We have
at last Novell's
appeal brief [PDF] in the private antitrust case
Novell brought against Microsoft regarding WordPerfect. The brief was filed with the
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. It begins: "This case has been here before."
Indeed. Here's
the decision from the US District Court in Maryland that Novell is appealing, as text.
But there's more. Microsoft is fighting to keep certain documents it alleges the judge in the district court didn't base his ruling on from being considered by the court of appeals. Here's the Microsoft
Motion to Strike [PDF]. Warning: it's 75 pages long, including all the exhibits. The full title is Motion to Strike Certain Exhibits from the Joint Appendix and Any References to Such Documents in Novell's Brief. Microsoft is relying in part on some cases Novell already pointed out to Microsoft don't apply, as I'll show you.
But the case is interesting also on a tech level, because, in my view, the judge doesn't understand fully the difference between an operating system and an application. He ruled that WordPerfect is, under the relevant APA, an associated DOS operating system product and hence covered by the
DR DOS litigation Caldera brought successfully against Microsoft. Because he lumped them together in a jujitsu way, accepting Microsoft's position, he found for Microsoft on summary judgment.
That reminds me, because Groklaw is now in the Library of Congress's digital collection, accessible if you visit the library, I have been taking time to try to fix older broken links, and I just finished updating the links in the
US v. Microsoft litigation section, part of our permanent page on
Microsoft Litigation, to include the famous video moment, the doctored video. There are links now to Ed Felten's
testimony [PDF] that you could indeed uninstall IE in Windows 98, the
trial exhibits, the
depositions used, and
direct testimony transcripts. including the
transcript of the cross examination of Microsoft's Jim Allchin by David Boies, the
famous Perry Mason moment. The transcript is, ironically enough, in Microsoft's .doc format, but if you don't have Microsoft Windows and don't wish to buy it, you can
download OpenOffice.org for free, as in beer and as in freedom, thanks in part to all the antitrust rulings in the US and the EU and then thanks to all the volunteers who worked so hard to give us a viable alternative, and you'll be able to read it just fine.
If you notice any broken links, particularly on our permanent pages, please let me know. Being included in the Library of Congress is a great honor that I feel deeply, and when I disappear on the weekends somewhat these days, it's because I'm feeling that responsibility, knowing our work is available to researchers there who might not otherwise know about Groklaw, and I want to be sure our historical collections are as accurate as human limitations and the constantly changing Internet allow, so they are optimally useful. Also, I continue to work on completing our collection of exhibits in the
Comes v. Microsoft antitrust case, some of which turned out to be relevant in the
Novell v. Microsoft case, so if you'd like to help finish up, just go
here, find any numbered PDF that isn't described or available in full as text, and do either a description or a transcript following the general style you see others have used, and then post what you find in plain text, ideally with HTML done and showing, or email me by clicking on the envelope icon. Thank you.
But let's take a look at the latest dispute in the
Novell v. Microsoft appeal.
More...
