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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."
I'm sorry, but IBM (the company that has made billions in revenue off GNU/Linux) should be floating the bill. Red Hat is too poor to be getting into a legal slug fest with a company that has literally transformed themselves into a litigation firm. IBM has the money to fight, while Red Hat might end up getting dragged through the proverbial legal-mud, and never really get anywhere.
What might serve Red Hat better is to send their customers information regarding how absurd SCOs claims are, complete with the opinions of legal experts on the matter, like the OSDLs terrific "position paper". The people, especially those in the corporate world, have to be clearly shown how absurd and evil SCOs actions have been. Litigation by a small company is going to be long, expensive, and perhaps in the end fruitless.
Regarding the OSDL's paper, I personally like the analogy made concerning publishing houses:
Imagine the literary equivalent of SCO's current bluster:
Publishing house A alleges that the bestselling novel by Author X topping the charts from Publisher B plagiarizes its own more obscure novel by Author Y. "But," the chairman of Publisher A announces at a news conference, "we're not suing Author X or Publisher B; we're only suing all the people who bought X's book. They have to pay us for a license to read the book immediately, or we'll come after them." That doesn't happen, because that's not the law.
SCO can't really do anything to ANYONE's customers except their own. I didn't see anyone in trouble for running AIX or sued yet for running Linux without a SCO license.
Finkployd
I would wager RedHat could claim damages to their business reputation for all that SCO has claimed. SCO is trying to scare people away from Linux (and into their license-fee income stream), but if they lose the IBM suit, their statements could be considered libel/slander.
Also, I take this as a good sign that SCO has no chance to survive. The RedHat folk aren't stupid: they wouldn't enter this fray unless they were reasonably sure of success.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Went out and bought anoter copy of Red Hat at lunch and mail Red Hat $10 for the legal fund. If only 5% of slashdot readers followed suit :)
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
This lawsuit against SCO is just. When RedHat wins, it will significantly add to the company's bottom line.
Buy RedHat stock now before it goes up even further -- just my opinion.
If wonder whether the OSNF (Open Source Now Fund) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation? Should it be? If so, should Red Hat's contributions to it be tax deductible? While others will benefit from the fund, so of course will Red Hat.
Also, who will be administering the OSNF? Will they work for or be connected to Red Hat? Who will make the decisions regarding the disbursement of funds, etc.?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
As seen on Yahoo Finance. Time to buy? :)
I know you're joking but from a strictly speculator point of view, it might not be a bad idea. I've been watching the SCOX price for a few months and have noticed a tendency of SCO's PR. Whenever the price drops or plateau's, you can count on yet another outrageous PR release from SCO to pump it back up. Before the week is out, expect SCO to make some sort of apocalyptic statement in regard to RedHat.
don't go crying for poor redhat, saying they haven't the money to go spending a million on a lawsuit.
they have $300+ million in the bank and are profitable... imagine that.
so, there's no need to go begging papa IBM for money or for a legal defense, considering it's redhat's own bottom line that's being impacted.
-anonymous, because i moderated this article already. oops.
"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"
I think the SCO suit is great for Redhat, but even better for the community is this legal fund. I don't know if it's non-profit, or how it works exactly, but ideally it would (and should) be a fund to help take care of any OSS-movement threatening lawsuits or legal issues. This is something Open Source has never had before, and that large corporations have always had. This may give OSS the support it needs to grow without threats from any company out to stop it -- like SCO. The way they describe it, it seems like something meant to be a "legal department" for Open Source.
It may just be me, but I think that's the bigger picture here.
"!"
I cant stand a for-profit corporation seeking donations and charity.
If they collect 2 million, and only need 1.3 million for legal fees, the rest goes into execs pockets.
If this suit is a part of business, expense it as such. If not, then it's in the domain of the EFF or some other non-profit group to pursue it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
And to think people chide me for using Linux because I can't get support from a "real company."
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Once the SCO/IBM lawsuit is over, RedHat will be the first to cash in on the counter-suit. This means, IBM lawyers will do the work and RedHat will use that information to get some money from SCO. If they were to wait until IBM sues SCO, there wouldn't be anything left.
Smart move on RedHat's part. Let IBM do the dirty work, and then ride along for all the benefits.
Hopefully they'll set up a PayPal address so individuals can donate to the fund. I could easily see that $1M doubling in no time.
