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Caldera Government Operating Systems Software The Courts Unix News Your Rights Online

Novell Poised To Strike On Slander Of Title Claim 221

Posted by timothy from the hope-that-works dept.
Xenographic writes "As seen in this Groklaw article, Novell is moving to dismiss SCO's slander of title claim with prejudice. They key to it is that SCO needs Novell's claims to be "knowingly false" to establish malice. Since the judge's own order on the motion to remand (see also part 2) questions whether there really was ever actually a copyright transfer, Novell's assertion that there was no transfer cannot be knowingly false, so SCO's case falls apart. Unfortunately, as Novell points out, the judge would be doing this without actually deciding the underlying issue of who owns what copyrights, and SCO could file a completely different suit for breach of contract or something, even though SCO would be unable to refile this slander of title suit. As an aside, I should mention that this isn't the first or only controversy over defamation we've seen in this fiasco by any means."
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Novell Poised To Strike On Slander Of Title Claim

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  • Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bad Move ( 774329 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:01AM (#9938619)
    Read Rob Enderle's SCO Keynote [sco.com].

    • Re:Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It (Score:5, Insightful)

      by I confirm I'm not a ( 720413 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:13AM (#9938700) Journal

      Mods, do not be mislead by the title (lifted wholesale from the original Enderle Troll article at www.sco.com) - this is an informative post, that links to Rob Enderle's now (in)famous speech at SCO Forum last Tuesday. I've been looking for this transcript for a few days now - kudos to Bad Move for posting this.

      • Re:Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jobsagoodun ( 669748 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:27AM (#9938794)
        And for the record, Enderle is a prize asshat.

      • Re:Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FictionPimp ( 712802 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @10:29AM (#9939876) Homepage
        I just read that for the first time today. He does a great job in making himself seem 100% objective and a great person, and making the other side seem hateful and blind. Then he goes on to talk about things completly unrelated (like shareware software and how small companys are much nicer to work at then big companys) and his personal beefs with people. He then attempts to turn baystar into a villian for trying to steal away SCO. Then he gets to his point.

        This is a classic troll. If you can't win with facts, change the subject. Also appear like you dont care either way, but you want your opinion out there. Durring my years working at some comapny, my boss was shot in the face, this is why sco has a good solid case.

        All I got from the sections that applied to the subject was that he has a very clear misunderstanding of how open source works. He attempts to get the reader to belive that if you write software for linux, you must make it open source (kinda like saying if you write software for MS windows, it must be closed source, and MS owns the software).

        The only truth I read was when he pointed out that companys only give things away for free when they know they will make money on it. WELL DUH! Why does IBM want to sell linux? Hardware and support contacts. But that is not proof positive that linux costs money. It does not cost money. Linux is not hardware, it is not training, it is not support. Those are things you may need to run linux, but you will need all those thngs to run any other OS out there. And I would be happy to burn you off a CD of any linux distro you like, FREE of charge.

        Oh well, its all crashing down around them anyways. I'll just sit back and drink my coffee.

        • Actually, I've been researching Enderle... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Xenographic ( 557057 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @11:35AM (#9940505) Journal

          This is a classic troll. If you can't win with facts, change the subject. Also appear like you dont care either way, but you want your opinion out there. ...

          All I got from the sections that applied to the subject was that he has a very clear misunderstanding of how open source works.


          You are right--he is a troll, effectively. You see, for a long time he's worked to be someone the media quotes (they still do, all too much, even though he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about half the time--he even mentions some of the trouble he got in in that speech).

          In fact, his Enderle Group sells his quotability as a service--pay us, and we'll tell the press good things about you. That, plus as he admitted in his speech, he supports Microsoft for unrelated personal reasons.

          Now then, people have started attacking his credibility en mass due to the SCO debacle. Some have even (gasp!) insulted him online. He hates this, because the more reasoned of us (e.g. me) are working to make it known that we believe that he is as paid shill and does not know whereof he speaks. Obviously, this message is getting out.

          Thus, he works to portray all those who attack him as unintelligent, angry zealots. You said it well when you said he had a "very clear misunderstanding" of how this all works and what we mean by free. But that's not quite all: he knows what we mean and is deliberately twisting the facts to act as a troll.

