Novell Proclaims 'We're Not SCO' and We Won't Sue

E5Rebel writes "Novell has promised not to sue anybody over the Unix copyrights that a US court last week ruled it owned. They said there was no Unix in Linux and now they are sticking by it. Perhaps they had no option, but Novell deserve praise for taking on the fight with SCO...."

I believe them...

[chamont (25273)]

Ok, first let me say that I believe Novell when they say this. I think that they're so beaten up right now by the open source community, that they're going to be walking on eggshells for a long time. Plus they've learned their lesson...What's to gain? Not much, since there's not much of a case (if any) in the first place.

A lot of people may not know that one of the reasons Caldera was started in the first place (SCO's parent) was that Ransom Love recuited a load of engineers to get Zen works to run on Linux. Internally, Novell rejected the idea after they saw a massively failed WordPerfect on Linux project, and thought they had better stay clear of alternative OS's for a while.

Both companies being located in Utah county, there was heavy Novell influence in Caldera internally. In meetings (yes, I worked there for a couple of years), you would always here..."At Novell, we did it this way...". People would come in from or leave to Novell here and there. They were actually very passionate about open source. I even got a t-shirt shortly after the merger was announced, hinting that they'd be opening the source code to UnixWare (silly, huh).

Anyway, once Caldera started all the layoffs after the dot-com boom and SCO merger, a good chunk of engineering ended up at Novell. They closed the German development office (Erlangen), and most of those fellows headed over to Suse.

Then Novell bought Suse. Wow, funny how things come together. So yes, there are plenty of the same people working for Novell as were at SCO for a time, but as far as I can tell, it's mostly (or all) non-execs. Every guy I worked with was passionate about open source, and making the world a better place, etc.

Re:I believe them...

[nine-times (778537)]

Anyway, once Caldera started all the layoffs after the dot-com boom and SCO merge, a good chunk of engineering ended up at Novell.

I think that one phrase tells you a lot about why SCO sued people and Novell won't: Novell is a functioning business with a business plan.

The reason SCO sued, apparently, is because they were failing as a business and they went into meltdown-mode. The people running the show seemed to give up on any prospect of maintaining a sustainable business, and instead focussed on getting whatever they could as soon as they could, future of the company be damned. They made a deal with the devil and started attacking their own potential customers.

You can tell a business is in trouble if they start attacking their own customers. Even the most retarded businessman doesn't want his own customers to hate him.

Re:I believe them...

[jambarama (784670)]

Please do some research before absurd claims. Let me list a few of the Linux contributions Novell has made you might have heard of. 1. YaST 2. XGL/Compiz 3. Ximian 4. Mono 5. Beagle 6. Bandit 7. iFolder Plus the boatload of patches and drivers they've contributed, and the Linux devs they pay that write software for "Linux" not specifically SuSE. Novell is right there with Sun, Intel, Dell, Redhat, HP & the other big open source contributers. They give away SuSE (OpenSuSE), and not only that, IMO Novell has done more than any other firm to bring Linux to the enterprise desktop.

Re:I believe them...

[houghi (78078)]

http://en.opensuse.org/Novell_Supported_Projects [opensuse.org]

Shows a bit more then the few you stated.

Although SuSE (now openSUSE and SLES/SLED) was always available for free, Novell has taken it up a notch by making YaST GPL, opening the development and it goes beyond RedHat by giving you the tool to make your own openSUSE based distriobution [opensuse.org] with the tool Rembrand that removes branding.

So you could have your own SUSES-CentOS.

Re:I believe them...

[tbird20d (600059)]

A lot of people may not know that one of the reasons Caldera was started in the first place (SCO's parent) was that Ransom Love recuited a load of engineers to get Zen works to run on Linux. Internally, Novell rejected the idea after they saw a massively failed WordPerfect on Linux project, and thought they had better stay clear of alternative OS's for a while.

Whoa! That's not how I remember it, and I was one of the original employees of Caldera. Caldera was started by Bryan Sparks, who recruited Ransom and other Novell people to spin out "Secret Project X" into its own standalone startup. "Secret Project X" was a Novell project to create a *nix-based desktop OS, using Linux as the base OS. Bryan has tried to do this with UnixWare, but ran into problems.

