Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat Sues SCO, Sets Up Legal Fund
An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat has released a PR Newswire article stating that it intends to sue SCO Group to prove that it doesn't infringe any of SCO's intellectual property regarding the Red Hat Linux platform, and to hold it accountable for its actions and smear campaign. They've also announced the creation of a legal fund, to which they've pledged $1M US dollars to fight complaints such as these, called the 'Open Source Now' fund."
This story is here as well:
Red Hat files suit against SCO
In case the site (or routes to the site) get slashdotted. Here is a mirror.
CNET article about the suit: http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5059547.html
As seen on Yahoo Finance. Time to buy? :)
Red Hat has 90 million in cash and short terms, hardly "poor".
http://biz.yahoo.com/fin/l/r/rhat_qb.html
> I'm sorry, but IBM (the company that has made billions in revenue off GNU/Linux) should be floating the bill.
I agree to an extent, but from another POV it's Red Hat rather than IBM that has most to lose. A goofball ruling might have IBM handing over a few Bills, but Red Hat would go out of business altogether.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Red Hat Takes Aim at Infringement Claims
Complaint launched against SCO claims, Red Hat pledges $1MM to create fund to protect Linux
SAN FRANCISCO--August 4, 2003--Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT) today made two significant announcements to protect Red Hat Linux customers and the worldwide Linux industry. First, Red Hat announced that it filed a formal complaint against The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX, "SCO"). The purpose of this complaint is to demonstrate that Red Hat's technologies do not infringe any intellectual property of SCO and to hold SCO accountable for its unfair and deceptive actions.
"We filed this complaint to stop SCO from making unsubstantiated and untrue public statements attacking Red Hat Linux and the integrity of the Open Source software development process," said Mark Webbink, General Counsel at Red Hat. "Red Hat is confident that its current and future customers will continue to realize the significant value that our Red Hat Linux platform provides without interruption."
To further protect the integrity of Open Source software and the Open Source community, Red Hat has established the Open Source Now Fund. The purpose of the fund will be to cover legal expenses associated with infringement claims brought against companies developing software under the GPL license and non-profit organizations supporting the efforts of companies developing software under a GPL license. Red Hat has pledged one million dollars to be provided as funding in this initiative. For more information please e-mail opensourcenow@redhat.com.
"The collaborative process of Open Source software development which created the Linux operating system has been unjustly questioned and threatened," said Matthew Szulik, Chairman and CEO of Red Hat. "In its role as industry leader, Red Hat has a responsibility to ensure the legal rights of users are protected."
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat is the world's premier open source and Linux provider. Red Hat is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. and has offices worldwide. Its European headquarters is based in Surrey, UK, with offices throughout Europe. Please visit Red Hat on the Web at www.redhat.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Forward-looking statements in this press release are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 21E ofRed Hat Takes Aim at Infringement Claims
Complaint launched against SCO claims, Red Hat pledges $1MM to create fund to protect Linux
SAN FRANCISCO--August 4, 2003--Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT) today made two significant announcements to protect Red Hat Linux customers and the worldwide Linux industry. First, Red Hat announced that it filed a formal complaint against The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX, "SCO"). The purpose of this complaint is to demonstrate that Red Hat's technologies do not infringe any intellectual property of SCO and to hold SCO accountable for its unfair and deceptive actions.
"We filed this complaint to stop SCO from making unsubstantiated and untrue public statements attacking Red Hat Linux and the integrity of the Open Source software development process," said Mark Webbink, General Counsel at Red Hat. "Red Hat is confident that its current and future customers will continue to realize the significant value that our Red Hat Linux platform provides without interruption."
To further protect the integrity of Open Source software and the Open Source community, Red Hat has established the Open Source Now Fund. The purpose of the fund will be to cover legal expenses associated with infringement claims brought against companies developing software under the GPL license and non-profit organizations supporting the efforts of companies developing software under a GPL license. Red Hat has pledged one million dollars to be provided as funding in this initiative. For more information please e-mail opensourcenow@redhat.com.
"The collaborative process of Open Source software development which created the Linux operating system has been unjustly questioned and threatened,"
We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.
Yahoo Finance reports that Red Hat has a market cap of 1.159 Billion, while SCO only has a 151.9 Million market cap.
While market capitalization does not tell the whole story, it does show that Red Hat is a much more financially powerful company.
With that and the fact that they almost certainly have a rock solid case, the fact is they should sue the shit out of SCO.
