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IBM Countersues SCO, And More!
mr.crutch writes "Few details are available, but CNet is reporting that IBM has filed counterclaims against SCO. CNet also has an interview with Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik..." Jizzbug writes "Thanks to the folks of K5, we can all obtain our rights to use the Linux kernel from SCO, and without paying up to SCO's extortion. If kernel.org kernels aren't safe, sco.com kernels certainly ought to be." LWN has a copy of SCO's Linux License for your perusal. Bruce Perens is speaking of the dangers of patent portfolios to open source software, notable because IBM's counterclaims include patent infringement. And finally, a company is selling SCO Check, a tool to de-SCOify your Linux system, if SCO ever presents any evidence whatsoever of infringing code in Linux. Update: 08/08 00:16 GMT by T : SCO's public response to IBM's counterclaim is short and to the point. Among other things, it says "If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license." Given the other links in this story, perhaps SCO should go first on that count.
"SCO said it revoked IBM's license to ship AIX in June. In its countersuit, Big Blue reasserted its position that its AIX license is irrevocable and perpetual, but then added a new twist involving Novell, the company that owned Unix copyrights until selling them to SCO's predecessor in 1995.
;)
IBM's suit revealed that Novell on June 12 effectively forbade SCO from terminating IBM's AIX license. SCO said it revoked the AIX license on June 16. Novell maintained the right to issue such instructions to SCO under the terms of the Unix sale, the suit said. "
Does anyone know anything more about this?
I know tht Novell apparently DID sell the copyrights, but this is a news Item...
Bruce Perens might want to help clarifiy this for us
-Colin
Colin Davis
go IBM!!
hehe being a macuser since the days of the Mac512k never thought i'd be so excited to cheer IBM.. haha GO IBM!!
In a way, I'm glad it's IBM fighting the first big GPL court battle, rather than any of the advocacy organizations, which while strongly motivated and highly expert, are also woefully underfunded and would almost certainly lose in a drawn-out war of attrition.
For once, a corporate behemoth on our side...
When SCO dies, who will snatch up the assets it has (including if any valid IP)?
Who has more cash floating around than most?
M$... and that could get messy quickly.
sPh
Wow, that's enough to keep SCO's lawyers busy until the money runs out :)
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
Reports I've seen this morning are that the filing contains several causes:
... in their OS. (I am assuming that those are the patents that IBM is accusing SCO of violating.)
1) SCO is infringing on four of IBM's patents.
2) SCO is interfering with IBM's business by claiming to have terminated IBM's license for AIX.
3) SCO is violating the GPL by distributing GPL'ed software without the GPL.
I hadn't thought about that first point before since I always took it for granted that SCO obtained permission from IBM to use RCU, NUMA,
This brings up an interesting question in my mind.
IBM has clearly intentionally released code under the GPL utilizing those patents. Under the GPL we are free to use and modify that code provided that if we distribute the code we do it under the GPL.
Suppose you write a new operating system designed for some specific purpose and the only code it uses from Linux is the code encapsulating those four IBM patents. The way I figure it, as long as you use the code in-house only or as long as you distribute the code under the GPL, there will be no patent infringement. Is that right?
Hope SCO managers cashed in ALL of their stock
Unfortunately for them, right now is the time between the close of last quarter and the official annoucement of results. The SEC generally frowns on insider sales during this time period. Gotta love Red Hat's timing.
Considering the fact that Redhat recently filed a lawsuit, it looks like the "Linux Allies" are mobilized and are opening multiple fronts. What is interesting here is IBM's fighting for GPL, which means a team of highly paid attorneys will argue the viability of GPL. If this makes it to court, then GPL will have its test.
On another point, perhaps IBM holds the patent "process of suing other companies for patent violations as a means of revenue." If so, SCO is definitely in violation.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Happily investors don't take well to being screwed by a company's money-grubbing management. They have a tendency to enlist the aid of the SEC and sue management for all they can.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
IBM also claims SCO Group has violated the general public license, or the GNU GPL, under which Linux is distributed.
Will this be the first time that the GPL has actually been used as part of a court preceeding? As far as I am aware all companies, who did not orginally comply, have felt that their public image was more important than a challenge of the GPL, and respected the contract of the GPL, even if it did take the FSF or public pressure.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Remembering that really awesome UNIX history map that Eric Levenez has, we could do a new map, the SCO Lawsuit Map.
