Slashdot Mirror
SCO Files Suit Against Novell Over System V Ownership
nadamsieee writes "Yahoo! Finance is carrying a press release from SCO that details a new lawsuit against Novell for "Slander of Title". It looks like SCO has finally ditched their failing product line in favor of 24/7 litigation and PR work." To recap: Novell and SCO have a lengthy correspondence over the meaning of the contract between the two companies, Novell registers a claim with the U.S. copyright office over the code in dispute, SCO files this suit in response. Update: 01/20 23:04 GMT by M : SCO has placed their complaint (pdf) online.
Oh yeah. Novell had to be the last company I thought SCO would sue. How can anyone really feel good about working for these guys? Granted, jobs in IT are harder to come by as of late, but I would be absolutely embarrassed to say "I work for SCO"....... They are less and less a tech company every day and more and more a front for litigious action that appears to pump up their stock and dump shares as quickly as possible given the SEC filings over the past little while. Come on now, these guys split off from Novell via Noorda who almost ran Novell into the ground after fightin' it out with Microsoft and tried under the guise of Caldera to sell (rather unsuccessfully) a Linux distro, almost killing another company yet again. Darl McBride then thought "I know what let's do, let's build a business model based upon legal action. Hell, we don't need no stinkin' IT product. We've got lawyers .
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I think we are at a point where it is easier to list the companies that SCO has _not_ sued. I'm waiting on them to bite the hand that feeds them by taking a shot at Microsoft and Sun. Hell, they may even end up suing themselves!
Could this be a last ditch effort to bump their stock so they can sell the last few shares...
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
I don't know how SCO possibly hopes to sustain another lawsuit, with the IBM one and all the counter-suits against them still pending. They have basically no cash flow (and their SEC filings confirm) that they probably won't see any additional revenue this quarter.
Looks like another publicity ploy to divert attention from the amended S3 filings they made last week that announced all the risks they "forgot about" in the original filing.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
How long until the BSA starts conducting raids on businesses without SCO "liceneses"? By the BSA's standards, unlicensed software will get you audited, and they like to bring in their pet cops to do these raids. Novell lawsuit is probably good though as it will help force closure on the great IP landgrab on the century.
The FSF and the kernel hackers could have a field day with SCO right now. This, along with the aborted attempt to sell binary run-time licences that restrict rights in a similar fashion, may be exactly the mistakes the GNU/Linux copyright owners have been waiting for. I'm pretty sure SCO's public statements about the invalidity of the GPL, combined with the GPL's own statements that any disagreement over the terms of GPL-code distribution kicks the whole package back to standard copyright and thus makes SCO's own continued distribution illegal as hell, will make this case a laugher. For all of SCO's claims that the GPL is anti-copyright and unconstitutional, the licence itself makes clear that if the conditions can't be fulfilled or the licence is found to be unenforceable, standard copyright law applies--which means, unfortunately for SCO, the code they're trying to distribute is not automatically public domain, and thus they have no right to distribute any code they can't claim direct ownership for. It just means the authors would have to come up with another way to licence their code, either collectively or individually--and SCO would be in no position to make demands. Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I think SCO is in this for a long time, and they won't go away. Judging by 2003 and the last month's efforts, they will stick about and sue anyone and everything vaguely related to them.
And when their stock finally takes a plummet back under a dollar... they'll sue their investors and anyone who ever traded on them!
I guess it's a smart move by them to get in first before Novell acted. If Novell had acted in suing SCO for claiming to own Novell's UNIX when they didn't, it would give the worldwide impression that SCO is using IP illegally. As SCO has taken the first step of taking legal action against Novell, it now looks all the more (even if only to the clown troup of DiDio and Deutschebank) like SCO is the one working to protect THEIR ip.
