Did SCO actually buy what it thought it bought?

Just before Christmas last year, Novell announced publicly that SCO had known for some time that it did not receive all rights and ownership to UNIX
technologies, despite public statements to the contrary. Novell has made public correspondence between lawyers representing both Novell and SCO. Read
these in their entirety – they are quite enlightening.

These letters finally start getting to the heart of the mysterious “Amendment No. 2” which SCO referred to publicly in a press release dated June 6,
claiming it transferred “everything” to them and which Novell claimed never existed – Novell’s legal team is adamant that no copy ever existed in
their files. Bruce Lowry, director of public relations at Novell told me today, “We’ve acknowledged publicly that Amendment 2 is valid, although we
have not said we agree with SCO’s interpretation of Amendment 2. As we said on December 22, we believe we’ve retained the ownership of UNIX copyrights
and have registered those with the US Copyright Office.”

In two letters sent to Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO, dated June 26 and August 4, 2003, Joseph A. LaSala, Novell’s general counsel
specifically refutes recent claims by SCO regarding transfer and ownership of “all rights to the UNIX and UnixWare technology” as announced in the
June 6 press release.