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SCO Volleys to Red Hat
ZeroVerteX noted that News.com is saying "The SCO Group fired back against Linux leader Red Hat on Monday, filing a motion to dismiss the Linux company's suit against SCO. In a motion filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Delaware, SCO argues that Red Hat has no grounds to sue SCO, as SCO's actions against the open-source Linux operating system have not specifically targeted Red Hat." So it's ok to threaten a community, but not ok for a member of that same community to stand up?
"There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done." --Darl McBride, Apr 24 2003, here
Belief is the currency of delusion.
By SCO using fraudulent claims to deminish the marketability of RedHat's own products (as well as that of the Linux marketplace as a whole), RedHat has every right to sue.
Wow! SCO's stock is at 19.17 WTF!!!
I mean, of course they have. A motion to dismiss is just part of the dance. It's typically the first reaction of a legal team to a legal threat. I'm pretty certain its the first thing that IBM did as well.
It's often a long shot, but if granted, it will save SCO a lot of time and money.
IAAL, and a motion to dismiss is something that is filed in nearly every lawsuit on the off chance that it will actually work and you can avoid having your client pay the expenses of litigation.
Leaving out any comment about the legal judgment involved in SCO filing the original lawsuit, if SCO's lawyers *hadn't* recommended filing this motion to dismiss Red Hat's suit, it would have constituted malpractice.
Technical correction: SCO has, in effect, called the 'team' that developed the Linux kernel, copyright infringers.
I mistakenly confused "intellectual property" with actual property. Sorry for any confustion.
If SCO fails in its motion then it is a terrific sign for future anti-Linux lawsuits. It would mean that SCO could not convince a judge that its evidence is strong enough to withstand counter evidence. We know this is true but convincing a judge is a different matter. What Linux needs is the precedent of a judge agreeing with us (through RedHat).
This is going to be fun to watch.
I say that since you can't jail a company or kill it, a company should not have the rights of an individual.
I have to disagree. Corporations should have the same rights as individuals. However, what you're forgetting is that freedom of speech only applies if it is opinion or the truth. If the statements made can be proven false and people believe them to the point of hurting the reputation or otherwise of the victim, then it is either slander or libel (depending if its spoken or written).
For example, if I say Bill Gates is a pig-fucker and people are stupid enough to believe it and his reputation or otherwise suffers because of my comments, i can be sued for slander.
Either way, SCO execs shouldn't be jailed over what their slanderous ways, but rather for all the other crimes they've committed through this whole ordeal.
Dont be nieve. Its quite apparent that SCO does not intend to stop with IBM. They have said as much themselves, though they tend to change their story every few days.
I've posted this before, but instead of simply whining about their behavior here at /. we should be filing complaints with the FTC. Mention how they are trying to sell something that they do not own, and that if you don't pay them now (before they show what they own), they are saying that you'll owe them more later. Licenses start at $699 for a single processor during the promotional period.
SCO's Address:
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
801-765-4999 phone
801-765-1313 fax
FTC Consumer Complaint Form
Take a stand and make a real difference.
--
Slash
No. SCO must pass along most (I believe) of the money to Novell. They're like a debt-collecting agency, collecting for Novell.
[mod-limit: 2]
Belief is the currency of delusion.
A day of reckoning indeed. Lots of SCO insiders have been selling shares during the past few months. None of them are buying. These aren't just anybody. We're talking Robert K. Bench, Chief Financial Officier ; Reginald C. Broughton, Senior Executive VP ; Michael P. Olson, Controller ; Michael Sean Wilson, Senior VP ; Jeff F. Hunsaker, VP . These are people who should have some idea of the health of the company.
SCO is sending out letters about liability to licensing fees to GNU/Linux users, including RedHat's customers. That should be all the standing they need in court.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
One thing to note, Caldera did not win that case. Microsoft cut their losses in the midst of the anti-trust lawsuit and settled out of court.
endit
Interesting note on the signup page:
"SCO reserves the right to withdraw registrations using our discretion."
You think maybe they expect people to register who actually don't care about the great procucts they offer? I urge everybody to sign up now. The agenda says there will be a Q&A session. I can hardly wait.
No. SCO must pass along most (I believe) of the money to Novell. They're like a debt-collecting agency, collecting for Novell.
Yes, on each sale 5% goes to SCO and 95% goes to Novell.
Quoting an e-week article here:
Under that agency agreement, SCO collects all customer payments and remits 95 percent of the collected funds to Novell and retains 5 percent as an administrative fee. SCO records the 5 percent administrative fee as revenue in its consolidated statements of operations.
I don't know why this troll was modded but now that it is I'll respond.
First of all what was taken from freebsd? the idea or the code?
Second the ATA "copy" was in fact proved to be just some headders that the freebsd people had reverse engineered but that Andre had gone to the manufacturer for and gotten the actual documentation. So who coppied what?
As for the Virgin incedent I found no info on that at all other than how to install a new linux distro onto it and some comments about how the default OS is dog slow and installing either windows or Linux on it is a better idea.
