CaPTaiN Microsoft

Summary: Novell's UNIX is moving to other hands and there is insufficient confidence that it will stay in safe hands

GROKLAW is down at the moment (has been down for a while), but it showed that SCO's bankruptcy hearing had been delayed yet again (it happens all the time, repeatedly [1, 2, 3, 4]). It is becoming a source of comedy and ridicule working to the detriment of the legal system.

The SCO case has just proceeded as expected (covered a few days ago). Groklaw has some reports:

Our reporter at the oral argument in SCO's appeal of its loss to Novell before the jury and before the judge in Utah District Court today has now filed his reports. It sounds from the reports like it went quite well for Novell, although we can't be sure until the order issues, which could be months.

Would it amaze you if I told you that the report shows that SCO raised an entirely new argument today for the first time? That's a no-no. Well, they are The Amazings. Also, SCO's version of what the 10th Circuit ruling was after its first appeal is ... well, read it for yourself, and you will see why the judges kept correcting SCO today.

Earlier today we found some articles which speak about Groklaw's interpretation of SCO, Novell, Microsoft, and AttachMSFT [sic]. Groklaw opined that AttachMSFT may sell UNIX and/or the remainder of Novell's patents to some entity which is hostile towards Linux. This relates to the patents passed by Novell to CPTN -- a serious subject which was previously covered in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. It is a sort of cartel, but there are more such cartels which are strongly connected to Microsoft and help mimic in an aggressive fashion something like OIN (mind the new press release "OIN Licensing Strength Continues in Fourth Quarter as OIN Announces Expanded Effort on Licensing the Linux User Community"), where their goal is to attack companies and attack Linux, unlike the OIN which merely defends something.

Erika Morphy from ECT has this recent article about it, predating the FSF's complaint which was announced at its site as follows:

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Free Software Foundation (FSF) have sent a joint position statement to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), urging it to scrutinize Novell's proposal to sell patents to the newly-formed CPTN Holdings. Both organizations believe that CPTN Holdings may use these patents to attack free, libre, and open source (FLOSS) software. The full text of the statement follows.

Simon Phipps' post was also aired in a Red hat site and the OSI's announcement came from a Red Hat employee (both of them are in the OSI too). The main point to reiterate here is that CPTN may get more than it bargained for, depending on what AttachMSFT decides at a later date. UNIX too may be up for grabs, so something in this relationship needs to be derailed. Just about every single body/company with vested interests in Free/open source software wants CPTN to be starved or decommissioned. Coincidence? ⬆