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SCO News Roundup
Bootsy Collins managed to combine all of today's SCO stories. He writes "The firm of David Boies, SCO's attorney in charge of their Linux IP cases, has
announced their compensation
(so far) from SCO: $1 million USD in cash, and $8 million in SCO stock. Keeping that stock price high until they can sell is clearly of some importance to
Boies, Schiller and Flexner LLP. Given the cost of
selling a $50 million convertible note to fund their legal actions, the actual cost to SCO is more like $17 million USD. Meanwhile, SCO CEO Darl McBride is saying that Novell's purchase of SuSE
violates a non-competition agreement reached when SCO bought the Unix source, and thus is legally actionable by SCO. Over at the Register, they've noticed that SCO's latest SEC filings indicate how firmly they're putting all their eggs in the legal basket: the filings effectively say that
'SCO has already lost business from its loyal customer base, and it expects to lose more.'
And finally, in response to a poor response to SCO's attempts to get Fortune 1000 companies to pay $699/server for 'Linux licenses' before the fee jumped to $1399, SCO has announced
that the $699 discount rate will apply to the end of 2003. Hurry before time runs out again."
Well 17 million $ / $699 = 24,321 (rounding up remainders), can SCO find 24,321 users to pay for the Linux license? Chances are that there are 24,321 corporate workstations that will be paid for should SCO win, so unfortunately SCO wins at this point.
But really, their image? Their likelihood of getting future products bought that they offer? Anyone in the Linux community buying SCO after this? Tangibly this much money still makes sense, but intangibly I'd be concerned about the long term effect on SCO.
...in bed
This must be one of the most long-running Slashdot stories I've ever seen, and one of the most vehement :-) I wonder what a plot of stories/posts over time would look like...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Should be interesting. After all, Novell could argue simply that "Since we are buying a GNU/Linux company, and GNU means 'Gnu's Not Unix', blah, blah, blah".
The burden of proof should (notice the "should", because the law may say different) be on SCO to prove that Linux *is* UNIX.
If it is according to the law, then there could be problems. If it is not, then Novell's scott free.
Just my $0.02.
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Depending on how broadly the no-compete clause was written, if it covers linux, there's a chance the same would apply to NetWare as well, cause NetWare isn't Unix either.
On the other hand, hasn't SCO changed their core products to litigation and (trying) to sell licenses for other company's software?
SCO has announced that the $699 discount rate will apply to the end of 2003.
Hey, the $699 troll was right, you cocksmoking teabaggers!
Reminder:
SCO is not suing IBM for infringing it's alleged IP. It's suing them for BREACHING A CONTRACT>
Right now, most Linux users don't have any contractual relationship with SCO. But if you pay the $699 for their blessing to use Linux on ONE machine, they can sue YOU for failing to pay $1399 (or whatever price they pull out of their hat next year, or next century) for ANY ADDITIONAL machines you ever run Linux on. (Which could get problematic with Linux in settop boxes, PDAs, car disk players, etc.)
It's REALLY NOT SMART to PAY them $699 to give them a license to SUE you.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Probably not. It should be enough to show that it DOES compete - which would be trivial.
IANAL, but I don't think that's the only thing it has to show. I believe that it would also have to show that by distributing linux, Suse/Novell are having a direct impact upon SCO's business.
Given that Linux is freely distributed by a range of companies, it's hard to see how they can make that case. Also, I wonder how confusing it will be for the courts when they learn that SCO is actually a company that was established to try to profit from distributing someone else's intellectual property, which they had a right to freely distribute, but by using the funds from their IPO to purchase an older technology, they believe they can then prevent the company that originally sold the older technology from distributing the same free operating system that led to their successful IPO in the first place.
Now it may just be me, but I've got a very strong suspicion that any judge or jury who was exposed to the arguments would actually laugh this out of court.
"Nice try fellas, do you really think we are that stupid?"
No, I think there are some very twitchy sphincters in Utah at the moment, so it's time to crank the FUD again and bring out the smoke and mirrors for another quick performance.
Guys,
You are watching history in the making. SCO might look like an annoying pest, a cynical manipulator of the stock market, a bucket of shit without the bucket, but think about how future generations will view this.
