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Novell Objects to SCO's Request for More Time; Suggests There May Be No SNCP Deal

By Pamela Jones et al.

Finally, someone is saying it out loud: Novell has filed a Response to SCO's 3rd Motion to Extend Exclusivity, and in it Novell says that perhaps there is no Steven Norris deal. And it asks the court to "look carefully and skeptically" at SCO's request for an indefinite extension:

If one asks a series of illuminating questions -- why SCO cannot propose a plan without a final judgment given what it now knows from the District Court Litigation and its apparent contention that it does not need to have a result in the Arbitration, how convincing its claim is that it cannot proceed now because others want to know when the appeal will begin, why SCO in all these months since beginning to restructure its deal with SNCP has not been able to do that despite allegedly working at it diligently and why SCO has continued to avoid restarting the Arbitration -- one sees in the obvious lack of good answers to any of these questions accumulating evidence that SCO simply is stalling. Perhaps SCO really has no prospective deal with SNCP or anyone else; perhaps SCO hopes to pressure Novell into either an appeal of only a partial result in the District Court Litigation or into settling the litigation altogether to get it over with. Either way, the Court has additional reason to deny the Third Extension Motion. Stalling is not "cause" to extend the deadlines.

If anyone has time to OCR this for me, I'd appreciate it greatly. Remember, the hearing on SCO's motion is set for September 16. That hearing should be smoking.

Full post as published by Groklaw on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).