Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell by Any Other Name

Stone textures



Summary: TSG is SCO's new name and Novell falls under the wing of AttachMSFT

HERE at Techrights we have been keeping track of SCO since the very beginning of the site. There is a lot of overlap between Novell and SCO, not just because of their legal battle. But a lesser known or insufficiently explored aspect of the comparison is their relationship to Microsoft. Both companies used to contribute to Linux before turning rogue and their reputations declined very rapidly as a result. It did not really require sites like Groklaw (which ends next week) to make it happen, but such sites did produce evidence and analysis that fueled other sites. In this age of the Internet and the World Wide Web, one site always builds upon the work of others, usually within hours or days. So by showing refutations of the allegations from SCO the company's critics soon made it a laughing stock and no amount of PR or AstroTurfing could counter that.



There are parallels in Novell's case. Novell worked hard on marketing the goods and promoting the perception that it was a good "open source" citizen whilst at the same time fulfilling its commitments to Microsoft. Part of Novell's PR was attacking me personally. I disrupted their reality distortion field. Even now there is this new event that we mentioned last month for the confusing role it serves. It is called the 2011 Future of Open Source Forum and it is influenced by friends of Microsoft and Novell, which will participate despite the fact that Novell is not an open source company, it only pretends to be one, probably for karma.

Groklaw continues to cover Novell's legal cases, but it probably remains for others to do as the site will cease posting new material. Who is going to gather PDFs from the cases and present them in HTML form? What about public discussion about the court proceedings? If nobody else does it, maybe Techrights Legal will (we need volunteers, so please contact us if you can lend a hand). Now that another round in the Novell vs. Microsoft case is expected, it is clear that nothing is truly over or resolved. What will these cases be renamed? The TSG vs. AttachMSFT case? Yes, SCO is nymshifting again:

Formerly known as. Like they're a rock star. The et al references SCO Operations, Inc., now to be known as TSG Operations, Inc., which doesn't make a lot of sense, if you think deeply, but then, this is SCO. I assume that this is because SCO sold the trade name to unXis, and unXis will be selling the software products. I say I assume, because SCO's filing [PDF] with the court was an APA with many things left blank, including, as far as a quick check indicates, who gets the name SCO. Then again, does anyone want it? Here's a question. What about the headers on the documents in SCO v. IBM or SCO v. Novell? I mean, exactly who is who going forward? Is anyone going forward? That's the real question.

The odd thing is, Novell is now Attachmate's property, so that is changed, and SCO sold its software assets to unXis, but it retained the prior litigation, so that changed, and the lenders appear to be no longer in harmony with SCO or each other, so that's a change, and so who exactly is SCO nowadays? If SCO is TSG, who is SCO? Nobody? Or is unXis going to call itself unXiSCO like the domain name?

Maybe nobody wants to be called SCO. Maybe it's like a mobster entering the witness protection program.


Blackwater did the same.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete