Slashdot Mirror
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
We're poor and don't have the money to sue very many people, it's just a threat. Please buy us.
SCO lies about everything; why wouldn't they lie about this?
Fucking tea bagging fag fucks
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
Everybody knows SCO will lose all those cases if they actually go to court, but SCO is just trying to scare some companies into avoiding legal fees by paying up. The only way to avoid that kind of legal blackmail is to make the initiator of the lawsuit pay all the defendant's legal expenses if the lawsuit is found to be frivolous.
Repeal the DMCA!
...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 think it's obvious from previous stories that SCO has no idea what they're doing.
In future news, SCO sues Red Hat, Mandrake, others.
well crap. i was just about to send them my money. guess i'll hang onto it now to see how this all turns out.
Or they could be refering to Australia only. since an Austrailian user group filed a "put up or shut up suit".
Not how you think though... There whole plan was to sabotage open source all along. Not through suing companies, but by keeping all the developers commenting on SCO stories all day.
;)
Think about it. How many articles have there been and how many comments per article? Boy, when the juicy ones came out the number of responses jumped up into the hundreds even nearing a thousand sometimes. Now, imagine if this never happened and all those people got together to work towards one goal. I think with the hours that have been wasted on this story so far, we could've designed and build a mars mission already
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
Sounds like the insiders have already sold their shares and they're leaving everyone else holding the bag. Afterall, if they're not gonna go after the Linux folks, I guess their pumping scheme is coming to an end. I knew that lawsuit was a bunch of bunk. You know what comes after pumping? Dumping! Management is now chillin' with a smooth 700% return this year. I guess it's time for the stock to tank now. Just my opinion.
They don't seem to actually have a single consistant position on anything.
Is SCO actually being run by a Perl script that periodically checks their stock price to see if it needs to emit some random statement?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
They also said they wouldn't sue Linux end users, then changed their tune later.
See, if you say one thing then say the other instead of just saying what you mean first, that means you get to release two press releases and boost your stock twice!
NO CARRIER
Exactly who really tripped out about this shit anyway? It's always been a "You infringe! We have proof! Nobody can see our proof!" (non)shitstorm. I think if SCO had actually had a case we'd be taking a much more serious approach to the situation instead of the rampant SCO jokes. I mean, really, a few PHBs (that didn't want Linux anyway) pretended like this helped their case and the rest of the world kept putting those Slackware/Debian/Redhat/SuSE disks in the drive.
Or does anyone else think that Ross Perot would make a GREAT leader of this company? "We're suing." "we're not" "no we are." "Well, just IBM." "everyone but IBM."
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
Looks like this is just more fodder to support the idea that SCO is playing a bait and switch on investors ...
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
...this all just turns out to be some sort of snipe hunt masterminded by a closet Linux advocate.
:-)
Think about it - bunch of hugely greedy execs that are tech-challenged.
Techie sees opportunity and drops a hint that they're getting screwed by the Linux folks and could probably make a ton of money off of it.
Greedy tech-challenged execs manage to convince themselves that techie is right; charge forward with their Swiss-cheese case and make complete fools of themselves -- while techie laughs his friggin' a$$ off.
What an evil idea.
Wish I had thought of it...
-- CP
I think the lawsuit by Red Hat is what brought this news out. SCO was supposed to respond today (Thursday) but was granted a time extension. In other words - it was put up or shut up time. I think SCO plans on going ahead with it's pump and dump scheme, but is probably trying to get RH to drop the suit. This way they avoid having to show any real evidence. Notice that they did _not_ say their case was wrong. Only that they had no 'concrete plans to sue Linux companies'. I expect more shenanigans. SCO - Stupidity Causes Ossification.
Linux software companies could also become SCO targets. "Do we have potential issues with Red Hat, SuSE and other commercial Linux distributors--yes, we might," Sontag said, adding that chances for negotiating with such companies appear to be slim.
Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of the company's SCOsource business, added: "There is no warranty for infringement of intellectual property [in the GPL], so all of the liability ends up with end users."
