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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.
Didn't MS try to BUY google but google refused? Then MS said that they would compete with google.
.
I guess we are seeing how MS intends to compete with google . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
As much as I can remember, Google has a pretty good history of litigating rather than paying off those who have challenged them in the past (think SearchKing v. Google, if I remember the name right). So I guess this falls into place in SCO's plan of attacking those who are bigger and mightier first, rather than doing the smart (though equally evil) thing of suing small guys to raise money and set precedent before going after the big guys. So, yeah. To sum it all up, SCO are idiots.
and I mean that in the yellow journalism sense. At best this is making complete guesses; at worst, its feeding the SCO publicity mill.
There's nothing concrete to back this up other than unnamed sources; that's pretty weak.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I'm not saying 'ignore them' but every major news story about them shows 'some' stock brokers that this is the next big thing... the company that could topple IBM.
So the stock rises. Go check the 1 year on SCO (stock symbol SCOX). Hell, here's yahoo's chart for SCO.
IBM and all other 'victims' need to make sure they are torn apart, but all the publicity (whether it bad or good) is helping SCO more than any of the companies its suing.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They aren't being pursued by any US government authority for it. Why? SCO makes money by charging licenses to companies who use linux on the condition that:
1. Linux is owned by SCO because they own Unix and Linux contains Unix code(this hasn't been proven yet).
2. Paying the license fee will protect a company from being sued by SCO for not paying for said linux licenses and therefore violating the unproven Intellectual Property claim above (refer to number 1)
This seems to be a clear cut case of extortion. At the very least the SEC should be investigating for stock fraud.
This is blantently criminal activity that is going unpunished (no case from the government has been filed against SCO yet) and rewarded(SCO's stock prices continue to climb).
link
What I want to know is this... as far as I know, SCO hasn't established (legally) that it has any of its IP in the Linux kernel. How can they even attempt to charge license fees for this software, let alone sue people for using it? Wouldn't this just get laughed out of court?
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Will SCO be dumb enough to send a bill first? Preferably through the US Mail?
Then they're dead for Mail fraud.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
"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. "
I disagree. If Slashdot and other sites weren't openly critical of SCO, there would still be a number of 'analysts' like Rob Enderle who continue to spin SCO's BS into gold.
This issue won't die as long as Microsoft and Sun are paying millions of dollars for...um..."licenses."
I am amazed that Slashdot continues to take the bait on this stuff. Who has SCO sued? IBM, over a specific contract dispute. Since the exact contracts are not available for public inspection we can not know what whether SCO actually has a leg to stand on.
Sure SCO has made all kinds of wild claims in public and there has been even more uninformed speculation.
But they have not actually done anything else.
They have not presented their "invoices" for Linux licenses.
They have not made any specific copyright claims of anybody.
They have not demanded that any of the kernel archives be taken down.
They have not done anything but generate a lot of smoke.
Untill SCO actually puts up, there is no news here. If they actually sued somebody. If they actually made some specific copyright claims. If they actually did anything besides make noise, then that would be a newsworthy item.
Funny how everyone that SCO goes after is a group that frustrated Microsoft...
Microsoft is trying to raise a zombie army to attack its opponents so that investors won`t perceive MS as being dishonest.
Don't be surprised if more shell companies either get bought up or formed and have the single goal of attacking Microsoft's "enemies".
And the side bonus is MS being able to say "See? We're not the only ones who think Linux/Google/Whatever is bad!"
Another great bonus is that if any of these entities has to pay for its transgressions by being forced out of business by law or some such, Microsoft can just stand back and laugh that the repriesal didn't touch them.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Somewhat OT, sorry...
Microsoft is notorious for leveraging their dominance in one market in order to force their way into another.
It strikes me that Google can do the same - and do it in a way that could potentially hurt Microsoft a lot.
I know there will be those who will not react favorably to this idea...
Google should create YALD (Yet Another Linux Distribution). Call it "Google Weblinux" (tm...)
Base it on Knoppix-Debian-Muskox/Linux. Add a much more user-friendly HD install (with *lots* of warning about overwriting hard disk partitions, and what this means). Add everything internet-related that they can - especially commercial, well-known stuff like Flash (sorry)
Realmedial (sorry), Acrobat Reader, lotsa Java-related toys, ez-firewall stuff, ez-internet sharing. Add a super-easy, customized synaptic (or synaptic replacement) with (optional) auto-updating. Put in every plugin known to Linuxkind. Make sure everything just works, just like that.
Tie it all together through the google homepage.
Naturally the default homepage will be Google, and the default list of links will include the fine commercial and non-commercial folks Google has made deals with in the process of creating the CD.
Perhaps they could mirror apt-get repositories or add their own for updates.
Advertise Google WebLinux on their homepage, with
links to more info.
