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SCO is prepared to stump Novell's SuSE deal

More cash for the cronies

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. ®

Related Link

IDG's McBride interview

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