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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.
Isn't it obvious? They are going to sue every major company that uses Linux until:
1.) They get to court
2.) The company simply settles outside of court.
We all know they are full of garbage, yet its still popular and their stocks are still ok... why?
BECAUSE OF MEDIA COVERAGE!
If you guys would just let them slowly drain their money trying to pay lawyers to face off against blue chip companies like IBM, they'd slowly die off. But by giving them attention, they can stay alive.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Don't they have to PROVE!!!?!?! they own what they are trying to collect fees for?
Haven't they done everything but?
If SCO does do anything like that, they will go down for FRAUD!!!!
how you can sue someone for violating your IP rights without legal backing saying your own that IP in the first place.
Is it legal to send a big F-U in response?
This is just what SCO wanted, they probably planted this "leak" to get more attention and a new batch of Greater Fools to buy stock.
All "wolf! wolf! wolf" and lots of crying. No "bite! bite! bite"
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Google is big but not that big, they use Linux, and what is more important they have an impending IPO so they might just pay up to get SCO to shut up. I'm just suprised they weren't sued first.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
I'm a canadian, so I may be way off base here, but doesn't everyone sue everyone else in the US? Really, how is this any different? Even if this ends up being true and SCO sues Google, who really cares, it's a pointless lawsuit, just like the other 10 million filed everyday by the average American... Isn't it? It'll get thrown out just like every other lawsuit, the lawyers will become richer and the American dream will continue to flurish (which if I'm not mistaken is to sue someone and get rich...)
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
A source claiming to be in the know says that the SCO Group is going to sue Google for not paying its Linux taxes.
An unnamed source who claims to know this?
Could this article be more speculative? How does something like this even get considered news?
Let SCO sue Google for not paying the "Linux Tax". All Google has to say is show me legal proof I owe you this money. Until SCO has that proof (as in if they go to court and win the ip fight) Google has nothing to worry about. I think any company that pays SCO any money before they have this proof is making a very large mistake.
man
No manual entry for
Their actions speak of desperation. They are biting off way more than they can chew. If anyone was unsure if they were going to be able to survive a loss in the IBM suit, this makes it certian that they have bet more than they can pay.
Let me get this straigt again. Its trying to prove it owns part of linux in the case with IBM. And now its going to use sue Google because they are using linux which they have yet to prove they own parts of. Great. Isn't that like using a loan for collateral for another loan?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Maybe this will be a Slashdot first -- read the article then post!
After reading the article, I still do not understand how Google could be sued for copyright infringement when they are the end user of a product produced by someone else; does copyright law not specify this? It would be like Eolas suing me for patent infringement after I installed an IE plugin.
I will go back into my little hole now.
This isn't so far fetched... Remember that Microsoft made a sizeable investment in SCO a little while back. With a server farm the size of Google's, this could cause considerable harm to their operations. Consider what an injuction against Google during litigation might do. If they can't use their servers, they're out of business.
My question is this, tho: Whatever happened to barratry? In particular, what of the laws regarding making threat of litigation and not following through?
I think Google should call their bluff and get this taken care of once and for all. However, the threat of a lawsuit, and even filing one, is not much to get concerned over. Google probably gets threats all of the time (see: Scientology and Xenu).
Now, a verdict, on the other hand....
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
"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."
put a big red mark on your calender everyone! if a suit *ever* happens, it's time for developers, the REAL copyrights holders to stand up and show Darl what "protecting IP" under copyrights law means. "misappropriation of IP" will not feed them; it will hunt them down. too bad darl has no ammo (he never have) to scare everyone off. he only has a handful of empty shells.
What an extortion racket.
On Monday, December 5, the discovery motions in the IBM/SCO case go before the judge. That's the first "put up or shut up" event in the case.
If Google gets attacked, people will notice. Hopefully, they'll start associating Linux with it as a result. If Linux can absorb even a little bit of Google's golden-boy glow it'll go a long way to creating a realistic entry point for consumer desktop Linux.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Dear editors (and those who are going to mod me down),
Are you really telling me out of all the submissions slashdot gets daily that one of the ten to twnety articles posted has to be about SCO? Is the submission queue really filled with such trash that SCO mentions deserve to go up on the front page everyday? Look I enjoy ragging on stupid companies just as much if not more than anyone else but this is simply played out. We passed the point where ridicule became stale weeks ago.
A more cynical me would just assume you keep putting them up because of the high number of comments and therefore page views, er, AD views the generate.
I come to slashdot to read nerdy news, instead an increasing percentage of articles posted are about "our rights online." I understand that sites grow and change but slashdot is really betraying its technical roots with all this pansy ""rights" stuff and honestly most slashdot posters don't read articles, muchless vote so all these articles do is allow everyone to rehash the same comments from the previous story about how we are losing every right we had, the world is ending, blah blah blah
Er uh okay so I got sidetracker, but c'mon please enough with the SCO at least.
--- I do not moderate.
That sounds like my older relatives who think we shouldn't see reports on the news about potential terrorist threats, because "it might give the bad guys ideas." As unpopular as SCO might be right now, they certainly would know who the big Linux users are out there...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Claiming to know? It is the reporter's job to investigate to make certain her source was in a position to know?
