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Form 4: Statement of changes in beneficial ownership of securities

Jaywalker's link raised on google is fortuitous. The purchaser identified in the APA linked from Groklaw is JDG Management Corp d/b/a York Capital Management. From a recent filing for the purchase of a company in Israel:

The sole shareholder of JGD is James G. Dinan.

York Capital Management is a hedge fund. It invests in a lot of things, but this transaction looks like it might be a personal play. $36 mil is peanuts for this cat. He just paid $21 million for Dennis Koslowski's (remember Tyco?) old apartment

Form 4: Statement of changes in beneficial ownership of securities

Jaywalker's link raised on google is fortuitous. The purchaser identified in the APA linked from Groklaw is JDG Management Corp d/b/a York Capital Management. From a recent filing for the purchase of a company in Israel:

The sole shareholder of JGD is James G. Dinan.

York Capital Management is a hedge fund. It invests in a lot of things, but this transaction looks like it might be a personal play. $36 mil is peanuts for this cat. He just paid $21 million for Dennis Koslowski's (remember Tyco?) old apartment

Stock is like a poker table where each player gets 20% of chips that they currently have every round.

      Where were you in 87 and 2001?

      Also, it seems I am not the only one to see stocks as risky. Specifically:

Day trading is extremely risky and can result in substantial financial losses in a very short period of time.

      Oh sure, it's fairly safe to research a company, buy stocks, and hold them for a long time. I buy stock and hold it for minutes, hours at most, and sell it for very little profit. But I do it several times a day. So in the long run I make much more cash on average than the "buy and hold" types. I earn more than I lose. But there's more risk. Ignoring that would make me complacent.

This is a non-issue, today I did some exploratory research on this, and here is what I found out from their SEC filing:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/934549/000101968707002404/acacia_10q-063007.htm

* According to the SEC filings, Acacia had in the quarter ending in June 36 pending lawsuits against a number of companies (in each case they sue a number of companies, not only one).

* On that same filing they report revenues for the quarter of 5.8 million dollars.

* I counted the number of settlements for a 3-month period from their main web page, they settled with 47 defendants for July, August and September (not the same covered by the SEC, but I went just by what was reported).

* In the June 30th period they had Novell listed as a company they were suing over some portable device patent together with 23 other defendants (H&R Block Digital Tax Solutions, LLC, F/K/A H&R Block Digital Tax Solutions, Inc., Block Financial Corporation, Riverdeep, Inc., Oracle Corporation, SAP America, Inc. d/b/a SAP Americas, SAP AG, Bentley Systems, Inc., SPSS, Inc., Solidworks Corporation, Sonic Solutions, Corel Corporation, Corel, Inc., MISYS PLC, Adtran, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, CA, Inc., UGS Corp., Business Objects Americas, Business Objects SA, Trend Micro Incorporated (California Corporation), EMC Corporation, Borland Software Corporation, Novell, Inc., Compuware Corporation and Avid Technology, Inc).

* There is a press release on their site that states that they settled with Novell on August 30th for this claim.

This means that Acacia is extracting on average 100,000 dollars per company they sue (5 millions divided by the number of settlements). Give or take depending on the fees from their lawyers (which are a million dollars). They spend more money keeping their patents alive than that and are operating at a loss right now (see the SEC filing).

To put things in perspective, getting a legal team in place and sending them to the courthouse would likely have a cost of 20,000 dollars just by showing up at the trial. This is with zero to no research on the case done. If you do some research, get external council and a little bit more, a defendant will probably be spending much more than 100,000 dollars by the time they show up in court.

This is probably why they pretty much settle with everyone, they are minor nuisance; They are a pest, and they have found a niche market where they can extort money from companies without going to court.

The patent is likely bogus, the patent would probably be thrown out of court, it would have no impact on Linux, but my bet is that Novell and Red Hat will settle out of court just because of the economics of it.

tf64

Dude. The SEC is a US Government Agency whose commissioners are appointed by the US President(subject to the senate rubber stamp).

See http://www.sec.gov/about/commissioner.shtml

Much like the FTC, the SEC can and will refuse to investigate or take action on politically sensitive.

Bush could appoint a commissioner who could not only flush his toilet but clean it with a tooth brush and more...

The SEC consists of five presidentially-appointed Commissioners, with staggered five-year terms. One of them is designated by the President as Chairman of the Commission -- the agency's chief executive. By law, no more than three of the Commissioners may belong to the same political party, ensuring non-partisanship. The agency's functional responsibilities are organized into four Divisions and 18 Offices, each of which is headquartered in Washington, DC. The Commission's approximately 3,800 staff are located in Washington and in 11 Regional Offices throughout the country. Source

Gawd some people here are dumb. Pretending to be smart.

When a company goes into bankruptcy, the ticker symbol has a "Q" added at the end. So "SCOX" will change to "SCOXQ" shortly, probably on Wednesday.

A company's securities may continue to trade even after the company has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. In most instances, companies that file under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code are generally unable to meet the listing standards to continue to trade on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.

