Shawn, I know you are not a legal expert (maybe I should email this question to Pamela Jones), but it would be good for Linux vendors to have a ruling on both who actually owns the copyright and also whether any code infringes on UNIX. I know everyone says that no infringement has happened, but has that been established in legal framework?
What would have been optimal would have been to have SCO in court and defeated on all charges. On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Shawn <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been following the SCO saga almost from day 1. > > This ruling is being played up right now, but really it only means > > a) SCO *MUST* pay Novell approx $3 Million - which is more than they have > at the moment. > b) Only the summary judgement decision was overturned. This now goes to > trial. > > There is NO decision here regarding who owns the Unix copyrights. That > won't be clear until after trial. > > However, SCO is in chapter 11 bankruptcy and management has been deemed > untrustworty and a trustee is to be appointed by court order. Already > ordered, just not selected. > > This trustee is *supposed* to do what is best for the company and the > creditors. That means it should do whatever is necessary to stop bleeding > cash and remove unreasonable business practices (like maybe dubious legal > proceedings). Failing that, the trustee can put the company into chapter 7 > bankruptcy - where everything is sold off and the company dissolved. > > As it is, SCO may not even exist long enough to see this trial. But if we > speculate that they do survive that long AND they somehow win the > copyrights, they STILL face IBM (who thy sued for billions). The claims of > Unix code in Linux are moot in that case now - years of discovery and none > was ever found. So now they have a contract violation clause left, and even > there they look like they are not in a good position. > > And *if* they somehow win those cases, they could still face appeals by > Novell and IBM. And don't forget the Red Hat case, or AutoZone case, which > are pending the Novell decision... > > SCO's future looks bleak. I think the trustee will enter settlement > negotiations and try to return the company to doing something other than > litigation to make money. > > So in short, absolutely NO bearing on Linux in 2009, 2010, 2011, or > possibly even 2012. If ever. > > My thoughts. > > Shawn > > (I thought of digging up the supporting links for each of the points I > made, but all the detail can be found at http://www.groklaw.net, or even > in the related SlashDot postings - > http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/0021246/Appeals-Court-Overturns-2007-Unix-Copyright-Decision?from=rss > ) > > Juan Alberto Cirez wrote: > >> Anybody in the list who is steeped in 'legalise' can you please clarify if >> this: >> >> "...A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that the SCO Group has a right >> to a jury trial on its claim that it owns the Unix operating system. The >> ruling could lead to renewed legal entanglements for Unix’s open source >> cousin, Linux..." >> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/sco/ >> >> Has any teeth or bearing on LINUX in 2009...? >> >> Thanks >> >> > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying >
_______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