Mark Heise, of law firm Boies Schiller and Flexner, representing SCO against IBM, believes SCO is entitled to pursue users based on its claims. "End users are improperly using this copyrighted material, and under copyright law SCO is entitled to damages and injunctive relief," he said.
Chris Sontag, senior vice-president and general manager of SCOsource, which is trying to derive more income from the company's intellectual property, said today: "SCO is taking this important step because there are intellectual property issues with Linux.
"When SCO's own UNIX software code is being illegally copied into Linux, we believe we have an obligation to educate commercial users of the potential liability that could rest with them for using such software to run their business. We feel so strongly about this issue that we are suspending sales and distribution of SCO Linux until these issues are resolved."
asked whether SCO would sue the laboratory, the company spokesperson said: "No. SCO has never made concrete plans to sue anyone."
You can't handle the truth.
These guys have to be smoking SOMETHING to explain the cognitive dissonance in their statements. I mean, "We're not talking about the kernel." "We're talking about the kernel." "We're not going to go after end users." "We're going to go after end users." "Well, we're only going to go after companies but not hobbiests." "We changed our minds again, we never intended to go after anybody."
If only I had the spare ten hours I could go over the last years' press releases and make some "found poetry." Blank verse in this case, of course.
... as you would one from a politician or lawyer. "No current plans" simply means that they are not writing up any complaints at this time. In no way should you be lulled into a sense of security. This wording is designed to allow them to later sue anybody they want, without having to admit they were lying.
Not Found
The requested URL
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.
To me this offers the most solid proof yet that this entire debacle was just a ploy to raise stock prices. Twenty bucks says Darl McBride buys a house in the Caymans in the next 6 months.
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
The copy on my own website has been served to about 5000 distinct hosts so far this month. A google search for "Let's Put SCO Behind Bars" turns up 2190 matches.
Most of those are links. The article has a Creative Commons license, and I've been encouraging copying. By doing various searches, and checking my logs for referring pages, I've found a few dozen other copies on the web, many of them on message boards where they've had lots of readers.
It turned out to be very helpful when Linux Universe asked me to submit my article there. They use UBB codes instead of HTML. I realized that lots of other message boards use UBB, so I saved a copy on my site in UBB format for people to copy to other message boards.
I've been meaning to write a plain-ascii version suitable for email and usenet but haven't gotten to it yet.
Both Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond enjoyed the article. Stallman said that if it weren't against his ethics to write proprietary code, he would have enjoyed working at the SCO of old as I described it.
My first draft I posted at Advogato, followed soon after by InfoAnarchy and then Kuro5hin.
However, I didn't succeed in getting Slashdot to feature it. One can only dream.
I have been hesitant to allow copying of many of my articles before now, but when one's objective is to get a lot of people to read what one has written, and to do so in a short time, it works wonders.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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
Anyone else notice the poll on eweek?
"Is Linux right that SCO is "smoking crack"?
Yes
No
"
So far 97% say yes.
Question everything.
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
Watch out for SCO's next move: in true postmodern fashion, they'll be emitting press releases examining the inconsistencies in their own press releases. Then they'll have press releases advertizing these new press releases, and press releases stating that all their press releases are equally valuable to individuals.
How could they NOT sue the distributors of the infamous IP infringing products, while they ARE more than willing to sue users of the same IP infringing products? It is like allowing pirate CD vendors on the street to do their job and going after those who bought pirate CDs from that vendor(s). Is it reasonable? At least RIAA is mean ass to everyone, not only to buyers.
Hey McB, so you are now endorsing distribution of illegal product while you demand money from those who bought it? Give me a fsckin break, would you?
In case anybody starts thinking about how they might profit from an imminent decline in the SCOX short, The Motley Fool has an FAQ on shorting stocks.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Threatening to sue other companies pumps up the stock price, allows Canopy to use the inflated stock price for asset shuffling (skimming big profits), allows senior management to sell shares at a big profit, builds up our press clippings book which is very impressive to PHBs.
Actually suing involves bothersome discovery procedures where you have to actually show some sort of cause for you action. Where's the fun in that?