It would start out at the beginning with the conclusion and subsequent sealing of records from Novell's days of UNIX and their court case. We could then move on, with the slow beginning to the conversion of Caldera Inc into SCOX, and discuss the posturing between SCO and IBM, moving on to SCO's lawsuit against IBM, SCO's unenforceable "deadline", their personal attacks against the likes of Linus Torvalds, discussions on their failure to provide code examples repeatedly, and the like. We can then get into their license extortion, the additional lawsuits, the countersuits, and the like.
I'd offer to do it, but I don't have powerful enough software to create such a map, according to SCO's claims on my OS...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Isn't the argument about SCO releasing a Linux distribution including the kernel under GPL a loose-loose situation for the GPL community?
I can see two outcomes:
The latter would make the acceptance of GPL as general purpose license even harder.
Yet Another Debian User
Well, actually, they can't.
IBM can't use the patents against the Linux kernel anymore than SCO can -- as IBM points out in its own brief, distribution of the source under the GPL prohibits you from certain legal tactics... like licensing. You are implicitly licensing any IP (copyrights, trade secrets, patents) that you may own that are applicable to the source you distribute. Don't like it? Don't distribute. Also don't use GPL code in a distributed product, since doing so requires distribution of the source.
Of course, one day a patch could come along that IBM doesn't like and it would cease to provide newer kernels including that patch in order to preserve its rights... but that's a battle that would have to be fought when that time comes. Most likely IBM would inform the relevant people of their rights and their intentions, and the code wouldn't be integrated into the kernel. I'm not saying that this is a good thing, or that software patents are a good thing, just pointing out how it would work.
So the big question; who shorted the stock? What was the price point and when do you plan to cash in? C'mon, fess up. We're all rooting for you to make a killing from SCO's flameout as we get the pleasure of watching Darl's FUD machine go crashing into the sea.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
A key aspect in IBM's countersuit is the fact that they are paying to enforce - in the courts - the GPL.
IANAL, but to my knowledge, IBM vs. SCO is the first such case where the legality of the GPL has been tested in the courts.
Should IBM be victorious (actually, 'when' IBM is victorious), it would be a momentous occassion for the GPL - any future litigation involving the GPL would have an established, well-known legal case from which to draw references.
The net outcome of this entire ordeal could be the overall strengthening of open source software w/in the US legal system. If the GPL has withstood court scrutiny, it could act as a 'selling point' for countless corporations, government agencies, et al in consideration of OSS deployment w/in their organizations, as now the unassuredness of the legality of such software would have been resolved.
What claims to patents or infringements can IBM claim over IF SCO owns the rights. Seems to be from reading what I have it's a corporate he said she said.
"We have asked the courts to declare that no violation of intellectual property and trade secrets have occurred," Szulik said.
But if bits and pieces of SCO's license material was used, then a violation has occurred, whether one likes to admit it or not.
"We've been patient, we've listened. But when our customers and the whole open-source community are threatened with innuendo and rumor, it's time to act."
Don't want to play the devil's advocate here, but Redhat seems to have just jumped on the bandwagon. Something similar to the MS case from yonder when the competition all got together against the evil empire. Now the tables have changed. 's/MS/SCO/g'
The action is the most serious attempt so far to seize some of the initiative from SCO, owner of key Unix copyrights, in its legal actions against Linux.
SCO, owner of key Unix copyrights Role reversal... If it would have been Redhat who made claims against SCO with Redhat owning the patents, then everyone would have stood behind SCO. What many will overlook is what is already LAW, which is SCO, owner of key Unix copyrights
Personally I think this was done by SCO solely to make money off of licensing, and the bottom line is, if they own the copyrights to some of the core material, then maybe it's time for someone to spin off a new OS chuck SCO's stuff, and let them self-destruct on their own.
MoFscker
IBM's finally opened the patent portfolio. Boies must have known this was coming; he worked on the IBM anti-trust case for years. I wonder if he already has plans for dealing with this.
Part of the claim demands that SCO stop shipping all of the software infringing on IBM's patents, which is essentially all of SCO's software. I think SCO may have decided that they are not really in the software business anymore but intends to just pursue licensing, contract, and IP infringement claims for years.
If that's the case, then they won't be upset even if they lose the right to distribute their software due to the patent claims.
OTOH, SCO is screwed. I'm waiting for a pacer account to show up in the mail so I can read the counter-claim online. If anyone already has a pacer account, can they download the file and post it someplace where we can all see it?
Actually, I'm surprised that IBM made a counter suite so quickly. The more Darl spouts off about the case and pursues new extortion tactics the weaker his suite becomes. The only conclusion that I can draw is that either that IBM thinks that they can finish of SCO right away, or they fear that the negative publicly has gotten so out of hand that it's hurting their products.