This is a SEPARATE issue from the "Open Source Now Fund". I havne't found a copy of the filing, but making unsubstantiated and untrue public statements about your competitors is a serious buiness law violation.
"For more information please e-mail opensourcenow@redhat.com" from redhat
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
except, look at where it is relative to a few months ago
Yeah, it's down a bit today, but the 52-week low is $0.78 -- sorry to say, but this hustle seems to be working in their favor for the time being. It's going to take IBM coming down hard to put all this to an end, I'm afraid. I'm just not sure what they're waiting for.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
The story hit the newswire and other sites like Linux Weekly News long before it showed up on slashdot. Use some common sense.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
https://www.thelinuxreview.com/index.lxp
Robby Russell
PLANET ARGON
Robby on Rails
RedHat has done some very great things for the Linux community. The GPL of the QT license is all due to them, and they were the only gnome player for the longest time.
This lawsuit with SCO is potentially another feather in their cap.
However...
It is pretty easy to show that RedHat doesn't care much about the Linux hobbiest community.
RedHat has to survive, granted, and that means money. Perhaps RedHat thinks that it used to waste money on a hobbiest market, but it is those users that have brought RedHat into the enterprise.
Now I bring SUSE and OpenBSD.
Suse already got an injunction against them in Germany. German courts pretty much told them to shut the hell up unless they could back their allegations up, so they... shut the hell up. Not a peep out of them in Germany since.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
AT: The SCO Group, Inc. Third-Quarter Financial Results Conference Call WHEN: Thursday, August 14, 2003, 9:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time. HOW: If you would like to participate in the live call, you may dial 1.800.811.0667 or 1.913.981.4901; Passcode: 452322. You may also join the call in listen-only mode via Web cast. The URL is listed at http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm .
they aren't setting up the fund for themselves, it's a separate community driven fund - they've just founded it, and got it off of the ground with $1m.
i wish i was but oh well
The actual complaint, not linked from the story, can be found here.
How is it ironic? They sell linux.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
The tables are starting to turn. Here is what we need to work on next:
1) Stop trolling about how pathetic RH is, and how they will fail
2) Actually support RH in this effort
- a) Purchase a copy of RH Linux -or-
- b) Donate to the new legal fund -or-
- c) both a and b
This is probably the catalyst that will get other companies on the legal train against SCO. IBM already has its work cut out for it in court, and RH can either help or hinder this cause. However, many companies have been hurt by SCO's slander, and they have the right to seek legal relief.
the guys that want you to sign over your copyrights so they can defend them for you. I guess they spent my donation money on pizza and Bawls, because they haven't done much here.
The FSF isn't an author of Linux. Few (if any?) Linux contributors assigned copyright to the FSF. They're a third party here- what would you expect them to do?
The most the FSF could offer against SCO would be a friend-of-court brief. And I'm sure they'll produce one when the time comes.
The FSF lawyer has already published articles attacking the validity of SCO's claims, so they're already helping some.
Well to get pedantic.. other nations didn't fight on behalf of the USA/USSR .. they fought for their own reasons. However the USA/USSR backed opposite sides for their own political/idealogical reasons. While it's fair to say USSR backed vietnam beat USA backed Vietnam, that's not the end of the story, USA backed Afghanistan beat the USSR directly, only for the Afghans/Taliban to turn against the USA in recent history.
:)
Perhaps IBM are backing Red Hat, and one day Red Hat will try to destory IBM
Interesting point. I just recently went to a partner-only meeting at IBM. Surprisinly, there was a Red Hat rep who was talking about the alliance between the two. RedHat is taking steps to have a few models of the xSeries servers certified with Red Hat enterprise 3.0 (when it comes out).
As I've watched this play out a few things have always sat in my mind.
I never believed, for a second, that any lawsuit with SCO vs. IBM would have ever truly materialized.
When the word about this new "licensing program" where you would buy a copy of SCOs software and SCO would quietly put you on a "safe" list of those who would not be sued surfaced, this kinda solidified that hypothesis.
They'd run a large scale FUD campaign (which we've been watching for weeks) and *frightened* corporate CIOs would either pay up or migrate from Linux to something else.
Someone finally coming out and suing them in a campaign to end this mess seems to be the only way out. Hopefully there are some damages involved. Corporations and others alike need to stop using our legal system as a money-making scam.
If part of ones business model is to hire a bunch of lawyers and extort money out of individuals, as SCO, DirecTV, the RIAA and others are attempting, they need to be sued and have their bottom lines burned to a crisp.