... Clearly, they won't be allowed to remain in the US. Therefore, they're going to have to fly to some South Seas island with good internet connectivity. Then, when they get there, they're of course going to find that there are only two real tech jobs available to invest in... ... spam, and internet worms to DoS the blacklists.
Well, you gotta invest money, don't you? You can't just have it sitting there... you have a right to make money, don't you? Isn't that what America is all about?
I'd say the internet is about done for.
There -- I've managed to compress three recent stories (well, four or five, really) into one.
And all, without mentioning how they do it in Soviet Russia. Because in Soviet Russia, they have a different method of dealing with companies like SCO, and it ain't pretty, and it ain't good either.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Too bad I can't fit the whole quote into the subject.
Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors.
SCO press release, January 13, 2003
SCO says it has made no decision on Unix IP
So I don't believe SCO's statements about their future plans. They are practicing the adage: "diplomacy consists of saying 'nice doggy' while you are looking for a rock".
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?
Think about it: They act crazy, they say the have awesome weapons that will destroy their enemies, but won't let anyone look at them, they make ridiculous threats against enemies several orders of magnitude more powerful than they are, then beg for money.
The only difference is that North Korea might have nukes, and we all know that SCO has squat...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Either it's true because the planning stage is complete, or it's true because it's The SCO Group ANZ speaking and not The SCO Group head office. If SCO-ANZ sued anybody in Oz, they'd be toast on Day One. They may well be toast even if they don't sue anyone.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm sure everyone on Slashdot remembers the debacle concerning Dmitry Sklyarov/Elcomsoft and Adobe. SCO right now is doing the same thing Adobe attempted; make a collective ass of your company publically with regard to IP policy, recant your charges and then come off looking like you're no longer the bad guy while the damage has already been done.
So is this really anything new? Probably not.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I finally see what their plan is! I have proof! If you want to see it you'll just have to sign this little thing here, called a NDA.
- EBH
We sue
Or we don't
Our stocks rise
I thought haiku was 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
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)
And because of the license (good ole GPL) even if they did another dozen vendors would spring up.
But I'm sure Redhat would lodge like a bone in their throat. I'd love to watch them choke.
Quack, quack.
I swear this bunch of idiots is starting to sound like Baghdad Bob.
Either they are flipping coins and drawing fortune cookie slips or they hired my ex-wife as information minister.
in other words they expected everyone would just pay them given the threat of legal action.
"concrete plans"
In other words they don't currently have the financial resources to take on more then one court case.
They did not say anywhere "will not" or "has no intention of".
One reason to buy SCO stock is to hedge against them winning.
Suppose SCO is demanding $100 per Linux server, and you have 10 such servers. Then if they win you will need to find $1000. If SCO's stock price currently reflects a 5% chance of them winning, then any stock you do buy will increase 19-fold in value if they win. Therefore you need to buy $1000/19 worth of SCO stock to hedge against the risk. Of course you'd do this only if you think the 5% estimation by the market is about right, or too low - or if you think it's a bit too high but you're risk-averse.
If SCO wins, your stock should appreciate in value enough to cover the protection money you have to pay. If SCO lose, you've wasted about $52 on their now-worthless stock.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Judging from the latest press release maybe somebody should check to see if Sontang and McBride are running for Governor in California
"We will not sue anyone, we'll sue _everyone_," admits the SCO spin-doctors.
"We believe in the american way. We will spew FUD, sue the innocent and lie our way to success. It is our right."
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.
They have no intention of letting any of these suits run to conclusion in court, because they will lose, and lose badly, and that will be the end of their stock pumping.
On even numbered days, they're reasonable guys with a great product, so buy their stock.
On odd numbered days, they're stone cold corporate predators who own half the source code on the planet, so buy their stock.
On Sundays, Darl consults his Magic 8 Ball (tm) to decide if it's time to cash in and skip to Brazil for the face change operation, or whether he should pump for another week.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, SCO's Press Officer denied that the billion pound judgement against the company, awarded to IBM, will in any way affect the company's pursuit of Linux Licensing Fees from other companies. As Mr al-Sahaf explained... 'We have not lost to IBM. We have in fact had a great and astounding victory. Tonight we shall dance around in the piles of money that we have been awarded. We have more joyous news in that all Linux users have agreed to pay us for developing Linux completely on our own, and with no help from outsiders.'