First, this is the first serious industry-wide debate about the legitimacy of Linux, as an open source concept, as a child of the GPL, and as an operating system. The simple fact that people are prepared to go to war (and this is war) over Linux raises it from a curiosity to a treasure.
Second, this is of course about much more than SCO vs. The World, and future generations will place it in its correct context. Mainly, this is about Microsoft trying to ward off the oncoming Linux mammoth, unable to attack Linux head-on for many reasons, but unable to watch as it demolishes their market with an apparently unstoppable force.
Thirdly, this is about the Old versus the New, on the one side the forces of "software is a product" and on the other, the forces of "software is a commodity technology". The period 1998-2003 saw software evolve from a rare and precious thing to something that is so cheap we simply can't build harddisks large enough any more. SCO and Microsoft are firmly in the "Old" camp, IBM and most of the rest of the world are in the "New" camp. You don't need to be a genius to see the inexorable grip that the technology cycle has on software, and the consequences of this.
SCO lost before they started, that is clear. But this battle defines the line that must be crossed to move into the future. Stick with proprietary platforms, die. Move to commodity platforms, live and prosper.
It would be a good time to sell your Microsoft shares too: $51 billion can disappear remarkably quickly when the money stops rolling in.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
"At the conclusion of his keynote, McBride will be available for media questions."
Every time he opens his mouth to the media, IBM collects more ammunition.
Taking stock in the company you are representing as payment? Is it just me, or does that seem wrong?
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Yes, IBM's lawyers are doing a great job so far in this litigation, but remember that it is NOT a foregone conclusion that SCO will lose. This is not the kind of issue I would want to be ignorant of and I feel it is our responsibility to keep reporting SCO's tripe and to consistently call it out for what it is, if only for a solid counterpoint to the analysts who continue to push SCO as a 'buy.'
This is an important case because it is one that we MUST win. Suppose we lose, and a new Open Source operating system gets written to replace the IP'd linux. How long will it take SCO et al to pursue it with similar litigation? How ready will coders be to place themselves in the line of legal-fire? We have companies like IBM and Red Hat doing the heavy lifting for us now - how likely are they to continue down this path should they lose this case?
Pretty bleak, and admittedly unlikely outcome. Yet pretty important stuff to most of us here. Hell, I know people who would walk away from computers in disgust should SCO win. Of course this is news, and of course it is reported on Slashdot! THIS is news that matters.
I don't think so. Here's why.
If SCO gets smashed in court and can't prove that their rights were actually violated, they have nothing to say about any GNU/Linux code. All GNU/Linux code would be proven to be the "property" of whoever wrote it. In fact, they have been selling a product they don't own at all. I think that's considered to be a very bad case of copyright infringement, much worse than downloading a crappy Eminem cd of Kazaa...
Alright, I know that SCO asks its 699? paying foolish customers to agree with a EULA that states SCO to be the owner of of GNU/Linux code...So what? That doesn't prove anything at all... If I steal an box containing 20 cell phones and start selling them around, I can't come up in court with the argument: "Gee, all my 20 customers were convinced that I was the owner of the cell phones, so I guess that makes me the rightful owner."
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
If you remember back to the 1500's there used to be stock markets where pirate ships could get funding to go out and plunder other countries' merchant ships. The risks were high, but the payoff was huge. Is this any different? The only difference is that instead of the stocks being taken out for biker gangs that take on big rigs, you've got one corperation trying to exercise it's ability to legally wrangle other corperations for money through an entirely different system much like a bully, but at this point it's at the pirate. SCO is the first legal-pirate (tempting to call them lepirates, ;) ) corperation; a corperation that adds nothing to society that uses strongarm tactics, extortion, blackmail, ect all given a hint of legality by their lawers lies and a couple patents and copyrights that are getting old.
Microsoft will turn into one when they start going downhill, so will the RIAA, etc. If the RIAA can't make money by competition they'll just go back through the past 100 years of copyrights they have and start releasing them. Microsoft will pull all kinds of BS on the linux community if htey have to. Same with the MPAA, and any other monopoly that has sufficient stake in the legal system of the country they are located in that they can effectivly control it and a market.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
And what about Netware? I'm no expert on Novell products, but hasn't Netware been running on x86 for ages? It certainly competes with "Unix-on-Intel".