I mean, if the person works for SCO or their law firm and holds a position where they could conceivably hold this information, that is one thing. If, on the other hand, they heard it from the neighbor of a friend who has a cousin whose son is dating the daughter of someone who overheard two people who sounded like SCO attorneys in a noisy nightclub...
OK, this story might turn out to be true, but using a source who is self-validating as opposed to being validated by the reporter AND fact checkers is shoddy journalism.
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
They probably have as much or more cash on hand than SCO that they could throw to a lawyer, but more importantly, they also have a viable business model that is bringing in more and more cash. SCO cannot afford to deal with another lawsuit right now, which is why I suppose they're leaking this instead of Darl saying it.
So Google might be worth $7M to them in licensing fees if they paid. It would take far less than that to pay a lawyer to make SCO go away (unless you're going for the IBM-style nuclear ass-whoopin'). Reminds me of the old proverb: don't try to blackmail someone for more money than it would take to have you killed.
Do you have ESP?
Some of us "out here" are Catholics and take offense at such comments, whether in jest or not. Enough ripping on the whole Catholic Church based on what a very small percentage of its priests have done, ok? The vast majority of them are honest, decent people who spend their lives helping others.
It works like this. I get 3 people to put in $10 each on condition that they will receive $20 in 1 week. We then have 7 days to get 9 new people in, to provide the funding for that payout plus some profit. The next week it's 27 recruits required.
It works because the stupid people will see the exponential growth and actually believe it's sustainable and treat it like an investment. The slightly smarter people treat it as gambling and try to cash out as close as possible to the collapse of the fantasy.
SCO right now has both types of investors in it. The disadvantage they have relative to other pyramid schemes is that the collapse won't necessarily come when you run out of new recruits. It might come when the case collapses or appears to collapse and your old investors all come with pitchforks and flame to collect money that's not there. I.e. Trying to sell for $20 a stock that's not worth the paper it's printed on to someone who has that same impression of it's "value".
The reluctance of SCO to actually identify any of the "offending code" in the manner normally used for such cases should be a clue. Yes, companies routinely sue former partners for breach of copyright and IP theft. There are established norms and standards of evidence.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
SCO could offer to "settle" out of court with Google stock at a guaranteed price prior to the IPO. They would then have a serious amount of cash they could use to go after less fortunate companies.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Could they be any more stupid? I'd pick a nice Fortune 500 company with very few Linux installs. Settling would be tempting and cheap. SCO would have an easy victory and some much needed credibility. Google would be a terrible target because they wouldn't roll over for several reasons. First, Linux is central to their core business proposition. Second, they can evaluate for themselves the validity of SCO's claims. Third, they are no doubt very aware of the story so far (IBM counter suit, RedHat suit, the German ruling). And last, they will be familiar enough with IP law to know SCO has no legal basis for suing end-users for copyright infringement. And even if they did, until the IBM case is decided they can't prove infrigement at all.
I can see how such a move could be compelling to our stupid friends, however. Big well known company, high-profile Linux user, huge potential liability if SCO were able to claim punitive damages from end- users, vulnerable because IPO coming up and of course the impossibly fabulous power that would come from getting Google to knuckle under. Oh please, please. please sue Google. I think you'd see a counter suit that would make IBM's and RedHat's look like velvet by comparison.
That brings up the other point worth mentioning. If SCO actually sues someone, and that someone does not negotiate a settlement on the spot, this game will change dramatically in short order. RedHat's suit would no longer be theoretical. Their desire for an injunction would become urgent. And any other company that sells, supports or makes money in any way from Linux would also have a powerful motivation to seek their own unjunctions. If SCO sues, I think its quite likely that within 60 days of their filing, they will be on the receiving end of dozens of lawsuits. If any are successful, SCO would have to shut up for the duration of the IBM trial. Then the balance changes. SCO's interest would be in hurrying up the case, not dragging it out. That 2005 court date would all of a sudden seem a very, very long time away.
Also if Google is doing an IPO there will be a quiet period where Google will be unable to issue press releases or otherwise counteract the SCO fud-storm.
--Rob
SCO is violating the law if, and only if, their claim against IBM is bogus. Therefore, the SEC would wait until after the IBM suit is decided.
If the court throws the case out (for example, if SCO fails to comply satisfactoraly with the motion to compel discovery), the SEC would move in.
If SCO does indeed own much of Linux, what they're doing is not extorsion. The SEC cannot rule on this - that's the court's job. Once that's done, it's SEC's job to prosecure the fraudsters.
So the SEC will act, eventually. Don't hold your breath, folks.
That's a good point. However, I was thinking the opposite: Frank Sorenson's analysis seems to show that SCO believes that SMP, JFS, RCU, and NUMA belong to them. One would imagine that by it's very nature, Google might possibly be making extensive use of SMP, RCU and NUMA, at least.
