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SCO Says It Has No Plan To Sue Linux Companies
cadfael writes "SCO is reported in the Age as saying they 'Have no plans to sue Linux companies...' This seems to contradict the earlier statements of Chris Sontag. This story also points out how Canopy owns stakes in several other Linux companies, including Linux Networx wheich supplied the supercomputer for Lawrence Livermore Nat Lab. One begins to wonder if the reality of their situation has become clear to them?" Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of the end of this mess.
I'd like to see a timeline of events in this whole SCO debacle. Should make for some interesting reading. Skimming back through a billion SlashDot stories would be a pain.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
The Age is the only place i could find this story, and it contradicts everything that SCO has said so far. The only somewhat related story I could find is this one. Oh well, maybe I'm just paranoid, but I trust SCO about as much as a nigerian spammer on peyote, so I think they're up to something.
StickMan
www.rageagainst.net
...they sent letters to USERS, not COMPANIES.
They sue the users who can't afford legal costs and will settle just for the sake of avoiding legal hell, and SCO gets a nice precedent running and their stock improves yet further.
Maybe I'm too cynical?
I'd like to see a class action suit from shareholders of Linux companies against the SCO executives, for fraudulent stock manipulation.
They went after Martha Stewart for a hell of a lot less than this.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Not enought Linux companies are making money so instead they are going to take a leaf from the RIAA handbook on how to win friends and influence people by hitting all Linux using students with massive lawsuits thus forcing the students to settle and hand over their first 10 years salary after graduation as a penalty
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Does that mean all the DoS attacks worked? After netcraft reported all those down times, it would be more than a coincidence if, for some reason, all the controversy just ended.
-----.----.-------
I'll
I think the small print here is perhaps the most frightening of all. Why is Canopy getting involved with other linux vendors? What are they doing with their 'own' linux? Is this a plot to co-opt the linux businesses from the inside? Does Canopy have the resources to gain so much control of the major linux vendors to shut them down and make SCO the only game left in town?
Something smells very rotten here.
So, they're not going to sue any Linux companies, but they're still going to try and charge all companies that use Linux these absurd liscensing fees? Oh yea, that makes sense.
If there is any justice in the world, they will be held accountable for all the crap they've said since the beginning.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Version 1.12 - Note: Features/bugs listed may not apply to some SCO products/versions
/* SCO OpenServer */ darlsux() ;
/* UnixWare gcc */ darlsux() ;
/* Gemini I cc (SCO UnixWare 7 and UDK) */ darlsux() ;
/* SCO UnixWare cc */ darlsux() ;
/* ODT 3 or earlier */
/* Other platform */
NOTE: This report hereby placed in public domain, use it as you wish, at your own risk!
Additional suggestions, detailed specific recommendations, comments, requested.
Obviously it is a concern to GPL software authors that they maintain compatibility with the SCO platforms, while SCO publicly abuses them, tries to get the GPL declared invalid, and while SCO profits from selling their software and integrating it into future releases of the SCO product line.
Software authors will be aware that breaking SCO compatibility may cause problems for SCO users - (although strictly speaking that is SCO's problem, not the software author(s)', unless the author(s) have some contractual relationship with SCO or SCO customers).
SCO needs support revenue (and new sales revenue) that may depend on GPL products, to fund their PR and litigation. Thus, software authors, who not obligated to support SCO, presumably might want to.
Therefore here is a list of things NOT to do, if you don't want to break SCO compatibility.
1. Don't refactor your code, rearrange files, move functions between files, and rename files more logically in the same release as one which contains accidentally contains one or more SCO incompatible changes.
If you do this, it would make it harder for SCO or their partners to re-introduce any "lost" code that was necessary to support the SCO's platforms. Obviously you wouldn't want that.
2. Don't accidentally remove SCO support in a series of stages, which overlap in time with a bunch of critical security or bug fixes, without making it clear at which stages you accidentally removed SCO support.
3. Don't accidentally remove any special fixes or work rounds for SCO platforms.
4. Don't depend on functions, which are not implemented or perform differently on SCO platforms. Especially don't depend on those functions in lots of different places in your product.