If they wanted to the Google folks could become sort of a focal point for mindshare for all of Microsoft's commercial competitors - every commercial business who has to compete with Microsoft's own bundled applications - especially if Google manages to convince everybody that they won't try to get into competing with Macromedia/Sun Java/Adobe/Real.
Would that be an effective counterfud/return fire against Microsoft?
and Google could just "accidentally" link all SCO investor sites to certain websites specializing in goat mating signals.
Why link SCO's sites anywhere? The phrase "because it did not conform with the quality standards necessary to assign accurate PageRank" is nice and broad, isn't it?
Normally, they'd require permission of SCO's webmaster to remove SCO's pages, but not if SCO sues.
Yahoo Finance has a nice listing of all of the SCO insiders selling off their stock. Darl hasn't been selling, and the ones that are haven't sold enough to prove that this is a pump-and-dump. However, it does illustrate that no one at the company is showing any real confidence in their long-term financial health.
If SCO wasn't thinking of suing Google before, then they're even stupider than I take them for, and that's pretty stupid to begin with.
Everyone who gave it two seconds thought had to suspect that Google would be on SCO's radar. I mean, c'mon... with a well-publicized render farm of over 6000 Linux PC's who would be a more public target than Google. Since we all know this is a stock scam at this point, SCO is best off going after one of the biggest targets they can find to hype up the the amount of money they'll have coming in, you know, someday when they've won all their lawsuits.
"Not if we can slashdot the hell out of those sites!..."
Why do you guys always think small potatoes?
"The idea behind the suit is obviously to make all major Linux users tractable and make them reach for their checkbooks."
Absolutely. Everybody on that short list and everyone else within range of these cretins should get together, pull out their checkbooks, and sue the bejesus out of SCO. Charge them with extortion and anything else their smartest lawyers can think of. SCO wants to live by lawsuits, let them die by lawsuits. What do you think the Wall Street analysts will think when they find out a hundred companies big and small have gotten together and started the process toward nailing these bastards to the wall? Can you say "penny stock"? Can you say "dead on arrival"?
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
I see it as a rather good thing. The more organizations SCO is tied up in lawsuits with, the more taxed their lawyers are, and the fewer the resources they'll have.
If I recall my middle school history class properly, that's how Napoleon failed. And I wouldn't count Dear Darl as intelligent as Napoleon.
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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?
Nope. If google buys 1,000 pirate copies of winXP from JoeSchmoe3845 on ebay for $1, Microsoft can sue google for copyright infringment. Google's claim that they legitimately bought the copies would be laughed at.
Not long ago, Microsoft was in hot water for SQL server. Microsoft was illegally using some patented technology in SQL server, so they settled with the patent owner. The settlement didn't include Microsoft reselling SQL server to third parties.
So companies that bought SQL server (and using the patented functionality) can be sued by the patent owner for damages. Of course, the company might want to sue Microsoft for selling them a product that they weren't entitled to sell...
Well you're right that Google cannot be sued for using an infringing product but what they *might* be sued for is failure to pay the "Linux SCO license".
Note that I don't believe this "license" would stand court scrutiny and is in itself illegal (INAL though, just most of my family).
Though you are confusing yourself (and everyone else) by using copyright and patent interchangeably. Copyright law governs copyright while patent law governs patents. These are two completely different beasts. The biggest difference being that copyright gives the owner certain rights over the subject of the copyright. The only rights a patent gives the owner is the right to exclude others from using, making, or selling the subject of the patent.
This means that Eolas could sue you for patent infringement since you cannot USE whatever their patent describes without their permission. The same does not apply to copyright as it does not give the owner the right to prevent use by a third party but only to stop the production in the first place.
All this is irrelevant because the only thing that's going to trial is whether or not IBM broke a contract.
This is obviously a joke, but maybe someone SHOULD start asking the SEC--currently up to their ears in mutual fund fraud--why they haven't done anything about this attempt by SCO to inflate their stock price through unsupported charges against other companies. Are they really going to let these characters continue to issue stock on a legitimate exchange? Rather than slashdotting these guys, why not a hundred or so well-written queries of the SEC about the legitimacy of their behavior? Hit the bastards where it really hurts.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
This would be a rather stupid thing for SCO todo.
Currently google is getting ready todo an IPO. From what I've heard investors are really psyched about this.
Now SCO comes along and tries to put the squeeze on google. I can only imagine that those investors who were looking forward to googles IPO are going to very pissed at SCO.
Suddenly, SCO sees it's stock becoming penny shares...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
It makes sense to report on this; it shows where SCO's PR efforts are heading.
But why do people seem to be seriously considering the possibility that SCO might sue google?
Pay attention to what's been happening since January, and you'll notice a pattern. Over, and over, and over, SCO says they're going to sue someone. They threaten lawsuits, say they have plans for lawsuits, announce a new lawsuit target every week. But they never sue anyone. They still haven't sued anyone except IBM, and the IBM suit concerns NOTHING but a contractual dispute between SCO and IBM.
