Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part III: SCO/UNIX to Conclude in March, eDirectory Patched

Capitol reef



Summary: News ranging from SCO to former Novell staff and some security setbacks

NOVELL'S biggest news from the past week would have to be the financial results. The next post will deal with these separately. We'll start with news about the SCO case.



SCO



The main Web site that covered this was Groklaw of course. Here is SCO's motion against Novell:

SCO has responded [PDF] to Novell's Notice just filed in Utah District Court. Novell is asking that court to assign both the Novell case and the IBM case to the same judge or to consolidate the two cases. SCO's Chapter 11 Trustee, Edward Cahn, also submits a statement in support of SCO's position, which is basically that it needs to hurry up and finish the Novell trial. It's running out of money. It doesn't want to detour to decide the SUSE arbitration first, which Novell also is requesting, and it sees consolidation with IBM to be not only not necessary but something that will drag things out.

Granting the Novell request for the same judge to be assigned to both cases surely wouldn't slow down the Novell case at all, but it would help the new judge having to suddenly deal with these complicated and interwoven cases to at least comprehend how they interact, particularly with respect to the GPL.


Novell has also responded.

Novell has filed its Reply [PDF] to SCO's Response Concerning Novell's Notice of Related Proceeding, which asks the new judge now assigned to the Novell case in Utah, Hon. Ted Stewart, to consolidate the two cases, SCO v. IBM and SCO v. Novell, or in the alternative to at least assign the same judge to both, which SCO opposes. Novell's position is that the two cases were assigned to the same judge before, and for some very good reasons they should still be with one judge.


Many reports from Utah surfaced in Groklaw, which writes:

I just received our first word on the hearing in Utah on SCO v. Novell from one of our reporters. "looking for a march 8th trial date, to run 3 weeks" is the report. I'm sure there will be more info on the way as soon as they can type it up. We had several eyewitnesses in attendance. So stay tuned for updates.


That would be March, indeed. Well, that's confirmed by the local press too.

A federal judge has scheduled a trial that will pit the Lindon-based SCO Group against Novell Inc. over the question of which owns the Unix computer operating system.


Finally, there is this update about AutoZone.

ZENWorks and eDirectory



ZENWorks certification was listed in this occasional roundup from a Web site whose focus is certification.

New ZENworks Certification from Novell Starting this month, individuals can earn Certified Novell ZENworks Administrator (CNZA) certification. This is a 1 test certification that covers ZENWorks configuration management including remote management, personality migration, asset management, and optimized application delivery, among numerous other topics. The exam contains 60 items and has a time limit of 55 minutes. A full list of objectives can be found on Novell's website.


Novell and Windows find love, as Novell's marketing people are showing:

This week ZENworks Patch Management won silver in the Best Patch Management category of the 2009 Windows IT Pro Editors’ Best and Community Choice Awards.


Here is a widely-distributed press release about eDirectory and iBoss (also in here, in here, and in here). From PRNewsWire:

Phantom Technologies is excited to announce that it has expanded the authentication capabilities of its iBoss Enterprise Web Filter to fully integrate with Novell eDirectory multiplatform environments.


Mail/Pulse



It is mostly about GWAVACon and GroupWise this time around. Here is a new video.



Pulse was finally mentioned by Jeff Jaffe and even SAP is entering this space with a proprietary product. A comparison is made again to Google Wave, which is expected to become Free software (not yet).

Security



eDirectory has suffered a security flaw, which was patched by Novell.

Novell has released a security update for its eDirectory server to remedy a heap overflow vulnerability. Attackers can remotely exploit the flaw to crash or penetrate a server. The vendor says that the vulnerability can be exploited with a specially crafted NDS Service Request.


From Heise (the H):

Novell has released a security update for its eDirectory server to remedy a heap overflow. Attackers can remotely exploit the flaw to crash or penetrate a server. The vendor says that the vulnerability can be exploited with a specially crafted NDS Service Request.


There are other noteworthy flaws and patches, e.g. [1, 2].

People



A person with past Novell association is becoming the Chief Technology Officer of Religare Enterprises Limited (REL).

Prior to his stint at Reliance Money, Mr. Nagaraj has also been associated with organizations like Reliance Capital, Novell India Pvt. Ltd., ICICI Bank, HDFC Ltd.