Could IBM buy Novell next? That would could really put SCOs nickers in a know.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
while true that "one day" that could happen that someone will write feature that infringes an IBM patent that they don't want open source, IBM has also openly stated their goal to replace AIX with Linux, this to me means anything that AIX has Linux will get shortly, and then it will be their main platform so all of their patents will go directly there.
http://lamlaw.com/
dragoncortez and I live here in Salt Lake and were thinking of going down to Lindon with a big poster or something to... you know... sike them out a little bit. We're thinking a big sign that reads "Ha Ha." or "YHBT" or something. Suggestions? Anyone else want to come along? Nothing illegal or innapropriate or anything- just something to let them know that we here in Utah aren't very pleased with SCO and support the opposition.
The reason for IBM to only counter sue with four patents is really simple. 1:1 for the patents and the infinging code. "I'll give a free liceance to use our patent and you give me the rights to my software. If not then let lets see here what else do I have in my little majic bag to smack you with"
Ahh.. The mind what a wonderful trap!
It's nice to see Sco getting it's ass handed to it, but the patent move is so counterproductive. It goes against everything that Linux stands for. It may be the lesser of two evils, but lets not forget that it's still an evil. And once IBM starts attachking, who knows when they'll stop?
mod this guy up, the link was good.
My read on this is that IBM is claiming that SCO Unix, *NOT* Linux, infringes on its (IBM's) patents.
My recollection is that AIX grew from SVR3. Basically, they added the enhancements they wanted themselves, rather than waiting for AT&T to finish R4. Given this, it's quite possible that there are any number of whiz-bangs that IBM may have tucked into AIX and quitely applied for patents and/or copyrights on. If that be the case, it's conceivable that IBM has some heavy ordnance to lob not only at SCO, but Sun, HP, Redmond, the Linux community, BSD, Apple or any number of other entities...if they're as stupid as McBride and go out of their way to piss 'em off!
Do these patents effect anything that SCO licensed to Microsoft? If IBM wins, preventing SCO from shipping products, what products will Microsoft be prevented from shipping? Will Microsoft have to license patents from IBM?
This could get really, really interesting.
Actually, IBM litigated until the United States Government ran out of money, which should really give SCO pause!
This is true, according to the book "Big Blue: IBM's use and abuse of power".
Baxter finally dropped the suit (Regan adnimistration) due to "lack of merit". Lack of merit? Then why did they spend 10+ years litigating this?
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Another method used in shorting is "Borrowing." This is where an investor can sell someone else's stock, buy it back later at a cheaper price, and give back to the person who originally owned it.
I read this somewhere.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
There was a mysql case about a year ago in which the GPL was a part of the pleadings. That case was settled out of court before it got very far, but based on reports of preliminary hearings the judge in the case seemed to think it was enforceable.
See this earlier Slashdot story for details on the lawsuit, though I can't find any reference right now to reports of the judge's attitude toward the GPL, but I remember having read of them somewhere. Does that make me like Darl and his super-secert code? I hope not!
The MySQL case from a year or two ago involved a GPL license. The license wasn't a legal issue -- everybody in the case treated it as if it's applicability was undisputed.
One interesting result was that, while the defendants in the case had violated the license for a period of time, once they had complied, the judge felt that no further penalty was necessary to cover the period of time they were out of compliance nor did he think that there was any obstacle to them reasserting the right to distribute once they were in compliance.
Now, if I could only remember the name of the case.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I wonder if Boies is just sitting on his ass and that's all he's supposed to do.
I'd be willing to bet that this whole charade by SCO is just a shell game to pump and dump stock, and earn a bit of scratch from MS and SUN, while plowing the company under. Hiring Boies was a PR move. They never really intend to use him. I'll bet SCO doesn't expect to got trial. That's OK for Boies, he won't get a cut of $3 billion (like that would've happened, anyway) but I'm sure he's getting paid and doesn't have to do a damn thing except let his name be associated with the suit. SCO gets PR pump from his name, Boies gets a little cash (and the appreciation of Canopy, MS and SUN) for doing nothing. Win-win.
I've course, I'm just speculatin' on a hypothesis.
Of EXTREME interest is the "IBM is seeking ... an injunction requiring SCO to refrain from misrepresenting its rights, and to cease further infringement of IBM's patents." part. An injunction would shut down SCO's sales of any of the identified infringing software.