That according to Netcraft, http://www.sco.com runs on Linux :)
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.sco. com
Jonathan
The SCO case has already inspired the ire of the entire Linux community. It's even made Germany make SCO's claim completely null and void within its borders.
Considering that SCO is not doing well financially, is being countersued by IBM, and is still yet to provide concrete evidence, Red Hat might as well save its resources and stay out of this. Although it most certainly has a stake in the outcome of the argument, it's quite likely that their involvement will not bring about much change.
That said, I commend Red Hat for doing what they're doing and, at the very least, making explicit the sentiment in Linux community feels for SCO.
Even better news:
SCOX
compare the time on the PR notice with the start of the downward spiral...
plonk!
I have to say this. I hate Red Hat. Not the people. The distribution. RPM. Their whole idiotic file layout. Their stupid configuration tools. I used it for awhile, and I really do hate it.
But I don't hate the people working for them - there are a lot of really good people there. And I don't hate the company. As a corporation, it does some pretty dumb things occasionally, sure. And the buzzwordspeak is annoying ('...continue to realize the significant value that our Red Hat Linux platform provides' - wtf are they trying to say and why don't they just say it?) but all companies, for some unintelligible reason, seem to do that. I was a bit peeved when they C&D'd linuxiso, I must admit, but that turned out to have been a simple mistake by some simpleton in the legal office and was quickly rectified.
In the end, even though their system disgusts me and I will never willingly use it again, they pay some damn fine hackers to work on damn fine Free software, and despite all the buzzwordspeak they do seem to know what they're talking about when they use the word community.
So RedHat is alright by me. They're not bad folks.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Interesting, these are the market cap's for the various comapnies involved:
SCOX: 146.2M link
Red Hat: 1.142B link
Novel: 1.337B link
IBM: 139.9B link
I find it kind of funny that those numbers are really close except RedHat/Novel have ten times the market cap SCO does and IBM has 100 times the market cap RedHat/Novel do. This isn't supposed to be important, just thought it odd that these numbers are almost exact multiples of each other.
This is a smart move on Red Hat's part. By seeking a declaration that Linux doesn't infringe SCO's IP rights, they largely wipe out the "no indemnification" FUD that's being spread.
This also has the advantage of forcing SCO to "put up or shut up" -- in the discovery process Red Hat can demand that SCO identify each and every Linux element that is claimed to infringe. This is going to take some time (litigation is slow) and SCO will probably ask for a protective order to preserve the alleged confidentiality of their code, but sooner or later this process will smoke them out.
SCO's argument in trying to collect license fees from Linux users and distributors is that a license will buy peace of mind and immunity from SCO lawsuits.
Anybody who gives SCO even $0.01 enters into a contract with said company, and invites being hauled off to Utah to defend against breach-of-contract suits.
It seems to me that the most effective way to fight the extortion (over and above what RedHat is doing) is to impress on potential extortees that paying off SCO is *not* a safe move for the risk-averse.
RedHat's fund appears to me a much better use of a
Linux user's spare change.
I want to see the GPL litigated at least to an appeals court level. So far all we've seen on the legality and enforceability of the GPL are cases that get dismissed or the parties settle out of court. Nobody really knows how the GPL would stand up in a real Pier 6 brawl. I would like to see that test happen, and the sooner the better.
My biggest fear in the Open World is that the GPL will be held to be invalid in some way, shape or form and if that happens the greedheads will have a field day. If the provisions of the GPL are not enforceable - even after the original copyright holder is no longer around - we are all in some serious shit.
How else would you evaluate SCO's future prospects, by looking at their new product line? This lawsuit is all they have going on, and it's not going well. I don't know why, other than lack of funds for legal fees, a *lot* of other Linux and related companies don't also sue them for the same reason. Keep SCO's lawyers really busy.
If you're going to get in a legal fight first determine the facts and don't forget the funds. If you have enough of each, proceed.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Anyway, I hope RH and IBM are coordinating on this. It would be terribly counterproductive for RH and IBM to be mutually interfering with each others' strategies.
I just put down $40 at Fry's for the basic Red Hat 9 box, and $60 for a year of Red Hat Network membership.. seems like a real bargain, now.
Go Red Hat, go!
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Given that RedHat is the largest distributor of Linux (I believe that is correct, anyway), it make more sense for them to file such a suit than any other Linux distributor.