August 16, 2003 - Saturday 8:15 AM PDT - SCO 10q and just how much has Microsoft agreed to pay SCO?
Bring up the above link and look for the heading "Recent Developments". "The amount that we receive from any such licensee will generally depend on the license rights that the licensee previously held and the amount and level of our intellectual property the licensee desires to license. The two licensing agreements signed by us to date resulted in revenue of $8,250,000 during the April 30, 2003 quarter and provide for an aggregate of an additional $5,000,000 to be paid to us over the next three quarters. These contracts do not provide for any payments beyond 2003, except that Microsoft was granted the option to acquire expanded licensing rights, at its election, that would result in additional payments to us if exercised. In connection with the execution of the first license agreement, we granted a warrant to the licensee to purchase up to 210,000 shares of our common stock, for a period of five years, at a price of $1.83 per share. This warrant has been valued, using the Black-Scholes valuation method, at $500,000. Because the warrant was issued for no consideration, $500,000 of the license proceeds have been recorded as warrant outstanding and the license revenue reduced accordingly." What does this all mean? Well. It appears that whatever portion of the $8 million that came from Microsoft is not clear. But, it does appear that it only covers 2003. So when 2004 comes around and SCO needs to cover a few more legal bills, Microsoft will have at least the option to pay more money to SCO for their dirty work. Also interesting is the grant of a warrant for up to 210,000 shares of common stock of SCO. Of course, that means that Microsoft wants to benefit from owning a piece of SCO. No surprise there. Microsoft has plenty of money to fuel the ill conceived effort by SCO to harm the Linux marketplace. And, as I have pointed out, Microsoft benefits from the up side should that occur. And, Microsoft is shielded from the down side should SCO's illegal activities result in extensive liabilities to IBM, Red Hat, SuSE, others and Linux contributors. In other words, Microsoft is directly involved in using its money to harm Linux. It may be shielded from legal liability. But, there is no question that Microsoft thinks its monopoly is better off engaging in this activity. And, it appears that Microsoft taking a license has nothing to do with a need to license Unix. That is a non-issue. This is all about causing harm to Linux and IBM in particular. And, it can not be about the respect for IP or contracts rights because SCO plans to breach its Linux contracts (the GPL) and steal all intellectual property in Linux and claim it as it's exclusive property. That is clearly not respecting the IP rights of others. And, Microsoft has the ability now to add more cash to the fire if the illegal effort is going well and competitors are being harmed by SCO efforts or limit its losses if it is not. But, it is absolutely clear that Microsoft is behind the effort to directly harm Linux and it is NOT related to a needed Unix license. If Microsoft even thought it needed a Unix license it would not have waited until now to get one NOR would it expire this year. This is simply a sham to use illegal means against a competitor. Let SCO do the dirty and illegal work but fund them as long as money fuels it. In other words, fund the contract to go after Linux using illegal means. [Thanks to GrokLaw for permitting a link to be placed on this site referring to SCO documents as they accumulate and for providing some direction to the above information.]
Their recent actions prove that! They don't have a plan to sue anyone for Linux! Completely! Not a sign of any plan, PURE IMPROVISATION from the beginning to end!!!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Red Hat's case has a few counts. Count I is "Declaratory Judgment of Noninfringement of Copyrights". They can only get this declaratory judgement if they show that "an actual controversy exists" (para. 73)
Count II is similar, but with respect to trade secrets not copyright.
Counts III - VII are for libel, unfair trade practices etc. and can run on their own whether SCO plans on suing or not.
As evil as McBride may be, he's got nothing on Martha Stewart. Think of it this way... Which of the following is your wife more likely to say to you?
a)Honey, I think we need to spend $5,000 on a Feng Shui consultant to get the chi flowing in the living room...
b)Honey, it's not stupid. I swear, Martha used sponges just like these to paint her wall and it looked great! It's not like you had anything better to do today.
c)Honey, I think you should pay that Linux IP licensing fee to SCO for that web-server you have in the basement.