Given that Netware is Novell's core product, I very much doubt that Darl's claim has any basis in fact.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Richard Painter, a Professor at the University of Illinois who was an early proponent of the legal reforms now included in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, wrote to the SEC recently. He stated that they should examine "conflicts created by unorthodox methods of compensating lawyers (particularly receipt of stock in lieu of legal fees and contingent fee arrangements such as the fee of over $30 million reported to have been earned by Time Warner's counsel in that company's merger with AOL)."
Hopefully these types of arrangements will be put to an end soon. While I don't see an end to contingency fees (because that's how many people are able to afford lawyers), I can certainly see practice of using stock options as payment coming to an end.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
C'mon Jeff, you did an entire spoof piece called "SCOhide" and not once did you use "McBride" in the rhymes? Do over! :)
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I don't see SuSE competing with SCO's UnixWare either. Why would they?
Actually wondering who is still buying SCOs products; with or without competition...
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
SCO is an inflamed tumor, at best. It's painful, and obvious, and it's sucking up blood supply. But try as it may, it's still confined to one spot. And the bigger it gets, the more obvious it becomes to all.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Could be, but it doesn't exactly fit - what about all the other goofy shit they've been doing that's definitely tainting them in the court of popular opinion?
I think they haven't revealed their 'evidence' because they know it's gonna get char-broiled at cross-examination.
I think Darl is going to have to prove that if he wants to enforce that no-compete clause in the contract.
The no-compete is there. Go over to Groklaw.net and you can read it.
The question in my mind is: did the old SCO (now Tarantella) ahve the right to sell the no-compete to Caldera? In other words, is the no-compete still a restriction on Novell competing with Tarantella's products?
I did not see anything in the agreement that allowed old-SCO to sell or transfer the no-compete to anyone else.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Problem is, Novell is already competeing with SCO. Netware still runs on X86. Sure, it's not the Unix market, but the NOS market...which is similar enough. In any case -- if/when SCO loses this Linux case against IBM, I don't think that they'll have much of a leg to stand on (no cash to go after Novell, and no assets to promise to a legal team).
In any case, I'd be really interested to read the specifics of the non-compete agreement between SCO and Novell. Furthermore, I'd be more intersted to find out whether or not Darl McBride is actually telling the whole truth about the non-compete (given his track record of lying through his teeth about everything else).
-Turkey
Actually SuSE successfully sued SCO.
It's possible they don't want their evidence tainted in 'the court of popular opinion' so they choose to wait until their day in court to reveal it.
Except that this isn't the way the court system works. It's a requirement that the plaintiff tell the defendent what the case against them actually is.
The plaintiff can't simply withhold evidence on the basis of "the public might see it", since there are procedures for any documents submitted by any party not to be made a matter of public record. In order for this to happen a judge needs to be convinced that there is a good reason not to make such documents public.
I'm just saying. I am not on SCO's side. I do think that there's a considerable body of 'popular opinion' out there that doesn't care if SCO is right or not.
If SCO does not want to infuence "popular opinion" then they should not be issuing press releases. Let alone demanding money from third parties. Anyway their case with IBM is irrelevent to their copyright infringement and copyright fraud.
You may be right in general -- but in this case, I believe that you're misinformed. The wording in the Novell/SCO agreement is very specific. It did not specify that Novell could not compete with SCO in the x86 market. They already do -- if Novell agreed to do so, they'd put themselves out of business.
Read the text of the agreement at Groklaw.net. Essentially, the agreement stated that they could not use SysV Unix (the IP that Novell sold to SCO) to compete with SCO. Darl's argument is based on his contention that Linux contains enough stolen code from SysV Unix to warrant it being called Unix. Essentially, his non-compete claim is completely based on the outcome of the SCO Vs. IBM case (which, IMO is all bullshit). If SCO loses the IBM case, then they won't have a leg to stand on against Novell since the courts will have affirmed that Linux!=UNIX.
-Turkey
We better start calling it GNU/Linux. After all GNU stands for GNU is Not Unix! This will make Stallman happy.
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