Moller has been claiming he'd have a flying car Real Soon Now since the 1960s. Here's his 1974 brochure. The schedule back then was "December 31, 1974 - Preliminary test flights complete - December 31, 1976 - Full-scale production begins". Thirty years later...

In the words of the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation (Moller had a bit of trouble about selling unregistered stock, making false and misleading claims, and other securities law violations), "As of late 2002, MI's approximately 40 years' of development has resulted in a prototype Skycar capable of hovering about fifteen feet above the ground."

What Moller is talking about now, the "M200G", is closer to a hovercraft than a flying car. This isn't the big red "flying car" prototype he's been touting for the last ten years; it's a new, simpler model. He does have a prototype flying, at least while tethered to a crane. Performance is worse than the AvroCar, circa 1960.

It's not that a flying car is impossible. It's that Moller isn't good enough to bring it off. If somebody like Burt Rutan was doing this, it would be flying in a year or two.

The basic problem with a flying car today is that nobody ever found a way to make a cheap, reliable, small jet engine. It's possible to make a small jet engine, but below bizjet size, they don't get much cheaper. That's why general aviation is still mostly piston-powered. Piston-powered VTOL, which is what Moller is trying, is a marginal idea. It was tried extensively in the 1950s, and the power to weight ratio just isn't good enough. Moller is using Wankel engines, which helps a little, but not enough.

Moller must be running low on disposable cash. He'll pull this same stunt every couple of years to try and milk gullible investors. If you doubt this, take a look at what the SEC had to say in 2003.

Know what? I think that Moller is really the reincarnation of P.T. Barnum. It's the only explanation that makes sense. Next thing we'll probably see is a blurb for special "Skycars" for the military, equipped with high-power lasers.

I refuse to be "Mollerfied" by a press release!

Keep the peace(es).

Additionally, I don't personally think that the general public should be allowed the opportunity to purchase a "flying car"; I have yet to see the general automobile-driving public demonstrate consistent proficiency in:

• merging with oncoming traffic entering the freeway
• using their turn signals
• parallel parking
• obeying speed laws
• general courtesy on the open road
• many more things I won't bother mentioning here

..so I'd think they'd be responsible and safe operating an aircraft every day why? :p

That wouldn't be a problem if he didn't take money from anybody. The SEC complaint is that he builds hype and then goes looking for investors to take him the last step before he gets listed on the NYSE - which never seems to happen...

So much so that the SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission, a U.S. regulatory body) filed a lawsuit against Moller Int and Paul Moller in 2003. The details are available on the SEC website at: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp17987 .htm

In the introduction to the suit, the SEC said:

"This matter involves a fraudulent, unregistered offering and the filing of a fraudulent Form 10-SB by Moller International, Inc. ("MI" or "the company"), a California company engaged in the development of a personal aircraft known as "the Skycar."

Under the heading, "False and Misleading Statements and Omissions", the SEC said:

19. The promotional material used in this solicitation campaign contained materially false and misleading information.

20. For example, the Skycar, according to Moller, would allow any person to travel at speeds over 400 miles-per-hour in the uncluttered airspace above the roadways for about the same price as a luxury automobile. In MI investor newsletters, Moller projected that 10,000 Skycars would be sold by the end of 2002.

21. In reality, the Skycar was and still is a very early developmental-stage prototype that has no meaningful flight testing, proof of aeronautical feasibility, or proven commercial viability.

I'll believe it when I can actually buy one. Much as I'd like a flying car, his always seem to be "Real Soon Now(TM)" AFAIK, Moller has never actually had anything for sale. Downside(R) lists his company as a scam because it has been a few years from production for 30 years. There have also been SEC complaints for "fraudulent, unregistered offering and the filing of a fraudulent Form 10-SB by Moller International, Inc. ("MI" or "the company"), a California company engaged in the development of a personal aircraft known as "the Skycar.""

I'd like to be wrong, but I sure won't be putting down any money just yet.

Day traders are more difficult to replace at short notice. And before someone questions the neccessity of the latter over the former, try buying food when your pension fund just went belly up.

Day traders could all drop dead and the financial markets would probably function better and certainly more smoothly.

I'm not sure if this really is the patent in question... but it might be it:
USPTO application 20040021691

It's from a later year than the application mentioned in the story, but I think it might be the same one with an updated date or something. Here's how I got to the application:

WordLogic's 10-K filing mentions some patent applications. In particular, it mentions some titled "Method, system and media for entering data in a personal computing device". I found an application matching this, but it's date is in 2004. However, it references the european patent application CA2323856 with a date of Oct 18, 2000 (this just about matches the date mentioned in TFA... different from the date mentioned in the original post). This european patent says that it is also filed as US patent application US2004021691. If you look at that number, it's the same as the USPTO application that I linked to above.

