Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell's Legal Cases in Attachmate's Hands

Summary: Will AttachMSFT decide to go against Microsoft or just bury the case instead? What about the SCO case? We survey some of the latest developments inside the company

NOVELL has the opportunity to sue Microsoft and win. Well, actually, it is AttachMSFT that has this opportunity, but what will be the fate of this long-standing case? Microsoft loves to appeal endlessly until the other side gives up and/or goes bust. It is an inherent flaw in the legal system.



In the latest round of antitrust lawsuit we have Novell winning an appeal, as we noted earlier this month. Here are the legal papers and here is some assorted coverage [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. There is also a lot of coverage from Microsoft spinners [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], who would love to pretend that the age of the case somehow makes Microsoft "innocent". Longtime Microsoft booster Todd Bishop says that Attachmate is the "Proud owner of a 20-year-old Microsoft antitrust dispute" and other reports that mostly reuse text say:

In ruling on Tuesday May 3rd, the appeals court dismissed that judgment made in a lower court, saying that the previous agreement with Caldera covered a different set of products. Hence, Novell can proceed with the long-running antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, reports Reuters (News - Alert), an International multimedia news agency.


In this case -- just like in the SCO case -- it is difficult to just speculate whether or not there will be persistence after large-scale layoffs. We sincerely hope that both cases will still be pursued. There are other legal cases and what probably matters most to AttachMSFT is whether these are worth money, not reputation.

In other news, Novell no longer appears in financial news, for obvious reaxons. It is not really a publicly-traded company when the acquisition is over (finalised sale now), which leaves a lot of the internal activities undisclosed. We expect to have very little to say about Novell in the future. Novell was taken off the S&P (which is a fact still to be mentioned in Murdoch's paper, even a week late).

Novell's insecure software will most likely survive, even old products like eDirectory, which was mentioned here very recently regarding malfunctions and errors. There are Novell placements in ZDNet, but these too advertise proprietary software.

Here is some news about Paul Singer the very unethical, reckless man who essentially put Novell on sale against the company's will:

One song Elliott Management’s Paul Singer still isn’t singing is the praises of the Dodd-Frank bill, especially its attempts to identify which institutions could pose systemic risk to the financial markets.

“I think it’s entirely nutty, and I’m using that term in the most technical sense,” the hedge fund manager said Friday during a panel discussion on the “too big to fail” legislation at the American Bankruptcy Institute’s annual New York conference in Midtown Manhattan.

That made people laugh, but Singer, whose $17 billion firm is one of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s largest creditors, said seriously that big banks still have trillions of dollars in derivatives on their books that still require only modest disclosure.


This vulture fund of his is no better. That is a subject we explored before (see links below). Novell is not his last victim and based on his past deeds he is better off arrested like Madoff.

  1. Novell May be Going Private, Hedge Fund Has Cash
  2. Analyst Expects Microsoft Bid to Buy Novell
  3. Ron Hovsepian Receives Another Large Lump of Cash as Novell Sale Looms
  4. GNU/Linux-Savvy Writers View Elliot Associates as Bad Neighbourhood
  5. Firm Behind Novell Bid Has Shady Past, Could be Tied to Microsoft (Paul E. Singer's 'Vulture Fund')
  6. Simon Phipps: “Seems Even With Microsoft’s Support Novell Couldn’t Cut It”
  7. Vulture Fund Still the Only Bidder for Novell




Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually