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SCO Might Sue Linus for Patent Infringement?
An anonymous reader writes "[Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive stated] that unless more companies start licensing SCO's property, he may also sue Linus Torvalds, who is credited with inventing the Linux operating system, for patent infringement." It's right at the end of the story and it's quite a statement.
Ok, so what, exactly, are they planning to sue him for? It's not like he can be held responsible for what IBM may or may not have put into the kernel. Or can he?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
All SCO is doing is blustering. This has been discussed to death here before.
The threat to get Linus is as hollow as the rest, no Judge will allow a suit to be brought when the ownership of the IP is in question, and given that Novell own a vast majority of the patents (832 unix and novell vs 117 Sco and Unix), according to the USPTO, the fact that Novell have taken some time and obviously a lot of expensive Legal advice before making such a series of claims vis a vis the ownership of the Unix IP and seems willing to step in the way of SCOs legal bullets, I'd say SCO's battle to steal Linux from the community has just got infinitely more difficult.
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
Oh yea, I can see every script kiddie on Earth going after them now. GEEZ what a dumb statement to make.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
I suggest counter-suing for defamation of character. Just how much is an international reputation worth? Linus could end up owning SCO. Now *that* would justice. -rick
In short, Novel thinks SCO has lost it's gord, SCO knows they are hosed, and are creating MS style FUD by saying anything to get their lame company in the news....
I hope Novell is right in:
"We believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that it has any ownership whatsoever in those copyrights," said Jack Messman, Novell's chief executive, in a statement Wednesday
But anyway, I'd pay a couple of bucks, especially if we get a Pay-Per-View event of Linus kicking McBride upside the head.
Rushfan
Think I'll go pattent "Hello World!"
I always wanted to name a band "Special Guest" too.
Eschew Obfuscation
too bad SCO doesn't own the patents nor copyrights. on unix. Their deal with Novell never involved Novell giving up their copyrights on UNIX http://perens.com/Articles/SCO/BigLie.html http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/p r03033.html
SCO really does seem to want to make an enemy out of absolutely everyone left on Earth.
Excuse me, but didn't Linus actually write Linux from scratch to duplicate the functionality of the existing Unix systems -- or do I misremember those early days?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What patents still exist that cover Unix? Don't they expire after 17 years? I don't think patents filed for "time sharing systems" or "virtual memory" in the seventies are still applicable. Besides, if this is valid, why are they not also suing everyone else? I know Sun licensed the Unix code to make Solaris, but did they license patent rights as well? What about FreeBSD? GAAHHH! How can SCO even claim that this nonsense is valid?
If SCO decides to actually sue Linus, I hope all the server companies (or atleast the big ones like IBM, Red Hat, Penguin Computing, etc.) will help with his legal costs. After all, he did give them a great product without them do all the R&D themselves.
The thing is, I got two interesting replies that went largely unnoticed:
dvNull (235982) wrote:
and An Onerous Coward (222037) wrote:
OK, so why not? I second Onerous Cowards' motion. Except, instead of stealing, IBM should immediately obtain a contract with The Tetris Company to redistribute Tetris. Then they should file lawsuits against SCO for infringement. Even if the lawsuits are frivilous, it would still be a thorn in the side of SCO when it is realized publicly that they very blatantly stole the IP from The Tetris Company.
On a side note, it seems to me that Caldera has a serous history of copying technology... DOS and Tetris are the ones I know about, plus they came up with a Linux distribution... ooh there's originality at work. Also, I believe they bought those rights to UNIX (acquired when they bought the original SCO, IIRC) How can this company turn around and sue IBM for infringement?! It doesn't make any sense. As far as I can tell, that install+game really is the most innovative they've ever been as a company. God that was brilliant. I hate waiting.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I'm suing everyone for everything. Details at 11.
~Berj
Stupid..
Stupid for reporting every little SCO quote. Stupid for thinking courts can allow such lawsuits.. and how in hell can SCO afford all this crap anyway?
Stupid...
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
Darl McBride has been unmasked as the Iraqi Information minister!!!
Thank Allah... i thought he had died at the hands of the infidels that were not in Iraq!
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
All SCO has to prove is that portions of code that it licensed for AIX to IBM ended up being used in Linux. This is alot easier than you think. All it takes is ONE PROGRAMMER out of the thousands that contribute code to have done this, for the Linux camp to be screwed. Since no one is out there auditing Linux code looking for stuff like this - how hard do you think it is for one person out of thousands of developers to have done this?
Look at how much code already is shared between the various BSD and Linux flavours already. Kernel drivers often have huge chunks of code that are just copy and pasted from one flavour to the next.
BSD had the jump on Linux way back in the day but has less marketshare now because of the same BS that happened with the AT&T suit oh so long ago - and we ended up winning that suit!
Be wary. This issue is not as cut and dry as all you may seem to believe. If SCO can prove that one person messed up, Linux is screwed. All it takes is 1.
if this didnt involve linux, and now Linus, i would think is down right hilarious. I just cant wait to see the season finale
A week ago I saw a banner ad for SCO Unix on the top of the front page...
A lot of patents owned by other people mention SCO as an example of a Unix system. That is by far the largest source of mentions of their company name in the patent database.
So, where's the ammo in Darl's gun? No patents. No copyrights for the stuff he said he owned. No trade secrets, as far as I can tell.
And then, to threaten Linus Torvalds as an individual sounds especially whiny. multi-Million-dollar corporation sues San Jose programmer who has made a life of giving his work away for free. SCO has descended to playground-bully level.
Karsten Self revealed this interesting tidbit from SCO's 10K report:
This is SCO's admission that Novell owns Unix System V, all revisions - that's what they mean by "SVRx", and pays Novell 95% of the royalties. SCO gets to keep 5% as administrative agent.That proves the Novell allegation.
SCO stock dropped from $9 to $6 today. I'm surprised it closed that high.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Obviously it's time to stop talking about it becuase all you're doing is advertising their name for free.
There is a such thing as bad publicity, especially for publically traded companies.
IANAL but it seems that the above quote seems like great fodder for attorneys. One of the main arguments going against SCO's claims (other than the obvious Novell claim that SCO owns diddly/squat) is that this is a money making gimmick and not a "real" lawsuit. With McBride throwing out gems like this it'll be fun to read the answer brief!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It would be interesting to see if this request for transfer occurred before SCO's legal maneuvering or after..