I'm serious about this. After IBM & Red Hat finish these pathetic twits off in court, their stock will be probably no more than 10 cents per share. The open source community needs to buy them (hell, everybody throw in a dollar) and then throw open their "intellectual property" completely free to the world. While we're at it, let's publicly abandon the Unix trademark (which is likely unenforcable, anyway).
Their market cap before this was $25M. I suspect it'll be 1/10 that after this is done. It's not much money spread among all of us.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
Right you are... I thought IBM distributed the Linux for zSeries themselves, but it's actually a SuSE distro. And IBM doesn't deliver it either -- quoting from the Linux for the IBM eServer zSeries page:
:)
"SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for S/390(R) (delivered directly from SuSE Linux AG)"
This might actually give them legal recourse if someone submitted something that was distributed before they noticed it. A very shrewd legal decision on IBM's part. It also nicely invalidates pretty much everything I said in my previous post regarding this
As Mr. Perens says, software patents are eeeeevil!
I hope at least one of them sticks till the end. Someone must make an example out of SCO. I pity honest people who are still employed there.
Let's say SCO will crowl to IBM and beg for forgiveness. Even if IBM decides to settle out of court (for whatever reason, can't think of one... mercy maybe?) after the settlement in favour of IBM, RedHat's position will be really strong, and they will likely go to court -- to get cash if nothing else. And RedHat *are* entitled to a lot of cash in this. Didn't Gardner group recommend that enterprises delay Linux deployments? I smell financial loss, and possibly a big one.
Then at the same time Novell rumor about complete change of direction towards Linux comes on the very same day as IBM files suit.
I passed the Turing test.
I expect I'll get modded down for this. It seems that IBM is relying quite a bit on the GPL for their defense and counter-suit against SCO. There seems little doubt that SCO are trying hard to kill Linux, and their motivation is obviously suspect.
/. and elsewhere for his views and his methods. It has often seemed that people believe that he is doing this out of a personal need. That may be true, or it may not. I can't tell as I have never met the man and I have no reasonable basis to make a judgment one way or the other.
I have to wonder how Richard Stallman is reacting to these latest events. Egan Moglen also. It's starting to look like the FSF (who created the GPL, as I understand it) may be a savior for Linux.
Over the years I have watched RMS being reviled in
However, at this point, it does seem that his work is paying huge dividends in protecting Linux as well as GNU. Of course, his detractors aren't very likely to admit that this is the case and may point out that his aim wasn't to protect Linux.
That doesn't matter. RMS and the FSF were working to ensure that free software was free from exactly the sort of problem that SCO has created. They have been diligent to the extreme about licensing and this may may well be the ONLY reason that Linux will not be encumbered with a $1399 tax paid to SCO. The fact that IBM is relying heavily on the GPL in their defense speaks volumes about their work, and about the need for to protect open source from attacks of this sort in the future. I suspect that most of us are a lot more familiar with the GPL than we were six months ago, and we are all taking a lot more interest in ensuring that the open source code we write is protected appropriately.
Egan Moglen, RMS, everyone at the FSF, thank you. A donation will be on its way today.
Makes sense to me.
"a drop of 11% in one day isn't all that signifigant"
Exactly. Certainly not as significant as this drop
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
When I was working for bombay stock exchange, they had a system called "badla". (paying (money) or buying (stock) later ). The bombay stock exchange had a settelment period of 5 days from Mon-Fri. i.e. what you owned or gained in terms of money or stocks was determined on Friday even and you had to settle by saturday morning.
Now if you had bought stocks in the week and didn't have the money to cover it by saturday, You would use the "badla" trading system which ran on saturdays. Similarly if you had short -selled in the week and had no stock to deliver by saturday, you could use the badla system.
Using the badla system was a way to avoid selling your bought stock if you didn't have the money or avoid buying the short-selled stock , if you didn't have the stock to deliver by saturday.
The badla system was a process where a person who had say bought stocks could find a money lender to lend him money to cover his purchases. Of course he would have to pay interest to the lender and a commission to the estock exchange. Similarly if you had short selled, the exchange would find some one who was willing to lend you the stocks.In this case you would still pay interest to the stock lender based on the price of the stock and a commission to stock exchange.
And like normal stock exchange dealings, there was trading involved. i.e. the lenders would compete against each other for a competetive rate at which to lend money or stock.
This was an immensely beneficial system to the stock exchange as they would get commission from every one. The long-buyer, the short-seller and the money /stock lender. But was a major source of rampant corruption. Often the badla rates were indicative of how the stock would perform over the comming weeks, and clever brokers had found lot of loopholes in the system.