Novell rejected the idea of building a Linux-based desktop OS in 1993, which was too bad. It was a bit galling to see Novell get back into the Linux business a full 10 years later, after squandering what could have been an early lead. The decision pre-dated Windows 95, which was arguably where the Redmond Windows monopoly began, so history could have been different.

Would-a, Could-a, Should-a...

Open sourced Unix?

[stinerman (812158)]

Then it wouldn't hurt to put any and all software they own the copyrights to under the BSD license or even release them to the public domain. If they aren't going to sue anyone who infringes on their copyrights, then they might as well release the code under a permissive license

Re:Open sourced Unix?

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Essentially, they can't. Novell doesn't own all the copyrights to the Unix source code. Some of the code was developed outside of AT&T by outside vendors. And then there's the whole BSDi case, which has already put the copyrights that Novell does own in a tenuous position. The judge in that case was about this *thumb and forefinger* close to invalidating AT&T's copyrights due to attribution requirements (remember, much of the old code was written before the U.S. signed onto the Berne Convention, which removed attribution requirements) and that's the real reason AT&T/Bell Labs settled with BSDi.

But, the ancient Unix V7 sources were already released under BSD long ago by none other than Caldera.

A promise is...

[cyphercell (843398)]

...legally binding? I had no idea.

Re:A promise is...

[Aim Here (765712)]

Sure is. I take it you're being sarcastic, but you really are precluded from suing someone if they rely on your promise not to sue them. The legal doctrine is called 'promissory estoppel [wikipedia.org]' and has been invoked by IBM in the SCO case already, IIRC.

Finally, Novell normally gets a raw deal

[alexhmit01 (104757)]

Novell has shown themselves consistently to try to do the right thing 1) for their customers, 2) for open source in general, and 3) for their shareholders.

They are constantly harassed by not being a "pure" open source company, but they have shown a tremendous dedication to working with the community on their Free Software. Their "deal" with Microsoft was an attempt to offer their customers something unique, the indemnification/license to protect them from Microsoft.

They were attacked, because private citizens felt that nobody should offer that, that's silly. That was Novell working to offer a unique value proposition.

When SCO turned on Linux, they COULD have hung other companies out to dry and claimed that as a unique advantage to Novell. They didn't. They defended the Free Software world against SCO.

I think that Novell has been a remarkably good citizens in short order, and should be given more slack when they announce a program that is good for their customers but isn't hurting the general movement.

If the Novell/MS deal gave Novell an edge than its because Linux IS infringing. If Linux isn't infringing, then their deal was nothing more than my promising not to sue you for using city roads, a meaningless offer. The attacks on them seemed unfair.

Why is that +5 Insightful?

[khasim (1285)]

If the Novell/MS deal gave Novell an edge than its because Linux IS infringing. If Linux isn't infringing, then their deal was nothing more than my promising not to sue you for using city roads, a meaningless offer. The attacks on them seemed unfair.

...compare to...

Their "deal" with Microsoft was an attempt to offer their customers something unique, the indemnification/license to protect them from Microsoft.

So Novell tried to offer something that they felt would distinguish their product from others ... even though doing so would kind of admit that Linux was violating Microsoft's patents.

Novell has shown themselves consistently to try to do the right thing 1) for their customers, 2) for open source in general, and 3) for their shareholders.

But if Linux does NOT violate Microsoft's patents ... then Novell is marketing something that is not needed by their customers.

Yeah, that's doing "the right thing" for "their customers".

That seems contradictory to me. Why sign a deal with Microsoft if there isn't any violation?

Why not simply state that Novell offers "indemnification" for any and all violations of their products? Because Novell believes Linux is clean and Free. No deal needed with Microsoft.

And if Novell is so noble, why did they immediately start pushing their "protection" as something NEEDED by Linux users and ONLY available from Novell?

What's the problem?

[Bullfish (858648)]

They are saying they own their patents, and they won't go after you as a Linux user. What more do you really want? They may be able to make money off the patents in other ways. They are a business after all. Holding the MS deal against them for eternity is dumb as well.

no option?

[Lxy (80823)]

Perhaps they had no option

Novell has plenty of options here. They are in the same position as SCO right now. Novell holds the UNIX copyrights, and has a linux distro that is gaining market share. They could very easily start up the infringement train and force everyone to use SuSE linux as not to infringe on their IP. They could even sell indemnification licenses, at, oh, say $699 a pop.