McBride added that unless more companies start licensing SCO's property, he may also sue Linus Torvalds, who is credited with inventing the Linux operating system, for patent infringement.
IANAL, but there are no grounds for suing Linus unless SCO can prove that Linus was aware of infringement and knowingly let it occur, which is obviously far fetched, but SCO seems desperate enough to try anything. SCO had a profitable quarter with a 4.5 million profit, but I would be amazed if they company lasts more than a year given the current state of their legal situation and the public relations nightmare that is developing now and his sure to create a huge backlash. Most of the decision makers in charge of recommending SCO's products are the exact same people who hate SCO now because their BS legal actions.
For the city of Santa Cruz to get SCO (based in Orem Utah) to stop using their name
There's the famous 4135240 setuid patent, which Bell labs granted to the public domain, and which has expired by now anyway.
Novell gave us a clue, by pointing out that some patents might be in their name. But searching for Novell and Unix on the USPTO web site yields 62 patents. Most of these seem like they came from work on NetWare, but it is hard to tell for sure. Looking through these patents shows how bogus the US patent system is -- I quickly persued several at random, and every one was either an obvious technique, or being violated all over the place, or both. (IANAL).
The first patent returned by the search (6,546,433) lists "PowerBuilder 5 Unleashed!", by Sams publishing as reference material. Frankly, if I were a patent examiner, this would be evidence alone to reject the application.
What happened to the "it's not patents, but licensing" arguement?
It's Wednesday afternoon (please try to keep up)
> "McBride added that unless more companies start licensing SCO's property, he may also sue Linus Torvalds, who is credited with inventing the Linux operating system, for patent infringement."
:
I pictured Darl McBride holding a gun to a stuffed penguin's head and shouting to the crowd
"Give me your money or the Penguin gets it!"
Probably not, the editors would just post more duplicates.
- Sometimes you're the pidgeon, sometimes you're the statue.
This is better than Reality TV!
:)
Just when you thought you knew how the story would end (with IBM buying SCO to quit being annoyed by them). SUDDENLY A PLOT TWIST! Novell could end up getting SCO for FREE!!!
This is the best Reality Show yet!
So what do you "avise" me to do?
Wet my pants?
Stop using Linux? (Yeah, you would really like that, would be good for your MSFT-stock, right?)
Start crying?
There is no evidence, there isn't even the sligtest hint of evidence and SCO voided anything by releasing Linux under the GPL themselves anyway.
If you really think that anybody should start being aFraid, Uncertain and Doubtful, you are either pretty dumb or part of the FUD machinery yourself.
If SCO can prove that one person messed up, Linux is screwed.
Wrong. No matter how much you would love Linux to be screwed, only the person who messed up and maybe the organization he works for is. If there really is infringing code (which is doubtful) and if for some special reason the GPL doesn't apply to SCO, it has to be rewritten, that's all.
To sum up, yes I will take that threat lightly.
"In addition, I think Novell must have a strong case otherwise they wouldn't have spoken out. They were not part of the original debate, so why would they enter it if they didn't have solid grounds to prove their point? If you own shares of SCO, you may want to ask the board why the CEO/president is running around wasting company money on frivolous lawsuits when they could be spending it on product development."
;)
No way Novell stated what they did today without checking the facts and consulting the lawyers. They have TOO MUCH riding on this, with Netware 7 basically being a Linux distro+NDS... (a product I'd love to migrate my Netware 5 WAN to)
We've been wondering WHY IBM hasn't countersued...
I think we got the answer today
The Novell allegation makes that a LOT easier.
Corporatism != Free Market
You'd be surprised at what judges allow. The basic reality that litigation costs money, and that frivolous suits do a lot of damage to people hasn't really sunk in.
It's amazing, when you think about it, that there haven't been more lawsuits. Not because there are grounds for them, but because it's a convenient way to harass people.
The community needs to come up with a way to respond to this incident, and to other things like it.
Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive stated] that unless more companies start licensing SCO's property, he may also sue Linus Torvalds,
Isn't that outright criminal?? That's quite close to a criminal taking an innocent bystander in a bank, and saying, give me all the money or this bystander gets it in the head. That's usually called hostage taking, and carries a charge of kidnapping. Whereas in the SCO case, (I'm paraphrasing) "People better start buying licenses from us, or we'll go after Linus" is called extortion or, as the case may be, blackmail. If SCO has legitimate claim to sue somebody, they should sue, but to use threats against someone to get some other person to do something is illegal. Good God SCO, WTF is up with you?? At first I was skeptical of you, then I was disgusted with you, earlier today I was laughing at you, now, Jesus H Christ man, you people are treading on some seriously thin legal ground. Are you sure you have any legal counsel?? Outright extortion attempts are liable to get you some serious jail time that even Microsoft couldn't buy you out of. Give up now, while you still have a chance to at least do time in "Club Fed" for SEC violations and lying about IP ownership, don't push it until you do serious time for criminal acts.......
Aww, what am I saying, keep it up you punks, then you can spend some "quality time" with felons who'll treat you like the bitch you are.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
I don't believe they can patent the look and feel of Unix. Those suits were lost a long time ago.
While they might well be able to patent the exact code of a unix implementation, if Linus wrote his own code from scratch, or derived it (as other posters have said) from Minix, it would seem his code and methods of implementation are not any patented by any other person.
Unless a process patent (i.e. a patent on anything that implements "Unix" exists) -- which I completely doubt -- I don't see how Linus's code could be considered patented by anyone else.
Besides, I was using Unix in 1977. Those ideas have to be either prior art or expired patents by now.
Then again: IANAL.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If I must buy a licence, I at least want to know what I am getting for my money, and what is contracted for, yes ?
Rob. "For Every Pleasure There's a Tax".
The Man
Does this mean that 95 cents of each MS $ of it's undisclosed "Unix" licensing fees are going to Novell? Does M$ know this?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Swing for the fences.
The SCO is starting to remind me of Dean Wormer from 'Animal House.' First they put the linux world on double secret probation. Now, as the majority of the IT world is walking out on them humming the star spangled banner, they're shouting "You're all expelled! No more fun of any kind!"
