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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.
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.
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
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.