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SCO Expands Licensing Money Chase Worldwide
drizst 'n drat writes "Article posted recently on ZDNet that 'companies outside the United States that use Linux now face the threat of legal action from the SCO Group, following the announcement on Wednesday that SCO's licenses are available worldwide.'" And cbiltcliffe writes "Vnunet is reporting that SCO is now threatening legal action against UK businesses that run Linux.
Yet again, they claim they're going to initiate legal action against Linux users 'within a couple of weeks.' (Funny...weren't they saying that back in September?)
They also claim that Novell and HP indemnification schemes are essentially useless (similar to SCO's Linux licences).
It definitely appears the media is getting somewhat wiser to the FUD, however, as the story reports 'The run-time licence only permits use of what SCO says is its IP,' rather than 'The licence permits use of SCO's IP' like we would have heard a couple of months ago."
So have they got WIPO to approve their claims?
We have so much time, and so little to do - strike that! Reverse it. Tryn Mirell
If there is a ruling in the US against SCO which says there is no SCO IP in Linux, can they still try to force licenses upon those in other countries until a case is that country goes to trial?
Nigeria.
...the rest of the world also collectively gives SCO the finger.
The licence permits use of SCO's IP
Idiotic Proposition? No thanks!
SCO: OK guys, this US gig isn't going to get us anywhere. Let's go to Europe!
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Doesn't the UK have a law against barratry, something the USA desperately needs? SCO could get royally fucked by playing their legal games in the UK. We can only hope.
Remain calm! All is well!
Translation: we're not making enough cash from North America because they're not taking us seriously. So, we'll hit you guys up for a few bucks.
I really wonder if anybody in Europe will really take these guys seriously? Since SCO was sooooooooo successful in launching their lawsuits in the U.S., I'm sure they'll do just fine in Europe.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Until Novell and SCO sorts out who owns what, anyone can just tell SCO to go to hell. That's if there's anything of SCO left by the time IBM finish with them. Anyone who now pays SCO money is stupid.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Translation: "We have them our ultimatum, and they gave us the finger!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I hear you can redeem 15 SCO liscenses inside Chucky Cheese's near the skiball games for a plastic keychain or 50 SCO liscenses for a yo-yo.
Sorry to burst your bubble but this started a couple of weeks ago. We got back from the Christmas break to find one of the letters from the SCO Group asking us to verify that we had not copied any code from our SCO servers into Linux machines.
As our last SCO server went into the trash a couple of years ago legal told us to ignore the letter and that's exactly what we did. Our three AIX machines continue to run as do our two Linux clusters, the only thing that's changed is the FUD from SCO.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
Unless and until they can prove in a court of law that they really have these rights they claim, they cannot expect to be paid. On the contrary, they can expect to be investigated for fraud, an perhaps subject to criminal charges of extortion...
And trying to dodge the GPL does not count. Either the GPL is valid and must be obeyed, or it is invalid which makes everyone distributing Linux and other GPL'd software into copyright infringers. This latter seems somewhat less than likely...
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
From Groklaw : SCO has posted a job opening, for an "Inside Sales Manager", as of January 9th. Here is the job description, in case you are interested: "The inside sales manager will be responsible to implement a successful campaign of generating daily revenue from selling IP licensing in the North American market. Initially, the sales manager will also be responsible for generating the revenue as a stand-alone sales entity with the goal to grow the department revenue to justify additional sales resources. All sales will be generated from outbound phone calls and incoming phone call leads based upon the SCO Group's IP campaign." Applicants should have the ability to "communicate the offerings of the SCO Groups [sic] IP license strategies in a manner that is successful in generating revenues." Daily. Of course, you have to live in Utah.
Dear silly CEO McBride,
I say NI to you. Your SysV was a hamster, and you SCOsource smells of elderberries. Now go go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
French Taunters, SARL
P.S. to legale departement: Fetchez la vache
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
On Tuesday, McBride said that lack of indemnification proved that companies knew there was something wrong with Linux. On Wednesday, he said that indemnification programs proved that companies knew there was something wrong with Linux. Darl is obviously showing signs of short-term memory loss.
This whole thing is just starting to piss me off, as they want it both ways, want everyone to lay down and pay them money for just sitting on their asses and thinking about ways to rule the world. They keep making these threats, but with the resulting 60 pages of docs they handed over, it is now being widely assumed that these guys are smoking some of the local meth (Utah has a HUGE meth industry).
One other note is that Sontag backtracked and said that this case is not a copyright case, but a breech of contract case. If that is true (who knows) then the ONLY entity that they could get money out of is IBM. They cannot go after an end-user using a contractual basis for their case, as the end user has no contract with SCO, much less any implied of such. They could go after under the basis of the copyrights, but then any end user could defer the case until after the Novell v. SCO copyright fight is over.
This sounds like a last gasp of desperation from SCO. They had to put out something to pump the stock, and what better way to say they going to get money from the whole world! What they do not realize is, just like a TV show killing off a main character to garner interest, this latest tact will prove to be opening act of their permanent cancellation.