BUT THEY DIDN'T. Even though Novell is losing money left and right, and the target of much hostility in the community (for which I really don't understand), they have opted not to sue. They have the UNIX copyrights and have promised not to use them, in the best interest of the community. That's HUGE. Unlike the SCO case, Novell actually has the resources to put a stranglehold on the community. BUT THEY DIDN'T.

Stop bashing Novell already. PLEASE.

Re:no option?

[Chris Burke (6130)]

They could very easily start up the infringement train and force everyone to use SuSE linux as not to infringe on their IP. They could even sell indemnification licenses, at, oh, say $699 a pop.

And... just like with SCO's retarded license, nobody with a brain would pay for it. And if they tried to enforce it against, say, IBM, then they would find themselves being beaten around by the Nazgul just like SCO was. And subject to many of the same counter-claims that SCO is.

Unlike the SCO case, Novell actually has the resources to put a stranglehold on the community. BUT THEY DIDN'T.

They DIDN'T because they CAN'T, because JUST like in the SCO case, there IS NO INFRINGING CODE IN LINUX. It's not about resources, as SCO had plenty thanks to MS. It's just that they DIDN'T HAVE A CASE. The ruling that SCO doesn't own UNIX copyrights has brought about a quicker end, but that doesn't change the fact that up to this point SCO hasn't produced a single piece of actual evidence of infringement, and Novell, were they to try, couldn't either because IT ISN'T THERE.

So yes, let's all congratulate Novell for not going on a retarded suicide mission of a pointless lawsuit. Having an actual business that makes money, this would be stupid, and Novell isn't that stupid. I commend them for being in touch with reality.

I mean, I don't really have anything bad to say about Novell. But when they say "Oh, we're not going to sue Linux users for infringing UNIX because we're nice guys" you need to look through the transparent PR and translate that as "because we would lose horribly".

Re:no option?

[kripkenstein (913150)]

I mean, I don't really have anything bad to say about Novell. But when they say "Oh, we're not going to sue Linux users for infringing UNIX because we're nice guys" you need to look through the transparent PR and translate that as "because we would lose horribly".

If you read TFA, you will see that Novell do not say they won't sue 'because they are nice guys'. They say they can't because there is no Unix in Linux. They make that very clear in their statement.

So why make the statement at all? Very simple. Say there is a gun held by someone (SCO) in a room full of people; the gun is used in a threatening way. Then the gun is moved to another person's control (Novell). To get everybody to calm down as quickly as possible, the second person shows that the gun isn't loaded anyhow, and then puts it away in some drawer. That is essentially what Novell did: tell people that there is no threat whatsoever, in the most direct way possible. This is necessary because the people in the room, on edge from the previous threats, are still worried by the gun.

Summary unnecessarily condescending.

[argent (18001)]

The summary includes a slam (or two, depending on how you count) against Novell.

I have to say that despite my initial skepticism back when they bought it, I have come to believe that Novell has done a far better job throughout every part of their stewardship of the UNIX copyrights than anyone would have expected. Remember that when they acquired it the lawsuit over BSD was still ongoing... and the first thing that Novell said about it was that they would rather compete in the market than in court. Lawsuits have momentum, so it took a while to wind down, but the final settlement was remarkably positive: CSRG had to remove a token - three files - and Novell agreed not to sue anyone using the resulting code base.

I also had the opportunity to use UNIXware from Novell, and it was a solid release of System V... far better than SCO's awful version.

After their vigorous and aggressive response to SCO's actions, I think they deserve better than this.

No Unix in Linux

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

Of course there's no Unix in Linux. Everyone knows there's Microsoft Windows in Linux instead. It must be true, Microsoft said so.

Re:heh.

[Oddscurity (1035974)]

Reminds me of that Bill Gates joke:

Bill Gates arrives at Heaven's gates and St. Peter tells him that he really doesn't know what to do with Bill. "I mean on one hand you've helped get computers into many homes, but on the other hand you released Windows. I'll give you the choice, heaven or hell?"

Bill thinks about this and asks to be shown both places to make an informed decision on the matter. And so Peter takes him to heaven, replete with clouds, angels, harps and what not. Bill barely manages to stifle a yawn before St. Peter takes him to hell, a fabulous beach with babes playing around. "I've decided I want you to send me to hell," Bill announces.

So a few weeks later St. Peter looks up Bill to see how he's doing. Gates is strung up against a cave passage somewhere, demons all around him whipping and branding him. "And Bill, enjoying yourself?"