Perhaps:
Sharp executives
Expert hard-hitting lawyers
Taking a crack break
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
Tell you what. You buy one, then sell it to me. When it comes to the next shareholder meeting, go along anyway and claim that you simply licensed it to me, so you still own it, and also all clones and derivative works based on it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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?
We sue
Or we don't
Our stocks rise
I thought haiku was 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
And it's a damn good thing he didn't write a haiku:
We are SCO
We own the haiku patent
We will sue your ass
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Of course SCO is not going to go after Linux companies. Most Linux companies can afford a decent defense. SCO would rather threaten and scare the individual users that cannot afford a good legal defense. They get quick money out of the users, or turn them away from linux, which hurts the Linux companies indirectly. SCO may not know how to write good software anymore, but they really know how to move the stock price, which is the primary business concern.
Yeah, they say they don't 'plan' to sue Linux companies. their 'plan' is to have everyone just agree with them and just start handing over money. dumb SCO. :-p
Yeah, I'm city livin' chillin' but I'm country at heart...
Darn, I was going to go on there to get a contact number to buy a license ;)
Yea, that's exactally what we need at slashdot with all these SCO stories flying around, an Intellectual Property moderation.
Your logic has a few flaws...
I think I understand where you are getting your numnbers from. You are taking the $3b settlement / their market cap (rounded to $189m). That would be about a 16-fold increase of value. I think that this is how you got your 19-fold number, just using older numbers.
Except you forgot to take in to account laywer fees. I have no idea what that would run in a case like this, but I'd be suprised if it was less then 40%.
Then you have to remember who you are dealing with. When Caldera and Microsoft were arguing over the DR-DOS lawsuit, Microsoft eventually settled up with Caldera Inc. Not Caldera Systems. Caldera Inc at the time was basically The Canopy Group before they became the Canopy Group if I remember correctly. Caldera Systems never saw a dime of the money. Caldera Inc spun off Caldera Systems to remove it from the lawsuit.
It wouldn't suprised me if something similiar would happen here. After the lawyers, most of the money would probably going to go to a few people or organizations (read Canopy Group). Common investors would see a small portion. Nothing near the 16x increase that would be in an ideal setting.
Further, SCO has already said that licenses would be $199 for desktop linux installations and $699 for servers. These fees would double after Oct 15th. This is significantly more then the $100 license.
So if you have your same 10 serves and you get your license now, it's going to cost you $6990 now or $13990 later. Assuming you invest now, your now out $437 ($6990/16) in common stock. Their stock would have to increase 32x in order to cover the licensing costs...if they are still at the $1399 price.
It doesn't matter if SCO completely reverses their position, retracts everything they've said, and withdraws the lawsuits tomorrow. They cannot be allowed to just slink away and lick their wounds. The questions raised by this whole episode simply MUST be answered, and all doubts about the purity of OSS must be put to rest. If not, then GNU/Linux will be forever tainted and these demons will eventually come back to haunt us. We've got to PROVE to the world clearly, once and for all, that GNU/Linux is everything we've said it is. How do we do that?
"And now, Frank N. Furter, your time has come. Say 'goodbye' to all of this, and 'hello'... to oblivion!"
>>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.
If you follow scox at all, you know that scox can choose their wording *very* carefully. So, maybe that statement isn't as clear as thought.
For example: "no current plans to take a commercial Linux customer to court." That is not saying that scox is not going to sue linux end users. Scox could still be holding to their "give us protection money or risk a lawsuit" policy.
SCO 10q and just how much has Microsoft agreed to pay SCO?
Take name "MICROSOFT" and rearrange the letters and you get "SCO FROM IT"
hmmmmmmmmmmmm
#!/
"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything." Shane (1953)
SCO has apparently removed their
letter to Linux users from their web site.
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing cirucmstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor coroprations have any righ to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
- Robert A. Heinlein, Life Line
Here is a recent picture of closet Linux user, W Bush, after hearing this recent statement by SCO. I wouldn't be surprised if every Linux user out there has the same look on their face.
SCO, is it a "yes" or a "no"? Just choose!
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.
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.