          Elsewhere, he's gone with a "BSD is better" line. The point of this is that he's trying to stir up or exacerbate whatever divisions exist among us--e.g. to sow strife and dischord. So far, I don't get the sense that he's doing it very well, but he's conciously trying to start flame wars.

          Why? The controversy suits him--if he can get people mad enough, he can discredit them with their own angry rants (and there's always someone to supply these even if the rest of us hold our tongues). Moreover, he can use the controversy to put himself in the spotlight (get quoted even more in the media, etc.).

          Thus, the best counter-strategy for us is to supply as many calm, rational and even-toned responses to his nonsense as is possible, and to simply ignore the flamebait portions of his talks.

          The more reasonable people we can get who present sensible, articulated responses to his utter nonsense, the more we can discredit him in spite of the supply of angry hatemail he has to wave around.

          I'm not some angry nitwit who is going around threatening anyone, and I refuse to have him defame us all by painting with one broad stroke.

          To that end, I'm open for suggestions on how to help the media get a clue that he's not a credible source, and should not be trusted or used for quick & easy quotes.

    • "I watched the tapes of the Nuremburg experiments that showcased how people put in positions of authority could be ordered to torture and kill other people and that the majority of those tested in the study failed the "humanity" test."

      What's the name of that law about when the argument gets to comparing the opponent with Nazi's?

    • Heise [heise.de] thinks that in the keynote he mixes up the Nuremberg trials (he can't even spell it) with the Milgram experiment [wikipedia.org].

      Ouch!

    • Re:Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BroncoInCalifornia ( 605476 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @09:23AM (#9939204)
      I read that speech a few days ago. It was bizarre. It sounds like he was drunk. In a lot of places it was hard to figure out what he was trying to say.

      His tales of working at Rohm/IBM were interesting. He holds a very big grudge towards IBM. He held a lot of different positions. It sounds like he was unstable. Reading between the lines it sound like they finally got tired of his act and showed him the door.

      He spent a lot of times talking about spys in the audience. He then did not understand or pretended not to understand "free" software. He talked about software that was free as in beer instead of free as in speech.

    • Hah, that's hilarious, thanks for posting it. That guy comes across as the most infantile, half-witted paranoiac. I'm sort of amazed they'd put that up on a public server at their domain, let alone have him talk on their behalf. Honestly, he writes like some weirdo internet conspiracy theorist, raving about death threats and Nazis and other schizoid fantasies, and contradicting himself every third sentence.

      I'd sort of enjoy reading more of it -- can you link any? It's like an inside view of a demented teen

    • If you develop on the platform your IP may belong to the world and the value of that IP is part of your Linux price. I'm waiting for the day that someone at GM realizes that Linux developers there regularly talk to their Ford counterparts to solve critical problems and, because may they need to, provide access and confidential information about the company in the process. The Ford executives shouldn't feel too smug because similar information is flowing out of them. And key technologies may not belong to


    • I've opened my mouth and all some of you heard was FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD.

      And this is where Rob finally talks truth. Granted, you have to dig through a winding path of inference and congecture to get to it.

      Actually - I'm not being completely truthfull. Rob did have another valid point:

      If you've been watching, companies are slowly moving to acquire IP and they appear to be planning on recouping that investment at some future time. With Open Source software you can see, in great detail, what makes th

    • Wow! Nice link! That's one disturbing piece of work. I took enough psych to see that the man is clearly egomaniacal, I'm curious if he's borderline delusional. Anyone with more training have an insight?

      Nor is this well formed apologetics as he fundamentally contradicts himself more than once. For example, he attacks the working man since he asserts that the majority of Linux users are not entrepeneurs. Not that the majority of any OS users are entrepeneurs but ok. So he calls people who work for a living

    • I've got a really good conspiracy theory.

      Lets take it as given that the entire purpose of the SCO lawsuits is to discredit Linux/Free Software and spread FUD, bankrolled by ...erm... someone.

      Enderle has constantly harped on about "these zealots", "death threats", "die for what you believe in" etc, etc.

      Enderle is setting himself up to either:

      1. Get killed by goons hired by... someone
      2. Kill himself ( some people really are zealots)
      3. Most likely, fake his own death in order to discredit Linux "zealot
    • I am in the process of writing a full critique of Enderle's keynote. Specifically, he employs numerous logical fallacies.