If SCO says they're going to sue someone, that does not in the tinest way indicate they are going to sue that person. It's all just making noise to keep the press spotlight on them.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If you really believe SCO valuation is too high and based on wrong facts and a strategy that is bound to fail, I guess it is time to short the stock...
:-)
(That's how you make money on a decline in price...... you borrow X units of stock with an agreement to return X units of stock... if they go down in value, you profit from the loss in value... and if they go up, you lose.)
I'm not an investor... but for all you folks who REALLY believe that this isn't going to work because SCO is wrong on the facts.... well, here's a great way to make a tidy profit!
Of course "wrong on the facts" doesn't mean that SCO is going to lose... this is a bet on what will happen, not who is right and who is wrong.
If it is true, then it really makes one ponder
the recent "attempt" to purchase Google by
Microsoft as well as the money that was given
SCO as "licensing" fees from the same.
All this is speculation and conjecture of course
but we do love conspiracy theories here at
It is a FELONY in the United States to send an incorrect or fraudlent invoice in the mail knowningly. If SCO so much as mails a notice requesting ONE PENNY from Google, et al, then the United States Postal Inspectors can get involved. And since SCO has the burden of proof, then SCO will have to prove to the Postal Inspectors in court that there is copyright infringment and Google owes SCO. Further, if SCO is killed in the law suit and found to have violated the GPL knowingly it is further proof for felony convictions.
Now wouldn't that be a great reputation for the Post Office -- the FBI could not get Al Copone, but the IRS could, the FBI did not go after SCO, but the Post Office did....
If you have recieved an invoice or a letter from SCO via snail mail you can report it to the USPS HERE. Then you can scroll down to subject of complain and select "False bill or invoice."
Rember, sometimes unorthidox means need to be used to take out the bad guys. What does the Postal Service have to loose by taking out SCO?
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
SCO isn't getting anywhere with geeks in basements and isn't trying to.
I don't believe I suggested they were. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was you suggesting that they were taking Groklaw seriously. Personally, I think that the only way they take it seriously is as a threat to their FUD.
The problem is that both those media outlets and stupid investors come to Slashdot, see all the hysteria being kicked up every day (remember, they don't realize that all those screeching posters are 14 year old Windows users, not Linux insiders) and figure that there must be something plausible underlying all that fuss.
I don't believe those people come to Slashdot and read the comments. They'd have to be as retarded as we are. Seriously, they just don't have the time. If they do read Slashdot, then they'd come read the top stories as a pointer to breaking news from the other media, but I really don't believe serious journalists/analysts/investors spend time wading through tripe about Natalie Portman and Hot grits in an attempt to get at the few insightful nuggets that you get here. It's a very poor use of their valuable time.
I guarantee Slashdot is increasing SCO's credibility in the rest of the media, not diminishing it.
And you guarantee this based upon what? As someone who spent a few years working as a freelance journalist, and who still has friends working in the media, I can guarantee that no journalist that I've ever met would even bother to read more than the first half dozen comments that you get here, before then dismissing it as meaningless tripe and a waste of their time.
If you were a specialist IT reporter and were researching the story and you read the Slashdot comments for anything, it would be in the hopes of identifying someone who wasn't an Anonymous Coward who has insightful views and expertise in a related area and so might give you a quote (though you'd have to have a lot of time on your hands because there are far, far easier ways of doing that), or possibly to get some sense of what the unwashed Linux-using masses were saying/thinking about the issue. Although it doesn't seem that way sometimes, most people who are intelligent enough to sustain a career in the media - a highly competitive field -- tend to be pretty good at evaluating evidence and I can't think of anything that would come lower on their agenda than a bunch of Anonymous Coward posts to Slashdot.
At any rate, you don't see other CEOs publically slugging it out with unknown web sites, do you? McBride issues those statements for one reason: to yank the Linux crowd's chain and generate more publicity and FUD.
OK, I see what you're saying, but I believe that he's less interested in yanking the Linux crowd's chain, than he is in generating the publicity, because it's the publicity that results in the rise in the stock price -- which is his real goal. I think the chain yanking is an accidental spin-off that I'm sure he finds entertaining, because he's clearly an aggressive, competitive guy who is waging a war for public opinion.
But if Linux advocates were to simply ignore these statements, he'd be turning around to the media saying 'Look, I'm right. That lot haven't got any arguments to counter our claims.' As it is though, his claims are widely reported in the Linux press in order to allow people to make some contribution to contesting the FUD.
I do take your point about the way Slashdot tends to be something of a rumour mill though, reporting vague opinion and speculation. I much prefer to read Groklaw for my SCO news, partly because the coverage there is much more detailed and substantive, but mostly because the quality of discussion there is so much higher.
Finally, I accept that you weren't trolling, but I still think you're dead wrong about this.