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A Significant Novell Press Release Post-Amendment 2 Says Novell Sold "UnixWare product lines"

By Pamela Jones et al.

I just found a Novell press release dated November 26, 1996, which makes it *after* the October 16th, 1996 Amendment 2 was signed. Guess what it says Novell sold off to Santa Cruz? "The UnixWare product lines". I'm pretty excited about digging this up.

SCO is arguing in its Reply Bried in its appeal that Amendment 2 changed the excluded assets language of the APA so that it gave SCO the copyrights and everything:

The exclusion of all copyrights was subsequently amended in Amendment No. 2 so that copyrights "required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition of UNIX and UnixWare technologies" were not excluded from the sale, and thus remained within the encompassing reach of all "right, title and interest," including all "ownership" rights in UNIX and UnixWare that was sold to SCO. This appeal focuses on whether these contractual agreements, and the evidence surrounding them, properly allow a finding that none of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights were required by SCO to exercise its rights in the UNIX and UnixWare technologies it acquired.

But here in this press release, we see what Novell told the world it sold, and once again, it was just the UnixWare business, the UnixWare product lines. No mention of UNIX at all, by the way. Let me show you the press release, because I think this knocks SCO's arguments out.

Full post as published by Groklaw on November 19, 2010 (boomark / email).