      Read what I have written so far. [fallinggrace.com]

      - Neil Wehneman

    • Oh my god, I know there have been a lot of comments about how this guy's a troll, but just reading that crap is amazing.

      That is why I stood up for SCO; they were being attacked because they were vulnerable. Those that attacked them did so because they could in a clear effort to deny the employees, the stockholders, and the customers of SCO their rights and, as a number of veterans have reminded me from time to time, heroes died for those rights and I believe it is our.... No my, obligation to uphold them.

      SCO is being attacked? Didn't they start all this? Oh, I see, they were just defending their rights that "heroes died for"... What a blatent pull at heartstrings. What utter crap.

      Doug

  • Strike 2... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grunt107 ( 739510 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:08AM (#9938668)
    SCO can't allege malice, a necessary element, given the Court's earlier Order.

    That is 1 damning excerpt! If the court has ruled that malice cannot be proven, and slander MUST have malice, logic dictates SCO loses again (FUD: courts are not always logical).

    Another nice point was Novell's allusions to the Red Hat and IBM cases - kinda like saying 'Since I appear honest and forthright to you, your honor, I wish to state my endorsements of the positions offered by these fine 2 companies in their battle with the plaintiff in OUR case'
    Brilliant!!!

  • The best solution... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) * <mikemol@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:11AM (#9938692) Homepage Journal
    ...would be for the copyright claim to be determined. I'd hate to see SCO go out of business before it was determined who owns the IP it claims.
    • I'd hate to see SCO go out of business before it was determined who owns the IP it claims.

      I know who owns every piece of code in GNU/Linux.

      You point to the bit in question and I'll tell you who owns it, fair enough?

  • Disadvantage of US vs British legal system (Score:5, Informative)

    by doodlelogic ( 773522 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:19AM (#9938740)
    While generally you guys get a lot of things right (constitutional protection, etc), one thing that maddens me about these "only in the USA" stories is the freedom you give to lawyers to run amok with cases and spend all their clients money, forcing the other side to spend even more.

    Here in the UK (well England and Wales at least), as you may know, the loser in litigation generally has to pick up the winner's legal fees. Where the claim was, e.g. an abuse of process, the fees can be payable on a punitive ("indemnity") basis. If either side is on a shaky financial footing, they can be forced to pay money into court to cover their opponent's litigation risk.

    Is anyone thinking of taking these sort of rules into the US system? Or would that not work with the constitution?

    • Re:Disadvantage of US vs British legal system (Score:5, Interesting)

      by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:30AM (#9938821) Homepage
      I'd vote to support this.

      If a case is dismissed with prejudice, I would be all for the looser paying the winner's legal fees. Plus wages of those on the winning side who were working on the case.

      Seems fair to me, and it would cut down on this absolute bullshit we have to deal with right now.

    • Re:Disadvantage of US vs British legal system (Score:5, Interesting)

      by groot ( 198923 ) * on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:31AM (#9938822) Homepage Journal
      The theory behind the US system is that it allows the individual with limited means to sue (hopefully rightly) a much superior (financially) opponent without fear of retribution. If the British system were to be imposed it would have a chilling effect on these types of cases such as malpractice, employee being illegally fired, and class action such as health damage due to materials, such as the asbetos or silicon implants,etc.

      However like anything else, it is subject to abuse.

      --laz

      • Re:Disadvantage of US vs British legal system (Score:5, Informative)

        by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:40AM (#9938876) Homepage Journal
        If the British system were to be imposed it would have a chilling effect on these types of cases such as malpractice, employee being illegally fired, and class action such as health damage due to materials, such as the asbetos or silicon implants,etc.
        Except, of course, we Brits have already noticed this, and set up a process to avoid it. Firstly, the awarding of costs is always at the discretion of the judge, and they rarely, if ever, force a personal litigant to pay the entire costs of a corporate defendant, except when they feel the case is malicious.