The position of executive vice president of operations at dataguise goes to another person with Novell association.

His previous companies include Trend Micro (IPO), IntruVert Networks (acquired by McAfee), Senforce Technologies, (acquired by Novell) and Reconnex Corporation (acquired by McAfee).


From a "press trip with Novell", Stones moves on to quitting her job in journalism.

One of the country’s leading technology journalists has resigned from her job. Business Day IT editor Lesley Stones said on Wednesday morning that she had tendered her resignation and would go freelance in the new year.

[...]

After she’d visited SA on a press trip with Novell, she fell in love with the country. “I brought my CV with me and I went back with a job.”

Stones, who studied journalism in the UK, left Computing SA after six months to take up the post at Business Day.


Another Novell connection, however loose:

Currently a general partner of Wheatley Partners, Barry Rubenstein has been investing in technology companies for 35 years and was a founder or founding consultant to several successful ventures, including Applied Digital Data Systems, Safeguard Scientifics, Novell, and Cheyenne Software, where he served as chairman and CEO. Rubenstein serves or has served on the boards of USWeb, Picazo Communications, CosmoCom, FatWire, CertPoint Systems, Seniors 4 Living and other technology companies.


Virtualisation



Stephen Pollack quit Novell after his company, PlateSpin, had been bought by Novell. Now he joins the advisory board of VM6 Software.

He most recently was founder and CEO of PlateSpin, a leading solutions provider in the virtualization space where he grew the company into one of North America's fastest growing high tech companies which was sold to Novell in 2008.


More on PlateSpin from the news:

Donovan said all PlateSpin partners had also now been integrated into PartnerNet under the datacentre tier and could access the same channel levels and benefits. Novell acquired the virtualisation vendor in April 2009 for $US205 million.


There's this bit about Novell's backing of Xen:

Although x64 hypervisors are heading for commoditisation, they are not there yet. Even when they reach that stage, there is no guarantee that customers will be able to switch from one to the other easily. That raises an important question about the future of the open source Xen hypervisor and the virtualisation platforms built on it by Xen’s three main backers, Citrix, Oracle and Novell.


Marketing



Novell is sharing more "success stories" in YouTube and there is this new promotion of BrainShare 2010. "It might be cancelled like last year's (or downsized, like Novell)," I argued. In response I got: "Cost effectiveness has a price, are they really downsizing ? or are they simply trying to be more efficient in difficult financial times. Ms is downsizing big time to, Dell the same, all those massive American corporation can no longer waste money as they have done up to now"

Novell was also mentioned amongst others in lists of vendors, including in press releases. For example we have:

The report lists a large number of vendors who are potentially affected, although only Cisco, Juniper, SafeNet and SonicWall having so far been confirmed as being vulnerable to this problem. Vendors who are not affected include Extreme Networks, Kerio, McAfee and Novell.


In general, few articles or press releases actually focus on Novell. There is not much going on there and as the next post will show, the financial results are accordingly made worse.

Recent Techrights' Posts

European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Brotherhood of São Bento
The Palácio São Bento – or São Bento Palace – is the seat of the Portuguese National Assembly in Lisbon
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to Police for Trying to Throw Large Parcel Into Our Home
This morning the campaign of intimidation...
Slop Has no ROI, an Economy Built on False Assumptions of Slop is Doomed
we're all going to suffer from this Ponzi scheme
The Cyber Show Has "Exciting Guests Coming" and a Gemini Capsule
"Site development is ongoing but now settling into a more stable form"
 
