixware in a relatively short time(belive no one sensible would ever bet a cent on it, in the 200x IT clima), short enough for not depleting SCO with long intense R&D costs. Pump & Dump can only be very short lived, and Darl&Cª are not facing jail and probably never will, because with *governance* allowance businesses have trended to become immoral (Enron, Worlcom...SCO)

Sorry but you dont invalidate the question of who/What made "Darl&Cª" to jump out off the cliff.

Boy, you are confused (oldSCO aka Santa Cruz vs newSCO aka Caldera)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 19:10 UTC (Sat) by rev (guest, #15082) [Link] (1 responses)

Ok, glad to have that misunderstanding rectified. (However, since you used the words Santa Cruz was purchased and SCO formed only to launch the SCO Intellectual Property campaingn..)

Boy, you are confused (oldSCO aka Santa Cruz vs newSCO aka Caldera)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 19:35 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

But that is it!. the only diference in words could be:

The (old) SCO Unix business was purchased by Caldera, and then the (new)SCO formed only(or with primary intention) to launch the SCO Intellectual Property campaingn..

... i know, i should make better attention to the wording.

Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 16, 2005 22:56 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

The question that i pose is that if there wasent a Ma$ter, a ubber motiv, by what strange kind of force was Darl&Cª persuaded into jumping out off the cliff ?

Money. Using Caldera to run a pump-and-dump scam, more precisely, defrauding other investors and running the value of the company down while making money themselves from share sales in its intermittent highs (caused by their bloviating to the press).

This is all quite clearly documented by the Groklawyers.

Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 16, 2005 23:57 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]

It doesn't look like Darl McBride had to be persuaded -- looks like the board brought him in for his litigious blockhead qualities _after_ Ralph Yarro decided to do the litigation, found out that Ransom Love had the business ethics and common sense not to go along with it, and needed a new CEO.

Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 17:06 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] (1 responses)

Agreed also.

But whow could they do that witout a SCO source campaingn in the first plain.

Chart of SCO's Answer to Novell's Counterclaims (Groklaw)

Posted Sep 17, 2005 18:59 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

oops... too many mistakes of typing "faster than the mind" without looking!
REPEAT:
Agreed also.

But how could they do that without a SCO source campaingn in the first place.

"binary code versions of System V products"

Posted Sep 17, 2005 13:36 UTC (Sat) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

I find the most crucial thing in the chart to be how SCO repeatedly claims Novells rights to royalties concern only "then-existing licensees for their distribution of binary code versions of System V producs" (for example, answer 74), and the Microsoft and Sun deals have nothing to do with these (50, 78). It seems to be that unless the judge agrees with this interpretation, SCO as a company will soon die a sudden death... (but IANAL)

PJ's followup

Posted Sep 19, 2005 7:25 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Is a doozy. The reply itself is now a story on Groklaw. The conclusion is that SCOG's case is falling apart.

The reply is a mess, admitting things that weren't alleged, both admitting and denying the same thing, and all sorts of stuff like that.

Cheers,
Wol