I want to mention that all the currently extant BSDs are pretty much immune to SCO as a result of the AT&T lawsuit. ESR even cites, and I think he does a good job here, the decision by saying that it may even a priori nullify SCO's claims against Linux.
BSD is a whole different kettle of fish.
I do think Bruce is right on when he mentions all the books having been published about UNIX internals and so on. I definitely don't think that SCO could stand on "trade secrets" for a second.
Along the same lines, I'm going to followup on something that just struck me about Novell's claims.
The SCO that is suing IBM today is not the same SCO that "acquired" UNIX or whatever rights they acquired from Novell. The current management of SCO, AFAIK, are basically Caldera. We all know that Caldera bought part of SCO including the name and after about a year, switched names from Caldera to SCO.
The current management may very well be mistaken about the terms of the deal that previous management made with Novell. They may think that they actually own more than they do. It could be that they were misled when working out the deal to buy SCO, or that previous management simply didn't explain the terms of the deal in a way that was understood by Caldera.
If the above is true, and SCO management truly are confused on what they own and Novell are correct in their assertions, they are going to have some serious explaining to do, particularly to shareholders who will likely slap management with a class action lawsuit for failure to do due diligence. I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it all plays out in the end.
It could also be that they know what they acquired from Novell, and that their role is to pass along licensing revenue to Novell, as stated in their 10Q. If so, then they are misrepresenting themselves as copyright owners when they more like copyright administrators. They may or may not have the right to pursue legal action in this case, but obviously they, and David Boies, think they do. Of course, what big cases has David Boies won, lately?
Bruce also aked: > BTW: Does anyone know how the Dutch stand with respect to IP rights? > Especially software patents.
I know only that the EU gov't is or was considering software patents, and that there was a big to-do on Slashdot with lots of people posting how to get in touch with EU representatives to voice opinions on the matter. With the majority of us on the list not being citizens of EU member nations, it wouldn't do much good for us to contact them. Though, as I recall, Richard Stallman among others had been invited to speak before a committee in the EU parliament that is considering the legislation.
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