[Linux-aus] SCO claims turn to dust, blow away.

[Con Zymaris]

On Thu, May 29, 2003 at 01:27:29AM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="bob">
> 
> > Novell Claims Ownership of UNIX System V
> > 
> > http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html
> > 
> > "SCO continues to say that it owns the UNIX System V patents, yet it must 
> > know that it does not. A simple review of U.S. Patent Office records 
> > reveals that Novell owns those patents."
> 
> And SCO's response:
> 
>   http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030528/law059_1.html
> 

Indeed. SCO never claimed a patent issue case. Hoever, from the press
release:
  
 Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are
 what you use against parties you have relationships with. From a legal
 standpoint, contracts end up being far stronger than anything you could 
 do with copyrights.
  
 SCO's lawsuit against IBM does not involve patents or copyrights. SCO's
 complaint specifically alleges breach of contract, and SCO intends to
 protect and enforce all of the contracts that the company has with more
 than 6,000 licensees.
  
Translates to:
  
 We can only ever sue IBM, and not Red Hat, Suse nor normal Linux users,
 as it's only IBM whom we have a contract with that we claimed they
 breached. Therefore, our public comments threatening these other enteties
 is legal hot air, which we are spouting to scare people off Linux, but
 which  we cannot actually take further. We know this, as evidenced by 
 this press release response to Novell, yet we continue to spread fear and
 doubt.
  

con
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne 03 9621 2377 
Cybersource: Unix/Linux, TCP/IP and Web App. Development  www.cyber.com.au