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Could Google Be SCO's Next Big Target?
An anonymous reader writes "Well, Darl and co. may have decided which company to sue next: Google. Sources say Google will be sued for not paying their Linux taxes. The story quotes 'Industry wags are saying that God invented SCO to give people a company to hate more than Microsoft.'" This is all speculation until such a suit is filed, though.
Source Claims SCO Will Sue Google
Industry wags are saying that God invented SCO to give people a company to hate more than Microsoft, November 26, 2003
Summary
A source claiming to be in the know says that the SCO Group is going to sue Google for not paying its Linux taxes.
By Maureen O'Gara
A source claiming to be in the know says that the SCO Group is going to sue Google for not paying its Linux taxes.
Last week SCO threatened to make an example of a big-time Linux user that hadn't paid SCO the license fees it's demanding and take it to court for copyright infringement.
SCO has not disclosed the identity of its mark and SCO CEO Darl McBride claimed Tuesday that a decision on what company to target wasn't final yet. He said SCO and its lawyers were working with "a short list" of "seven or eight" names.
McBride declined to say whether Google's name was on it, but another knowledgeable source said it was.
SCO said last week that it would sue within 90 days. The Linux community thinks SCO's bluffing and won't make its self-imposed February 17 deadline. McBride said he'd like to play that number in Vegas.
The idea behind the suit is obviously to make all major Linux users tractable and make them reach for their checkbooks.
If it turns out to be Google, it's a provocative choice.
It's a household name.
It's said to have a Linux server farm of some 10,000 of servers, worth, oh, $7 million to SCO as long as SCO's current cut-rate license fees maintain.
It's reportedly putting together a positively glorious IPO that could supposedly be worth $15 billion-$25 billion, a feat unmatched in the last two decades despite Tulipmania.
And Microsoft, which has been accused of conniving with SCO in its march against Linux, is slated to enter the search market and compete against Google. The widgetry, which is supposed to retrieve all kinds of file types, both structured and unstructured, and all kinds of storage systems, beginning with the user's own drive, will be integrated into its operating systems like the anticipated Longhorn.
Meanwhile, industry wags are saying that God invented SCO to give people a company to hate more than Microsoft.
How much might SCO try to extort from a linux user that doesn't use the feature under litigation?
The worst part is that unlike IBM, Google may not have the vast army of lawyers to devote to their defense. Now they're not poor, and they do have lawyers, but nothing like the fancy-pants ones that IBM has on tap.
And on a tangent...OSDL to Answer SCO with Linux Campaign.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
One problem here, is that it's merely your opinion that SCO is "clearly violating the law."
Fortunately or unfortunately, it's really not at all clear that they have broken any law at all.
The SEC and the US Attorney General have indeed been notified of the suspicion, but the fact is they haven't actually done anything illegal (apparently). They are maybe just barely on the legal side of the hockey, but, until they actually cross it, there's not going to be any grounds for the criminal prosecution that you're hoping for.
They're properly going to the court to decide their case. There's not extortion, and there's no stock fraud. There is a lot of ugly business being done, but it's apparently all legal. Just on the side of legal, but that's good enough.
The indemnity offer is not extortion, it's not a protection racket, and shame on you if you pay it. (If it was a racket, you'd become an accomplice when you pay the protection money.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
how you can sue someone for violating your IP rights
The thing is, you can't sue someone for 'violating IP rights' (well, you can sue for anything, but you can't win)
If SCO is going to sue, they'll have to say what 'IP' it is that Google is infringing WRT Linux - is Google infringing copyright (Hmm, they're not distributing Linux), Trademark (SCO doesn't own the Linux trademark), or Trade Secret (that would be a tough one to prove.)
As Eben Moglen has said, you can't bring a copyright infringement suit against someone for using something, only for copying it. They would have to go after whoever Google got their software from (or the case would be thrown out.)
They have a better shot at going after Google for contributory infringement (linking to Linux download sites) - but even that has a snowball's chance in hell.
I know you're just being fecitious, but unless they can prove that they have rights to bill for it, then sending a bill is fraud. Doing so would open them up to criminal prosecution.
The absolute worst administration nightmare I have ever had, was a customer box in the mid-90's that ran SCO. It's filesystem ran out of inodes. The consequences were horrendous. I convinced the client to literally toss the machine and replace it with a BSD server. Unfortunately, the client chose BSDI, but at least it was better than SCO.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Well, SCO did release a list of files containing stolen IP. Among them were
> so it's not as simple.
Under copyright law...
1) It is the person or entity that produces the copy that commits the infringement. Thus Red Hat, Debian, or Suse.
2) The end-user can be held for contributing if, and only if, they knew or should have known the copy was infringing. (You can't buy Playstation backup disks, without owning a copy first. You should have known better.) Thus, by ordering same over the net you are contributing.