I guess that leaves microsoft as as the preppy frat boy stuck banging the gavel.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Linus doesn't sell linux. HE doesn't market it. He does kernel development, and his name is on it.. that's all.
Why shouldn't he be apathetic? SCO is getting far more attention than they deserve out of this.. at least in terms of the fear they are causing. There is NO WAY this case will succeed.. the absolute worst case will be IBM did something wrong, and IBM pays damages. No judge is going to smash linux.
What does linus have to fear? Can you imagine how much legal support Linus himself would get if sco tried to sue him personally? Just for what it represents, ever damn linux geek on earth would be ready to contribute to the defense fund, not to mention every linux company on earth. So far sco has ONLY SUED IBM, and have made only threatening vague statements and threats about their "Intellectual Property" to everyone else. Saying they had a contract with IBM that IBM has violated is one thing.. all the other vague shit they are claiming is something else entirely.
Linus has ALWAYS been apathetic. He has always mainted the world can do what it wants with linux.. he did it for fun. He doens't get too into the politics of it. He is a smart programmer, and a celebrity... but his life isn't riding on the success or faulure of linux. He isn't Bill Gates.
Let your representatives in the EU, which is considering software patents, know about this,as an example of why software patents are a BAD IDEA! A lot of European cities (Munich comes to mind) have shown a shining to Linux, and software patents could leave them without that choice!
...questions about possible lasuits (all ridiculously frivolous), dragging the lawyer further and further into the realm of stupidity, then..."
This typo is strangely appropriate. As in:
"SCO is really in la-la land."
or...
SCO: "NO! Our source! I don't care about what Novell says, OURS!"
Novell: "Look in the agre-"
SCO: *plugs ears* I CAN'T HEEEEAR YOU! LALALALALALALA....."
Should be added to the Jargon File or something:
lasuit (lô' soot) n : A litigation over Intellectual Property based on ridiculously frivolous grounds, dragging the complaintant further and further into the realm of stupidity. See: SCO.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
June 1, 2004. Santa Cruz, CA: SCO threatens to sue yet more icons of goodness and decency In yet another move calculated to antagonize virtually the entire world, SCO announced today that they would pursue multi-billion dollar lawsuits against basketball legend Michael Jordan, all kittens less than a year old, and Jesus Christ, for failure to pay royalties on all revenues that "might even conceivably be gained by exploiting our intellectual property in some fashion or another." SCO CEO McBride, speaking from behind the door of a reinforced bunker in an undisclosed location, stated that although none of the parties have used UNIX or Linux as far as he is aware, the decision was made to pursue litigation anyway "for the hell of it. I mean, we're already suing fifty thousand parties as it is, from IBM to a rusty tricycle in Ai, Alabama. What's three more?" The last year has not been good to SCO. Novell and IBM both filed $10 billion lawsuits against the company, and their stock was delisted after the share price dropped from $8.30 a share to about eight cents a share. This led SCO to file a series of bizarre lawsuits against figures in the Open Source and computing world, including Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman and Tux the Penguin. Eventually, SCO ran out of people in the computing world and started targeting smaller, less fortunate users and groups, starting in early 2004 with a class of 12th graders in Portland, Oregon, for maintaining a Linux laboratory as a school project. Starting from there, they began to sue "everyone conceivable" who might have derived profit, use, or fun from Linux. The public reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. Two months ago an unknown terrorist organization detonated an atomic bomb over SCO headquarters in Orem, UT, and then immediately received a pardon from US Attorney General John Ashcroft. Vigilantes and bounty hunters now scour the Rocky Mountains for company employees, who fetch rewards of $1000 to $1,000,000. SCO executives are featured every night on FOX's "America's Most Wanted." Last week, Time named McBride the Most Hated Man in America, beating out even Osama Bin Laden and Michael Bolton for the title. "We're not discouraged," said McBride. "Eventually, the judge will see things our way and we'll start collecting royalties. And then the world will be MINE! ALL MINE!" McBride then broke out into hysterical laughter, which continued into the lonely night.
Finding God in a Dog
We could all launch individual lawsuits against SCO and DDOS their legal team.
Go L.Ron! it's your birthday. Go L.Ron! It's your birthday!
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
I wonder what the spin doctor would have to say to your above post. That's some pretty damning empirical evidence that disconfirms everything he claimed.
This keeps getting better. I can't believe that something concerning intellectual property, UNIX and Linux, and websites full of people that like to debate the effectiveness of Python over Perl, can be this damned entertaining.
I keep posting this, but nobody seems to get it. SCO as a **distributor** of the linux kernel has committed copyright infringement UNLESS they have properly licenced all copyrights from which it is derived. If somebody else (IBM or Linus) creates a work which is improperly licenced, but is derived from GPL work, then SCO **STILL** must abide by the GPL in order to distribute a deriviative of the GPL portions.
... sublicense or distribute" the work will "terminate your rights under this License".
In order to do that, they must abide by the clause (clause 2b) which requires them to licence "as a whole" to "all third parties" (which certainly includes Linux and IBM) the works which they distribute under the terms of the GPL, assuming they either modify the source (clause 2) or distributed binaries (clause 3). This is not compatible with patent enforcement (vs Linus) or with trade secret protection (vs IBM).
Clause 6 states that no "further restrictions" are allowed. Clause 4 moreover states that any attempt to "otherwise
Finally, Clause 5 states that "by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it", which implies that SCO has accepted the GPL by distributing Linux, which even under SCO's extreme viewpoint is inarguably "based on" GPL works.
Linus should and frankly MUST sue SCO for copyright infringement for distributing a derivitive of his work without a licence. In fact, any other kernel contributor could do the same so long as their original work is included in what SCO has distributed. It does not matter if SCO wilfullly commited copyright infringment (it is still infringement), though it is untenable to call it unwilfull after they began publicly proclaiming to retain rights to elements of Linux.
Usually companies care about that. I can't imagine SCO getting back in Unix-business after what they do currently. Even hardcore soloris, bsd, etc.. fans are mostly horrified by the current actions of SCO. It's like they are storming out of the room and slamming the door. Unix was SCO's main business, it's hard to imagine this will do them any good if they really intend to continue doing this.
The Yahoo! Stock message boards are very active with major investors, partners and executives of each board's respective company. The SCOX board is reasonably active, but could use some of the strong, intelligent insight that is spread around slashdot on this subject.
o ar d=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=9 062
I think those of us that are so inclined should voice our support for Linux, Linus, Open-Source, etc... there as well as here. Let your voice be heard by the people that invest in SCO, run it and do business with it...