Before the badla system was closed down in mid 2000-2001, the average trade on Bombay stock exchange on a normal week day was somewhere in ther region of 3,000 - 5,0000 Crore Indian Ruppes i.e. 60-100 Million USD. After the system was closed the daily trading dropped by as much as 10 times i.e 6-10 Million USD in the initial days.
Now I believe the bombay stock exchange has a rolling settelment something like the nasdaq or nyse.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
I'd be willing to bet that this whole charade by SCO is just a shell game to pump and dump stock
a shell game? You can say that again!
Back in '95 I used to be both a contractor for IBM and a member of TeamOS2. At the 95 Atlanta COMDEX (Which I attended on my own dime to do OS/2 advocacy and provide installation support to the team,) one of their marketing guys demoed the latest neat stuff for the operating system. At the presentation, he mentioned that IBM's vision was to provide the same OS across the board. It was to be OS/2 on the laptop (PDA? Notebook? hah!) OS/2 on the desktop and OS/2 on the big blue iron. This would result in a significant decrease in training costs because the employees would always know the platform no matter how big the iron was that they were running on.
8 years later their vision has been realized. Sure the OS has changed, but a single corporation-wide OS deployment is now possible. The radical learning curve necessary to use their big stuff has been smoothed out. The search for that last 90 year old guy who knows how to administer MVS has been eliminated. A much deeper talent pool (of people who know UNIX) can now be tapped.
At the moment it looks like the IBM/Open Source Community relationship is pretty stable. Of course we should be wary -- a corporation can turn on you in a heartbeat if it'll make them a buck. Right now this relationship is making IBM a buck, so I don't see that happening in the immediate future.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I hope every Linux user does the same. SCO has demanded to do business with every Linux user, and I say let them enter business relations with us. We can see how many states we can get to file cases against them and how many class action law suits we can file.
SCO, your new customers are very angry with you and are considering legal action. Don't blame us, we didn't want to do business with you.
Not so. According to ZDNet, Boies is being paid on a contingency basis, so he needs to get a judgment or a settlement to get paid.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOX&d=c&k=c1&c=ibm&a =v&p=s&t=6m&l=on&z=l&q=l
I just finished my SCO timeline complete with SEC fillings. Got to go back and update it again. Oh well, here it is. Please email me if you can add to it.
June 27 2002
McBride becomes CEO of Caldera.
Stock price around $0.60
March 7 2003
SCO sues IBM
Stock price up from $2.21 to $3.10 but falls back to mid $2.00 range
March 18
SCO stocks hits low of $2.07
Jeff Hunsaker (VP Worldwide Marketing) gets 100,000 options
Reginald Broughton (Senior VP International Sales) gets 50,000 options
Michael Olsen (VP Finance) gets 50,000 options
Robert Bench (CFO) gets 100,000 options
Darl McBride (CEO) gets 200,000 options
Can anyone fill me in on what happened between 3/14 and 3/17 that caused the
price to drop from $2.64? And how did the executives know that $2.07 was the
lowest it would go?
April 8
Robert Bench sells 4100 shares at $2.90 each for $11,890.
April 23
SCO issues warning to Red Hat and SuSE
Stock is up to $3.10
May 2
IBM responses to lawsuit, denies claims
SCO claims they have proof
May 14
SCO stops selling Linux, sends out letter to 1500 large corporations
suggesting that they stop using Linux.
Stock has been steadily rising, now at $3.55
May 15
SCO offers to show proof under strict NDA to journalists only
Stock shoots up to $4.55
May 16
SCO changes name to SCO Group Inc.
Board of Directors gets 10,000 options each at $4.75
May 19
SCO announces that Microsoft has given it cash, and that M$ is
not the first company to pay it off. Rumours are that the other
company is Sun. Total revenue from both licences: $8.25M.
Stock price starts to really take off.
May 28
Novell issues press release challenging SCO
SCO states that they may end up suing Linus
Stock plummets from $8.71 to $6.60
June 3
Opinder Bawa (VP Global Services) pancis and sells 15,000 shares at a paltry
$6.00 each, making $90,000.
June 5
O. Bawa exercises 7916 in options at $1.20 each and sells them for
$6.60 each, netting himself just over $42,000. He really should
have waited a day.
June 6
SCO announces discovery of ammendment to Novell contract
Share price shoots up to $8.52
Giddy with glee, Jeff Hunsaker (VP Worldwide Marketing) sells
5000 shares for $44,500.
