NOW that Mono is being dropped from Ubuntu (after Attachmate too dumped it) we are somewhat gratified to see the boycott of Novell succeeding.
The case centres around Defence's use of five pieces of Attachmate software in the "Extra!" product family of emulation software. Attachmate sold Defence 8000 licences for a package of software, including Extra! Personal Client 6.5, Extra! for Windows 5.20 and Extra! TCP Bundle Version, as well as Reflection for HP version 4.2, enterprise Access Object Software and KEA! 420.
In the licensing agreement, Defence agreed to use each copy on one computer at a time, transfer software between computers no more than once every 30 days and to not copy the software.
Attachmate had independent auditors from KPMG prepare a report in November 2009, which revealed that Defence was using tens of thousands of copies of the software that it had no licences for.
The memories were trigged by a press release from Attachmate, which is now probably the largest software vendor of things that you don't really care to try or buy, including probably the leading commercial vendor of Reflection, a terminal emulator. For those of you that are still reading, this is a product that allows you to connect to a command-line console (such as Terminal in Mac OS or Windows HyperTerminal).