Hell, even the trolls can have fun there...
http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=l&b
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
No, he didn't. SCO is scrounging around for anything that they can find to scare the Linux community into submission.
They KNOW that they are going to die and it's obvious that they don't have a case. Their own release of Linux obviates any patent claims they may have.
It's dubious, at best, to claim patent infringement when YOU yourself have profited from the very OS that you claim infringes!! Darl McBride has, singlehandedly, reduced SCO from a respectable company to a laughing stock which provides daily amusement for us.
We should, in fact, applaud him for making us laugh so much recently.
It is obvious and it has been obvious from the beginning that SCO's ENTIRE goal has been to sew FUD and that's EXACTLY what they're doing.
Later, GJC
Good Day, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
It is called a cluster fuck.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
To be honest, I wish that Linus had a reason to be afraid. His reaction to this whole thing started off as complete apathy and is still hovering around it.
I have in the past been very critical of Linus' apathy and apparent blindness to some of the deeper underlying issues that will likely affect our freedom to code at all, much less code on the operating system our cooperative effort has created over the last 12 years or so, in part under his non-political guidance. Richard Stallman, as undiplomatic as he can be, truly does Get It(tm), and has done much to steer the community away from trouble (remember the KDE/qt/GPL conflicts. Imagine the situation we'd be in vis-a-vis SCO and M$ FUD if Gnome hadn't appeared, the flame fests hadn't been fought, and ultimately a workable, compatible solution hadn't been found, thanks to Trolltech's admiral flexibility and willingness to acknowledge mistakes and fix them, and thanks to RMSes stubborn insistance that the GPL be adhered to, no matter how cool the project.
All that having been said, the last thing on earth I would want to see is Linus sued for his 12 years of unselfish generosity. Do I agree with Linus' political (or rather, apolitical stance)? No, on that front I come down on RMSes side, despite my fervent desire that he learn a little diplomacy (which, to be fair, he appears to have done in no small amount, as listening to any of the speaches he's made in the last few years amply demonstrates), and despite the extreme irritation I felt at his 'lignux' proposal years ago.
I may not agree with Linus on some points, and I may wish he'd speak up a little more often to defend the Community he helped catalyze into being, but the man is entitled to his own world view, his own opinions, and no one in their right mind should wish something so awful as a lawsuit (however unfounded) onto someone who has done so much to enrich us all. As one who is personally bearing the brunt of an appalling act of barrotry myself, and having to defend against a frivilous, but non-the-less expensive, lawsuit (condo related, for the curious), I take particular exception to the notion that Linus deserves any kind of kick in the pants, much less a kick to the head through SCO's (or anyone elses) letigious thuggary and barratry.
I relish the demise of SCO, and the dozens of countersuits and investor lawsuits that will undoubtably follow. With luck, the fools will have left an I undotted or a T uncrossed, and be doing some hard time in a 6'x9' cell to boot, compliments of the SEC.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Makes me want to go back and see how CBS did Lady Di -- Traffic was heavy today in Paris, France, with light rains causing trouble for inexperienced drivers (...) In one of the day's many accidents caused by excess speed and driving under the influence, Lady Diana of Great Britian was killed. Light showers are expected in Roissy in the north of the city tomorrow with evening highs at around...
Or maybe the death of Christ: Two common criminals died today as Roman justice rammed home its message of no tolerance [no zero, remember] with iron spikes through their hands and feet (...) The two men's crosses were separated by that of Jesus Christ, Saviour of Mankind, who also died (temporarily). The Jerusalem branch of amnesty imperium romanum condemned the two criminals' execution as...
SCO should sue his mother for giving birth to such an evil! Giving away software for free, what kind of idea is that! :)
-- Leeeter than leet
I certainly am not ashamed to say "GNU" because, I love it. I love "ls --color=auto" just try that with SCO OpenServer and you are in for a rude awakening.
Like the BASH shell? Yeah its pretty awesome isn't it. Like being able to append --help to a command if the man page is missing? The fact is, if you boot Hurd, you are in fact running GNU. No GNU/Hurd, really not "just Hurd", just GNU.
Stallman's crew had completly re-written every UNIX utility program from scratch and that was "GNU". When a kernel became available, they were in -- totally.
Linus & Associate's awesome kernel was of course key, but I suggest you remove all GPL licensed code except the kernel and see what kind of an OS you have. Essentially nothing, you would have to port BSD to the Linux kernel, and then you would have BSD/Linux.
GNU is something to be proud of, mainly because it totally rocks. It is the "NEW" Operating System.
Clickety Click
Andrew Tanenbaum, the guy who wrote the operating system for educational purposes; some people who have taken operating systems classes may remember him as the guy that wrote their textbook as well.
Actually, what's interesting is why Minix was written. AT&T had allowed the source code to UNIX to be freely distributed to universities, etc. Then someone realized that there was commerical potential in UNIX and they began restricting access to the source.
Because it's frequently useful to have a functioning model at which to look when studying a subject, Minix was born to fill the missing educational void created by the commercialization of UNIX. It was designed to be big enough to be a real operating system, but small enough for one person to pretty much keep in his head at one time. Linux was created because there were a number of people who wanted to pile stuff into Minix which Tanenbaum didn't want there.
Why bother playing fair ? just circulate a rumor that one of the offending SCO people has a stolen shi'ite relic in their office building.
SCO has now said it isn't an IP issue or a copyright issue, but a contractual issue. Since Linus had no contract with SCO, how could they sue him for an alleged contractual violation that happened between SCO and IBM?
And the same goes for anything IBM may have leaked, and note I'm not saying they did...but if they did break a contract, how can anyone using a Linux product using such code be held liable for a contractual violation done by IBM, again, when SCO has now said it is contractual issue and not an IP issue or a copyright issue.
On one hand I guess we can be glad SCO are such morons, but on the other hand, can you imagine releasing a press release saying the issue was never about IP or copyrights when they are running around screaming about suing everyone because Linux may have some of their IP in it!!!