Regulation SHO requires, "...a broker-dealer, prior to effecting a short sale in any equity security, to 'locate' securities available for borrowing...Specifically, the rule prohibits a broker-dealer from accepting a short sale order in any equity security from another person, or effecting a short sale order for the broker-dealer's own account unless the broker-dealer has (1) borrowed the security, or entered into an arrangement to borrow the security, or (2) has reasonable grounds to believe that the security can be borrowed so that it can be delivered on the date delivery is due. The locate must be made and documented prior to effecting a short sale." See Securities and Exchange Commission, 17 CFR Parts 240, 241 and 242, Release No. 34- 50103; File No. S7-23-03, http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/34-50103.pdf. "As with other provisions of Regulation SHO, this provision requires good faith conduct by where the broker-dealer did not in good faith believe that the customer would deliver the securities in time for settlement, the broker-dealer cannot borrow or lend securities to deliver when the customer fails," ibid, footnote 112. Regulation SHO goes on to state that, "Bona-fide market making does not include activity that is related to speculative selling strategies or investment purposes of the broker-dealer and is disproportionate to the usual market making patterns or practices of the broker-dealer in that security. In addition, where a market maker posts continually at or near the best offer, but does not also post at or near the best bid, the market maker's activities would not generally qualify as bona-fide market making for purposes of the exception. Further, bona-fide market making does not include transactions whereby a market maker enters into an arrangement with another broker-dealer or customer in an attempt to use the market maker's exception for the purpose of avoiding compliance with Rule 203(b)(1) by the other broker-dealer or customer." That will be all.

Hmmm, I should be such a victim.

See: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/00011931 2507156469/d8k.htm

Excerpt:

UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

FORM 8-K

Date of report (Date of earliest event reported) July 17, 2007

Item 5.02. Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors;
Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.

Appointment of Executive Officer

The material terms of the Offer Letter are as follows:

- Mr. Moore's annual base salary will be $550,000 and his discretionary
    target bonus percentage will be 75% of his annual base salary.

- EA has agreed to pay Mr. Moore a one-time bonus of $1,500,000 (minus applicable taxes)
    in recognition of the future compensation value he would be foregoing by leaving his
    position at Microsoft. Although Mr. Moore will earn this one-time bonus at the completion
    of his second year of employment with EA, he will receive it within 30 days of
    starting employment. If Mr. Moore voluntarily leaves his employment with EA before
    the completion of two years, he has agreed to repay to EA the full net amount of the bonus.

- EA has agreed to grant Mr. Moore a stock option to purchase 350,000 shares of the
    company's common stock pursuant to EA's 2000 Equity Incentive Plan. The stock option will
    vest as to 24% of the shares twelve months from the first day of the month in which the
    grant is made, and will then vest in additional 2% increments each month thereafter
    for the following 38 months.

- EA has agreed to grant Mr. Moore 50,000 restricted stock units, which vest as to 50%
    of the shares on the second anniversary of the grant date, and as to the remaining shares
    on the fourth anniversary of the grant date.

- EA will assist Mr. Moore with relocation-related expenses, which are currently estimated
    to be approximately $330,000.

See the URL for the full details.

SWIT

GPLv3 cannot define a stricter interpretation of what constitutes copying than the underlying copyright law people are bound by. Which means that it is the law's definition that counts, not GPLv3's. And the reality is, since Microsoft isn't doing anything that constitutes copying according to the law, there's nothing the GPLv3 can do to impose any licensing conditions on them.

enabling distribution by Microsoft of Novell support and update service subscriptions for SLES

Copying alone isn't the issue. The issue is that Microsoft is using Novell as their agent, and Microsoft is bound by the terms that their agent is using. Because the agent will be using GPL v3, and Microsoft has pre-agreed to have their agent bound by GPL v3, they're stuck.

"In which case, exactly what patent protection does this contract provide?"

Both agree not to sue each others customers in exchange for which Novell lends credence to Microsoft claims that Linux violates its patents. The protection only extends to end-users that Novell gets direct revenue from. So a company reselling Novell solutions would not be covered nor would its customers.

The covenant only applies to developers who do not receive revenue from SuSE and, at the suggestion of Microsoft, can be extended to developers of 'original work' for openSuSE, provided the original work is exclusively folded back into Novell SuSE, they receive no revenue from it and do not work on it in their employers time. They must also concede that MS patent claims apply to their own code. The actual wording is curious 'original work', which could mean the 'protection' also extends to properties and methods.

"Covenanting Party .. hereby covenants not to sue .. Customers for infringement under .. Patents.. .. for which the other Party has received Revenue"

Re:Not sure I buy the Novell comment

"If the final version of GPLv3 contains terms or conditions that interfere with our agreement with Microsoft or our ability to distribute GPLv3 code, Microsoft may cease to distribute Suse Linux coupons in order to avoid the extension of its patent covenants to a broader range of GPLv3 software recipients," Novell stated in the document"

Well DOH, the 'covenant' only applies to a very restricted set of NOVL customers and specifically excludes downstream providers or developers of 'Original Work'. The pledge also lays claim to 'Original Work' and excludes openSuSE developers from working on their own code in company time. Any such work must also be rolled back into Novell SuSE. Not much of a covenant then.

Wow there, I just noticed something, it don't say original code, but original work, thereby extending the coverage to properties and methods? If this was cricket that would be know as throwing a googly .. nice.