According to InfoWorld, SCO is now claiming that in it's response to IBM interogatories, they have submitted no examples of copyright infrigement.
Blake Stowell is quoted as saying, "We've not introduced copyright infringement as part of our case with IBM. We've tried to make it clear that it's a contract issue."
Seems quite odd when a SCO press release from yesterday says exactly the opposite. Old Darl said this, "SCO is willing to enforce our copyright claims down to the end user level and in the coming days and weeks, we will make this evident in our actions."
What freakin planet are these guys from? I'm sorry, but I despise them like I despise neo-nazi, racists, thugs.
I'm sorry that I ever bought a Caldera product...
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
SCO is just like the schoolyard bully that keeps pushing other kids around until someone hits him in the stomach and leaves him in pain. I was the kid who would never fight, but when one of these guys got to be too much and pushed me around, I fought them. I didn't even have to win. Once word got around that I (the kid who hated fighting) could even hold my own with them, their reputation as a bully was gone.
That's what SCO is doing. They're pushing everyone. When they don't get enough attention, they make more threats. They keep threating more and more people and companies. As long as they can rant and rave, their stock stays high, but once someone (like IBM, hopefully) and kicks them down a notch, it'll all be over.
They know they have nothing. They know the only thing keeping their stock high is the bluster and fuss they keep making. They're reaching out as wide as possible to bully the schoolyard, the neighborhood, and, soon, the whole world. When they reach the end of people they can threaten, they'll have to act. If they had the strength to act and actually do something, they would. Since they don't, they're Shakespeare's idiot, telling a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
In other news, I'll be phoning Trading Standards.
...can you say "go f#ck yourself"?
FLR
I predict one of four things will happen with the threatened lawsuits:
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Of course we care. It's a great ocasion to learn how to say "sod off Darl" in foreign languages:
Fick dich Darl
Vaffanculo Darl
que te jodan Darl
Vas te faire foutre Darl
vai-te foder Darl
Ay Gamisou Darl
Knep dig selv Darl
stop het in je nauwe gaatje Darl
k chortoo Darl
cachau bant Darl
sa-mi sugeti pula Darl
haista paska Darl
poq gai Darl
spierdalaj Darl
yebem ti mrtwu mater Darl
bazd meg a picsadat Darl
popusis mi krac krasni Darl
siktir lan Darl
ebi se v guza Darl
Do prdele Darl
mine vittu Darl
lech lehizdayen Darl
achike Darl
jebi se Darl
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
We've secretly replace the SCO Group's stocks with Folger's Crystals. Now let's watch them fluctuate.
This sig no verb.
-
Let's Put SCO Behind Bars
From the page: Thank You For Your Attention.Request your free CD of my piano music.
I've spent more time than I care to admit to in the last weeks and days trying to figure out what SCO might really be up to. Can they really be as stupid is most people claim? Sure they could be as evil, coniving and greedy as we claim, but could they be as stupid as we claim?
I assume that we have two sides here. One side says "show us the infringing code".... on the theory that in order to demonstrate copying you have to show more or less a letter perfect copy...
I assume that SCOs game is to get inside of the sausage making process and to demonstrate that even though the code is not literally system V you can trace a "legacy" that involves the gradual modification of ideas expressed in one form to ideas expressed today in Linux, and that by linking the people who worked on code to its evolution over time through evidence derived from the discovery process, they will make the case that current Linux code is derived from code that they claim to own. The continuity of people may be part of making the case of continuity of "ideas" and thus of "ownership."
From this perspective (IANAL, etc.) I would think that all of the moaning about how Linux code isn't exactly, or aproximately, Unix code is really beside the point. IBM would of course like to keep it at that level, arguing "if the glove does not fit you must aquit", eg. if this code isn't exactly the copyrighted code then they have no case.
But my understanding of the law (limited and amateur as it is) is that SCO would have a case to make if the concepts ideas, "manner of expression" and all sorts of other stuff in Linux could be shown to be derived through a chain of modification, backed up by the ongoing involvement of individuals in that modification process, even if the code and expression of programing ideas took a very different letter by letter form.
So if they can get inside of IBM records they can begin to stitch a winnable case together, while if the "Match code or acquit" theory holds then the case is over. So if they can satisfy the initial requests enough to make the judge open up IBM to their SCO discover, then they can begin to make the case.
Anyway that's my effort to understand what SCO might be thinking and why this might make more sense than we'd like it to make.
They are scum, but let's not assume that they are stupid scum.
From the website:
The UI is a bit overdone, but the data rocks...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Is it legal to publish press releases announcing "Any day now, we're going to start sending out letters threatening to break people's legs unless they pay us money," as long as you don't actually send out the letters? How can SCO get away with publicly announcing its intention to perform what many would regard as illegal actions?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
If by 'evidence' you mean 'whining and finger-pointing', then they have produced plenty of 'evidence'.
...and that's the end of our show. Donk!
Indemnification is more like insurance than it is a warranty.
That means if you get sued for using the product, the distributor (or the person issuing the indemnification) will step in to take the bullet for you.
