Microsoft Corp has been ordered by a US federal judge to hand over its prized Windows 95 source code to Caldera Inc, the Orem, Utah company which is pursuing a private antitrust lawsuit against the Redmond giant. The source code – said by Microsoft to be the most valuable piece of intellectual property in the world – can only be used for the purposes of litigation and can only be disclosed to Caldera’s attorneys and witnesses. Caldera CEO Bryan Sparks said neither he nor any other Caldera employees would see the code and that Caldera will seek what he describes as other case management hearings similar in nature to Tuesday’s to gain access to other Microsoft documents it wants to see, including Microsoft’s database of MS-DOS and Windows licensing agreements. Microsoft has five days to hand over the code. Sparks says Caldera is in the home stretch now. The case proper is to be heard in June next year. The news comes at a time when accusations, allegations, private and federal lawsuits are piling up against Microsoft. The ruling follows a February 10 amendment to Caldera’s suit which allowed it to include Windows 95 in its charge. The suit says Microsoft put Windows 4.0 and DOS 7.0 together to create Windows 95 specifically to kill off competition. Caldera – which says it wants to be a mainstream operating system vendor – says the two are illegally tied together to create the impression that DOS on the desktop is dead. Caldera can run Windows 4.0 on its DR DOS MS-DOS equivalent, proving, it says, that in fact there is no real technical dependence between the two. Under Tuesday’s ruling Caldera gets access to Windows 95 source as well as beta releases and MS-DOS code to support its allegations. Sparks says that as Windows 95 and Windows 98 are architecturally so similar it will argue to the court that whatever applies to Windows 95 should also apply to Windows 98; it won’t be seeking Windows 98 source.
Novell considered suit
DR-DOS is the Digital Research operating system that lost the biggest deal in IT history when Microsoft bought an alternative operating system from Seattle Software to supply to IBM for use on its personal computer. Novell Inc – then run by Redmond’s sworn enemy Ray Noorda – bought up DR DOS. It went to one of Noorda’s other ventures in 1996, namely Caldera, after he quit Novell. On the day in 1996 that Caldera bought from Novell, Caldera lodged a private antitrust suit against Microsoft seeking the money it claims Redmond has cheated DR-DOS out of over ten years. Now Novell itself, as the previous owner of DR-DOS has also been dragged into the case. Novell halted its development of DR-DOS in 1994 and sold it to Caldera, which gave Caldera the right to sue Microsoft in Novell’s place. As a result Caldera was handed hundreds of boxes of Novell paperwork which the court also ordered be turned over to Microsoft as it defends itself. Novell didn’t want their contents revealed – but the court rejected its appeal – because they detail a plan Novell had some years ago to launch an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft. In the event Novell never filed it; as far as it got was to register a complaint with the European Commission. Novell has a significant interest in the suit’s outcome because after an initial $10m, Novell’s licensing agreement with Caldera reportedly entitles Novell to collect 18% of Caldera’s first $50m and 22% of subsequent revenue. Any damages awarded in the suit are a source of revenue. Where punitive damages are awarded in antitrust suits the amount is usually trebled. Because of the potential size of any settlement, Caldera’s lawyers are said to be taking the case on contingency. Caldera doesn’t say who is funding the suit, but says it isn’t coming out of company coffers.