Go that way really fast, if something gets in your way, turn
Ron Paul
...given this SCO response to Novell's recent open letter. It says, and I quote,
"SCO® owns the contract rights to the UNIX® operating system. SCO has the contractual right to prevent improper donations of UNIX code, methods or concepts into Linux® by any UNIX vendor." (Italics mine).
They go on to say that:
"Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with. From a legal standpoint, contracts end up being far stronger than anything you could do with copyrights."
For those who won't take the time to read the Novell letter, Novell claims to hold all of the patents and copyrights for the Unix operating system, thus refuting SCO's claim to IP rights.
--
"Depth is to your life what dead air is to a talk show."
Thomas de Zengatita
SCO stock price is dropping fast.
I agree. Anyone who would continue to work for SCO at this pont is a moral and intellectual coward.
The next question to ask would be about the timing of this: Which specific functions and features of the kernel are under fire here? And when were these put into the kernel?
And finally, isn't SCO becoming engaged in barratry here?
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
But what is also important is that the free and open source communities appear strong so that no other company out there even contemplates this kind of crap. "Peace through strength" if you will.
... the bottom line. We have the capacity to target anyone who would sue the open source community. We can make it very clear how much it will cost.
Let's respond by creating a complete migration plan from SCO Unix to Linux, along with any necessary tools. If we can get a significant number of their customers to leave them, it will hurt them in a place they have to disclose to their customers
While everyone's attention is on the circus being created by SCO, someone needs to keep an eye on MS. I can see them using this whole affair to backdoor the Linux community while noone is watching. (If MS is not already playing SCO like a puppet...)
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
In a press release today, the SCO corporation said, that if more people don't buy SCO Unix, they will kill a puppy.
Here is my take on it:
Linus has said that RMS is the Pholisopher (sp?) and he is the engineer. The engineer shouldn't have a side it is RMS that should stand up. He is the one that came up with GNU and wrote the GPL licenses. Linus just used the licenses. I think Linus takes a good stance by not saying anything because he did create this community but he is not the leader of it.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Well, it's still trading way above where it was before all this started. Wall street pumped this stock up pretty much, and if any insiders are selling, I hope the SEC is taking notes. Looks like a pretty blatant pump-and-dump to me.
SCOX stock closing prices:
Feb-28-03: $1.85
Mar-31-03: $2.88
Apr-30-03: $3.15
May-19-03: $6.80 (SCO Announces UNIX licensing deal with Microsoft)
May-22-03: $8.89
May-27-03: $8.71
May-28-03: $6.60
I was *very* tempted to short this stock earlier today even though I've never shorted a stock in my life, and it looks like it would have paid off.
Ok. It have been stated already that SCO has no patents nor IP related to their claims. They do have code, but that sale didn't involve the IP nor the patents involved in the development of that code.
The really funny thing is that IBM, HP, Compaq (formerly Digital), Novell et all do have patents related to UNIX (and I'll bet they have patents over H2O methodus and aparatus). If SCO wants to get into that game they're going to suffer. A lot.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Everytime you masturbate, SCO sues a Linux developer....
Granted this is civil... but look at what Adobe and the US criminal justice system tried to pull off with Dimitris Sklyrov. IMHO these issues are related because the legal system is now being employed to harass and threaten programmers. Any one of us can be a target. 10 years ago we could pursue our careers with very little threat of a law suit. Today - if one has a success then the question becomes how many times over will we be sued.
The whole issue illustrates how fucking preposterous the US legal system has become and other countries are planning to follow suit. Of course we also have countries like Norway and the issue of the DeCSS and Joh Johanson and I have no idea what label should be stapled to this mess. It would be simpler to just take the lawyers involved out behind the barn and get rid of them! But the horrible thing is that the victims of this perverted system are expected to finance it. Next time you are in a courtroom ask yourself of all the people in there - which ones are not being paid?
Here we have a threat to sue an individual (Linus) because he used his own ideas... ideas that apparently an unrelated individual manages to patent in a country (USA) that the person (Linus) doesn't live in.
Then after this flight of stoopidity - people come forth and suggest they will donate to the defense fund. Of course - this simply subsidies the US lawyers who collectively created the problem in the first place.
The bottom line is that this is getting right fucking crasy! Somehow we need to figure out how to counter this.
There are two sets of laws here that are working against us. First is patent law which as it is currently implemented has the following consequences. 1) if you own a valid patent and a large company wants to use what you invented - they will simply claim your patent is invalid and bankrupt you in the courts. 2) if they own an invalid patent then you cannot afford to fight them in the courts. Thus - you cannot do your job. You cannot pusue your career. Here we have intellectual feudalism where the sherrif of cyber notingham tries to turn you into a peasant.
[read up on Leo Farinsworth if you doubt this - he invented television and died a broken man - bankrupt as well - because RCA fucked him over in the courts]
Then the second set of laws are in the same group as the DMCA where we sometimes face criminal charges because perhaps someone wants to play a CD or a DVD and does not want to use software from Microsoft to do it.
-----------
Patents are only valuable to large companies and they are only valuable because they can be used to restrain trade. Given this - large companies pool their patents in a defacto free patent zone. Those on the inside are more or less protected and do not run the risk of litigation. Anyone on the outside is fair game. What a wonderful little oligopoly eh?
Maybe "we" need to start playing this game. Suppose we organised an Open Source Patent Association and paid a feee like $100 bux to join it. This would create a pool of funds whereby the "best" ideas in the open source community could be patented. All members of the association would recieve protection and access to any and all patents. Any closed source shop would be billed or face court action -or- have to pool their patents in order to join.
Since most of the great ideas are invented in the open source community - in short order this association might have a rather wicked sheaf of patents and this could be used to ensure that members of the open source community cannot become victims of bad faith litigation.
The threat to sue Linus is over patent infringemnt. If (big if as Novell claims that SCO doesn't own the patents) SCO has software patents that cover portions of UNIX that Linux copies or emulates, even if it is not the same source code, there could still be patent infringement. This is, more or less, one of the reasons that GIF files were dropped as file formats from open source graphics programs - there was a patent that was being defended (valid or not it doesn't really make a difference) for the compression method used in GIF files. Rather than continue using the file format and end up in muddy patent law, it was dropped and PNG files became the defacto replacement. IIRC, none of the open source software used any code from the original compression libraries - just the methodology - but that could still infringe on the (stupid) patent.