Yeah, the will get some PR strokes for getting their name out and being on the side of "right".
But, at the same time, it also gets PR for Linux in general, which is good for all, IMHO.
I tip my hat (hehe) to RedHat for doing this. It will at almost stop the garbage being spewed by SCO's officers.
The funny thing is, that SCO's statements have been, uh, entertaining at least. It has been fun watching one of their officers say one thing, another contradict it, the first one then contradicting themself, etc. Better then a keystone cops serial. The more they spoke, the more rope it created for IBM (and now RedHat) to hang the SCO with.
I would call SCO stupid, if they weren't so imcompentent.
Regards,
Fredrick
Interestingly enough, the press release says OpenSource Now is for GNU GPL code. Is it excluding other licenses, say public domain, BSD, OSL or even the GNU LGPL and FDL? I can understand focusing on copyleft, but not exclusively GPL.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Consequently, FedEx has been talking to HP about buying the software through them rather than RedHat.
I'm sure that there are other instances of Redhat's getting hurt by all of the garbage SCO is spewing. I would guess that at least one reason they're doing this is they can't afford to wait any longer for someone else (IBM) to.
SCO now has to counter with another wild claim or suit in order to undo the damage. SCO has made it quite clear that it's a PR battle and therefore must respond, lest the share price and FUD wane.
And of course the move will necessarily be even more preposterous than what they've already done, as they've already used up all the plausible moves they had and then some.
Check this out, according to Yahoo, Wall street dropped SCO stock $2 per share almost coinciding with this announcement. Obviously Wall Street is paying attention on this one right now.
Now if only the SEC could get involved.
I wouldn't like to bet my company in a lawyer who is barely literate.
--
Paragraph 61 contains the nonsense phrase at is recent conference call...
--
> how long will it be before the SCO officers
> start to sell their stock short
They already have been, but they've stopped.
They announce earnings on the 14th. Between now and then, an insider trade of any kind will get the hairy eyeball from the SEC because insiders presumably know already what those earnings statements will say.
http://www.forbes.com/2003/08/04/cz_dl_0804linux.h tml [forbes.com]
"Linux geeks howled a bit, but then wrote off SCO as a bunch of sleazebags and went back to playing live-action roleplaying (LARP) games in their mothers' basements, or whatever it is they do when they're not writing device drivers and complaining about clueless end users"
I think they meant MMORPG but hey, these are suits at Forbes, right?
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
I think that the first two elements of the lawsuit, the request for "Declatory Judgement of Noninfringement of Copyrights" and for "Declatory Judgement of No Misappropriation of Trade Secrets" are going to go relatively fast.
...". I believe that this actual controversy, if the court agrees, means that the declatory judgement request will probably be decided long before any actual court case. I think that it is a means of getting relatively quick relief from the wrongful actions of another.
In both requests, Red Hat uses a phrase "An actual controversy exists between SCO and Red Hat as to
If the court finds that there is no actual controversy between the two sides, then I think that the relief will likely have to wait for the case to go to trial.
My guess is that if the court finds for Red Hat in the declatory judgements, SCO is going to fold and the only thing left will be for them to try to settle the rest out of court for as little money as they can spend.
I don't know how long such a declatory finding should take, but my completely uneducated guess is that we could see it before the end of the year or early next year.
The other five counts are for torts (I think) that Red Hat (and many of the rest of us) allege that SCO has committed. These are false advertising, deceptive trade practices, unfair competition, tortious interference, and trade libel and disparagement.
If the court grants Red Hat the two declatory judgements, I can't see how SCO could hope to prevail on the remaining five counts.
>>I am also disappointed that you have chosen litigation rather than good faith discussions...
This from a company who's only possible sources of income are related to suing, or threatening to sue everybody.
>>I must say that your decision to file legal action does not seem conducive to the long-term survivability of Linux
This from the company that has been bashing Linux non-stop for months now, and who plans to eliminate Linux as it now known.
>>Be advised that our response will likely include counterclaims for copyright infringement and conspiracy
Gosh, I thought Darl hated all that nasty litigation. Conspiracy? Sort of like Microsoft and Sun secretly funding Scox's anti-linux FUD campaign? Or Sco's actions being dictated by Canopy Group?
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030804/lam110_1.html