'1.10 "Customers" means an enterprise or individual that utilizes a specific copy of a Covered Product for its intended purpose as authorized by a Party in consideration for Revenue'

What is the definition of 'intended purpose' and 'utilizes' in the current context. Who defines 'intended purpose' and 'utilizes'. If these terms are not defined (I can't find them) or can be arbitarly changed by either party at a future date then of what use is it to me the 'customer' as a legal document. I'm not a lawyer, but this says to me the 'pledge' can be revoked at any time. By either party I assume. I do assume the NOVL lawyers got one too. I can't see it! I do assume the NOVL lawyers actually read it before signing!

"In addition, Microsoft reserves the right to prospectively update and revise the terms of this pledge"

A close reading of the 'covenant' and associated documents reveals its true purpose, to drive a wedge between the Commercial Sector and Open Source developers.

MICROSOFT - NOVELL PATENT COOPERATION AGREEMENT --

translation: I pledge not to sue you for indeterminate IP violations for a period that can be arbitrary revised, extended, canceled by me at any time. You agree that I own your own original work - not just code ;).

If you want to see the details of that business model, read the 10-K filing of Marchex, the publicly traded domain farmer.

Some highlights:

• "Our proprietary network is comprised of more than 200,000 Web sites."
• We deliver pay-per-click advertising listings that are reflective of our merchant advertisers' products and services to online users in response to their keyword search queries, and in response to their typing of specific Web Sites into their browser (direct navigation). These pay-per-click listings are generally ordered in the search results based on the amount our merchant advertisers choose to pay for a targeted placement."
• "We optimize key attributes of merchant advertiser Web sites to ensure the greatest opportunity for proper indexing, listing and inclusion in the editorial results of algorithmic search engines."
• "We believe we are among the leaders in the direct navigation market due to our proprietary ownership of online user traffic, which totaled more than 31 million unique visitors in the month of December 2006."
• "Online users can navigate the Web sites through a number of ways. For example, an online user who is specifically interested in traveling to Beijing may enter www.beijing.com directly into the Web address or URL box of their Internet browser. Once the user has arrived at the Web site they will find listings and information related to Beijing. As the user finds relevant information and clicks on a particular listing, we receive a pay-per-click fee."
• "We expect new laws and regulations directly applicable to our business practices to be adopted in the near future. "
• "We have largely incurred net losses since our inception, and we may incur net losses in the foreseeable future."
• "A significant amount of revenue attributed to our domain name assets comes through our agreement with Yahoo! and its subsidiaries."
• "Name Development acquired previously-owned Internet domain names that had expired and had been offered for sale by Internet domain name registrars following the period of permitted reclamation by their prior owners."
• "The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, has recently reviewed the way in which search engines disclose paid placements or paid inclusion practices to Internet users. In 2002, the FTC issued guidance recommending that all search engine companies ensure that all paid search results are clearly distinguished from non-paid results, that the use of paid inclusion is clearly and conspicuously explained and disclosed and that other disclosures are made to avoid misleading users about the possible effects of paid placement or paid inclusion listings on search results. Such disclosures if ultimately mandated by the FTC or voluntarily made by us may reduce the desirability of our paid placement and paid inclusion services. We believe that some users will conclude that paid search results are not subject to the same relevancy requirements as non-paid search results, and will view paid search results less favorably. If such FTC disclosure reduces the desirability of our paid placement and paid inclusion services, and "click-throughs" of our paid search results decrease, our business could be adversely affected."

It's not a very profitable business. You'd think that, given how little they actually do, they'd be making sizable amounts of money, but they're not. They have substantial revenue ($127 million), but their operating costs and compensation eat up almost all of that.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/758004/0000 95013407012375/0000950134-07-012375.txt

The FSF has as much as said that they will target the Microsoft-Novell deal. http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale, and since it's not a matter of "if" GPLv3 becomes more than a draft, as much as it is "when"...

The current draft of GPLv3 can affect Novell's biggest source of cash - Microsoft. (and may also affect SUSE gaining more market share in the enterprise) If the final GPLv3 impacts the patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell, Novell has big problems. And (IMHO) increasing SUSE acceptance among enterprise customers suffers a setback.

Link to actual agreement

I am no lawyer (but I do read contracts from time to time, as a 'hobby'), but this is really an odd 'covenant'. The agreement appears to not state what products are actually covered by the patent covenant, in bizarre ways. For example, "Clone Products" are not covered, "Clone Products" being presumably things like Mono and OpenOffice (as they duplicate Microsoft APIs and products); yet all such products already designed at time of signing are exempt, i.e., they are covered. Yet, the following projects are not subject to the exemption: "Wine, OpenXchange, StarOffice and OpenOffice", i.e., they are not covered. So OpenOffice appears to not be covered.

Likewise Samba would presumably be a "Clone Product", and not covered as well, except by the exemption due to its existing at time of signing. Yet this might not cover additional functionality added later. It just isn't clear.