I wish I didn't see the future so clearly sometimes, but I wrote the following a good few years back...
The "No problem Bugroff" license.
Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation devised, in addition to some marvelous software, the GNU General Public License (GPL for short). Or the CopyLeft it is sometimes called.
It is quite a revolutionary document, using the "copyright" tool to to protect your right to use free software.
Unfortunately using copyright to protect free software is a lot like using a Jackal to guard the hens.
In fact, various inconveniences relating to this have resulted in modifications such as the LGPL (Library General Public License) and more recently the NPL (Netscape Public License)
I call these matters mere inconveniences, the real damage will occur when the Jackal's, (sorry, I mean lawyers), actually get to test the GPL in court for the first time.
Thus enter my version.
Its very simple.
Entirely consistent.
Completely unrestrictive.
Easy to apply.
The "No problem Bugroff" license is as follows...
The answer to any and every question relating to the copyright, patents, legal issues of Bugroff licensed software is....
Sure, No problem. Don't worry, be happy. Now bugger off.
All portions of this license are important..
OK so the last part of the license sounds a bit harsh, but seriously folks, if you are a :-
Salt Lake City is easily accessible by air (a Delta Airlines hub.) It's a 2-hour non-stop flight from any of the SF Bay Area's three major airports. Or a 1-1/2 day drive if you prefer a road trip.
You don't have to copy anything to infringe on a patent.
However, if the alleged infringement occurs early enough in the patent term, it could be argued that the invention was probably obvious to anybody skilled in the art.
then by redistributing the kernel without a license from SCO
By distributing the Linux kernel under the GNU GPL, SCO granted an implied license to its patents to all recipients of SCO code.
Will I retire or break 10K?
SCO distributed Linux under the GPL. If Linus is guilty of patent violation, SCO is guilty of copyright violation.
Section 7:
If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Strange thought, don't you have to actually do something to violate a patent? The code in and of itself does not violate the patent. And if SCO violated Linus' copyright by distributing their patented code under GPL... then they're suing because Linus doesn't have a license... ugh.
Ugh!
After the judge laughs SCO out of the court, I've a few hundred more for the legal OFFENSE fund...
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
On checking out Yahoo's profile of SCO (and the plummeting stock price), I couldn't help noticing that he got paid $80,500 in 2002. Did he just join the company or does he have a massive stock option grant that will mushroom when... oh dear never mind.
By most people's accounts, I not only hold the "annoyance" patent, but i've got market cornered on annoyance-related technologies.
I think i'll call my lawyer tomorrow. SCO is treading on my territory.
On a serious note, I think we're seeing the beginning of a new trend when it comes to business management. If Chapter 11 is imminent, as has been the case with SCO in recent years, file lawsuits! File as many as you can, for as much money as humanly possible. It buys you time, and if by some stretch of bizarro-world luck you happen to win, the money you get comes straight out of the pockets of your competitors!
With all this, keep one thing in mind:
We live in a world where the most profitable company in the world sells bug-infested software, while another company who goes belly-up selling a product that can't crash.
Figure that one out.
Bowie J. Poag
Tell you what, folks. If no one comes down here to Crazy Darl's Unix Emporium and buys a license in the next hour, I'm gonna club this baby seal. That's right, I'd club a baby seal to make a better deal. And I'll do it, too... cuz I'm Craaaaazy Darl.
I shorted some SCOX today. I short stocks all the time, and it's not hard.
... you have to be more sure that you understand the stock, and take smaller positions than you would if you were long.
:)
The background: you need a brokerage account with 'margin' enabled. The 'margin' feature enables you to borrow the shares that you are selling.
The mechanics: when you go to enter an order, there are the usual "buy" and "sell" options. In addition, there is "sell short" and "buy to cover". You want "sell short".
You can elect to sell short at the current price ("market") or you can put in a limit price ("sell short at $6.50 or higher"). I usually use limit orders, even in fast markets.
If the stock moves below $6.50 before your limit order executes, then you have to cancel your limit order and try again. If it's dropping too fast, you can either chase it down, or try a market order, or give up (often a good idea).
You can sell as much stock short as you could buy with the same amount of money. If you have $10,000 in the account, you could sell about 1500 shares at $6.50, or 3000 shares if you want to leverage at 2:1.
I recommend that you be very conservative about the amount that you short! The reason is that short positions that move against you reduce your equity position 3x as fast as long positions would, so you'll get margin called a lot earlier on a bad short position. For a $10,000 account, on a fast moving stock like SCOX, 500 to 1000 shares is plenty of exposure.
One more thing you need to do before placing your order:
Choose your stop loss price.
The stop-loss price is the price where you give up and admit that the trade is not working right. In this case, you could choose a stop loss at $9.00 or $10.00 (very loose) or up at $7.00 (tight) or $6.60 (very tight).
If your short-sell order fills, you will have something like -1000 shares of SCOX in your account. That's right, negative shares. The broker will also add $6,500 cash to your account (the proceeds of the sale), minus their normal commission of $10 to $30. There's no extra commission for short selling.
At that point, immediately enter your stop-loss order. This is a buy-to-cover order with a stop price (not a limit price) at the point you picked, say $7.00. The full order is: buy-to-cover, 1000 shares, stop price $7.00, market order.
The idea is that if your trade does not work (which happens all the time, the market is often unpredictable), and the price goes back to $7, you will automatically buy back 1000 shares of SCOX, leaving you with a $500 loss (plus commissions). Ouch! But this is better than watching it go back to 8, or 9, or 12, and getting the shaft.
If the stock goes DOWN, though, then you're making money. Watch it go down as much you think it's gonna, then cancel your stop loss order, then isue a normal "buy to cover" order to buy it back.
This is mostly the same as normal "buy/sell", except that it's "short sell/buy to cover" (not just plain "buy", but "buy to cover", for some reason). The differences are:
-- it's harder to get a short order filled because of the uptick rule, the availability of shares to borrow, and stuff you don't need to worry about much, except that it means your short-sell order often goes unfilled.
-- the risk of a bad short position is quite a bit larger than the risk of a bad long position. Volatile stocks can go up faster than they go down! But the reward is the same. So
Have fun. If you lose money, you can moderate me down as your recourse.
It depends whether or not SCO continued to distribute after they'd verified that their proprietary IP had entered the Linux codebase, and for how long.
