In a letter to SCO and sent to IBM Corp, dated February 11, Novell informed the IP litigant that IBM/Sequent is not subject to confidentiality obligations or use restrictions relating to Sequent’s SVRX license.
In its $5bn action, SCO claims IBM/Sequent misused its Unix System V intellectual property by contributing 148 lines of code relating to non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA) and remove copy update (RCU) from Dynix into versions 2.4 and 2.5 of the Linux kernel.
As a result, SCO last summer terminated IBM’s Unix System V license relating to Dynix. IBM, meanwhile, maintained it has an irrevocable and perpetual Unix license.
Novell, though, says SCO is not the owner of Unix and therefore does not have the right to grant and take away companies’ Unix licenses. Novell claims it owns the copyright on Unix despite the sale it made of the original AT&T Unix to SCO 1996.
As such, Novell wrote to SCO in a letter dated February 6 asking the company to waive its claim that Sequent code is subject to confidentiality agreements or restricted use through the SRVX license. Novell gave SCO until noon Wednesday to act.
Having failed to respond, Novell issued published its second letter saying it was acting on SCO’s behalf.
Responding to Novell, SCO said it had no intention of waiving any of its rights against Sequent or IBM. A company spokesperson added: Novell has no rights to step in and challenge or alter the source code license agreements that SCO owns and holds with its Unix licensees.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
