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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.
Why havn't any of the 'Linux contributors' - aka the people who have code in the kernel stepped up and sued SCO over defimation?
SCO has, in effect, called the 'team' that developed the Linux kernel thieves.
Why hasn't any of the 'team' stepped up to the plate and sued?
First, the CSOF contains literally dozens of paragraphs relying exclusively upon indisputably inadmissible material -- hearsay statements taken from books, magazine articles, letters and purported testimony of third parties who are not witnesses in this action
/ 05-05re sponse.asp
[cut]
Second, Caldera's CSOF contains many misstatements. Many of Caldera's assertions simply are not supported by the cited references. In other instances, Caldera selectively quotes from exhibits, whose full text plainly gives a different meaning than ascribed by Caldera. In alleging certain events, Caldera omits known related facts that convey an entirely different understanding.
[cut]
Finally, although Caldera attempts to rewrite 15 years of computer history, it oddly never mentions that it was not even a bystander to these events. In a 1996 transaction that closed on the same day that Caldera filed this lawsuit, Caldera paid less than $400,0006 for DR DOS and the right to pursue claims against Microsoft that Caldera now says are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This explains why the CSOF is not based on personal knowledge, and is not limited to admissible evidence.
taken from the following page:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/caldera
- I choked on the red pill and now I'm stuck in limbo
In its responding motion, SCO says its actions are protected by, among other rights, First Amendment protections of free speech. "Any governmental interest served under the Lanham Act (one of the foundations of U.S. intellectual property law) is heavily outweighed by fundamental governmental interests in protecting copyright interests, ensuring full and free access to courts, providing litigation immunity, promoting judicial economy and fairness in litigation, and safeguarding freedom of speech and the press," according to SCO's motion
Another company claiming the rights that an individual is entitled to. I say that since you can't jail a company or kill it, a company should not have the rights of an individual.
I think the old Nike case has not been settled yet. So SCO is in the wrong. IIRC, AFAIK and IANAL. But I know I hate this.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
In its responding motion, SCO says its actions are protected by, among other rights, First Amendment protections of free speech.
Well that's interesting, because it was recently ruled in a Californian court that a Nike publicity campaign was actually "commercial speech" and so unprotected by the First Amendment.
Personally, I think that companies claiming the rights of citizens can't be a good thing - after all, when did you hear of human rights abuses against corporations?
"Red Hat's real motive for filing suit against SCO was to somehow vindicate the entire Linux industry," according to the SCO motion.
Well, what did you expect, Darl? You threaten the open-source community, actively call Linux customers and tell them they're liable for using Linux, and you don't expect somebody with some guts (and cash) to stand up to you?
It's like the school bully running to the principle after somebody he's pushed around pushed back.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Y'know, in spite of all the press you see, understand that the only legal action SCO has entered into is a *contract* suit against IBM. If they win that suit, there are no consequences for anybody but IBM.
While this may be technically true, the main reason Red Hat filed suit aginst SCO is because of the damage SCO is doing to Red Hat's business, not because of the law suit, but because of the statements Darl McBride and the rest of the "gang of three" keep making to pump-up their stock price. All Red Hat wants is for SCO to either put-up or shut-up.
Also, as mentioned above, there were vague threats issued against Red Hat, SuSE and others by the SCO management several months ago.
No matter where you go... there you are.
Apparently they will also be doing a 'city to city tour' showcasing their fabulous technology:
l
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030915/lam101_1.htm
Needless to say, a great opportunity to organize something with your local LUG to show up and politely make people aware that this is not a good company to be doing business with.
The tour supposedly visits:
-- October 7th, Toronto
-- October 8th, Newark
-- October 9th, Boston
-- October 14th, Minneapolis
-- October 15th, Chicago
-- October 16th, St. Louis
-- October 21st, Vancouver
-- October 22nd, Irvine
-- October 23rd, Dallas
-- October 28th, Atlanta
-- October 29th, Orlando
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
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.