I don't know about the rest of you but I'm putting my money where my mouth is. It won't be a million bucks, but they'll get a donation.
I'm not a personal fan of Red Hat Linux, but this is starting to persuade me.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God
"You can choose the open-source lifestyle Linux kernel or the Solaris kernel. We will indemnify you on the Solaris kernel. You'll have to go ask Red Hat [Inc.] if they will indemnify you on Linux." July 21, 2003 McNealy Weighs In on Linux, Unix, Sun
.... maybe their aswer would is YES.
By Eric Lundquist - Eweek.com
hmmmm
Check out page 2, paragraphs 4 and 5:
http://lwn.net/images/ns/rh-complaint.pdf
Obviously Red Hat has been paying attention to the arguments made on /.
"SCO itself, however, has been publicly distributing the LINUX operating system, including the LINUX code, for at least five years. Regcognizing the inconsistency between its claim of "trade secret" missapropriation and its public disclosures of the same allegedly secret information, in May 2003 SCO public stated it would no longer disribute LINUX. However, that statement too is false. SCO continues to offer LINUX source code for public downloading today- more than four months after SCO sued IBM for disclosing UNIX "trade secrets" that SCO coninues to disclose itself."
http://lwn.net/images/ns/rh-complaint.pdf
45-billion dollar black hole
...a billion here, a billion there....
I read an article in my local newspaper recently that pegged this at $49 billion.
cswingle Fairbanks AK
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
It's seven counts...
1 for a declaritory judgement that there is no Coprighted SCO code in RedHat Linux, or if there is, that it's not enforceable.
2 for a declaratory judgement that there is no SCO owned Trade Secrets in RedHat Linux
3. False advertising
4. Deceptive trade practices
5. Unfair competition
6. Tortious interference with prospective business oportunities
7. Trade Libel and Disparagement.
Source: http://lwn.net/images/ns/rh-complaint.pdf
At first it just looked like they were covering themselves, but the last 5 show that they're on the offensive.
Advanced users are users too!
It's really nice to make things like that proper hotlinks...
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I have to point out that Metallica *still* encourages recording and trading of their bootlegged *live* performances, just like before. They even have several dozen on their website for people who bought their latest CD. There's a big banner at the top of the page that tells you to download them, burn them and pass them around.
If the GPL is invalid then it reverts back to copyrights. Presuming that copyrights are legal then SCO (and all other linux distributors) have to get permission from each and every person who holds a copyright on the linux distribution. Not just the kernel, the entire frikking thing. I don't imagine too many people will give SCO the right to distribute their code.
I think the FSF could pretty quickly release their code under some sort of a prorietary licence to redhat and other friendly entitites while denying other entitites any rights to the code whatsoever.
It might benefit the OSS community to start to gather copyrights under one entity though. It would be much simpler to rewrite the EULA that way.
Of course the courts could hold that all EULAs are invalid and I am not sure that would be all that bad.
War is necrophilia.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030804/lam110_1.html
Forgive me if this is up here somewhere already, but I ran a search through the replies and didn't see it. This is SCO's amusing response, lifted off Yahoo's biz section - I would imagine this would actually be admissible as evidence of some of Red Hat's claims! (Particularly regarding the last two sentences.)
Matthew J. Szulik
CEO
RED HAT, INC.
1801 Varsity Drive
Raleigh, NC 27606
Dear Matthew,
Attached is the letter I discussed with you during our July 31, 2003 telephone conversation. Instead of actually sending the letter, I thought it was best to telephone you and speak in person to see if we could resolve the issues between our companies short of litigation. We left the conversation with a preliminary agreement to meet and continue our discussions further.
To my surprise, I just discovered that your company filed legal action against The SCO Group earlier today. You, of course, mentioned nothing of this during our telephone conversation. I am disappointed that you were not more forthcoming about your intentions. I am also disappointed that you have chosen litigation rather than good faith discussions with SCO about the problems inherent in Linux.
Of course, we will prepare our legal response as required by your complaint. Be advised that our response will likely include counterclaims for copyright infringement and conspiracy.
I must say that your decision to file legal action does not seem conducive to the long-term survivability of Linux.
Yours truly
Darl C. McBride
President & CEO
Favorable tax laws and easy to file paperwork.
SCO System V for Linux
Uh... I just ran into this while browsing SCO's site. It seems to contain more vague threats and accusations, to the tune of "everyone using Unix apps under Linux has pirated SCO's libraries."
