Note that Exhibit A is attached to the main document this time, not detached. You'll find it on page 14. And from that we see that Tanner's time was spent on SEC reviews and corporate tax preparation and "other tax services" which are not explained. But it lists Tim Brinton as doing it, and he's a Senior Tax Accountant at Tanner. I don't know what they'll call him when he's 60. He's a 2004 graduate of Brigham Young University, according to LinkedIn. Tanner looks like a fun place to work if you're young. Lots of sports.

Speaking of fun, I hope some of you are planning to make it to the hearing on the 16th.

We also have some extra filings from the case, thanks to Novell and Microsoft attaching them as exhibits to documents they filed in the Novell v. Microsoft antitrust case, currently in discovery in US District Court in Maryland. We'll make a Timeline page for it, and as new documents get filed as exhibits, hopefully we'll be able to flesh it out some more.

I notice from the notations in the PACER list that this must have been a real knock-down, drag-out discovery battle between Caldera and Microsoft, with Novell pulled into the ring too by Microsoft, which sent them four subpoenas. The last one Novell managed to get quashed. I don't believe that is the same as the subpoena that Novell filed as an exhibit [PDF] in the antitrust case, because that exhibit was offered by Novell as evidence of what Microsoft already should have in its files, since it got that discovery in the Caldera v. Microsoft litigation.

Poor Novell. It keeps having to endure the expense of doing this same discovery over and over.

Microsoft politely asked for [PDF] all documents "relating to Novell's sale of PC operating systems claims to Caldera and Novell's involvement with Caldera's case against Microsoft", as well as "all documents produced by parties and third parties" in the Novell v. Canopy case.

Why? Because it is its theory, which it wants to do discovery to demonstrate, that Novell sold all its antitrust claims to Caldera, and that would kill off the two remaining claims Novell has brought against Microsoft in the antitrust case. Microsoft, not satisfied with what Novell produced or its reasons for refusing to produce some documents, brought a Motion to Compel Discovery [PDF] [Memorandum in Support (PDF)], and it has just been granted [PDF].

In Novell's opposition [PDF] to the motion, it attached some exhibits, one of which is the settlement agreement [PDF] in the Caldera v. Microsoft litigation, as Exhibit K.

Finally, we get to read it, all except the exact figure that Microsoft paid to Caldera. But Microsoft does say, in the memorandum in support, on page 9, that Novell got "tens of millions of dollars" from the settlement, and a transcript [PDF] of a hearing in the Caldera litigation hints strongly, on page 9, that Novell contracted to get 20% of any recovery, so you can get an idea of how large the settlement figure was that Canopy received. I know some of you have wondered if that success inspired Caldera to sue IBM to try to get lightning to strike twice. The exhibits are where all the history comes out.

We never did get all the details about the original deal from November of 2006 (Novell's 8K). And now there's this new one, which so far is only described in broad strokes. I wonder if we will be kept in the dark about some of its terms too? Isn't there supposed to be a filing within 10 days or so? How is the public to know whether to invest in either company, if we don't know what the deal's terms are with specificity? Are investors supposed to just guess?

Attorneys for Apple are accusing Psystar Corp., owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza, of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract for building and selling "cloned" computers that run on Apple's Leopard operating system....

Rudy and Robert Pedraza, 24 and 22, grew up tinkering with computers and helping out at their parents' networking and IT business.... "Apple had to sue," attorney Randy Friedberg said Monday from Olshan Law in New York, where he handles intellectual property and technology matters. "They're very protective of their IP and their brand." Friedberg called the lawsuit "far-reaching" because of its demand to recall all computers Psystar has sold, which Apple estimates is in the thousands. "I think Apple's goal was to say: 'Don't screw with us,'" Friedberg said. "And I do believe they'll end up putting these kids out of business."

Someone sent me a link to a comment on the Internet alleging a supposed connection between Psystar and a securities fraud case, but after hours of digging, I believe I can demonstrate that it isn't the same folks. Let me show you what I found.

First let me state the obvious. If Google?s new browser is successful then the desktop operating system just became a lot less important. This is great news for Linux.

That begs the question: If Google?s new browser isn?t even available on Linux, why is this great news for Linux? Because in a world where most people access their applications through a browser it makes little sense to have PC?s that are loaded with a heavy and bloated operating system. In particular in makes a LOT less sense for people to PAY for a heavy and bloated operating system. Count on seeing a Linux version of the Google browser very soon.

Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch said it best.

?When combined with Gears, which allows for offline access (see what MySpace did with Gears to understand how powerful it is), Chrome is nothing less than a full on desktop operating system that will compete head on with Windows.?

Most people are looking at the Google announcement as bringing much needed competition to the web browser front between Microsoft?s IE, Apple?s Safari, and Mozilla?s Firefox. This misses the bigger point. The real battle is about what the future development platform for mobile devices, personal computers, set top boxes, and more.

The last several decades of computing have been ruled by the owner of the development platform. Windows has been successful because the large majority of business applications and consumer applications ran exclusively on that platform. If you wanted to use an accounting application or automate your sales force you needed to run Windows software on your desktop to do it.

Internet applications are changing all of this by making the need for desktop specific code irrelevant. There is an entire generation growing up spending the majority of their time only using a web browser. They are on Facebook, their email is Yahoo mail or Gmail, they shop on Amazon, they use Google apps, they run web based instant messaging clients. That generation will just as easily spend their workdays logged into Salesforce.com or other hosted applications in the Internet cloud.

How does this relate to Linux? The future of the desktop client is moving towards accessing cloud-based applications in a browser through multiple devices and multiple mediums. Wireless phones, set top boxes, netbooks, desktop PC?s over a variety of networks is the future. The personal computer is not the future; it is hundreds of devices running on dozens of chip sets, with thousands of different components that is the future. This is a world where the personal computer starts to be priced and feel more like a cell phone and a cell phone looks more like a PC. In this world Linux is really the only answer. It supports every imaginable chip set. It is free. It can be custom branded. And no single entity can control it and thereby become a bottleneck to innovation.

Google?s vision is perfectly aligned with this world. They have made their browser open source and based on industry standards. They want to maximize the ways in which people can use the browser to create interesting and unexpected applications. They want to make sure that the doorway to the Internet, the web browser, remains free and competitive because for them the internet IS their killer application. Firefox has already gone far to this end and Google will inject even more energy into a competitive open browser. As long as more people use the web Google becomes for successful because search becomes more valuable for them.

Good for the internet. Good for Google. Good for Linux. Not bad.