June 8 SCO announces that they have shown 80 lines of code to some
doofus. This is a Sunday.
June 9 The day after this announcement, shares are up to $9.38.
Robert Bench (CFO) celebrates by selling 7000 shares, making
over $64,400.
June 11 SCO gives IBM until Friday the 13th to settle.
Shares drop to $8.65. Believing that the end is near, Michael
Olsen (VP Finance) sells 6000 shares, earning $51,720.
June 13
IBM's deadline passes and SCO is still alive. The stock price shoots up
to $11.21. Darl buys 7003 shares for one tenth of a penny each. In an
interview, Chris Sontag (Snr VP OS) says that SCO may own BSD
as well.
June 16 SCO announces that they are revoking IBM's AIX license. IBM
announces that they don't care. Shares dip.
June 17 SCO decides that they actually want three billion from IBM and
elaborate on what technology they think IBM stole from them.
June 18 Sun launches ad campaign trying to get Linux and AIX customers
to use Solaris instead. SCO criticizing Linus in a court document.
June 20
Reginald Broughton, needing some weekend money, sells 5000 shares when the
stock price goes over $11, making almost $55,500. The price closes at $10.77.
June 23 SCO says that they won't sue their own Linux customers.
June 25 With the stock
IBM e-Business on Demand General Manager Irving Wladawsky-Berger seemed surprised to hear of Perens' comments. "The question has never come up with Linux," Wladawsky-Berger says. IBM's history of working with open communities like the World Wide Web Consortium should reassure developers, he adds, but he encourages Perens to contact IBM to discuss the issue.
In other words -- again -- Perens started shooting off his mouth about possible bad intentions from IBM before even discussing it with IBM. That's just plain bad form, since it means Wladawksy-Berger was caught off-guard by an unexpected question from a reporter. That's not a good way to treat people whose cooperation you desire.
I hope that someday, the Open Source/Free Software community will have spokespeople who comport themselves professionally instead of brilliant but socially-impaired people with a tendency to ill-considered public tantrums. You can get away with that as a developer, at least sometimes, but when you get into the PR business, basic manners are a fundamental requirement of the job.
If Perens had talked to IBM at length and gotten nowhere, it would have been acceptable to say, "We talked to IBM at length and got nowhere." Just calling the press and saying, "IBM hasn't spontaneously stepped up to the plate and I'm starting to have paranoid fantasies," doesn't cut it.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Yes. Even though you are not an "insider" of the company you intend to short, your knowledge of the announcement and its effects on the competitor's stock still falls under the category of insider information (private information which if made public would materially affect the prospects of the company). So the SEC could nail you if you traded on it before it became public knowledge.
Think of it this way: suppose a visiting customer sneaks into your office, discovers the same information, and shorts the competitor. Do you think the SEC would view that as insider trading? You bet they would.
SCO is still distributing Linux kernels under the GPL (check their ftp site), that doesn't seem to stopped them from making their licence claims anyway. Explicitly forbidden in the GPL, but who cares about proper licencing anyway? ;)
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This is SCOX's price action for the day:l =on&z= b&q=l
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOX&d=c&t=1d&
Notice the nice spike at the end with very little volume? Could this be an indication of someone trying to mitigate the day's significant drop in share price by buying up stock?
Would certainly be interesting to know who made those purchases at the very end of the day that just happened to make the stock close at a shade over $11. 'Course that would be the SEC's job, not mine, to find out.
It's about time IBM opened up a can of whoopass on SCO. It is entirely appropriate then to recount this story (it may be wrong in many details or even completely false, but it's still a good story).
It seems Sun and IBM sat down for a little conference because Sun accused IBM of violating several patents of theirs. The Sun engineers, somewhat casually dressed, laid out the their case on a whiteboard to a bunch of Armani-wearing IBM Lawyers, who sat stone faced throughout the proposal.
When Sun was done, the Lawyers sat there for a few minutes, and then proposed a sum to cover the licensing. Sun demurred, saying that the money was hardly enough to cover what they thought the license terms were worth.
The Lawyers sat there for a moment more, discussed and then proposed that if Sun did not like the terms presented, then IBM was perfectly willing to go back to Armonk and dig through their files to see just how many IBM patents Sun was violating at the given moment.
Needless to say, Sun gave in very quickly.
----
IBM is the world's largest patent holder (3,288 in 2002 alone, according to EE Times) and for ten years running has been issued the largest number of patents in a given year. While not all of those patents are directly related to Linux, there is a pretty good chance that SCO's mere existence alone may violate an IBM patent.