3) Copyright infringement is a criminal matter. The fact the law includes a number of affirmative defenses that defeat the criminal sanction does not change the fact ONE CANNOT CONTRACT AWAY CRIMINAL BEHAVIORS. Thus the GPL's "no warranties" clause can only apply to the like of the software destorying your known universe. It cannot disclaim infringement by passing it onto the end-user.
Regarding patents...
1) End-users have always been held responsible for proper execution of patents.
Regarding trade secrets...
1) Generally, the party that released the secret is responsible for damages caused in the breach of their contract. Others can be held accountable too, if they knew a contract was being broken by their having been given the info.
2) In some rare situations, a trade secret can be "reclaimed". The recipient must be shown to knew, or should have known, the secret was had throught the breach of a contract. Distribution must have been limited to that select group, and innocent parties must not be harmed. (Basically, your secret is only as safe as the depth of the pockets you tell it too.)
2 surely does not apply to Linux - in any form.
Regarding end-users...
One affirmative defense against copyright infringement is a non-professional standing. The likes of Red Hat are EXPECTED to know the law, and the extent of their right to PROFIT from the reproduction of IP they know they don't own.
Mear mortals are held to a lower standard. We are not expected to have the resources to validate IP status of every item we encounter. We are allowed to rely, if in good faith, on a bonified professional's assertion of acceptablility implied by their production of copies.
So, if you modify Linux and give it to a friend (or a thousand) in good faith, and not as an ongoing concern where IP is central to your business, you're pretty much OK.
That's certainly a point to consider, but don't forget that copyright infringement damages aren't repaired by the unwitting consumers. SCO would have to prove that the people being billed knew that SCO was the legitimate copyright holder prior to their deployment. If a newspaper publishes copyrighted content in an infringing fahsion, the readers are not liable for damages caused to the copyright holder, only the newspaper is. I think in this case, "hey we didn't know, but since bringing it to our attention, we've gotten rid of it" would be a perfectly sound legal defense. Either that or "this vendor sold it to us without telling us, please see them for damages," which would most likely in turn become "IBM/SUSE/Red Hat/whomever didn't tell us, sue them."
Actually, I personally don't see them doing it. They've already sued one high-profile name, what's the point? They've got enough publicity already. It's the small "mom-and-pop" setups that are likelier to keel over and pay up - [1-5]*US$699 is more cough-up-able than for someone running a server farm the size of Google's. (It's a little like how they say, if a bank lends you $1, they own you, but if they lend you $1bn, you own the bank?)
Google's involvement with linux is so extensive it makes no sense for Google to just keel over and pay it - Google WILL fight (can you imagine the licensing cost for all those machines they have? UNLESS maybe SCO walks up to google and offers them a "cut rate" license fee ("for ONE dollar you'll be in the clear!!"), in which case if Google pays up, it'll be a major coup for SCO which they'll use against others. But in that case it makes sense for Google to say - "we'll pay AFTER you win against IBM" first.
Are there any actual lawyers here who can tell us if Google can ask for a stay in court proceedings, assuming SCO sues them, until after the outcome of the IBM lawsuit? They'd be relitigating the same case otherwise, no?)
Apple is exactly where Microsoft wants them: They are contained. They are in a niche market with clearly defined bounds (the "higher end" end user) and they show no indication that they have any path whatsoever from there to touching Microsoft's core target market (the person who just wants 'a cheap PC', the business market). Microsoft is not concerned with contained threats. This is why MS has been pretty much ignoring Mac OS X, but they're jockeying violently against the iTunes Music Store.
Google is very very much an unknown, uncontained threat. They have a lot of leverage, they have energy, mindshare, and are actively expanding, and worst of all, Microsoft has no way to control them in any way. If Google decides they want to put up a link on their front page that says "hey, if you click here, it will install Quicktime and play the Return of the King trailer", there will be a whole lot of people installing Quicktime that day.
Worse, google is actively moving in ways that indicate direct potential threats to things Microsoft cares about. It's only a tiny step from the Google Toolbar to the Google Webbrowser. It's not much of a step at all for Google News to expand into something that could dwarf MSN.
Remember how much effort and money MS put into knocking tiny little Netscape out of the market, even though they got nothing in return? Microsoft cares deeply about potential threats. And potentially, Google can be very scary to Microsoft.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
dave --> tech stuff
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1398341,00.as p
Note: Blake Stowell doesn't say they won't sue Google, just that they haven't decided on a target yet. He does admit that Google is one of the Fortune 1000 they sent letters to.
This is, of course, just another way for SCO to pump up the stock action. Not really denying the story spreads the rumor, without courting the kind of suit Red Hat slapped them with.