SCO, by virtue of it being a corporation, effectively indemnifies McBride, Stowell, et al. against individual prosecution for the company's misdeeds. There are ways, however, to "pierce the corporate veil" to go after individuals who are directly responsible for a company's misdeeds (as we are at very long last beginning to see with regards to Enron).
Hopefully that clarifies a bit...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
IBM will say little or nothing. They will not give SCO anything that could be used as a weapon against IBM. This is a lesson that SCO should be learning after IBM used SCO's executives' words against them in court in IBM's own motions to compel discovery.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
This is just SCO's lame attempt at trying to divert the public's attention from the fact that Novell has a firm grip on their balls (= 95% of their licensing revenues, which SCO don't have anymore, not even counting damages and interests) and that they failed to obey a direct court order to divulge all their proof of breach of contract.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
SCO is just like the schoolyard bully that keeps pushing other kids around until someone hits him in the stomach and leaves him in pain.
SCO isn't even that. They're the schoolyard bully wanna-be, that claims he can beat up anyone. But for some reason nobody actually *believes* he can, so in the end he has to set himself in respect. So he goes after the biggest, strongest kid on the block, the kind that noone wants to try to bully (IBM) and challenges him. And the other kids go "Whoa, if he can do that, he really must be strong."
Until he gets beaten into a small, bloody pulp.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You need to read the stuff that Novell just put out , they have their correspondance with SCO which is very illuminating.
Go to Groklaw and read the Asset purchase agreement yourself. You can see first hand, just how full of shit SCO is, and exactly what rights they have.
Novell never sold any patents to SCO, that is blatantly written in the asset purchase agreement. SCO probably has few if any copyrights to Unix, the document describes copyright transfer conditions, which SCO has not met. SCO and Novell have actually registered many of the same copyrights to the same Unix products (I have no idea who really owns them but both companies can't claim exclusive ownership of the same copyright). It seems what they really bought was the right to use and sell Unix, not own it free and clear. People are stupid, that is the one thing I have learned from all of this. It makes me wonder how many bogus lawsuits have been settled over similar bogus crap in the corporate world. It also makes me wonder just how smart these hotshot lawyers are. This whole episode shows me just how empowering a distributed network of people can be, like the open source community.
So if they can get inside of IBM records they can begin to stitch a winnable case together, while if the "Match code or acquit" theory holds then the case is over. So if they can satisfy the initial requests enough to make the judge open up IBM to their SCO discover, then they can begin to make the case.
/. or me for legal advice, you're going to get your money's worth)
What you're describing is known as a "fishing expedition", and is generally frowned upon when bringing a lawsuit. The judge in this case apparently understands this, which is why she decided that SCO has to show all of their cards first before the judge will decide on SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery.
In case you've forgotten, here are some of the questions that SCO must answer before they get a shot at IBM:
INTERROGATORY NO. 1: seeks specific identification of all alleged trade secrets and confidential or proprietary information that SCO alleges IBM misappropriated or misused. This information is requested by product, file and line of code.
This means that IBM wants SCO to show show which parts of Linux are deemed to be infringing, "by product, file and line of code". This is "The Code" that followers of the suit have been waiting for since at least March.
INTERROGATORY NO. 2: For each alleged trade secret and any confidential or proprietary information identified in response to Interrogatory No. 1, Interrogatory No. 2 seeks further identification of: (a) all persons who have or had rights to the same; (b) the nature and sources of SCO's rights in the same; and (c) efforts to maintain secrecy or confidentiality of the same.
This is IBM saying "For each item you identified in answer to the first question, we want to know who else can claim rights that information, the exact nature of any agreements between that entity and SCO, and what efforts were made on both parts to keep it a secret." (Novell, maybe?)
INTERROGATORY NO. 3: For each alleged trade secret and any confidential or proprietary information identified in response to Interrogatory No. 1, Interrogatory No. 3 seeks the identity of all persons to whom the same was disclosed and the details of such disclosure. In particular, this interrogatory seeks: (a) the date of disclosure; (b) the terms of disclosure; (c) the documents relating to disclosure; (d) all places where the trade secret and/or confidential or proprietary information may be found or accessed.
This is IBM saying "For each of the items you identified in answer to the first question, we want to know who all you've shown that information to, when you showed it to them, why you showed it to them, all documentation relating to that disclosure, and any place where that information can be found." Remember, SCO not only charges that SCO's IP got into Linux against their wishes, but that IBM did it. IBM wants to see SCO's evidence that is had to be IBM and couldn't be someone else.
As far as what SCO wants this case to be about, SCO has contradicted itself on so many occasions that it's impossible to say with any certainty what SCO is suing over. We've gone from Darl McBride saying, on several occasions, that there is "line-by-line" copying of UnixWare code into Linux. But somehow we've gotten to the point where they're trying to tell the court that they can't possibly find has been infringed until they get their response from IBM.
So if you will excuse me, I will continue to believe that SCO are stupid scum, because they've not shown any evidence to the contrary.
Jay (=
(I'm not a lawyer either; if you're coming to