SCO sent 1500 letters to large Linux-using companies intimating legal action if those companies did not pay SCO's extortion demands. If any of those companies are using Redhat Linux, then it seems to me that Redhat has been pulled into standing by SCO's interference with Redhat's business relationship with those companies.
- First we ignored SCO.
- Then we laughed at SCO.
- Then we fought SCO.
- ...
Remind me what step four is?Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
Because suing over defamation doesn't allow you to extract enough money from the guilty party when you win.
Otherwise, there'd be plenty of lawyers queued up asking the major kernel hackers for permission to sue SCO on their behalf.
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
...a copy is here.
Interesting points:
I'm still waiting for the invoice for my single-CPU Linux box...
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
From the Article:
"Red Hat's real motive for filing suit against SCO was to somehow vindicate the entire Linux industry," according to the SCO motion.
Well DUH!! Isn't SCO attacking the entire Linux Industry?!? Someone has to stand up for the Linux community (in a court of law in this case).
I don't get it. SCO is allowed to spread FUD throughout any media organization that will listen, but the minute someone legally challenges SCO's accusations, SCO cries unfair?
Someone please tell SCO to grow up... oh wait!...
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Now all you have to do is figure out exactly what he meant by "his" operating system. He's laid claim to so many of them...
It does not protect you if you make statements designed to damage someones elses business. SCO clearly has stated linux has pirated code in it.
Redhat's primary business is selling Linux products, whether Redhat was a primary target of that statement is irrelevant, it was an intended target. SCO has clearly intended through its statments and actions to target linux users and potential users who include Redhat customers and those who might become redhat customers. These statements were and are potentially misleading and deceptive.
This may be causing actual financial damage to redhat. Courts do not want to impose prior restraint, but if Redhat can establish they are losing customers because of false and misleading statements by SCO then courts can and do act.
All of these issues are for a jury to decide , so I dont think SCOs dismissal action will succeed
Looking over the latest, which appears to be the usual SCO Linguistic Acrobatics ("We can say anything we want, it's free speech . . . for the corporation!"), I was wondering about the mentality inside SCO. Far inside, since they seem to be in their own world.
I think expecting logic, decency, concern for the rule of law, etc. from SCO is doomed to fail. Of course, we pretty much knew that.
Looking at their behaviors, its purely marketing behaviors. There's not a single connection to reality (except hopes to get $$$ by getting bought, stock manipulation, etc.). It's a marketing campaign, period, and like any campaign of its kind it'll morph, change, alter, play to whomever they can play with, and so-on.
On the other hand, I don't think the SCOites truly realize what they're doing in their little world. They're annoying a huge amount of people and making themselves legal targets. I think they only see this great new ploy that's sure to work - it's marketing, and marketing is always to gullible schlubs anyway, right?
That is perpahs their greatest personal weakness. They're running a marketing campaign in a legal arena. They're assuming people will roll over in the face of their brilliance and threats. They don't realize they're in a different arena.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
They believe they had code stolen from them.
If SCO really believed this, then they would be trying to get the infringement stopped ASAP.
Instead, SCO's very actions are to make sure that the infringement continues forever without any way for anyone to stop it, so that they can extort money.
If SCO were to win over IBM, then IBM would pay their $3 Billion and that would be the end of the matter. The $1 Billion in damages is to fully, totally, and completely compensate SCO for their damages. End of story. Trippling the damages to $3 Billion is to punish IBM for their alleged misdeeds. In no event do end users pay anything, any more than if you have a book that ends up being shown to have plagarized someone's copyright work.
The fact that SCO goes around making threats that everyone needs to pay for a license demonstrated what it is that they actually believe. That they can make money from someone else's IP because they blame Linux for killing their failed business model.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Wow! SCO's stock is at 19.17 WTF!!
I think I'd better buy some. That'll guarantee it'll drop like a rock...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
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.
Darl McBride has got to be the most flamboyant retarded CEO ever. I don't mean that funny-ha-ha either. He really is very deluded.