If you'll recall from the Rambus fiasco, they signed settlements that actually had clauses ending the royalty payments if anyone successfully challenged the patent in court. A settlement means nothing more than "it would cost us more to fight this" and everyone knows it.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Take a quick poke through all the companies they've threatened officially or inofficially in various press releases, press leaks, SCO insiders and whatnot. Who have they sued? NOBODY. Except IBM, over some contract. That's it. Red Hat has countersued, SuSe and more have gag orders in effect, what has SCO done? SCO has not filed one single IP suit, no matter how you define IP, be it copyright, trademark, patent or otherwise. They only threaten to do so without actually doing it.
This is yet another stock inflation tactic. They aren't going to sue Google, or a "unspecified Fortune 500" or Linux endusers or anything at all. They only pretend to, and then pull out another rabbit out of their hat. Like some new licence issue (BSD), subpoenaing Linux "celebrities" or a IBM poke shot or similar. They're quite skilled illusionists, if you fail to see the big picture.
Because nobody seems to be asking the question: What happened to all those claims you made last week? Oh, they're still just claims. You haven't made any action whatsoever to follow up on those claims. If you're slow on the take, you might think that these are now actually being handled, and that these are more and more valid claims SCO is pulling out of their ass. I just hope the courts will bitchslap them swiftly, once it gets that far...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Apple are using a bsd core for OS X, not linux. Thus they are safe.
And I thought BSD was next. Silly me.
Errr. Wrong.
There are numerous cases of people who tried to buy such licenses, but SCO refused to sell them (exactly because it would be illegal)
SCO is using Microsoft money to spread FUD. End of story.
Suing Google first is illogical (even in terms of existing SCO "logic"). With upwards of 10,000 servers, at 699$ a pop, Google has an obvious incentive to fight it in court. If SCO wanted to start sueing over liscences, they would start with someone who would only owe a few thousand, and claim the result as a precident before going after a bigger firm. Even if SCO was more interested in damaging Google's reputation or profitability than actually taking it to court and winning, they would still go for a quick, easy win on a small case if only to make their complaint more believable. No matter how crazy or not SCO's actions may seem, this leaves only two possibilities.
1. SCO has no intention of actually sueing anyone else. They have a plan that involves skirting the law, but not technically crossing the line. They are sticking to that plan and not getting drawn "offsides". This plan has (or had) a good chance of making the SCO execs money, even if it ruins the company. It has (or had) a good chance that legal penalties will be avoidable or worth it from the point of view of the initiators, even if legal penalties are possibly savage on some of the followers. It may go wrong, and stick everyone involved in prison, but the odds look acceptable or better (or they looked that way when the plan began). Simply, isn't a crazy plan even if it sometimes looks so from our outsiders perspectives.
2. SCO is nuts. They are so nuts that they are going to deliberately avoid taking an easy action that would greatly improve their chances of overall success. They have no rational goals at all, just totally delusional ones. Somehow, a hundred or so people have built this totally delusional structure and are getting by with it for at least a few more months before it all comes crashing down.
This makes a great test. IF SCO actually sues Google without going after a precident first, then #2, else #1. Matters have progressed to where we can stop considering #3 (SCO is just a little bit nuts - they started with a rational plan, but when it didn't work, they hung in there way too long instead of cutting their losses). I'm betting that SCO won't just suddenly announce a suit against Google, and in time this alone will prove #1 is true.
Who is John Cabal?
The minute they sue someone for using Linux, the game is really on. Hopefully, they'll be a bunch of schmucks and go after Google. I'm dying to see the ad at the top of the Google search engine when "SCO" is typed in. The one that says "buy a 'SCO can kiss my Googling ass' T-shirt".
And what's the betting that the $699 license price remains after new year?
Remember recently Google scoffed at microsoft purchase rumours. Next SCO, funded by Microsoft, goes after Google for this license bullshit.
Probably nothing there but, we're all paranoid, so why not mention it anyway.
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.
I can't find a link to the source article anymore, but Google's general outside counsel is Wilson Sonsini in Silicon Valley, considered the top tech law firm and generally one of the top corporate law firms in the country; Google also uses some of the top IP firms in the country for some of their IP needs. Wilson Sonsini or any of the IP firms they use are easily as "fancy-pants" as IBM's lawyers, and definitely can handle anything thrown their way.
This whole drawn-out drama is pure FUD, and nothing but FUD, from the latest of Microsoft's minions. Call it a delaying tactic, a rearguard action, a smokescreen, call it what you will. As long they can keep you stirred up about this, they are achieving their goal. Which is, *anything* to slow the growing tide of disgusted people breaking away from MS and moving toward independence.
SCO knows they can't win in court - it's public perceptions they're playing to.
So simply ignore it, stay focused, and move toward independence anyway. Speak the truth quietly, and move on. Move toward Linux, or move toward Unix, or (even nicer) move toward OS X. Move toward open file formats and cooperative networking standards. Move toward a community of equals and a marketplace of open and honest competition. Well, OK, at least toward a level playing field.
Darl Mcbride is merely the current paymaster and PR man for the current set of lawyers. Simply ignore him, and them. IBM will demolish them soon. MS will just have to bring another FUDbuddy in from the bullpen that much sooner..