        Secondly, the government Legal Aid scheme exists to fund such actions, if the Legal Aid Service's lawyers think you have a good case. Like a State Defender, but for prosecutions and civil cases.
        • You're assuming that US Citizens trust their legal system and judges as much as the British do. We don't. In jurisprudence and many other areas of government, US citizens heavily favor formal rules-based approaches. The British tend to favor a more informal approach that gives the executors more discretion.
        • I would support this form of legal restructure, given the safety nets you just outlined. I think it is a great idea.
    • They come up ever so often under the term of tort reform and "looser pays". The biggest problem is that most of this comes down to a state decision, however it is something that we in the USA will have to solve because of the problems it is leading to in the area of medical and social affairs.
      As an example of how bad it is, the Las Vegas casinos were offered information on terrorist activities around various casinos, they declinded because once they know about the threats they will have more problems wit
    • I'd definitely support this. I doubt lawyers would mind, because they are getting paid either way, and they only care about their paycheck, which is the primary reason they'll be happy to drag something out in court for years, and do appeal after appeal.

      Another change I wouldn't mind seeing is this bullshit between "civil" and "federal" suits. We need laws that prohibit a case from being brought as both types, particularly when a defendant wins one and is then promptly sued again as the other. It's insanit

  • It looks like SCO's PR is now biting their own ass (Score:5, Interesting)

    by compactable ( 714182 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:21AM (#9938751) Homepage
    Several times the documents submitted show that SCO's "media machine" has been detrimental to them in court:

    [Melaugh] tells the judge that he did a LexisNexis news search for the words IBM and SCO and got 2,845 results, starting with the month and year that SCO filed the lawsuit. Next, he narrowed it down by choosing as cutoff date the first Novell public statement, and he still got 317 articles. They present the judge with beginning chunks of the first 50 of each search, asking that he take judicial note of the huge media frenzy around SCO.

    This is a public dispute, and it was SCO who made it so not only by suing IBM, but by sending the 1500 threatening letters and sounding off in the media. "SCO has done everything it can to stoke that firestorm." Additionally, it has started or is defending against "at least six lawsuits before five judges in four states and two countries."Under those circumstances, Novell has the legal right to speak without being threatened with litigation for doing so.

    ... I always wondered if this would bite them in the ass someday ...

  • So I can clearlynot choose the wine in front of me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:34AM (#9938838) Homepage
    Interest move - sounds like Novell are interested in dodging the case without having the issue of copyrights decided.

    Why? What possible advantage would there be in this to them? Are they just trying to avoid costs of ongoing litigation (understandable)? Because I can't otherwise see any use in a decision along these lines - I would have thought it's just setting the stage for another ownership row later on.

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • Re:So I can clearlynot choose the wine in front of (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) * on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:48AM (#9938933) Homepage Journal
      Interest move - sounds like Novell are interested in dodging the case without having the issue of copyrights decided.

      Why?

      Simple, because Novell have been sued for slander of title, not for copyright infringement. They have to defend against the case brought against them in court, not the case brought against them in the press.

      I find it helps a lot to stop listening to what SCO say, and pay exclusive attention to what they do.

      • Re:So I can clearlynot choose the wine in front of (Score:5, Insightful)

        by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @10:25AM (#9939817) Homepage Journal
        It's not that simple. This slander of title suit requires the following for SCO to win it: a) They need to prove malice. That is they need to prove that Novell knew they didn't own the copyrights and acted with ill will with the statements they made. b) They need to plead "special damages" as a result of Novell's statements, that is they need to be able to point to specific and likely non-monetary losses.

        To make SCO lose the suit, Novell can attack either or all of these. An obvious way to win the suit would be for Novell to get the issue of copyright decided. If Novell can prove that they own the copyright (by getting the judge to consider whether the APA with amendments satisfy the federal rules for a copyright transfer or not) then SCO has lost (and Novell might have a case for a counter suit...).

        So while you're right that they aren't sued for copyright infringement, that is irrelevant - the ownership of the copyright can still potentially decide the case.

        However deciding the ownership of the copyright could potentially drag out - it would likely require discovery, and we know from SCO vs IBM that SCO are good at dragging out discovery.

        What Novell has chosen instead is to try the quick option, while still leaving the more painfull option open for later. They try for the dismissal now, arguing that regardless of who owns the copyright, the ownership isn't clear (pointing out that the judge too said it wasn't clear) which would in itself mean that SCO can't win the case because they can't prove malice. They also argue that informing about the dispute is priviledged communication (meaning you can't sue for slander over it, amongst other things) and as such the statements they made can't be slander.

        They then claim that this can be decided as a matter of law based on filings so far, and their references to public statement, without need for discovery.

        The worst thing that can happen to Novell is that the judge decides that the matter isn't quite so clear cut, and Novell can try for a summary judgement again later in the process after some discovery.