:), I know the Linux community will replace as needed and carry on. Life will go on. I just wish SCO, and more specifically Darl McBride, would STFU until the lawsuits are settled. I certainly can't be the only person sick to death of hearing about SCO every fucking day.
On a side note, anyone who does business related to Linux can sue SCO, and probably win. I'm surprised a gag order hasn't been ordered. Usually, when a lawsuit is filed, both parties are very hush-hush because if they lose, any statements made before the judgement regarding the outcome can become a liability. On that note, SCO has racked up a hell of a lot of liability. Red Hat is very much within their right as SCO is interfering with the business operations of any company that relies on Linux. If(when?) SCO loses their lawsuit against IBM, every press release regarding the copyright violations of SysV code in Linux will become libelous, and the company will sink like a concrete shoed mobster, straight to the bottom. SCO's activity during the last six months may also land Darl in jail for mail fraud(Linux license sale offers or requests by mail). Darl should be careful what he says. Everyone in the Linux community was a little miffed at first because it appeared that IBM wasn't vocally supporting the community when in reality, they were in cautious mode.
Win or lose, right or wrong, I just don't care. Even if SCO wins(doubtful, SCO's actions are like a fireant biting a gorilla
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Keep him talking - he's our best defense :-) Besides, how else would we get our daily SCO NonsenseNews :-)
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...
Wouldn't it benefit the OSS more to not talk about the SCO debacle and let the lawsuits fad into obscurity than give them the attention they are so desperate to get?
A basic principle in US election campaigns is that negative advertising cannot be left unanswered. You might think that the best way to deal with negative acusations is to ignore them and let them fade into obscurity, but this only works in certain circumstances. If your acuser lacks all credibility then you can do this, but if your acuser has any credibility at all then you have to answer the acusations (and quickly) because they will quickly take hold in public opinion unless there is a competing position available.
Something similar is at work here. SCO is trying pump up its share price by creating an impression in the mind of the public (at least in the share buying part of the public) that SCO has a good shot at winning big in court. If they succeed then the flip side will be that the public will expect OSS companies like RedHat to lose big, and the share prices of those OSS companies will decline. The only way for OSS companies to defend their share price is to get a comnpeting story out there before public opinion sets.
I should note that IBM is in a different position. IBM is big enough and SCO is small enough that IBM can afford to shrug off this kind of story. No one thinks that IBM will die if OSS tanks.
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
Darl gets a big fat payoff if he can deliver four straight profitable quarters. Most of it is in stock, which means he'll have to keep up the fiasco for another quarter or two to cash out.
At that point, I think we can expect him to leave SCO. If there is any SCO left to leave. Maybe the final legal showdown will be Darl v. Ralph, to be filed in late 2004 or early 2005. We all know how much Darl loves to sue his employers.
Anyway, this means the SCO v. IBM case is not likely to ever make it to court because there's *no* motivation for Darl to go that far.
In the meantime, he'll do whatever it takes to show profit on the next two or three 10-Q's. He'll slash personnel, support, anything, doesn't matter how it affects SCO's long term prospects, as long as he shows profits each quarter. He'll try to get people to pay for SCO IP in Linux licenses NOW, not after the case is resolved in court, because he doesn't care what happens that far down the line.
He needs the money on the books and in the 10-Q next quarter and the following one. He's got two profitable quarters in a row, though he probably wouldn't have made it this quarter without cutting personnel and associated costs. Two more to go, and he's golden.
If he hasn't done it already, we can expect some *extremely* creative accounting over the next two quarters. Or more money from MS. MS, according to the latest 10-Q (available at SEC), has apparently purchased those "expanded licensing options" that were mentioned in the April 30 10-Q.
Darl's biggest fear is that something will shut down SCO and/or it's FUD machine within those next two quarters. If he sounds irrational and afraid, well, that's because he is. He can't pull any more profits out of Germany. Australia, Austria, and Poland are lining up to gag him in their countries. Red Hat's trying to do the same in the U.S. Of course, none of this matters much as long as no court decisions are reached within the next 3 quarters. Which means delay, delay, and delay will be SCO's legal strategy going forward.