Does anyone know what this is about?
My bicyles
It's also worth noting that unlike most EULA's the gpl stands on firmly proven and tred ground. The GPL acts within the rights of the copyright holder already granted under copyright law and loosens those rights for the licensee under certain conditions.
EULA's like the one I just reread from Microsoft for XP pro retail, are quite different, they don't actually grant any rights that copyright law wouldn't bestow upon you anyway and more or less are a way for the copyright holder to make up their own rights regardless of copyright law.
Now if only the SEC could get involved.
I'm betting they will. Just check out the insider trades done by SCO executives lately. They're all selling... none of them buying. True, the sums are not Gatesian, but not exactly chump change. Plenty of 'em are exercising options where they bought shares for pennies a share, and are selling for eleven and twelve dollars a share.
Looking at those insider trades actually makes me feel better about the whole thing. SCO executives are obviously in this to pump up the stock and make a killing in the market. They are not in it for the lawsuit, per se. I'm not sure what the standard of proof the SEC would need to charge these criminals, but their motives are obvious, given their insider trading.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
favorable business laws
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I've always had it explained that fascism is a political philosophy and capitalism is an economic system. The Nazis were socialist (German National Social Worker's Party), not capitalists.
Although, I'm curious to hear of a free market, socialist economy.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
These are certainly the popular definitions, but they are not the ones my economics professors, primarily Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, taught me. I wouldn't rely on general dictionary to define economic terms. Furthermore, their socialism definition fully jibes with what I said. They say nothing about planning or market model, only ownership and administration. Similarly the Fascism definition does not contradict my statement. As for a real world example of a market socialist economy, that was certainly the direction Chile was heading quite rapidly until 1973. Soviet Russia under the NEP (New Economic Program) was more slowly moving to a Market Socialist system, with some limited private ownership mixed in, until Lenin's death. Likewise, in the eighties China undertook a partial marketization of their agricultural system. Farms were all collectively owned, but peasants were granted individual plots. They were under contract to seel a certain amount of their crop on the governement market. Any remainder they could sell on private markets. Furthermore, collectively and state owned enterprises compete all the time in mixed free market economies. Look at the European auto industry. Until the eighties' rash of sell-offs, Volvo, Renault (IIRC) and Fiat all had some state ownership.
Among the more influential Market Socialist theorists in this country was the Individualist Anarchist icon Benjamin Tucker who, contrary to Libertarian mythology, proposed the complete elimination of private property.
The Nazis used the word Socialist, but they were nothing of the sort. Was the German Democratic Republic democratic? For that matter, is the Democratic party in the US primarily composed of Democrats? It was pure propaganda. The Nazi economy most certainly was Capitalist. The means of production was entirely privately owned. And Fascism was much more than a political philosophy. There was a religious restoration element for one thing (one of the differences between Fascism and Nazism). Fascism was very clear about it's economic agenda: state planning under private owhership. As Mussolini said, it was at its core the merger of state and corporate power. BTW, there is also non-Fascist state capitalism. Arguably postwar Japan was such a system as well as the Republic of Korea for many years (some would say the ROK was actually Fascist).
If you are interested in Market Socialist economics I highly recommend you read (or write) Bowles and Gintis, since they are well known current Market Socialist economists. They are most famous for their paper arguing that rational corporations maximize market share, not profit (except under specific conditions). The first state (non-anarchist) Market Socialist was probably Oscar Lange, if you want to start ar the begining. John Roemer at Berkely is a Market Socialist well known for his critique of the Labor Theory of Value from a Game Theory perspective. IIRC, Michael Piore at MIT is very good, although he may be more of a Structuralist. It has been a long time and my memory fades.
Ever the iconoclast, Joe Stiglitz once wrote a very interesting critique of Market Socialism based on the hypthesis that markets aren't really that efficient as resource allocation mechanisms. I think it was called Wither Socialism.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Don't know about the U.S., but in Canada, a civil trial can go in front of a jury, if requested by the participants. I don't recall the details of who has to want it, but it can happen. It just doesn't all that often. And I believe there are only six people on a civil case jury instead of twelve.
Ah, here we are, from The government web site:
I would expect the U.S. to be similar: a civil trial with a jury is unlikely, but possible. And, unfortunately, probably more likely in cases which the lawyers feel can be swayed with emotional arguments.
-- Bryan Feur