folks, sorry for the long message, but thot it was important enuff as some sites displaying the news are out of action. pc. Novell Challenges SCO Position, Reiterates Support for Linux PROVO, Utah — May 28, 2003 — Defending its interests in developing services to operate on the Linux platform, Novell today issued a dual challenge to The SCO Group over its recent statements regarding its UNIX ownership and potential intellectual property rights claims over Linux. First, Novell challenged SCO's assertion that it owns the copyrights and patents to UNIX System V, pointing out that the asset purchase agreement entered into between Novell and SCO in 1995 did not transfer these rights to SCO. Second, Novell sought from SCO facts to back up its assertion that certain UNIX System V code has been copied into Linux. Novell communicated these concerns to SCO via a letter (text below) from Novell® Chairman and CEO Jack Messman in response to SCO making these claims. "To Novell's knowledge, the 1995 agreement governing SCO's purchase of UNIX from Novell does not convey to SCO the associated copyrights," Messman said in the letter. "We believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights. Apparently you share this view, since over the last few months you have repeatedly asked Novell to transfer the copyrights to SCO, requests that Novell has rejected." "SCO claims it has specific evidence supporting its allegations against the Linux community," Messman added. "It is time to substantiate that claim, or recant the sweeping and unsupported allegation made in your letter. Absent such action, it will be apparent to all that SCO's true intent is to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Linux in order to extort payments from Linux distributors and users." "Novell has answered the call of the open source community," said Bruce Perens, a leading proponent of open source. "We admire what they are doing. Based on recent announcements to support Linux with NetWare services and now this revelation…Novell has just won the hearts and minds of developers and corporations alike." Text of the letter from Novell to SCO: can be found at the url noted below. -----> http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html
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