No actual products are named aside from the quote above, and even they are not stated as being covered or not (just not exempted by a particular subsection). So, reading this, I can't tell whether Novell customers are in fact covered or not, in any way. The assumption was always that the agreement did protect them from patent lawsuits. But that assumption may have been wrong.

Is the contract specifically designed to not mention any products, effectively letting it be ambiguous and perhaps of no legal use - that is, only effective for PR purposes?

SEC Requires it for financial firms. I had to go through this when I did contract work for IBM because they were contracted to do work for a bank. If she has nothing to hide, what's the big deal. I have a record and I fully disclosed it in my application prior to even taking the fingerprints. I still got the contract work although I may be a rare exception. This is a funny stance employers will have to look at in the near (and I mean near future). Here in the US, 1 in every about 50 or so citizens has been either incarcerated or has a record. In 2001 it was 1 in every 87. What will US firms do when this number comes down to 1 in 10. Outsource America entirely...

... because they don't have to.

When the company IPOed, they issued two classes of stock: one that you could buy (Class A), and special shares for Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt that carry 10 times the voting weight of the shares available on the public market (Class B). The result is that anything that Brin (founder), Page (founder) and Schmidt (CEO) don't want passed can't be passed by a shareholder vote; ordinary shareholders simply don't have the voting muscle, even if they all voted together.

Google's rationale at the time was that this arrangement would free them from pressure to constantly be posting higher earnings each quarter. In their SEC filing, they included an unusual "Letter from the Founders" that defended the approach:

The main effect of this structure is likely to leave our team, especially Sergey and me, with significant control over the company's decisions and fate, as Google shares change hands. New investors will fully share in Google's long term growth but will have less influence over its strategic decisions than they would at most public companies...

Academic studies have shown that from a purely economic point of view, dual class structures have not harmed the share price of companies. The shares of each of our classes have identical economic rights and differ only as to voting rights.

Google has prospered as a private company. As a public company, we believe a dual class voting structure will enable us to retain many of the positive aspects of being private. We understand some investors do not favor dual class structures. We have considered this point of view carefully, and we have not made our decision lightly. We are convinced that everyone associated with Google--including new investors--will benefit from this structure.

(Emphasis mine)

It's hard to read the part about "retain[ing] many of the positive aspects of being private" as anything other than "we don't want shareholders telling us how to run our company". And given how the stock is structured, shareholders can't, unless they can win over one or more of the three top execs at Google to their point of view.

Without any money left... suppose they're completely delisted and considered a worthless company, how many people think the case will continue?

Delisting will only kick them to OTC/pink sheets; it doesn't mean the company is worthless, just that SCOX can't meet the minimum listing requirements for NASDAQ. But as I posted previously the most likely scenario is a reverse split to bring the price back above $1 and stay NASDAQ listed. It's interesting to note, though, that in their last 10-Q filing, as of January 31, 2007, SCO said they have nearly $4 million to pay for "experts, consultants, and other expenses in connection with [...] litigation" and the company makes quarterly payments to law firms Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, Kevin McBride and Berger Singerman in the amount of $2 million. The company has already spent $11 million in the litigation.

That is what the SEC says in their insider trading page,but the actual rule is 10b5-2 which enumerates those covered other than the insider as his or her spouse, parent, child, or sibling;. However I was not aware that the Supreme Court has tilted the playing field to the SEC by creatively interpreting 10b to allow the SEC to create a duty between the insider and the person who receives the information, not the duty between the insider and the shareholders of the company. This is a stupid ruling because it creates a burden on the receiver of information where they might not know the information is material or non-public but still be held criminally responsible for acting on the information. This flies is the face of both the letter and intent of the law which is to ensure that those with a fudiciary responsibility to the investors and in possession of material inside information do not disclose that information non-uniformly or enrich themselves personally by acting on the information before it is disclosed. Btw if you are interested the ruling it is here.(PDF)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made the following announcement today:

SEC Charges Former Apple General Counsel for Illegal Stock Option Backdating
http://sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-70.htm

Mod parent up! I've seen many posts claiming that AMD would show losses because of new plants. THIS IS WRONG. The acquisition of capital assets, like fabs, do NOT affect net income (aside from some depreciation expense recorded in the year of acquisition). A major investment would not cause a loss as reported. It could contribute due to depreciation, but these costs should be relatively minor by comparison. Also, for what it's worth, I just perused the financial statements and only saw a reported loss of $166 million. See this link to the EDGAR filing. Another glance showed they capitalized a lot of R&D in 2006, where there was non in the previous reported years. That's probably the biggest reason for the loss.

IBM has no connection to the editorial content posted on Groklaw.

Groklaw's website, and hundreds of others, are hosted on a website at the University of North Carolina (UNC), called ibliblio. This site is described by UNC as a public library. ibiblio runs on IBM System x servers which were funded through an IBM Shared University Award Grant awarded to UNC -- a grant that predates Groklaw ever being hosted on ibiblio. Anyone can host a site there and IBM does not sponsor, nor endorse, the content of those sites.

