SCO is prepared to stump Novell's SuSE deal

More cash for the cronies

By Ashlee Vance in Chicago • Get more from this author

Posted in Servers, 18th November 2003 16:10 GMT

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SCO's CEO Darl "Mr. Clean" McBride is threatening legal action against Novell should its buy of SuSE be completed. The SCO chief laid down the law, so to speak, in a revealing interview with IDG News Service.

The SCO Group is charging that Novell's purchase of SuSE would put it in violation of a non-compete agreement signed between Novell and The Santa Cruz Operation. The non-compete deal was part of the Unix System V software agreement the two companies forged in 1995.

"When (The Santa Cruz Operation) sold us the property, included in the property was a non-compete," McBride told IDG News Service. "Last time I checked, Linux was intended to compete with our core products."

Add the non-compete agreement on to SCO's concerns about Novell's right to sell Linux, and you have a huge potential mess.

In related news, SCO expressed its litigation love to Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in the form of a $9m pay-out. SCO announced that it will hand over $1m in cash and 400,000 shares of SCO stock valued at close to $7.9 million to keep up the fight against IBM, Red Hat and the Linux community at large.

It's certainly a shame to see SCO eye its Utah neighbor as another revenue opportunity. Novell is doing its best to revive a Microsoft crushed business and return to better times. SCO, on the other hand, is seeing a once solid business erode, as a result of its Linux war. ®