The Mandelbear's Musings

( raw notes )

Pretty good day. Busy, with only a brief walk, but I got a reasonable amount done at work. The bullpen is great for group communication, but lousy for concentrating on programming when someone else is having a conversation.

The YD landed hersef a job -- selling Cutco knives. Tupperware with an edge, basically. Not something I could ever handle, but maybe she'll be good at it.

Probably the best news of the day: Groklaw - Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED!. In other good news of the "why the heck did it take so long" variety, Starbucks offers free Internet access now. Which pretty much leaves high-end hotels the main holdouts.

... will be all that's left of SCO.
-- (from "High Barratry", on Coffee, Computers, & Song)

The first stage in the formation of a caldera is a gigantic volcanic eruption that empties the magma chamber, which subsequently collapses. Now that SCO has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, we're starting to see the eruption tapering off.

This filing stays all pending legal action against SCO, including the trial in SCO vs. Novell that was scheduled to start on Monday. But Pam Jones of Groklaw points out in the cited post, and in an earlier comment, that SCO isn't exactly off the hook here. First of all, Novell already has a summary judgement that SCO is liable for conversion (the civil equivalent of theft) of the royalties it was owed. So SCO is, in effect, in posession of stolen property, and that's not affected by the bankruptcy. The only thing left to determine is how much. Tuesday's hearing in Delaware should be interesting.

There's also the interesting fact that, up until yesterday, they were telling the court and the SEC that they were still solvent. Is it remotely possible that they were, um, shading the truth a little? There's also a fascinating paragraph in the bankruptcy filing where they continue to claim that they own Unix. In spite of Judge Kimball's recent ruling that they don't.

The soprano is warming up.

U.S. judge says Novell owns UNIX copyrights| Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A U.S. court ruled on Friday that Novell Inc. owns copyrights to the UNIX computer operating system, a blow to SCO Group's claim to the technology that also jeopardizes a related SCO lawsuit against IBM .

"The court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights," Judge Dale Kimball of the U.S. District Court for Utah said in the ruling.

He also ruled that Novell could force SCO to drop claims against IBM in a case crucial to the future of the cooperatively developed Linux operating system.

Novell "is entitled, at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive" its claim against IBM, the judge wrote.

I'd point to more details on Groklaw, but the net is wonky at the moment.

update: Groklaw's back. And it seems that they owe Novell big $$ for the licenses they "sold" to Microsoft and Sun. There may be a few loose ends, but basically SCOX goes back to being a "caldera". Literally, this time.

See this song for details.

... Novell has, finally, fired off (hence the icon) a response to SCOX's "slander of title" lawsuit. Get yourself over to Groklaw and read these three articles.

( quick summary ) Here's the good part: they're asking for their unpaid license fees! And furthermore, "110. Novell also seeks an order from the Court attaching SCO's assets pending adjudication of this claim because SCO is quickly dissipating its assets" [i.e., on fradulent lawsuits]. If Novell gets that, SCO is suddenly out of cash, out of the game, and out of luck; presumably they go back to being a Caldera.