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Here's one! (You didn't think they were serious, did you?)

There is no basis for a case.

Well, it doesn't seem to be a problem for some people...

D McBride

Of course they all look alike to me...

McBride: We think we have protection under both the GPL and copyright law.

And we're completing ignoring the fact that we've stated elsewhere that we believe the GPL violates the United States Constitution and the U.S. copyright and patent laws (part of reason #5 in SCO's Five Reasons to Choose Unix over Linux)

"SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the United States Constitution and the U.S. copyright and patent laws. . . ." "Based on the views of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, we believe that adoption and use of the GPL by significant parts of the software industry was a mistake. The positions of the Free Software Foundation and Red Hat against proprietary software are ill-founded and are contrary to our system of copyright and patent laws. We believe that responsible corporations throughout the IT industry have advocated use of the GPL without full analysis of its long-term detriment to our economy. We are confident that these corporations will ultimately reverse support for the GPL, and will pursue a more responsible direction.

In the meantime, the U.S. Congress has authorized legal action against copyright violators under the Copyright Act and its most recent amendment, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. SCO intends to fully protect its rights granted under these Acts against all who would use and distribute our intellectual property for free, and would strip out copyright management information from our proprietary code, use it in Linux, and distribute it under the GPL. "

"SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the United States Constitution and the U.S. copyright and patent laws. . . ." "Based on the views of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, we believe that adoption and use of the GPL by significant parts of the software industry was a mistake. The positions of the Free Software Foundation and Red Hat against proprietary software are ill-founded and are contrary to our system of copyright and patent laws. We believe that responsible corporations throughout the IT industry have advocated use of the GPL without full analysis of its long-term detriment to our economy. We are confident that these corporations will ultimately reverse support for the GPL, and will pursue a more responsible direction.

In the meantime, the U.S. Congress has authorized legal action against copyright violators under the Copyright Act and its most recent amendment, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. SCO intends to fully protect its rights granted under these Acts against all who would use and distribute our intellectual property for free, and would strip out copyright management information from our proprietary code, use it in Linux, and distribute it under the GPL. "

THOSE RAT BASTARDS!!!! I had prior art! Goddamn them!

There's only one thing to do now. If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

But, sadly, your joke has, in fact, been brought to, um, light. Sorry.

Everybody is a critic :) I was just trying to get into the apparent /. spirit of Apr 1st. I've been ridiculed in almost every reply. Oh well :)

I thought SCO were the litigious bastards?

Also, that IBM is filing for this judgement now doesn't mean that the judge will rule on this next week. AFAI understand, this judgement will just be part of the final ruling on the case.

Exactly. Some people are confusing declaratory judgement (i.e. asking the judge to produce a definitive ruling on a matter... eventually) with summary judgement (i.e. asking the judge to throw the litigious bastards out of court now, because they have no case).

Am I the only person who was on the internet pre-1998? Every day I see a patent relating to things that were plaguing us in 1995, and a company that honestly believes they can claim "2% of... the $9.5bn income this method generates".

Darl McBride - President SCO Group - Thankless Bastard

Shouldn't that be Darl McBride - President SCO Group - Litigious Bastard?

So, in closing. Downloading software is illegal. Fucking consumers is immoral.


Correction: Downloading illegally available software is illegal.

Case in point: I have a free, free-to-download test program available at my site (see sig) that checks if the PC you run it on is capable of running my retail program that is available for purchase there.

zerocool complains about high-priced (overpriced) software as is his/her right in the USA under the First Amendment to the Constitution Of America.

The reality: Software development costs MONEY and should be compensated for if desired by the creators of said software.

The facts....

The computer(s) the software is developed on costs money (unless said computer(s) were donated for free).

The electricity powering the computer costs money (unless it is being generated from a free and/or donated source).

The programmer(s) who programmed the software cost money (unless they are donating their time and skills for free).

The advertising for the software costs money (unless it is being done for free somehow).

The distribution expenses to distribute the software to the recipients cost money (unless it is being done for free somehow).

