Judge Kimball Rules at Last!

So SCO has to pay Novell because it did not have the right to sell the SVRX license to Sun. This is the license that allowed Sun to open source Solaris.

The license is not valid because SCO did not own the rights, this means that precious Unix IP was open sourced illegally! Sun open sourced it, but Sun thought they were crossing the T's and dotting the I's by getting a license from the company that said it owned the IP! Sure they were fencing stolen goods, but if they cooperate and finger the real bad guys, I'm sure the authorities will cut them a deal.

Sun did buy the license from the right place, its just that SCO was supposed to cut Novell in on the deal when it involved SVRX rights, so it was really SCO who dropped the ball.

It was SCO that allowed the precious Unix IP into the wild without permission of the copyright holder! They're like rustlers stealing other people's cattle and re-branding them before sale! You know what they do with horse thieves in Utah don't you? (Good, because I sure don't know what they do with them and anyway I said cattle not horses!)

I hope Larua Didio and Rob Enderle write scathing pieces about these evil copyright thieves called SCO!

And apologize to IBM, and the Linux community for accusing them instead of SCO.

Maybe Ron Hovespian should call the BSA Hotline and report SCO for Pirating Unix software.

I sense sarcasm.

Your senses are finely tuned young grasshopper.

Quoting:I hope Larua Didio and Rob Enderle write scathing pieces about these evil copyright thieves called SCO!

And apologize to IBM, and the Linux community for accusing them instead of SCO.

Based upon their known favoritism toward SCO as amply described at http://lwn.net/Articles/41516/ and http://www.linux.com/articles/38081 , one would easily guess that DiDio and Enderle would prefer to remain silent on this subject. Any comments from either of them would of course be purely FUD-related, and directly targeting the "Linux community" as it were. FUD probably based upon their own unique analysis of the success of SCOsource as well as similar sentiments expressed here:

Quoting:That decision [of a future Novell countersuit], I'd say, would depend on an analysis of what's at stake if SCO begins suing Linux for UnixWare or OpenServer or whatever nonsense they can dream up next.

(from PJ's http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080716182233901 piece)

Seems most likely that other persons with ties to SCO past and present will be bringing up anti-Linux FUD in their supposedly "objective" analyses of Judge Kimball's decision.

Giving Sun the benefit of the doubt about acting in good faith, 2 million bucks for open sourcing (well suns open source) seems a bit low. I would think that Novell would have a separate case against SCO for damages.

The ruling may be out, but I dont think the game is over by a long shot. I think, and IANAL, that Novell has some unfinished business with SCO, and Novell may well have deep enough pockets to suck all of SCO's money out just in legal fee's.

SCO is Novell's fiduciary in the Unix licensing business.

If you want to license Unix code that is partly 'owned' by Novel you are supposed to deal with SCO for your license. SCO is the one who is supposed to know how to divide up the fees paid between themselves and Novell. Novell has the right to audit SCO whenever it wants.

For Sun to get the license it needs to open source Solaris, it is supposed to go through SCO. The Judge has decided that Sun's payments to SCO are partly for SCO controlled newer stuff, and partly for Novell controlled older stuff. Sun paid the whole amount, and SCO did not forward the part of the payment owed to Novell to Novell.

Sun should be OK. Novell needs to squeeze a little blood from SCO.

SCO has already made multiple law firms wealthier, and I'm sure the luxury car and boat dealers those lawyers go to were helped out as well.

Or Sun could make the entire question of Novell's potential claim to Solaris source code moot by buying them. I wonder if they have the money...?

Quoting:For Sun to get the license it needs to open source Solaris, it is supposed to go through SCO. The Judge has decided that Sun's payments to SCO are partly for SCO controlled newer stuff, and partly for Novell controlled older stuff. Sun paid the whole amount, and SCO did not forward the part of the payment owed to Novell to Novell.

Sun should be OK.

Not really from what I gather from various other comments. The right to open source something isn't the same as a standard SRVX license. Novell is in it's right to deny the license. I think the most likely scenario is a nice triple-play here. Novell sues Sun for open-sourcing SRVX parts. Sun sues SCO for damages and a whole pile of other stuff. Novell and Sun settle amicably and Sun gets to keep it's OpenSolaris.

> Sun sues SCO for damages and a whole pile of other stuff. Novell and Sun settle amicably and Sun gets to keep it's OpenSolaris.

If I were Novell, I'd settle amicably on one condition: OpenSolaris goes GPL.

Hmm, SJVN is saying that OpenSolaris is already under the GPL. I thought it was another license. Time to do some checking....

Well, http://www.opensolaris.org says it's CDDL, which is what I expected. I think SJVN misstated.

There has been talk about GPLv3 for Solaris, which would be grand.

Not only that, but if Solaris does go GPLv3, Linus said he may contemplate moving Linux to GPLv3 as well so we can get DTrace, ZFS and other goodies like that.

@Sander:

Got a link for that?

@gus3: News: http://news.cnet.com/Torvalds-Solaris-could-nudge-Linux-to-G... and Linus' post on LKML: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/0972.ht...