        The worst thing that can happen to SCO is that their case is dead, dismissed with predjudice, preventing them from refiling the same or similar claims against Novell. This would essentially permanently cast doubt on whether they actually own any copyrights at all, making it near impossible for them to try to enforce copyright claims against anyone else, meaning that Novell gets almost the same benefits with much less risk (each unused opportunity to kill SCO's claims increases the chance that Novell might get screwed over by a mistake later, so why take the risk)

        (ObDisclaimer: IANAL)

    • I'd guess that they're worried that the ownership of the copyrights wouldn't be decided in this trial anyway, since (as this motion points out) it is not necessarily a direct issue. Novell doesn't want to argue about the copyright situation and then have the court decide the case without a determination of the ownership of the copyrights, since that would just delay things further.

      The court could, in fact, listen to a complete argument of who owns the copyrights, and then rule simply that SCO didn't have a
    • Well, one thing to keep in mind is that "slander of title" is a really goofy cause of action to persue in this instance. A slander of title action is usually filed in the real estate context, where someone maliciously claims an interest in your property or files a lien against it, thus torpedoing your sale of the property. As far as I'm aware, it's never been used in an instance like this.

      The suit that SCO should have filed was a breach of contract suit against Novell. Then they would make the arguments

      • "slander of title" is a really goofy cause of action to persue in this instance.

        Agreed. When SCOX filed this suit, everybody said "WTF is slander of title?!?!?"

        The suit that SCO should have filed was a breach of contract suit against Novell. Then they would make the arguments that they're making now

        This assumes that they actually expect to win.

        I don't think they'd win

        They don't think they'd win either - otherwise they would have gone this route.

        this whole transaction was poorly drafted.

        No - i

    • Re:So I can clearlynot choose the wine in front of (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jaywalk ( 94910 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @09:25AM (#9939227) Homepage
      sounds like Novell are interested in dodging the case without having the issue of copyrights decided. . . . Why? What possible advantage would there be in this to them?
      Think chess game. This is not a checkmate; more like taking a bishop. But if you have a choice between easily taking a bishop and pressing for a difficult checkmate, take the bishop and look for a better opening.

      By having this case dismissed, Novell shuts down SCO's preferred line of attack. First of all, SCO will need to start over with a new suit, meaning more cash burn from SCO's rapidly depleting coffers. Second, it buys time for SCO's position on other fronts (like IBM's tenth counterclaim [groklaw.net]) to weaken. If IBM can prove there's no UNIX in Linux, the issue of who owns the UNIX copyrights becomes moot. Finally, it means that SCO will have to open a suit explicitly stating that they want to prove they own the copyrights, a very difficult position since the documentation doesn't seem to support that claim.

      Remember, the job of Novell's lawyers is not to defend Linux. It is to defend Novell. It's only in the current circumstances that the two interests happen to coincide.

    • Interest[ing] move - sounds like Novell are interested in dodging the case without having the issue of copyrights decided.
      Don't forget that SCO still acts as "licencing agent" for Novell with respect to the SystemV code. Novell has ongoing business relations with SCO. (And there are some issues on how to split Sun and MS licencing fees)

  • Filed copyrights? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Armchair Dissident ( 557503 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:42AM (#9938892)
    Perhaps I'm missing something, but I thought that the reason SCO bought the slander of title case against Novell was because Novell didn't just publicly state that they owned the copyrights, but they filed the copyrights in with the copyright office with the intent to use the filings to undermine SCO's case(s).

    If this slander case does get dismissed, does this mean that the copyright filing stands unchallenged? Or is there another route SCO can go down in order to have the filing retracted?

    I'm not sure how copyright filings work in the US, as we don't have a similar system in the UK! (or not that I know of anyway)

    • Re:Filed copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonytroll ( 751214 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:47AM (#9938924) Journal
      You got that a bit wrong there, iirc.
      Novell had the copyrights all along, yet SCO
      • Asked Novell repeatedly to hand them over.
      • Filed them at the copyright office after they couldn't get them.
      • Asked the judge in this case to assign all copyrights to them, arguing that they really really were transferred from Novell to Caldera - which they weren't.