Companies and individuals have invested lots of time and money in the software they create and sell. They found needs/markets for certain kinds of software and wrote the software to fill those needs/markets. Big companies have to sell software for big bucks to recoup the expenses in creating, maintaining, and distributing said software. They also are entitled to profit from their software which should be reinvested back into the company--not wasted.

For example, look at the 'gross profit margin' on a retail CD copy of Windows: $179.00 or so for a round thin sandwich of plastics and metal that has an intrinsic value of maybe $1.00. That $179.00 Windows CD allowed everybody, from the end user/customer up to Microsoft itself, to profit and benefit from the manpower and technology invested in it to create it and to benefit from its power as a computer operating system.

Ok, let's cut to the chase....

Windows is a kludge, based on code dating back to the dawn of the PC era.

Microsoft is a monopoly.

Even in this environment, the customer STILL has alternatives such as Apple and Linux -- SCO problems with commercial Linux use aside (which can be resolved.

If you want to avoid paying for high-priced software, use cheaper/free software or buy/legally get for free the necessary software tools to write your own custom programmed software solutions.

To address the second part of zerocool's comment, I offer the the following as some of the societal results of 'people as consumers -- not customers'. This has created a desparate, adversarial environment in which commerce and 'consumers' meet in an inevitable clusterfsck....

Wal-Mart, their business practices and its consequenses.

Ad creep. Even on the Internet. a technique coined and first implemented in 1996.

Email spam.

From SCO's web site:

"Customers can asses using UnixWare in their environment without making costly application program changes. "

Decide for yourself...

Maybe you should buy some stands and change your oil yourself....

Mechanic: That will be $80 for the oil change.
Customer: $80!!!???
Mechanic: Yes sir, $80. $20 for labor and $60 for the oil.
Customer: Why did the oil cost so much?
Mechanic: Well, you have one of those new hybrid cars - they don't use a lot of gas, but boy they like oil!

//Sorry for sending the comment father off topic - I'm back now (sort of)

I hate having a bunch of 1 quart bottles around when my car takes 5 of them. Anyone know of any other place that sells oil that way?
My truck takes 5 quarts and I've found that Autozone carries them in specific brands. Check it out. As an extra plus, moving some extra business to Autozone would probably piss SCO off.

Actually, the RIAA has taken a chapter out of "How to make a buck!" by these people

I hear it's a best seller. And NYTimes claims that it will be the new business model to follow for years to come.

Some fun stuff to be had over at netcraft.
The ACCC runs linux
Also funny is that SCO lists McDonalds as a SCO licensee in their 5 reasons to use unix instead of linux ad, yet McDonalds.com.au chooses to use windows for its public site.

I'm sure there's tons of other funny things to find, but its bedtime for this linux criminal. Thankfully being a criminal is something Australia considers a proud heritage, so I'm OK! ;)

I'm all for spending 1 trillion dollars if I have a shot at being that lucky guy on Mars. Well, if it comes from the right place...

Aha. I see that your experience taught you a valuable lesson: how to lie with confidence. Please visit our website and submit your resume!

What about press releases?

I'll let you guess the exact pronunciation.

there are more companies doing that

(Not everyone can work that link into a legitimate post)

No, no, no... he's not a "lawsuit-happy kind of guy". He and SCO are litigious bastards

Yeah, I was kinda disappointed too. I guess I'll just have to /. Darl's email again. Why don't you all write Darl and ask him if he likes spam as much as Mr.Soto.

This attitude is wrong at SO many levels. New players can't enter the OS space NOT because they will have to compete against marketing schemes/ad campaigns of a richer company BUT because they'll be sued into oblivion by the competition.

It is being assumed here that a company with $85 million in the bank won't be able to survive because they don't have money to survive a LAWSUIT...the quality of their products/service/innovation apparently doesn't even enter the equation anywhere.

litiguous fucking bastards

Essentially I'd be profiting of the design of the Gameboy without paying any money to Nintendo. This would be wrong. Right?

Nope. You are not automatically entitled to make money off any work you chose to do, or to prevent others from benefiting for free. Society has certain laws that let you do so in special cases and which were supposed to promote overall progress and wealth. A clean re-implementation is not covered.