IBM is proud to sponsor many universities around the world in various ways, including helping them host websites like the one at UNC."

Groklaw met the criteria for hosting on ibiblio's free servers. If your web site meets the criteria, you can host it there for free also. View some other sites on their collection page. Groklaw is a site to discuss open source legal issues, it is not limited to IBM or to SCO, although that is the predominant legal battle going on at this time. If you read Groklaw, you will know that there are not only articles about the other SCO litigation (RedHat, AutoZone, Daimler-Chrysler and Novell), but discussions about Microsoft, patents, ODF vs. MSXML, other GPL cases and the new GPL V3. Ibiblio is run by the University of North Carolina. IBM has contributed servers to the project long before Groklaw came into existence. IBM has no say in the sites hosted at Ibiblio or their content. Ibiblio could host SCO's site if it met their criteria.

I want to know why it matters though... Groklaw looks at the public filings that anyone could get if they were willing to go to the courthouse for a copy. They don't have any secret information and don't get information from IBM. IBM has been nearly quiet in the media since the case has begun, citing their preference not to comment on litigation.

Since before the IBM case started, SCO has been issuing public statements both through their media shills and on their own web site. They've made outrageous claims with no evidence whatsoever to support them. They've tried to co-opt the GNU/Linux operating system as their own, charging $700 per processor to run it. That's a slap in the face for the thousands of contributors who relied on the GPL and made their own contributions, and to Linus Trovalds who initially developed Linux. After initially claiming that three teams of experts found millions of lines of infringing code in Linux, they waited three years to show ANY evidence and then it was only 326 lines. They transformed their case from Trade Secrets (since UNIX contains none as admitted by their lawyer Kevin McBride) into some bizzare "ladder" theory where IBM loses control of it's own independent creations simply by associating them with their flavors of licensed UNIX.

The most bizarre thing is how they value their "core UNIX intellectual property". Caldera was created as a Linux company in 1994. They raised about $70 million in an IPO as a Linux company when they went public in 2000. They purchased assets and operations from Tarentalla (Santa Cruz Operation) for $93.8 million in 2001. You can see that in the 10-Q report they filed with the SEC (search for "Purchase price allocation"). They allocated that money this way:

1. $66.1 million - Goodwill (SCO customer base)
2. $26.7 million - Distribution/reseller channel
3. $5.8 million - Existing technology (consisting primarily of UnixWare and OpenServer)
4. $1.5 million - Acquired in-process research and development
5. $1.4 million - Distribution agreement
6. $0.8 million - Trade name and trademarks

Calde

Hum, Listening to Tony Blair might drive anyone to drink, but how do you know that these guys are right http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?ne wsid=35849 when they blame booze alone for an increase in liver disease deaths?

This is why controlled experiments are performed. The problem here is that apparently fraudulant methods were used in the original analysis and then data were held confidential for a long period to keep those fraudulant methods from being exposed.

Monsanto has been involved in criminal activities http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr19023. htm in the past so it is not so suprising that they would do this sort of thing. The report in question is what they used to get approval in these countries so the relevant data you have there is that they lied to the regulators to gain approval. Maybe they thought it would be cheaper than bribery in this case.

In any case, you do not know how many people have become sick or how many have been killed because of what they have done. Cases of illness similar to those seen in the rats have to now be examined to see if it is corn that is causing the illness. The lack of labeling is going to make the task more difficult. But, if labeling of GM foods does get going, the one for this variety will need to be the skull and crossbones.

At least George Soros likes Halliburton enough to buy 2 million shares of Halliburton.

1) these are companies that can't get listed on regular exchanges. Either they're too new or small to afford the fees, or they don't have the financials that the exchanges require.
2) this is a big one: the market makers may not report every single transaction and every price change, or every minute or hour. You're used to seeing the market change, and having updated info pretty quickly after a trade. "Real time level 2 quotes" and all that. Guess what? These are thinly traded. Some report daily. Some report every couple of days. Some report weekly. Unless you check, you don't know. If you see stock trading for 5 cents one week and 25 cents the next week, you don't know if it really is going up, or if it went to 10 dollars in the middle of the week, and all the pumpers jumped, and 25 cents is the reported figure on the way back down. You just don't know.

Go here for some more information. Really. Don't think about these without being sure you know the risks.

(Also, I have to say, while the information I gave in #2 was deemed correct when I worked for a broker, I was never a licensed broker myself. So don't take my word for it still being completely true. I see that a company called pinksheets.com offers what they say are real time quotes now for dealers, but they're neither a NASD broker-dealer nor SEC-registered, so... who knows what that means? Ask your broker and do your own research. Be sure and ask your broker what it means when you try to sell "at market" on a pink sheet, too, if you're assuming you're going to be able to get out quickly :) )

They have one set of numbers for the stockholders, one set for the IRS and another for the public.

Nonsense. Can you say securities violation and/or tax fraud? If the numbers didn't jive, they'd be guilty of market manipulation. If you really believe they're doing that, go ahead and feel free to file a complaint and/or tip here.

If you look at extremely profitable companies like MS and Apple and read about their potential liabilities in their 10K, you'd think they could go under.