If they stopped distribution, or removed the offending code after discovering it, then it could be said that they'd made a good-faith effort to obey the terms of the GPL. Do they lose the right to control that proprietary code? Probably not. Can they continue to distribute? No. Should they be held responsible for copyright violations? Probably not.
If you did allow Linus or the FSF to sue for copyright infringement, you'd essentially be saying that SCO should be penalized because somebody else stole their proprietary code and stuck it into a piece of Open Source Software that-- unknown to them-- passed through their hands. That's a pretty perverse result.
In fact, section 7 of the GPL offers some clarifications on this. It says that any company that knows it cannot legally redistribute must cease distribution. It does not necessarily hold that a company may be penalized for previous distributions where it acted in good faith, but was undermined by the actions of some third party.
In fact, the GPL is not at all clear on this situation, which is why it would be problematic if it went to court. A judge would have to make a very tough call, and the results are hard to predict.
For those who have forgotten, Halloween VII was a leaked memo from MS dated Sep 2002. It was a survey report, discussing what types of FUD were most effective, and where FUD was backfiring. From this:
And later:
...if he wasn't the one who put the code into the Linux Kernel.
Obviously he had to approve it, but if UNIX source is such a big secret how is Linus supposed to recognize submitted code as such?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Here's the article.
Vip
Today 2mil shares of SCOX were traded on far higher volume than any other day of their average trading (300k or so). So, it is rather obvious that SCOX is walking on the thin ice of news and expectations that were hyped to their stockholders and speculators. The decline is as rapid as its rise in the previous weeks, so it might be a matter of few weeks as well when it goes under $5. June 13, or even earlier, should show what SCOX is really worth.
The decline is not a classic 5 wave down appearance (by Elliott Wave standards), so it's hard to say how deep this correction will go and how fast. If it were 5 waves (called impulse wave), SCOX would be pretty much doomed already. Besides, if anyone of you is inclined into technicals, today's action just touched the lower bond-support channel (hourly view), so it is likely that SCOX will try to fight back with some renewed rally. It'd have to go below $5.80 to cut trough the current support.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
IANAL, but I wonder if IBM couldn't bring a civil RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization) against SCO. I would ROFL if they could do one better with a criminal RICO suit. It seems to me that SCO's business line is now extortion, which to me seems to qualify it as a corrupt organization.
Personally, I think IBM needs to squash them for the annoying insect that they have become.
You can read up on what the execs are up to here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/s/scox.html
SCO announced today that after Linus, they're going after von Neuman for having invented the computer. "It's clear that his research was specifically designed to lead to the machine which is responsible for violating our intellectual property rights," SCO spokesmen were quoted as saying.
When asked if SCO had considered that without von Neuman's work they wouldn't have any intellectual property to begin with, the spokesman chided the journalists present for splitting hairs and using legal mumbo jumbo to confuse the issue. "The fact is, everyone in the world owes us a living, and they better pay up before we sue the bejeezus out of them. We have legions of lawyers ready and waiting."
The interview was cut short when a copy of an otherworldly book dropped out of the sky and landed on the stage with a thump. When examined it appeared to be an almanac or encyclopedia of otherwordly origin, and curiously enough it had fallen open on the following entry: "SCO: a dirty bunch of swindlers whose backs were first against the wall when the revolution came."
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
This is from their 10-K filing in Jan. Why would they pay if they owned it?
"Restricted Cash and Royalty Payable to Novell, Inc.
The Company has an arrangement with Novell, Inc. ("Novell") in which it acts as an administrative agent in the collection of royalties for customers who deploy SVRx technology. Under the agency agreement, the Company collects all customer payments and remits 95 percent of the collected funds to Novell and retains 5 percent as an administrative fee. The Company records the 5 percent administrative fee as revenue in its consolidated statements of operations. The accompanying October 31, 2002 and 2001 consolidated balance sheets reflect the amounts collected related to this agency agreement but not yet remitted to Novell of $1,428,000 and $1,894,000, respectively, as restricted cash and royalty payable to Novell. The October 31, 2001 balances were reclassified from cash and equivalents and other royalties payable to conform to the current year presentation. "
Read for yourself:
HERE
Zoid.com
What many people don't realize is that there are literally tens of thousands of bogus patents out there relating to all aspects of software, interface designs, methods of data communication, etc. The ugly reality is that the USPTO pretty much rubber stamps everything that comes their way without much review. If you look hard enough, pretty close to every substantial piece of code in existance, Open Source or proprietary, likely violates somebody's nonsense patent. While these bogus patents are rarely enforced, the SCO situation is proof that the danger exists, even at an 'unfounded threat' level. But as proprietary software empires fall to Free alternatives, we will quite likely see more of this nonsense.
p ://www.petitiononline.com/pasp01/petition.html
h ttp://www.freepatents.org/i nux.org/index_html?LANG=en
The long and short of it: our basic freedoms, especially speech, are being squelched by overzealous patenting. You cannot write software today without worrying about accidentally "re-inventing" or bumping into somebody's supposedly patented idea The modern patent system has decayed precisely into what Thomas Jefferson envisioned when he wrote: "..For to embarrass society with monopolies for every utensil existing, and in all the details of life, would be more injurious to them than had the supposed inventors never existed; because the natural understanding of its members would have suggested the same things or others as good." AND.. "the abuse of frivolous patents is likely to cause more inconvenience than is countervail by those really useful"
Software patents must be eliminated. All of them. They are a threat to free speech and expression. They are a threat to innovation. They are a threat to the Open Source movement. Software patents are by very nature trivial--something the USPTO is not supposed to allow.
With that in mind, here are some links to get you started on some anti-software-patent activism:
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html
htt
http://antipatents.8m.com/software-patents.html
http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf
http://petition.eurol
I understand your position, but if you did that, and even if SCO IS being odd, the idea of the GPL is freedom. The first time we deny someone a GPLed work, regardless of how someone may feel about them, that is the day the GPL is dead.
Free software is about software being free for everyone. Not just the people we like.
There is nothing "good faith" about trying to retain trade secret status for something that you yourself distributed for-profit as part of a GPL'd product, when that licence forbids you from adding any "further restrictions". If SCO want to call "mulligan" then it better pony up all the profits it got along the way.