Anyhow, these laws are lately abused by a bunch of leeches who are trying to profit from other peoples' success while doing little or no work themselves. I hope backlash is coming soon and IP laws will be restricted in various cases, including the one of downloading a ROM for a GBA game you own.

Don't you mean call SCO? :)

Dow theorists say everything known is built into the market price for a security. When the stock was flying at near $20, the market assumed there was an angel backing the lawsuit. Perhaps, B.G. could be funding this thing out of change he found between his couch cushions.

The scheme only works when the angel can act behind the scenes. This angel is powerless to act in the bright light of day. The light is shining brightly on this "obscure" little Utah company.
I was sick of this case, but now that Microsoft is linked, people who were not previously interested have perked up.

The market has finally seen this and the stock is headed back to sub $1 levels within the couple of weeks. BTW, SCO should hold off their buy-back program until then, because their "money" will go much further on the 21st.

The stock is already too close to $8.50 to avert hitting the baystar trigger. They did everything they could to hold the $13 range and that failed.

You've got it the wrong way around ...

They've spliced snake brain capacity, 800-pound gorilla brain capacity, and dinosaurs brain capacity into humans.

Word is, they've spliced human brain capacity into snakes, 800-pound gorillas, and dinosaurs.

What news are they reporting? It's not news when you whine about why phone numbers didn't work and why you could get in touch with attributions (Anderer, Sontag, etc.). It's not news when you start a paragraph with "That leaves us, for now, with a couple of major unanswered questions." News reporters answer questions; they don't ask them. And it's not news when your story is speckled with "imagine all the partnering," "Anderer appears to be" and "what you smell cooking in the kitchen is usually what is served."

Give me a break. I'm all for Linux advocacy, but let me know when you have some real news.

litigious bastards

SCO has been on a slow plunge since Dec-Jan currently they're around 11 bucks a share from their 20 dollar high, with this announcement. I found particularly funny this graph.

I am not a stock speculator, but I do recognize that even with the "percieved" artificial inflation some are suggesting (aka market/stock manipulation) the price is still falling. IMO even the stockholders aren't believing this crock anymore.

Check out reason #5 of SCO's reason to choose SCO UNIX(R) instead of Linux(R).

Actually, that's the old Caldera logo. The SCO Group logo looks like this. Though why they have a tree in their logo is beyond me. Must be some bizarre Mormon thing.

No, it would be much better to kidnap him for the ten minutes it would take to tatto Lying litigous bastard On his forehead.

As much as I d onot think that ours is the government that it should be (see U.S. Constitution), I still think it beats any other form out there today.

Let's give them a nice slashdot welcome!

The chick on the homepage is kind of cute. I wonder if she knows she's being exploited by SCO to make their image more "down home, cutie". Lol, those dirty bastards.

You're correct- should be "toed". She toed the line of the law, keeping her site and her impact true to her aim. Now Darl & co (er, scumsucking litigious bastards wasn't it?) have no amunition.

Sue the litigious bastards. They'd sue you.

Darl is now a paranoid litigous bastard

Darl's a lawsuit-happy kind of guy, I wonder if he's been a plaintiff in any medical suits too? Why don't you all email him and ask?

You probably mean lying extortionary bastards

> Of course it's unethical, but you name one business that hasn't done something unethical for the sake of their company.

Why, that's easy... SCO!

They wouldn't do anything unethical because they have these rules, you know.

Perhaps that's how SCO litigious bastards got their copy of Linus ABI headers.

c) SCO's website is back up.

No. 1 is EV1Servers.net who announced SCO lied about how much they were paid (Microsoft is a fan of EV1)
(little did the CEO know when he made the deal that SCO planned to 'worth' him out of seven figures)

No. 2 is CompterAssociates who announced SCO lied about "linux licenses" which are really from an unrelated settlement

No. 3 is Leggett and Platt say SCO lies and they don't have a license and "would not have an interest in doing so"

No. 4 is Questar Gas said they just wanted to get things over with and also runs Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) on Windows 2000


Make sure *you* are Legally Unencumbered(tm) by getting a SCOsores license
and don't forget to head over and sign your Clean Slate contract with the RIAA