Please check your facts next time.
Not really.
These are the same grounds on which the OFT dismissed mine (and quite a few other) complains against it in the UK.
It is a generally valid argument as far as anticompetitive practices are concerned. You are not allowed to complain unless you are directly affected. All that Red Hat needs to prove that it is directly affected with relation to one or more of the SCO actions it alleges to be illegal.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
[...] proved to be just some headders [sic]
Still, there was a copyright on them even though they were reverse engineered, that's not a general waiver to just do with it what you like, you still have to adhere to the BSD license. Furthermore, the fact that Andre, after the fact, got the documentation from the vendor has nothing to do with the issue.
They were copied verbatim without any attribution. In a community where people are so scared that the GPL'd code gets mistreated the same people are quite lax and tolerating when the reverse happens.
The knife does cut on both sides.
Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
No they were NOT coppied.. they were derived from the documentation provided by the hardware vendor.
..
There are only so many ways you can write data structures that speak to the hardware
Here is an interview with the MS rep in the persian gulf area. It may initially seem off topic, but if you read through it, he starts using the SCO lawsuit as an example of why how linux users don't respect IP. (Funny, no mention of the Eolas patents as an example of how MS respects the IP of others)
(This interview is worthy of a story submission in itself, but I have given up submitting stories to
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?Arti
My rights don't need management.
The GPL does not require attribution in their documentation or on their site.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1997/Nov9 7/scopr.asp
REDMOND, Wash.-November 24, 1997 - Microsoft Corporation today applauded the decision of the European Commission to close the file and take no further action on a dispute between Microsoft and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) involving a 1987 contract. The Commission's decision follows progress by Microsoft and SCO to resolve a number of commercial issues related to the contract, and upholds Microsoft's right to receive royalty payments from SCO if software code developed by Microsoft is used in SCO's UNIX products.
And in order to do this, all they have to do is show the court The letter sent from SCO to RedHat's clients... pretty sure that'll do it...
Filing a motion to dismiss is pretty much a reflex action in any lawsuit or trial. Sometimes the reasons can be pretty ridiculous, but a lawyer wouldn't be doing his duty if he didn't at least try. (On the "it never hurts to ask" principle.)
And yes, this ranks as one of the more ridiculous.
-- Alastair
NPR is actually damn good. Only folks that don't really listen to it think its boring. and its a LOT less boring than the 'pop rock' Clear Channel Stations all over town.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
So, naturally for a libel suit there are generally three standards. 1) Did they say it? 2) Was it damaging? and 3) Is what they say factually incorrect?
Here, the first is a foregone conclusion, and the second nearly is. The third is effectively the IBM case.
But think about what that means. To prove that Linux DIDN'T steal from SCO, then either 1) SCO can actually turn over their allegations, for RedHat to refute, or 2) RedHat can subpoena the entire Sys V source code to show that any matches can be attributed to BSD or textbooks.
This is exactly what SCO is trying to avoid - you know, an actual lawsuit? So I think this is more of a "put up or shut up" move by Red Hat than anything else. Effectively, it's a way of letting teh Open Source camp control the pace of the lawsuit that SCO has no intention of actually following through with. They're trying to use it for their pump'n'dump scheme, and the Open Source camp (here, Red Hat) is attempting to take that away, to force their hand.
All in all, it's a damned good strategy.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
from the Linuxworld story about SCO and Dupaco
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34018.htm
Imagine his surprise, then, when he received an e-mail last month informing him that in 30 days, the distribution contract would be terminated. According to Monninkhof, SCO is offering their country managers in Europe exclusive franchise arrangements in the countries they handle. This means that the existing distributors are effectively cut out of the picture, not even being given a chance to vie for the franchise rights. Worse, under a marketing program started by SCO several years ago, Dupaco has been providing SCO with their leads and customer contacts, meaning that the new franchise will be primed to raid Dupaco's customer base. Dupaco had felt comfortable doing this because they had been assured by the European SCO management that SCO would never move to a direct marketing model in the Netherlands.
Puzzled to say the least, Monninkhof called his country manager, who basically told him he could remain as a zero-margin reseller, but the termination was a done deal. Since he was going to Lindon, Utah on other business, he called SCO to arrange a meeting. At first SCO agreed to talk, then changed their mind and told Monninkhof that there was no one at SCO to talk to and visitors were not being allowed in the building.
Undaunted, Monninkhof showed up at SCO's doorstep anyway, and within seconds, security had appeared and escorted him off the premises. He was also given a letter indicating that his company was no longer welcome at SCO Forum (which was about to be held in Las Vegas, and was the other reason that Monninkhof was in the country.)
In his own words humiliated, Monninkhof and his partner were halfway to Vegas to make their presence known, when they decided not to burn any bridges and returned to the Netherlands. However, they did decide to take legal action.
From the site:
So there's two interesting parts: the 150,000 share payoff that the poster mentioned, and there's also the vesting of about 8333 per month after the June 2003 (one year from when he was hired).