Nope.

I don't think iPhone will be a hit in Europe or Asia like it might be here in America. Two thirds of Apple's revenue comes from the USA. It's clear that Europe and Asia are not as infatuated with Apple's products as America.

The SEC is busting people. Cf http://www.bignose.org/blog/index.php?/archives/24 -The-SEC-has-my-favorite-RSS-feed.html or go to the horse's mouth at http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2006/lr1 9787.htm

I disagree with all of your steps to stop the stock spam.

The incentive to send out stock spam needs to be removed. Until there is some law enforcement and a penalty, this will continue. Write to the SEC and ask them to start investigating. Write to your representatives and let them know that you feel this is a serious problem.

But am I the only one who has a bit of an issue with no third party (and by that I mean COMPLETELY outside Apple) oversight?

You mean like the SEC, to whom Apple directly gave the results and all details of their formal investigation to? And to whom they're legally obligated when carrying out said investigation, under penalties of perjury?

Now of course just because Apple finds these conclusions on its own investigation which is 'on the record', doesn't mean they're inherently innocent, the SEC will give their own ruling on the matter in the near future. However, if Apple did put anything misleading in this report, they'd be in far more trouble than they are now, not to mention the huge can worms in terms of stockholder lawsuits they'd open by willfully lying to the SEC this time around.

Check out the documents Apple filed with the SEC Friday acknowledging that a grant of 7.5M options to CEO Steve Jobs with an exercise price of $18.30 dated 10-19-2001 was actually finalized on 12-18-2001 when the share price was $21.01. Apple goes on to note that approval for the grant was 'improperly recorded' as occurring at a special Board meeting on 10-19-2001 - a special Board meeting that Apple now admits did not occur. Apple takes a page out of Mark Hurd's I-know-nothing-playbook, insisting that 'There was no evidence, however, that any current member of management was aware of this irregularity.' Which begs the question: Don't any members of Apple management read those Proxy Statements they provide to investors and the SEC? In 2002 and 2003, Apple's Proxy Statements clearly stated that: 'in October 2001 the Compensation Committee recommended and the Board approved granting Mr. Jobs options to purchase 7,500,000 shares under the 1998 Plan in order to provide him with an incentive to continue to serve as the Company's CEO and maximize shareholder value.' Apple also points out in its SEC filing that Jobs did not receive or financially benefit from backdated options, apparently feeling that the 5M shares of restricted stock Jobs was given after 'voluntarily canceling' his underwater options grants in 2003 shouldn't count.

Check out the documents Apple filed with the SEC Friday acknowledging that a grant of 7.5M options to CEO Steve Jobs with an exercise price of $18.30 dated 10-19-2001 was actually finalized on 12-18-2001 when the share price was $21.01. Apple goes on to note that approval for the grant was 'improperly recorded' as occurring at a special Board meeting on 10-19-2001 - a special Board meeting that Apple now admits did not occur. Apple takes a page out of Mark Hurd's I-know-nothing-playbook, insisting that 'There was no evidence, however, that any current member of management was aware of this irregularity.' Which begs the question: Don't any members of Apple management read those Proxy Statements they provide to investors and the SEC? In 2002 and 2003, Apple's Proxy Statements clearly stated that: 'in October 2001 the Compensation Committee recommended and the Board approved granting Mr. Jobs options to purchase 7,500,000 shares under the 1998 Plan in order to provide him with an incentive to continue to serve as the Company's CEO and maximize shareholder value.' Apple also points out in its SEC filing that Jobs did not receive or financially benefit from backdated options, apparently feeling that the 5M shares of restricted stock Jobs was given after 'voluntarily canceling' his underwater options grants in 2003 shouldn't count.

Check out the documents Apple filed with the SEC Friday acknowledging that a grant of 7.5M options to CEO Steve Jobs with an exercise price of $18.30 dated 10-19-2001 was actually finalized on 12-18-2001 when the share price was $21.01. Apple goes on to note that approval for the grant was 'improperly recorded' as occurring at a special Board meeting on 10-19-2001 - a special Board meeting that Apple now admits did not occur. Apple takes a page out of Mark Hurd's I-know-nothing-playbook, insisting that 'There was no evidence, however, that any current member of management was aware of this irregularity.' Which begs the question: Don't any members of Apple management read those Proxy Statements they provide to investors and the SEC? In 2002 and 2003, Apple's Proxy Statements clearly stated that: 'in October 2001 the Compensation Committee recommended and the Board approved granting Mr. Jobs options to purchase 7,500,000 shares under the 1998 Plan in order to provide him with an incentive to continue to serve as the Company's CEO and maximize shareholder value.' Apple also points out in its SEC filing that Jobs did not receive or financially benefit from backdated options, apparently feeling that the 5M shares of restricted stock Jobs was given after 'voluntarily canceling' his underwater options grants in 2003 shouldn't count.

I would say they do more than "preach". The snippet below is taken from their SEC filing paperwork http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000 119312504073639/ds1.htm:

DON'T BE EVIL

Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served--as shareholders and in all other ways--by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.

Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers' payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.

Notice the keywords: "unbiased" and "objective" and "trust".
Preaching is one thing. Having this in your SEC filings is another. I would say there is some accountability here.

more efficient and profitable?

If you don't know, if they were public, go to http://www.sec.gov/ and check their filings via EDGAR (something every IT pro needs to get a clue about. . . if you're dubious about a vendor. . . or about the future, if any, of the place you're working at. . . this is one place where companies are compelled to tell the truth.

It isn't about network efficiency, it's about the bottom line. Show that a company with draconian IT policy is more profitable, if you can. If anarchy is more profitable, it might be more cost-effective for a company to simply add to network bandwidth and hire a few more IT pros to clean up the messes.

A place where an IT pro can get "personal services" for not reporting mistakes made with a company computer is obviously a place where the balance of power is way off. If an ITer can't get a date, the company doesn't exist to solve that problem.

Yeah, now Microsoft's annual sales is only equal to the combined gross state products of Montana and North Dakota instead of that of Utah.

I took a quick look, and Microsoft is not quite there yet. Their latest 10-K filing with the SEC shows Microsoft's gross revenue for the fiscal year of 2006 was about $44B (here). The BEA's records for 2005 show Montana's GDP to be about $30B and N. Dakota is about $24B for a total of $54B (Utah is about $90B [rocket engines and blenders baby :)]).

On a side note: how much money does Microsoft have saved up?

Also in the 10-K filing, it looks like Microsoft has $36B in cash and short-term investments with $45B total in assets (that's after paying over $3.4B in dividends).

The short story is that Microsoft is sitting on a big pile of cash :)

Yeah, now Microsoft's annual sales is only equal to the combined gross state products of Montana and North Dakota instead of that of Utah.

I took a quick look, and Microsoft is not quite there yet. Their latest 10-K filing with the SEC shows Microsoft's gross revenue for the fiscal year of 2006 was about $44B (here). The BEA's records for 2005 show Montana's GDP to be about $30B and N. Dakota is about $24B for a total of $54B (Utah is about $90B [rocket engines and blenders baby :)]).

On a side note: how much money does Microsoft have saved up?

Also in the 10-K filing, it looks like Microsoft has $36B in cash and short-term investments with $45B total in assets (that's after paying over $3.4B in dividends).

The short story is that Microsoft is sitting on a big pile of cash :)

To back up which claims? That SCO only holds one patent?

Simply search for them at uspto.gov (the site doesn't let you link directly to search results or patents for some odd reason). The only patent currently held by SCO is:

  Method and apparatus for executing multiple JAVA(.TM.) applications on a single JAVA(.TM.) virtual machine Patent # 6,931,544

As for the claim that SCO licensed code to Microsoft and not patents, I refer to SCO's own SEC filings, and what only they can only modify and edit as opposed to Wikipedia's policy of allowing any random tom, dick and harry to edit entries.

From the filings:

We initiated the SCOsource effort to review the status of these licensing and sublicensing agreements and to identify others in the industry that may be currently using our intellectual property without obtaining the necessary licenses. This effort resulted in the execution of two license agreements during the April 30, 2003 quarter. The first of these licenses was with a long-time licensee of the UNIX source code which is a major participant in the UNIX industry and was a "clean-up" license to cover items that were outside the scope of the initial license. The second license was to Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft"), and covers Microsoft's UNIX compatibility products, subject to certain specified limitations. These license agreements will be typical of those we expect to enter into with developers, manufacturers, and distributors of operating systems in that they are non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, paid up licenses to utilize the UNIX source code, including the right to sublicense that code.

The amount that we receive from any such licensee will generally depend on the license rights that the licensee previously held and the amount and level of our intellectual property the licensee desires to license. The two licensing agreements signed by us to date resulted in revenue of $8,250,000 during the April 30, 2003 quarter and provide for an aggregate of an additional $5,000,000 to be paid to us over the next three quarters. These contracts do not provide for any payments beyond 2003, except that Microsoft was granted the option to acquire expanded licensing rights, at its election, that would result in additional payments to us if exercised. In connection with the execution of the first license agreement, we granted a warrant to the licensee to purchase up to 210,000 shares of our common stock, for a period of five years, at a price of $1.83 per share. This warrant has been valued, using the Black-Scholes valuation method, at $500,000. Because the warrant was issued for no consideration, $500,000 of the license proceeds have been recorded as warrant outstanding and the license revenue reduced accordingly.

http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/0001104 65903012299/j2045_10q.htm

Nowhere in the filing does it mention any patents being licensed whatsoever to anyone. Once Novell started demanding royalties for these licenses, SCO told everyone it was a patent license, despite their SEC filings saying otherwise.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/6_24 _03_n-sco.pdf

It happens quite often that SCO's SEC filings conflict with their public statements and court filings.

Novell has recently filed for an injunction against SCO, stating unequivocally that those agreements were source code licenses and thus Novell gets 95% of the revenue. Novell states that the license is a copyright license.