SUSE Requests Arbitration with SCO 155
rm69990 writes "In response to SCO's amended complaint against Novell alleging copyright infringement, Novell subsidiary SUSE has requested from the International Chamber of Commerce that SCO be barred from asserting copyright over SUSE Linux due to the UnitedLinux agreement between Caldera, SUSE, Connectiva and Turbolinux. This agreement requires that SCO arbitrate with SUSE instead of filing claims, removes the copyright from any work SCO produced while in UnitedLinux, gives SUSE sublicensing rights to SCO's copyrights, and constitutes an SCO commitment that any code released under an OSS license in UnitedLinux remain Open Source. Novell has filed a motion to stay SCO's claims against Novell until the outcome of this arbitration. So now it looks like Linux users are protected both through the APA between Novell and SCO, but the UnitedLinux agreement as well."
SCOX hosed either way... (Score:5, Interesting)
Rock, hard place, SCOX.
Re:Who are the REAL pros here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who are the REAL pros here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here we have Linux, the accumulation of many volunteer hackers, and the only ones earning big, BIG money are... the lawyers.
The GPL didn't mention anything about THAT!
It gets much, much worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Then there's the SEC disclosure requirements -- the fact that SCOX' stock runup happened while the Management sat on a contract that gutted the basis of the whole lawsuit lottery makes them personally liable. Even the SEC might wake up for that one, but the NYAG's office must be smelling blood in the water.
Re:It gets much, much worse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It gets much, much worse (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it does. A finding against them is in effect a judicial finding since Judge Kimball will effectively read the arbitration ruling into his Court's record.
"So?" you say. However, the UL agreement included sublicensing rights. Which means that any IP Caldera had that appeared in the UL distribution was sublicensed under the GPL -- and IBM therefore has rights regardless of SCOX' claim that they ceased distributing Linux (OK, that was proven bogus. Still ....)
Re:Who are the REAL pros here? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
Haven't gotten anywhere? YMMV (Score:2, Interesting)
When Darl took over as CEO it was estimated that the company would be bankrupt within 7 months. Since then they have received $60 million in PIPE funding. They did have to pay back $13 million to Baystar, but that's still a pretty good payday for making a bunch of claims that so far haven't been substantiated.