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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.
and Google could just "accidentally" link all SCO investor sites to certain websites specializing in goat mating signals.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
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!
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.
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.
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.
-kgj
-kgj
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?
The scene: a smoky downtown office lit by one bare lightbulb. Mr D is sitting at his desk, studying his computer screen.
... silence
"Damn", he says, and picks up the phone. "Get your ass in here!", he shouts, and puts the receiver down again.
A sweaty figure stumbles into the room, sneezes, and puts his coke tin and bottle of JDs on the table. "Whazzup, boss?"
"Our stock fell by two points. We need to sue someone. Who's left?"
"Uh, I think we sued them all, boss. Uh, wait, how about Microsoft?"
"MORON!! They're the nice gentlemen we met this morning!"
"Sorry, boss, it's the coke, it's making me forget shit."
"Look, we need a name, and we need it fast."
"Boss, why not try Google?"
"BRILLIANT!!! WE'LL SUE GOOGLE!!!"
"Uh, I meant just try the search... oh, shit."
"Get on the line to our hacks. This is going to be so big. We can ask for $699 per search result. Per web page. Per pagerank. Whatever, so long as we get into twelve figures."
"OK, Boss, you're the boss..." (picks up JD, stumbles out)
sniff... sniff... SNEEZE!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
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.
Let'em try it. Google has the power to 'erase' all memory of SCO from the internet...
An imagined future google session:
enter 'SCO', hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button...
1. Southern College of Optometry (SCO)
2. Small Corporate Operation (SCO)
3. SCOffer's anonymous
4. Small Company the Offed itself (SCO)
5. Stupid Company Operation (SCO)
6. Some Company or Other (SCO)
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.
Google: Well thanks, but we're not interested.
Balmer: Think about it, there will be consequences!
Google: Thought about it
Balmer (to SCO): Darl ... Yes Yes Yes ..... fade
Darl (bowing): Yes Master
Balmer: You know what to do, dont you?
Darl (salivating): Yes Master
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Google Employee 1: Hey Tom, did you move my coffee cup?
Google Employee 2: Geeze Mike... I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition...
Darl McBride, David Boies, and Chris Sontag burst through the door
Grand Inquisitor McBride: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Speculation for Nerds. Stuff that could matter, maybe.
paintball
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.
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.
- At the end of the day, Linux is still going to be there and nothing SCO has is going to take it away.
- Slashdot gets a ton of hits out of tossing SCO red meat to the crowd every day, and it's not as if it'll cost them anything.
- The mob loves feeling like they're The Community heroically fighting for their cause, and it's not like it'll cost them anything.
- The only people who stand to lose anything are the investors putting money into the pockets of SCO execs in exchange for a stock that's going to crater.
So, no harm done and fun for all. (Except investors, but they should know better.) But I definitely think the fuss from the Linux media fuels SCO's stock inflation by giving them credibility and attention, and I'd be surprised if that weren't part of their calculation from the begining. Why do you think McBride responds with an open letter to every attack? Do you see other CEOs who feel compelled to treat Groklaw like it's the Wall Street Journal?Like I said, it's all good fun but at least know when you're being trolled...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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.
It is actually a supply and demand problem, law schools make money so we have lots of law schools and then we get to many lawyers and they end up trying to find targets to attack. It would be better if many of these lawyers just entered the business world as MBA armed with +3 vorpal law degrees. Most serious companies come to understand that courts are a last resort and not a biz strategy.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
"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.
"*moderates +5 aluminium hat*"
That's Tin Foil you fool! Aluminium won't do any good against Alien Mind Control rays, Microsoft Mind Control Rays(tm), Government Mind Control Rays, or the like. You must use tin!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I think this case is a perfect example of the mindset. (which, thankfully, was tossed out of court by the judge)
And yes, I AM an American, and this behavior just sickens me. It never seems to dawn on these people that they're making their own lives miserable through this behavior. Except they're ruining mine along with it.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Give it a year or so, the SCO debacle will be over, and people will be back to having MS on the top of their hate lists.
No doubt. SCO is like the Brittany Spears of music - comes out of Goddamn nowhere, blows up bigger than life itself, and then fades into oblivion almost as quickly. All that's left in the end is a smoking crater of fake tits.
MS, on the other hand, has real skill. They're like Michael Bolton - who will outlast every one of us!
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
Before I can go to google and type the words "Kiss my ass", click the "I'm feeling lucky" button and arrive at the Sco home page?
Found this creative little mug shot by Lee Brian. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words
Absolutely, notice that they have yet to move beyond mere threats and actually sue any Linux users. If Google gets sued, they could *easily* have the case delayed until the IBM trial is settled, after which there will be no SCO to do any suing anyhow. Regardless, it's not going to happen. I'm sure SCO will come up with a very good reason in February why they have yet to sue anybody. A lot of talk, very little walk.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
At least Slashdot and Linux World gave them the idea to do it now.
Oh, absolutely. There's no way that SCO's lawyers would have ever thought of doing that by themselves.
Just as all of the most insightful financial analysts come to Slashdot for their investment advice ("Short SCO now!"), so the most expensive lawyers come here to identify a strategy for their multi-million dollar cases.
And doesn't it give you a warm glow to think that all these expensive experts are out there, clinging to your every word, no matter how idiotic or banal?
Hey, perhaps if we tell SCO to stop the lawsuits, they'll do that as well
(OK, OK. I know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but *somebody* modded this insightful. That's a hell of a lot lower...)
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.
"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.
Or better yet, while Darl's smoking his crack pipe and hallucinating, whisper into his ear that suing the Church of Scientology would be a an open-and-shut legal case.
But I definitely think the fuss from the Linux media fuels SCO's stock inflation by giving them credibility and attention, and I'd be surprised if that weren't part of their calculation from the begining.
I don't know how someone can *be* more wrong. (Though the moderators have managed it yet again.)
SCO's FUD is aimed at investors, and CEO's, not geeks living in their mother's basement.
And so SCO's target audience is in magazines like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal and the various financial wire services. All of those media outlets have been reporting the SCO story largely uncritically, without any real investigation into the detail of the story.
Sites like Slashdot and Groklaw have been providing the story behind the story, and as such, they've been doing a good job of countering the SCO FUD. If investors *had* been reading those sites, there would be very little chance that they'd be having a bet on the longshot that SCO can win their case, because they'd have more insight into the nature of SCO's case.
As it is, they read the analysts and reporters who have been say 'SCO has showed us the evidence and there appears to be a huge payday a little way down the line.' Deutche Bank have a target price on SCO of something like $45 dollars a share, and it's only the Linux press that is saying precisely why that price target is unlikely to be realized.
Eventually, someone in the mainstream financial press will get the whole picture and confidence in SCO will take a tumble. The Linux media is playing an essential part in that process by doing the analysis and amassing the evidence that the non-tech press seems to be incapable of doing.
Why do you think McBride responds with an open letter to every attack? Do you see other CEOs who feel compelled to treat Groklaw like it's the Wall Street Journal?
McBride's comments *are* aimed at the WSJ, not Groklaw. I can't find any comments from McBride or any SCO executive to PJ. If anything, PJ's assiduous coverage and analysis of this story puts the mainstream media to shame and shows the way that Blogging as a form of collaborative open journalism actually *can* cover specialist stories in more depth and with greater critical analysis than the rest of the media have been capable of so far.
Nice troll though. Congratulations.
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.
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.