AFAIK, IBM has been a pretty benevolent player in the patent arena, only hauling out the big guns when necessary. I would love to see them unload their file cabinets on SCO just once.
IBM may not always be the reasonable giant (they have a spotty record at best in some areas), but I would definitely rather have them behind me, than in front of me.
OK, enthusiastic cheering is over. Back to sarcasm and trolling.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
This surely looks like SCO has bitten off more than they can handle. At the moment they've got three big lawsuits going: their own initiative against IBM, Redhat and now IBMs countersuit. Not to mention that in some countries they have been forced to shut up alltogether or pay huge fines (i'm really wondering if they can be forced to take a definitive stand about their Linux license in Germany). It'll be interesting to see if they can afford to pay all the lawyers. That brings up the question who else can increase the heat by bringing up some litigation against them. If they're entangled in enough lawsuits now that'll bring them down quite effectiveley: They have to pay all those lawyers, every time another lawsuit against them is announced their shares fall (so they'll have a hard time to pay all those lawyers), and they'll have to weigh any statement with respect to all those lawsuits (but i wouldn't expect them to).
Note that SCO did that to themselves: they are shooting their mouth off every which way and opened themselves up to dozens of ways of litigation. I'd say: hand it to them now, draw them into court for any case which has a good chance of winning (if they win the cases it'll only help them publicitywise, and for SCO publicity is boosting shares which equals money).
It'd be nice if the FSF could join the fray for copyright infringement (do they still distribute Linux? since their Linux License invalidates the GPL they'd be violating the copyrights of any kernel-developer out there).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Of course the real "best and clearest course for customers to minimize Linux problems" is for SCO to demonstrate their claims publicly so that users will either be willing to pay for the use of SCO IP, or switch to another OS (like a Linux that has had any SCO code removed.) But of course, SCO is not interested in Linux being SCO-code free. They are interested in keeping SCO code (if there is any) in Linux and using FUD to shakedown fearful slobs who don't understand the law.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
Slashdot article discussing the announcement I linked to in grand-parent comment: IBM Dropping Laptop Linux Support
TP T21, T22 - General Overview (Linux models) (interestingely, the page says it was last modified in June, 2003; and it's Caldera Linux of all things - surely it would be a good idea for IBM to stop distributing this ;-)
I doubt that the phrase "distributed by Caldera" matter much, unless the media actually comes under separate cover from Caldera (I'm pretty sure it doesn't/didn't). IBM may want to twist inside and out in its attempts to avoid the GPL, but this Linux distribution is handed out by IBM so they are bound to the GPL.
You mention "a passthrough, *not* a resale". What IBM does, or doesn't do, with the money isn't the point at issue. "Who gave the customer the GPL'd code?" is. Did IBM? So it seems to me.
The GPL is all about passing rights along, whenever the software shifts hands. The GPL is money stream agnostic.
I do find it a bit ironic that IBM is now set to defend the GPL in court --many, many thanks for doing that, IBM!-- while doing its best to evade being affected by the license themselves. Changing the past is difficult, though.
If the above reasoning holds and since it's a complete distribution, you also get a license from IBM for any of the other GPL:d software, such as the GUIs.
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1157 25
funny how their response to IBM's IP claims is that IBM has let them be for two decades; they make it sound as if they think they're entitled to IP infringement.
From the news.com.com article:
...and our cash kinda ran out, too!
"What I'm getting a sense of now is there is an effort to counterpunch," said Gartner analyst George Weiss, who has warned clients to take SCO seriously. "What I thought the (Linux) community should be doing is shift the initiative away from SCO and throw them off balance into a defensive posture. Until Red Hat started its counterclaim, all the initiative was with SCO."
This has really suprised me. I mean, I'm not shocked at corporate opportunism of course - especially analysts and people who think of themselves as visionaries, being opportunistic is practically their job description.
But the thing is: I always took for granted that Gartner is just an MS marketing branch, and now they turn around and say that they always thought the Linux community should really take countermeasures, and stuff like that! Wow...
To the paranoid conspiracist mind this can only mean that MS must have realized that there is not much substance behind SCO's claims and that their activities in the fraudulent extortion department didn't go over well at all in the industry.
Probably something like this happened:
SCO: Hey, guess what, we can prove that Linux is just a pirated copy of SCO Unix!
Microsoft: Wow, cool, that would make Linux illegal and discredit the whole open source community?