In particular avoid these functions:
(please help with this list - "list 4")
Known bugs in SCO products:
Unixware: accept() does not set the sa_family value correctly for the AF_UNIX family. See http://mail.python.org/pipermail/patches/2001-Augu st/005630.html
Unixware: atan2() does returns pi instead of zero for atan2(0, x). See http://mail.python.org/pipermail/patches/2001-Augu st/005630.html
5. Don't depend on compiler features that might not be available on SCO platforms. This is especially true if, as has been suggested may occur, new versions of GCC don't support SCO platforms.
In particular don't depend on these compiler features:
(please help with this list if and when GCC loses SCO support)
6. Don't put in messages that display only on SCO's platforms.
Avoid putting in code like (and especially not commenting):
#if defined(_SCO_DS)
#elif defined(__UNIXWARE__)
#elif defined(__USLC__)
#if defined( __STDC_VERSION__ ) && __STDC_VERSION__ == 199409
#else
#endif
#elif defined(M_UNIX)
#else
#endif
7. Don't remove support in your makefile for building the application on SCO's platforms.
8. Don't rename your functions and variables with names that conflict with SCO-spe
At best, this is only a partial truth:
"No. SCO has never planned to sue Linux companies."
It should say "SCO doesn't plan to sue any more Linux companies." They've already sued a Linux company. I'll give you a hint: the company's initials are IBM.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
They say they have no plans to sue Linux Companies, but they don't say they have no rights. Who trust SCO? Be sure if they achieve on courts some results, then they will continue with Linux users...
And if this a move to be more friendly with angry Linux users. Too late.... No one will wants nothing about SCO.
Damia
and that's all it is. Politics is just a way of saying 'nice doggie' untill you can find a big stick.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
You know, Hitler signed a non agression pact with Stalin too!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I guess they're hoping to acquire^h^h^h^h^h^h^hextort enough from their suit against IBM to pay for suing everyone else. I think if you're going to do the frivolous lawsuit thing that the RIAA has a better plan: screw the small fish who can't afford to fight it. IBM ain't gonna settle this one the way an average linux user might, simply because they have orders of magnitude more money. SCO bit off more than they can chew just taking on IBM, let alone with what appears to be a baseless case.
What I want to see is IBM win, then go after SCO's assets (what few will be left) and press for criminal charges against its execs.
Whatever happens, after reading ESR's Haloween 9 yesterday, I don't think anybody should want to keep the OpenServer cruft...win it and then put it out of everyone's misery.
What is your Slash Rating?
then it won't matter if they don't sue linux companies. I forget who pointed it out, but if IBM pays compensation for damage done, they can't very well demand more compensation the same damages. i.e. there are limits to what they are entitled to. And of course as soon as the cat's out of the bag on any code the courts say is theirs, it'll be cleaned out (remember they have no patents, so all it takes is a reimplementation). Even if they win, they aren't in a position to do much about it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
From the article:
'As the Canopy Group, which has a stake in SCO, also has interests in several other Linux companies, SCO was asked whether it planned to sue all these companies. The answer was "No. SCO has never planned to sue Linux companies."'
Translation: "SCO has been told it had better not have ever planned to sue companies in which Canopy is involved."
'Among the companies in which Canopy is involved is Linux Networx, which has supplied a supercomputer to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; asked whether SCO would sue the laboratory, the company spokesperson said: "No. SCO has never made concrete plans to sue anyone."'
Translation: "Waitasec, it's a Canopy group company, right? Nope, not suing them then."
Note it's "never planned to sue Linux companies", not any Linux companies. I bet my leftie that with "Linux companies" they mean some subset of Linux companies in general.
Also, not having concrete plans probably only means they've not dared put anything on paper yet.
I'm paranoid? Ah, you're with them aren't you?
You could be right. However I' ve noticed that stories about SCO have been braking first in The Age & Sydney Morning Herald (both the same company, just different cities) a bit. More than other /. stories anyway. Furthermore they are in house articles (living here you see a lot of articles that are just reprints form US media outlets).