IBM's Quantum Bubble Already Deflating
Shares down over $55 in a few days
SLAPP Censorship - Part 101 Out of 200: Women Come to Realise They Don't Wish to Participate in Attacking Vulnerable Women
It relates to another topic that we shall be covering in the coming weeks
Links 08/06/2026: Proprietary Loaded With Security Holes, Armenia Defies Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2026: NetHack 5.0.0 and Slop as Cannibalism
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2026: "Rising Emissions, Depleting Water" Due to the Pyramid Scheme of Slop; "Canada Needs to Rebuild Public Telecoms"
Links for the day
GAFAM Bots Are Not "Good Bots"
There's nothing "Good" about Google
Links 08/06/2026: Criticism of Microsoft Trying to Criminalise Pointing Out Bug Doors, TikTok Now "Climate-Denying Social Media App"
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Measured at 10% in Liechtenstein This Month
it seems like statCounter wrongly classified some GNU/Linux clients as Mac clients and is now issuing a correction
Communicating With Freedom - Part III - Quibble Envisioned as a New and Easily Accessible Communications Platform Based on LibreJS
the FSF really needs to become more active if not proactive in promoting those sorts of things
Clownflare Says Majority of Web Traffic is Now Bots, But the Net is Another Story
Bots are to Clownflare what lawsuits are to lawyers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 07, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, June 07, 2026
The Strikes at the European Patent Office Planned to Carry on for the Entire Year, Maybe Future Years as Well
There's a cautionary tale somewhere
Number of Patent Grants Has Plunged 23% Amid Strikes at the European Patent Office, Today There Are More Strikes (Strike Participation at Over 3,000, More Than Doubled Since Winter)
There is a growing crisis at the European Patent Office
E.E.E. Still Ongoing, the War on Copyleft/GPL Enables That
It also imperils security.
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: Lynx in the 'Modern' Web and 'Overcooked' (Plagiarised by LLM) Code
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2026: Java Needs Seawall, Egypt Blasted for Arbitrary Detention of Activists
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 100 Out of 200: Interlude and Outline of the First Half, 3+ Months That Got Us Death Threats Connected to Brett Wilson LLP (and Cyber Attacks That Are Difficult to Attribute)
This week we plan to have a good time
Banning Things Versus Teaching People the Reason/s to Shun/Boycott Those Things
Prohibition has its limits
Links 07/06/2026: NASA's Mars Maven Declared Dead, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Bemoans Russia's Crackdown
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 06, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 06, 2026
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and "Six Days of Play"
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2026: 'Epstein Problem' in Board of Directors of Microsoft, Surveillance Giant Google Under Legal Threats for Online Misuses
Links for the day
Software Freedom Takes a Lot More Than Coding
some of the roles in the Free software community that don't receive (m)any grateful words
Ubuntu is Losing to Other GNU/Linux Distros
"Linux Mint"
Old Articles Explaining That Patents - Especially Software Patents - Are Bad for Innovation
We've omitted more than 50% of the articles we had gathered as candidates for inclusion
European Patent Office (EPO) Crisis: Huge EPO Strikes, Profound Corruption, and Cocaine Use by Managers Tolerated
These strikes won't be ending any time soon
Why GNU and FSF Will Choose AV1 Over AV2 (It's More Widely Supported)
for the foreseeable future they'll stick with AV1
Mass Layoffs (RAs) and PIPs (Excuses to Sack) at IBM: Insiders Tell No Relation to Actual Performance
If many thousands are impacted by this, then certainly it is newsworthy
Links 06/06/2026: LinkedIn Infested With Spies, Ethernet WiFi Router On Pi Pico 2W
Links for the day
25 Years With PalmOS
That my Palm PDA still works in 2026 (not in mint condition but close to that) says a lot about the "build quality" of gadgets 20+ years ago
Why We Dumped Online Shopping (Groceries)
subsidies kept the "online" stuff artificially cheap
Microsoft Fell to All-Time Low in Monaco Last Month
So says statCounter anyway
Lawsuits That Don't Work
Not as expected anyway
SLAPP Censorship - Part 99 Out of 200: Graveley and Garrett Seem to Have Crashed Brett Wilson LLP (Worse Than Taking Russian Oligarchs as SLAPP Clients)
a state of disarray
Microsoft Has Spent Months Preparing Lists of People to Cull in Massive Wave of Layoffs (Allegedly Start of July)
There is some consensus that we're weeks away from mega-layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/06/2026: "Competing" With LLMs and "Automation of Any Kind"
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2026: 'Linux' Foundation Openwashing Slop on Microsoft's Payroll, Ukraine Wants Permanent Ceasefire With Russia
Links for the day
50% of the 'Gains' Made by "Quantum" Hype Already Evaporated
"It was all hype about quantum nonsense. Heading back to reality now. Expect sub-$220 after earnings release next month."
Heap of Trash Online, Not Just the Fault of LLM Slop But Enabled by Slop
Google News has just promoted a pair of prolific slopfarms
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 05, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 05, 2026