SCO: Yeah, you bet. Only, if someone could give us credibility.
Microsoft: NP, we'll announce that we honor your Unix rights and pay for your initial lawyer fees with some Unix license, OK? Additionally we will buy some studies and news articles that lend credibility to your claims.
SCO: Thanks, we feel much better now, that really helped. Initiating FUD and extortion campaign now.
Microsoft: What? Uhm, your going to prove your thing in court soon, will you? You know, revealing the evil that is Open Source for what it really is?
SCO: Yah, sure.
Microsoft: SCO? You're making us all look bad.
SCO: We know, but "the software business is binary", remember? Gotta do what keeps us alive!
Microsoft: There is no proof, is there?
SCO: We're still kinda working on that, sir.
Microsoft: OK, that's it, we're bailing out. Steve, call Gartner and tell them they can switch modes from "MS fantasy sales pitch" to default "echo the public opinion" mode. Farewell, SCO.
(IANAL)
> IBM's patent claims are easily the biggest hammer they have against SCO
Personally I doubt it - the real big news is the novell angle WRT the AIX termination. Remember, SCO's big claim is contract infringment, but it looks more and more like SCO is the one who is violating the contract. That will hurt their case immensely (assuming that they had a case to start with) Plus it provides a really good angle for pursuing damages based on SCO's public statements WRT the legality of AIX licenses.
I think we can see that IBM was wise in taking their time to respond - they let SCO self-inflict some terrible legal wounds.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=c&c=rhat&k=c1&t=1d&s= scox&a=v&p=s&l=on&z=l&q=l
How many slashes would a slashdot dot, if a slashdot could dot slashes?
This having been said, don't be too quick to embrace IBM as our savior. On my first day at IBM I had to sign away, as a condition of employment, any rights to anything that I might create at any time during my term of employment. If I came up with an innovative way to fold cardboard boxes while sitting at my kitchen table, I was required to present this to my functional manager. She would then pass this on to the proper deptartment, where the IP folks would decide if they wanted it or not. More than 2 hours were spent during orientation drilling us over the "no nonsense attitude" that IBM took concerning this.
This experience, and several other eye-openers that occurred before I quit, left no doubt in my mind that upper management at IBM would skin us all if they thought there was a profit to be made selling custom wet suits to China. We're watching SCO, a bottom-feeder, try it's best to parasite Linux. While IBM may stop SCO, let's not forget that IBM embraces the revenue from Linux as a substantial addition to it's bottom-line. IBM may or may not embrace the interests of the open source community quite as strongly....Those that make a lot of cash from something usually prefer to control it. I can't imagine how IBM could contrive to SCOrew the Linux community, but I -do- know that they would not hesitate the least little bit if they thought it necessary...and they've got the clout to do it right.
TV can be used to get people all riled up and politicians pay attention to that. Remember how Bill O'Riley basically forced the president of the Red Cross to resign. Maybe this medium can be used for good rather than evil.
A well reasoned letter to a show like Kudlow & Cramer might be helpful. Don't get bogged down too much on technical details that will go over their heads. Zero in on the fraud and insider trading chrages and they will be interested. A bunch of random letters to politicans wont hurt, but they will likely be viewed as eminating from fringe elements and not likely to get legs. I
t seems like using media to gain some momentum might be a better option. The avarage nitwit investor is probably hasn't really heard the whole story. If this issue ended up being picked appart on CNBC as often as it is on Slashdot, you bet the powers that be will start paying attention. As soon as they see that this is a sensational story that people are interested in, they will be all over it
The 4 patents listed by IBM are completely frivolous. IBM might get 3 million for these, but not 3 billion. BTW, it's amusing how everyone on /. changes their tune about frivolous patents when they're used against someone they don't like. Shows a lot of integrity to change your views on a dime like that. As for IBM's claim that SCO can magically release code for GPL without putting a single copyright notice on the code in question is a very weak case. If this is the best IBM can do, they're fscked, and so is Linux.
If there is a good thing about software patents, it is that IBM, HP, and Sun's patent portfolios are working for Linux, not against it. That's not because it happens to be convenient for IBM right now to use their patents, it's because those companies are shipping Linux and therefore have given people license to use their patents as far as Linux/GPL'ed software is concerned.
I would feel safer if software patents were just abolished, but with all major UNIX companies shipping Linux, they may actually help. In fact, GPL'ed and open source software may be an effective, cheap, and fair vehicle to achieve patent cross-licensing among multiple companies, because the patents and patent licenses basically go with the software and don't require any separate negotiations.