All this suggests to me that someone at SCO's PR firm here in OZ is a friend of some jorno at Fairfax (parent company of The Age & SMH). I could be totally wrong. However personal friendships do make a difference in the PR/media relationships, well that's what my friend in PR tells me (I know, I know, but I knew her years before she went into PR and if you saw her you would remain friends too ;)
- EBH
Every time i open the page...opera crashes....anyone know why? =(
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Of course SCO won't sue anyone. They are done, they have inflated their stock price, they have collected "insurance" money, they have managed to start the best FUD campaign against free software ever and they are getting away with it. They will profit on this for years to come and the Linux community will sit there like a bunch of fools thinking they have actually won by making SCO back off. Everything depends on if IBM will spend money to continue the fight. The copyright owners of the code SCO claimed was theirs should sue SCO to at least make them pay a small price for copyright violation (claiming that you own something that you don't own the copyright for is a copyright violation, at least in some countries), but as far as I know, only whoever wrote BPF would have a decent case with a chance of winning.
Interestingly, if IBM prevails (as most of the OSS community predicts) and is awarded huge damages, IBM may wind up owning the SysV code base after liquidation of SCO.
Can IBM use this power to make life difficult for the other vendors? Could IBM, for instance, drive HP off of HP-UX and SGI off of Irix? If so, where do they go? Do they join IBM in Linux or do they give IBM the finger and release a *BSD variant?
I tried yesterday. Message from Ameritrade
"You cannot sell SCOX short"
I presume they have no shares.
I sold the few I had left from Caldera
at 10 & change a couple weeks ago. Still glad I did.
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/s/scox.html
Look at how many SCO execs have been exercising options in the 60 cents to US$2 range and then immediately dumping it at the current market price. I hope some of these fucks go to prison for stock manipulation when this is all over.
They're not running for the exits, they're taking the Concorde....
SCO has apparently removed their
letter to Linux users from their web site.
According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald "The SCO Group said today it had never planned to sue any Linux companies, had no concrete plans to sue anyone and also no current plans to take a commercial Linux customer to court."
At GROKLAW there is speculation that this is the start of an attempted defense to the Red Hat suit.
It's certainly an odd move, as only days ago, SCO said "We are in the process of contacting them about coming into compliance and taking a UnixWare license from us. If they refuse to do so, we will sue them directly and see them in court", and apparently claimed to have three groups working on identifying and approaching Linux users, plus were preparing to take a Linux user to court.
As this really does seem like the beginning of an attempted defense to Red Hat's law suit. It would seem like a good idea for the community to collect as many examples of SCO's legal threats as possible - especially to Linux companies and Red Hat in particular - and post them - as well as make Red Hat aware of SCO's latest PR spin, and all the contradictory evidence in their prior actions.
Memo to slashdotters: Of course SCO won't sue Linux companies, that's why in the 6 months since they filed suit against IBM they didn't also file against Red Hat, SuSE, TurboLinux, Debian, Mandrake and any others. They certainly are willing to sue end users though. Wait and see.
1) Scox gets extension against redhat injunction.
2) Scos web-server goes down (scox blames ibm backed linux community).
3) Scox web-server is back up - but changed, lots of scox claims now missing.
4) Archieved claims are missing - can't be found with serch engines.
5) Scox is now saying: "we were never going to sue anybody."
Desperate little scam. Will it work?
From u the inquirer
Blake Stowell, director of public relations at SCO, told the INQUIRER late today: "Just because we aren't "planning" to sue Linux companies doesn't mean we won't. [...]
Also, just because we are saying that we won't sue Linux companies doesn't mean that we won't sue Linux customers".
My conjecture is that at this time they can't afford the retainer to Boise et al to undertake any new litigation.
An alternate theory is based on the fact that their "letter to Linux users" has indeed disappeared from www.sco.*: perhaps the pseudo-softening of their position is the result of a cease-and-desist order.