    • Re:Filed copyrights? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by iabervon ( 1971 )
      If this case gets dismissed, SCO can sue for copyright infringement. In fact, suing for slander of title is a weird thing to do in such a situation; it would be a bit like complaining that the guy who stole your car isn't maintaining it well. Slander of title is normally used when somebody else is telling people he owns the house you have the deed to; making it stick depends on there being some clear and unambiguous certification of ownership that you have and the other person does not, which pretty much me
      • They did that so the case would stay in state court. They felt it might be easier to win in state court then federal court.

        If they file for copyright violation they have to do it in federal courts.

    • Re:Filed copyrights? (Score:4, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @10:55AM (#9940105)
      If this slander case does get dismissed, does this mean that the copyright filing stands unchallenged? Or is there another route SCO can go down in order to have the filing retracted?

      No, in the memorandum, Novell clearly states that the copyrights ownership is a separate matter for US Copyright Office or another case to decide. In this case, the judge only needs to determine if Novell has a valid case that they own the Unix copyrights. The judge already determined that the transfer of ownership document (Amendment 2) is ambiguous at best and he is leaning that in favor of Novell that they never transferred such copyrights. The judge does not have to decide who owns them but that Novell can demonstrate that they have legal grounds to claim that they own Unix copyrights for the case to be dismissed because "knowingly false" requirement.

    • Perhaps I'm missing something, but I thought that the reason SCO bought the slander of title case against Novell was because Novell didn't just publicly state that they owned the copyrights, but they filed the copyrights in with the copyright office with the intent to use the filings to undermine SCO's case(s).

      Quite right, but as Novell points out, the filing of a rival claim is privileged and specifically contemplated in the law as a means to assert a rival claim to the copyrights, so that they wouldn'

  • The stocks again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by akaiONE ( 467100 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @08:48AM (#9938938) Homepage Journal
    Lets be honest. The people on Wallstreet are probably an indicator to what newSCO will do next. If their stock trade bad for a reasonable time (1-2 months) their "media machine" will roll out a new story to boost their stockprice. So, right now newSCO isn't doing too well on the exchange.


    Lets have a look at their 6 months movement.
    This little chart [nasdaq.com] shows how newSCO's stock is doing. Their recent pressreleases and blabbering during the SCOforum left a certain spike upwards, then things settled again, and the price is currently at around $4.30. Compared to such companies as Novell, wich you can see the comparison of here [nasdaq.com], there clearly is a trend that whenever newSCO releases some FUD to the general public and the eager-to-cover media their stock is up for a short time, and the companies they are in legal battles with are down. Then it all slowly goes back as it was before. IBM [nasdaq.com], RedHat [nasdaq.com] and Novell are all three doing rather well [nasdaq.com] in comparison to newSCO.


    It's sad to see how this hunger for money drive a former great company into the ground. I hope both investors and current stockholders realize that the only thing that is going to save newSCO is to focus on their product [sco.com] and shuffle Darl and his litigation off into the void.

  • SCO doesn't want to file a contract suit here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2004 @09:08AM (#9939088) Homepage

    The last thing SCO wants is to file a contract suit against Novell here. The only ones they could file that would touch on the copyrights at all would all involve a claim of "They're obliged to transfer the copyrights, make them.". If they don't make that claim, there's nothing else in the APA to hang a case on. If they do make that claim, they instantly kill all their other cases because it's an admission that they don't own the copyrights right now.

  • Over on the British Side of the Pond we have this Law that says if you repeatedly sue ppl and repeatedly have your cases thrown out, you can be blocked from sueing any one else unles you can get a Judge to aggre that you have a good case.

    Do you have anything simaler in the US and could this be used against SCO to stop them starting any new suits.
    • IAMAL:

      No case, civil or criminal in our system goes to jury without a judge approving it first. A judge must first approve 100% of all cases. That's why you'll see references to the judge throwing out the case. In essence, the case has no merit and the plaintiff cannot sue or an accused cannot be tried.

      It's a several step process and the one SCO and IBM are in is discovery. This is where a judge (discovers) and decides if there's enough evidence to send a case to trial.

      Has IBM been sued? Well,
  • from this sentence:

    Since the judge's own order on the motion to remand (see also part 2) questions whether there really was ever actually a copyright transfer, Novell's assertion that there was no transfer cannot be knowingly false, so SCO's case falls apart.

    And no, I'm not a grammar nazi... just a pretender.

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