Sun might have to pay Novell for Open Solaris
Or else...
SUN MICROSYSTEMS might have to pay Novell for taking Solaris open source, says an attorney who's been following the SCO follies.
Lewis A. Mettler points out that one of the judge's rulings in the Novell v. SCO trial was that SCO did not have the authority to amend Sun's UNIX SVRX licence without Novell's consent.
The additional SVRX licence rights that Sun obtained from SCO enabled it to open source Solaris as OpenSolaris... or so it thought. Sun paid SCO $2.5 million for that SVRX licence amendment, Judge Kimball decided. Actually, Sun paid SCO a lot more, about $10 million in total, but $2.5 million is the figure that the judge apportioned for those added SVRX rights.
However, Sun has released OpenSolaris without Novell's permission having been granted, at least, not yet, so the toothpaste is out of that tube and Sun can't put it back in now.
Novell holds all the high cards now, as far as Sun is concerned. Sure, it can choose to take the $2.5 million that Sun paid to SCO, which Judge Kimball ruled SCO failed to turn over and therefore owes to Novell. If and when Novell might eventually collect that from SCO's bankruptcy estate, that is. Sun might consider that Novell collecting the $2.5 million would mean that Novell ratified SCO's action and its SVRX licence amendment, which it might.
Or, Novell's lawyers could call Sun's corporate counsel and invite them into a discussion of how much additional money obtaining the free and clear rights to open source OpenSolaris is worth to Novell and should be worth in real money to Sun. If it doesn't want to get sued, that is.
Novell really has Sun over a barrel here, seeing as how it's distributing an operating system, OpenSolaris, under terms for which a court has already determined that it doesn't have a legally valid licence. Sun cannot afford not to take that phone call from Novell's attorneys.
Now that might be an interesting conversation to hear. Lewis Mettler thinks it will happen. µ
See Also
No
winner in Novell v SCO trial
L'Inq
Lamlaw
Comments
Please clarify ASAP
Implied in this is that Novell could choose to "damage" Sun and Solaris via OpenSolaris, which I think would be a tragedy on a scale nearly equal to what SCO tried to pull off. Should Novell make this situation nasty, that tack combined with their MS deal would make them the #2 overall Unix enemy (if not #1), right there with SCO, IMHO.Old "Cut'n'Paste" Mettler?!?
Lewis Mettler?!?!?!? Oh, *MAN* that takes me back!He used to post absolutely frothing rantings on C/ZDNet back in the 90s! Old "Cut'n'Paste" Mettler we used to call him! I believe he got banned from the C/ZDNet properties eventually for spamming everyone with his nonsense.
Those were *GOOD* times...but I'm not sure I'd put any credibility to his opinions.
If memory serves me correctly
Sun purchased SVR4.0 from Novell around 1993 for 83 million dollars for a perpetual license, and SCO purchased SVR4.2 from Novell around 1995. So basically I believe Sun does not have to pay Novell for Open Solaris.The fine lin
Yep, I'm sure that there is a fine line between wanting to get real facts and trying to make juicy, popular writings but this article is just absurd.Normally I would peg it as being FUD but I think the author is just trying to attract as many "clicks" towards his article and bank on that.
Well... let one thing be clear : Sun held out for years before they opened Solaris precisely because of these rights that Novel has so it would be very quaint if things wouldnt be "cleared".