Bill grimaces and says: "This isn't what you promised me!"

"Ah," says St. Peter, "you're right. That was the demo."

Re:heh.

[kpainter (901021)]

A real Microsoft joke punchline should go:

"Ah," says St. Peter, "you're right. That was..." 0x0000001E, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Re:heh.

[iocat (572367)]

The real victim in the case, at least now that it's resolved, is GrokLaw. What the hell are they going to do now, without this case to report on!?

Re:heh.

[jeevesbond (1066726)]

What the hell are they going to do now, without this case to report on!?

Oh come on! There's the Microsoft-shilling-ISO problem to report on yet, Groklaw is in the thick of that [grokdoc.net]! Don't forget who funded the SCO attack [groklaw.net], Microsoft are not yet defeated, that was just one maneuvre. Meaning there's the end-game of Microsoft's patent FUD attack [computerworld.com] on GNU+Linux to report, might even be a court case in it too.

I think the site is well established, too many people like PJ's pithy analysis for Groklaw to disappear. Although I doubt your post was serious, it's still worth pointing out all the things the site could do in the weeks, months and years to come. :)

Re:Pact... or fiction?

[penp (1072374)]

1) Yeah, and someone will reverse engineer windows and call it something like Winws (Winws Is Not Windows, Stupid), and release it under the GPLv3, and new software will be written for it in GPLv3, and it will run in real Windows too, and then Microsoft will pay. 2) What? 3) If Microsoft has enough money to survive the melting Xbox360 debacle, I hardly think it will be anytime soon that Microsoft is shoved into obscurity. I mean, hell, they survived Windows ME, and I'm sure they'll survive Vista. Personally, I think there's just as much FUD out there about MS as there is about Linux. Oh, right. I'm on slashdot. Die, microsoft!

Re:Pact or Chess move?

[sumdumass (711423)]

First, MSFT's mumblings about patents will likely go splat if a single MSFT voucher purchases a single copy of SuSE with GPLv3 code on it - at least for any patents covering those bits of code (I can imagine Samba w/ it's impending GPLv3 conversion wiping out plenty, if there are any).

I think MS would proclaim that the voucher doesn't cover GPLv3 code since it wasn't a license when they sold them. But that isn't what is worrying me. MS can effectively silence Samba to nothing now that it is going into GPLv3. All they would have to do is wait until it is accepted, create a mini novel out of everyone who buys their software by placing a covenant not to sue that only goes to MS customers and their immediate customers and then offer a product sans the license or covenant for 10 times the cost. The GPL's anti Novell clause would kick in and basically stop anyone who purchased MS software after that happened from participating in any GPLv3 covered efforts. It would also create some fud where MS could say if you are going to use linux with MS software you need to buy X version of the software which costs 10 times as much (10x$700=$7990 for OEM 2003 servers now?) because of feature in the regular version that would place you in violation of the GPLv3 that linux er Samba is under.

I hate to say it, But I think they have samba taken care of. And if the community decides for some reason that they won't enforce that part of the GPL, them all ms has to do is shoehorn some code into it and launch the complaints and lawsuits themselves. Maybe buyout someone who has contributed to the project in the past and have them lay claims to some copyright on code buried deep into it. Either way, it could damage both samba and the GPL.

Besides - as long as it doesn't compromise FOSS and the GPL any? Why not at least attempt to embrace the Beast, extend the Beast, then extinguish the Beast? It'd be one Hell of an ironic way to shove MSFT into obscurity.

I'm not sure that the community would destroy itself in the process. Look at how divided it is over Novell making a deal with MS in the first place. Now the GPLv3 is out and there is rifts there too. I think there are a lot of people associated with FOSS who are afraid of success too. It seems like every time there is a chance to go big they shoot themselves in the foot or something. It is almost like they want to be the underdog and need people workign against them in order to feel important or something.

Re:On the UNIX copyrights

[Chandon Seldon (43083)]

Unix *is* open source. Between *BSD and Solaris, pretty much all the Unix code you might want is available. Seriously - what useful code is in some version of Unix that Novel may hold copyrights for that isn't in *BSD or Solaris?

Re:Taco, SCO SUED them. They HAD TO. Seriously!

[doxology (636469)]

Sweden launches nubile virgins straight into the heart of the Sun.

That's it, I'm switching to Solaris.