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Welcome to virtuallinux.org. You are currently reading the article "Is SCO's future 'all' up to judge?". All articles on virtuallinux.org pertain to the ongoing assult on the worlds greatest Operating system. Continue on reading about "Is SCO's future 'all' up to judge?"
Is SCO's future 'all' up to judge?
Posted on Wednesday, January 24 2007 @ 07:09:10 EST by linuxwiz |
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The fate the SCO Group's Linux-related lawsuits, as well as the Lindon
software company's very future, could ride on how a federal judge
interprets the word "all."
The way U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball rules on that question
involving ultimate ownership of the Unix operating system could not
only torpedo SCO's slander of title suit against Novell Inc., but
fatally undermine its bigger, $5 billion claim against IBM.
After hearing competing motions Tuesday, Kimball must decide
whether SCO bought all rights to Unix in 1995 - or whether the seller,
Novell, retained ownership while granting only limited licensing and
development rights.
“ 'All' means all. It can only mean all,” Novell attorney
Michael Jacobs argued, referring to the sale's contractual wording in
reference to his company's rights to Unix. "No one in 1995 contemplated
what SCO has wrought" in its interpretation of the deal.
SCO attorney Stuart Singer insisted "all" was, well, not all. The
contract signed 12 years ago limited Novell's Unix interests only to
licenses in existence at the time - not "incidental" product
development by SCO, as in its later licensing of Unix to IBM and Sun
Microsystems.
Jacobs countered that the deal, and others, exceeded SCO's
contract with Novell. "[SCO] wasn't supposed to enter into new [Unix]
licenses," he said. "Without authorization from Novell, SCO went out
and got more [Unix] money, lots of it."
The two also wrangled over whether the precise wording of the
Unix contract and amendments. Jacobs painted SCO merely as a Novell
Unix licensing agent in the deal, while Singer insisted the deal
transferred all rights to the program and its code.
"It is our property they are holding in trust," Jacobs claimed,
contending that Novell retained ''all royalties, fees and other amounts
due'' from SCO's Unix dealings.
Singer, citing numerous declarations from witnesses present at
the 1995 deal's drafting, said it was clearly understood that SCO
acquired all rights to Unix - even if the contract's language did not
definitively say so.
Source
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