Once they realized that they had essentially been tricked into distributing their own trade secret, they cannot try to shift "who gets screwed" to Linus. The legitimate parts of the kernel that are truly authored by Linus & freinds are GPL and SCO has an independent duty to Linus, as a distributor to assure that his licence is respected. That licence requires them to not impose additional restrictions, such as trade secret protections.
The bottom line is that the secret is out not just because IBM divulged it, but also because SCO re-divulged it with a statement to "all third parties" (which back-covers IBM) that it was free software. If SCO only did that because they are too stupid or too negligent to inspect their own product carefully, then they deserve what they get. After all, they are PROFITING from shipping this code.
Talk about unclean hands -- they accuse IBM of mishandling this code, when they did the exact same thing themselves in such a way that, on its face, back-authorized IBM to do what it did.
Had SCO not been distributing Linux, they would have a much stronger claim. But they did, and this comes with some very far reaching requirements to abandon various IP protections for all code within what they distribute.
If Novell is correct, SCO doesn't hold the copyrights. The Open Group owns the Unix trademark. A quick search of the US Patent office (my actual search query is here.) reveals that SCO doesn't have any Unix related patents before November of 1993 (after Linus had written the kernel)
So really, this whole lawsuit has lept headfirst from a giant joke into something well beyond offensive.
Send your complaints here :
http://www.sco.com/company/feedback/index.html
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
Dear Linus,
YHBT, HAND!
-- duh
But it is the GPL that exposes you to potentially being non-compliant, even when you've made all reasonable efforts to comply.
No different from any other copyright licence in this regard. You better get it right. They have NOT made a reasonable effort to comply with the GPL. They want Linus's code, but they don't want to abandon rights to things they ship with it.
If someone breaks into your company and steals proprietary code, all they have to do is insert it into a GPLed software package that you also contribute to and distribute. At that point, you're screwed.
I think you are getting at a fair question: if SCO legitimately owned proprietary code and discovered that IBM had mixed with GPL'd code, what should they have done?
The answer is very simple: they should have immediately sent IBM and the Linux community a C&D letter stating what parts of the code were proprietary. They should have refused to ship that code themselves under the GPL.
Does this place a burden on them to actually understand everything they ship? Yes, it does, but only if they want to keep their proprietary stuff cleanly separated from their GPL stuff.
Any company that relies on proprietary code and also works on GPLed code could be at risk.
Not quite. Only if the company wants to ship two such code bases that are candidates for mixing. Consider Corel from before: there was little risk that WorkPerfect code and linux code would intermix.
Furthermore, it would pretty much confirm Microsoft's earlier ramblings about the GPL putting a company's IP at risk.
They were overdoing it. The risk is only there if you mix code and distribute the result. Most USERS of GPL code aren't going to distribute modifications of it to others, and if they do, they'll have looked at the diff. Even if you modify GPL code, your extensions don't become GPL until you distribute them.
Consider Oracle. They released a clustered file system under the GPL. What proprietary rights have they lost -- just the ones contained in what they GPL'd. All they have to do is make sure they know exactly what's in the code they ship. If somebody else sends them a patch that adds large chunks of their proprietary RDBMS code in, should they blindly smile and ship it out? Um, no. They should be checking every patch submission they get.
It's clearly a battle between IBM and Microsoft, over the value of the Linux brand. SCO is being used as a vehicle to try to weaken this brand. We are unlikely to see IBM or Microsoft get involved directly, but there will be an escalation of this. It will not end with SCO's demise, if that happens soon.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
if everything would be open source from the beggining such problem wouldn't exist at all - and that is the reason why Open Source is good.
May 29, 2003 - Salt Lake City Utah -
Today, SCO Inc. filed a lawsuit against former vice-president Albert Gore for inventing the internet, which is the most widely used vehicle to distribute the Linux operating system. Recently, SCO filed a lawsuit against IBM for donating UNIX intellectual property to Linux development. SCO claimed to be the owner of the intellectual property of UNIX, until Novell corrected their incorrect assumptions.
Al Gore, who was once attributed to saying that he had invented the internet, released the following statement, "Contrary to SCO's assertions, I, Albert Gore am not the inventor of the Internet. Not only would a quick check of Scientific Journals reveal this fact, but a review of the U.S. Congressional record confirm that I voted to pass the law in which the predecessor to the Internet was funded. To my knowledge, the law which help fund the DARPA NET did not make a party to inventing the next phase of the project which was the Internet. I believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that I was directly involved in the scientific, financial or legislative development of the Internet. Apparently, SCO must share this view, since over the last few months it has repeatedly asked me to transfer my non-existent patents for the Internet to SCO. I have rejected these requests adamantly. Finally, I find it telling that SCO failed to assert a claim against the true inventors of the Internet or its predecessors."
SCO could not be reached for comment because it is still answering questions from yesterday's past quarter results conference call in which 250+ people listened to, which is more than their usually 7 to 10.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
Well, see, like you say, they don't even own it, so it doesn't matter if the patent was granted yesterday - Novell isn't enforcing it. ;)
What they're doing here is cute though - they are so willful at mixing concepts that it's disgusting. They blatantly mix arguments that are only germane to patents with a trade-secret situation. They always refer to SCO OpenUnix as Unix (circleR), a trademark they don't own and isn't unique to them. They claim that Linux is in violation of trade secrets they couldn't have been a party to. Every other day they claim they have patents and copyrights - then they kind of admit they don't - but not really.
I can't imagine their lawyers are that retarded that they can't make the distinction (in fact I know they're not). And they can't hope that IBM's are. Additionally, they can't be hoping still that IBM will settle, because IBM's foaming at the mouth now.
The only possible conclusion is they're using their spotlight to spread as much FUD as they can before this thing goes to court and they get reamed. Of course, they will lose any credibility they might have had in the process, and will certainly lose a great deal of business.
Something's making this "Suicide-by-IBM" gambit worth it - gee, I wonder what?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Smart companies like SBC with questionable IP go after Mom&Pop shops to establish precedent before going after the big boys. Naturally, that assumes you have things, like say a patent, that enables you to win the case, unlike SCO.
The last thing IBM wants, being a major linux player, is SCO spending Linus into a settlement, because settlements look bad (and IBM already had a chance at that one that they passed up). So if Linus is sued, expect IBM's hired muscle to crack some SCO kneecaps for him.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat