[svlug] (forw) SCO v. Novell Decided

[John Conover]

Christian Einfeldt writes:
> 
> The question now appears to be whether SCO will have assets sufficient to
> sustain the judgment against it.  For Novell's sake, I hope so.  Wouldn't it
> be a nice little extra if Novell were actually able to obtain monetary
> damages before SCO curls up and blows away.  I am wondering if maybe we
> should have a friendly little non-monetary wager here on the list as to when
> SCOX gets delisted (again), this time for good.  SCOX closed the day out at
> $1.56.  Is there any doubt on this list that it will open Monday below
> $1.00?
>

Its still complicated.

The ruling was, as I understand it, (and I'm not a lawyer,) that
Novell owns the copyrights to Unix, (i.e., essentially, it owns Unix.)
If that is so, then SCO owes more in royalties, (specifically,
Novell's cut of what SCO collected in license fees from M$ and Sun,
which Novell neglected to collect,) than SCO has as per their latest
SEC 10Q filing, (re: http://www.sec.gov, and look at the Edgar
database for SCO's latest 10Q.) That could mean, chapter seven-but it
also could mean that SCO, (and its outside lawyers,) have nothing to
loose by appealing as far as they can get away with.

Further complicating things is SCO's case with IBM, which is a civil
breach of contract litigation-and may not be related to today's
ruling, (but is worth billions to SCO, if they could win-but they
probably will not since Novell now owns Unix, unless the appeal long
shot comes through for SCO, and that would mean overturning a judge's
finding of fact, which almost never happens, and its not clear, now,
that SCO had rights to enter into such a contractual relationship in
the first place.) Novell not collecting from SCO could be a remaining
issue, though.

Still very complicated and difficult to see how it will turn out, but
it was, indeed, not a good day for SCO.

      John

-- 

John Conover, conover at rahul.net, http://www.johncon.com/