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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.
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
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
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.
The Shakespeare character who said "first, kill all the lawyers" was a tyrant. He wasn't interested in killing the lawyers to stop stupid lawsuits, he wanted them out of the way so he could do whatever the heck he wanted.
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.
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.
> "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!
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.
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
Wet my pants?
Stop using Linux? (Yeah, you would really like that, would be good for your MSFT-stock, right?)
Start crying?
Ahh, because I point out a bit of history as to how this has happened before in the courts and because I have a little knowledge of the court system an IP now I'm an MS lover? Sit down little Linux script kiddie and take a deep breath before you hurt yourself. You're very misinformed and typical of why I said people shouldn't take this lightly.
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.
How do you know this? SCO doesn't have to show you anything - all the offending code has to be shown to IBM right now. And because of NDA's and the like (whatever is stipulated in their contract) they may never have to show you any of it.
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.
Ok - when did I say this? When does - "don't take this lightly because it's happened in the past before" translate to be afraid, uncertain, doubtful, etc?
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.
Riiiiight. Now I want to see the fall of Linux, especially since it (along with Solaris, BSD, etc) have been paying my bills for longer than you've probably been walking.
To sum up, yes I will take that threat lightly.
Go ahead. The BSD camp took this very seriously, won the case, and still got fucked in the process while it was being straigtened out in the courts. Know your history little kiddie - else you're gonna be bound repeating it.
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.
Would you please refrain from polluting our self-righteous ranting with your precise facts?
Sheesh...some people.
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'm sure that you know very well that trade secrets can't and therefore don't have to be put back into secrecy after they have been published. The only consequence is that the leaker (which would be IBM) would have to compensate the owner of the loss.
So Linux doesn't even have to be changed, they can continue to use the no-longer secret trade secrets anyway. The absolute worst-case of this suit is IBM being fined.
So please, "sumbry", put your lies and FUD elsewhere.
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.
...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.
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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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