By suing they have effectively lost it IMO. If you read the Asset Purchase Agreement over at Groklaw, it's fairly clear that Novell is correct. Also Novell has claimed in the past that SCO has asked them to transfer the copyrights, but they (Novell) refused. If they can bring hard evidence of this out (and I would bet they can) then that proves SCO knew Novell retained the copyrights. Also look out for the Novell counter-suit about SCO's actions in claiming the Novell acquisition of SuSE violated the non-competition portions of the (old) SCO-Novell contract. Novell have played a vital role over the past few months in hastening SCO's demise. If SCO hadn't sued Novell they would still not get the UNIX copyrights. SCO can't win this one either way, much as they can't win the IBM suit. Ha ha.
Since this goes to the heart of SCO's claims against IBM and also of Redhat's suit against SCO, I predict that both sides in both lawsuits (SCO vs IBM and Redhat vs SCO) will ask for the respective lawsuits to be suspended (on-hold) until this is resolved. Bottom line: several more years of drawn out FUD with no resolution in sight.
http://ichart.yimg.com/y?s=NOVL&z=b&t=1d&c=SCO X
A couple of minutes later, however, prices were back at the level as they were before.
Pay a wire service $3500. If it's properly formatted, anybody can do it.
SCO pretty much had to do this. If they didn't, an end user or anyone else they sued could just ask for their case to be postponed whilst SCO and Novell sort out the copyright issue between them. Only, SCO can't win this one because Novell's interpretation of the Asset Purchase Agreement is pretty obviously the correct one. Novell didn't need to sue SCO as the issue of whether the contract gives SCO the copyrights would doubtless be sorted out in the IBM case, but SCO does need to try to get their interpretation of the Novell purchase contract deemed correct. Of this I am sure they have no chance.
At SCO Countdown, I have a countdown to SCO's self imposed deadline for suing a Linux end user (I doubt that a Novell lawsuit can be counted as a end user suit), so remember, SCO has to file another lawsuit in 28 days or it misses it's deadline. In addition, after that litigious bastards campaign that was started on /. a few days ago, I acquired that domain and threw up a quick page.
Remember, link link link!
Let's see Friday is court day on IBM's case. I smell a pretty bad debacle for SCO there.
Novell's been doing a pretty good job harrying SCO's flanks to the point where SCO is probably getting nowhere selling "licenses". They HAD to sue Novell to keep the pretense up.
I've noticed that their PR releases don't list a PR agency anymore. I used to work for a PR firm and usually they'll handle or coordinate media queries. Being done in house now. Hmmmm.... Maybe they can't find a flack who'll touch them.
My guess is that it's all about the stock price now but... The PR machine is losing steam. Like a junkie they need more drugs/PR to keep going.
Don't worry about the stock price, that's trailing news. There's so little stock being traded relative to amount outstanding that it doesn't take much to support it and the press releases are getting less effective. It'll crash rather spectacularly when there's a completely adverse opinion in one of the cases.
Friday will be fun to watch!
Pssst, Darl.. Some 17 year old punk named Mike Rowe is running his website on Linux! You better file suit against him, too!
Don't get him started. There's probably some kid out there S. C. Oh with a website...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In viewing SCO Group's actions, a quote from Babylon 5 comes to mind.
In the words of Londo Mollari: "only an idiot fights a war on two fronts; only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts."
I think that we have found the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots. I have lost track on how many entities they are really going after and how many they are threatening to go after.
Hi everybody,
I just figured I'd give a heads up to SCO's job opportunities page. If you'll notice the very first opening is for a Senior Software Engineer in India with the following job description:
Design and develop systems-level software for Linux and provide systems support by performing the following duties:...
I'm not making it up. Doesn't this sound really fishy/stupid?
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
said Mark Heise, partner, Boies, Schiller and Flexner, LLP. "We encourage the public and commercial Linux users to read the Asset Purchase Agreement from 1995 (including Attachment E found at www.sco.com/novell) and Amendment 2 so they can see for themselves that SCO owns the copyrights to UNIX and UnixWare."
...Besides the fact that Novell just bought into the Linux sector with it's purchase of SuSE. This debate apparently stems from something well before Novells involvement with Linux.
What does a copyright violation case between Novell and SCO have to do with Linux?
Save it for the judge pall, I know we slashdotten have uber legal skills, but thank your lucky stars that it won't be up to us.
Seriously though, why point out Linux users specifically? Why not just leave it at "public" instead of "public and... "
SCO and lawyerfriends are now just perpetuating a flame war.
Maybe I'm confused, but shouldn't SCO have sued Novell first? If they go to trial with IBM before the Novell suit is worked out, then the Big Blue Bulldozer can ride right over them with the ol' "SCO is tied up in court to prove they own the rights to the code that they say they own, but Novell says differently, and it's still up in the air, so they can't touch us" argument. Therefore, SCO better pray that Novell loses (yeah, that'll happen) quickly (Oh wow I can't stop laughing) before IBM gets in front of a judge to have SCO's claims dismissed while Big Blue can continue with its counterclaims. Put simply, SCO just found out, or realized, that they put the cart in front of the horse...not that they own any such horse, cart, or are even on a road anybody recognizes...
Everybody who thinks IBM's lawyer's bust out a Big Blue Grin when this came out, raise your hand.
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
This is all a little strange. It seems to me that the IBM case would have to be set on hold until after the Novell case is settled. I mean how can you finish suing IBM for misuse/misappropration of IP until you've settled who the actual owner of the copyrighted material is? (That of course assumes any of said copyrighted material can be proven to belong to anyone in particular or that it has actually been misappropriated into other software ;-)
Actually, their stock is shorted out. You won't be able to short it unless you get really lucky. Too many people have already shorted stock, and most of it is still owned by a few institutions and insiders, leaving very little around to short. (Actually, speculation has RBC's recent purchase as a method of covering shorts sold in a manner that wouldn't, as I understand it, have been allowed under US law.)
My personal speculation is that they made their press release, and then did a little stock activity themselves to drive the price up a bit, hoping to get some momentum going. They failed, obviously, but _someone_ has been gaming their stock prices for months. Given the ownership, it's a pretty safe bet who's been behind it.
Keep in mind that usesr of Caldera Linux are indemnified against SCO's IP violations. If SCO believes they have a case, they may be trying to take over linux to the point oif being the only remaining linux vendor.
Unlikely, but it's possible.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
There are no shares available to short. That means that at least 25% of the float is held short, possibly more. Some people on Wall St. apparently don't believe that SCO has the goods, and are shorting this pig massively.
Have you noticed that this has had little or no effect on www.sco.com on Google? If you google for 'litigious bastards', you get scores of blog links, but no www.sco.com.
What gives -- is Google blocking the attempt to make 'litigous bastards' -> www.sco.com?
I detest offshoring as much as the next rabid Slashdotter, but that's one job the Indians are welcome to!
Has anyone else noticed that SCOX are also looking for a "Director of Financial Reporting and SEC/GAAP Compliance", among whose responsibilities are "Financial reporting of quarterly and annual results in accordance with SEC rules and regulations." This has been listed since 8 December 2003, or over six weeks. I wonder why the last one quit? Could it be because there are some things even accountants won't do?
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
Believe me - I hate SCO as much as the next guy, but Novell is partly to blame for this mess because they have so poorly managed the ownership of UNIX and its related intellectual property so that this situation could happen in the first place. I bet even they do not know what the hell they sold SCO or what they own at this point. Novell just got copyright assignment for the Sys V code a few months ago. For the record, what did they sell to SCO, anyway? And how much did SCO pay for whatever it is they bought?
Where is SCO getting all this cash for legal expenses from? Certainly not from Linux "IP" licenses. Have they got a money tree, or hoping that they can win a few cases early enough to finance the other pending cases? Lets hope they sue so many more SIMULTANEOUSLY, that they run out of money before any of the cases conclude.
It kinda reminds me of playing Monopoly. If you spend all your remaining cash buying hotels on Park Avenue, etc, and you land on someone elses hotel before they land on yours, you're screwed. Hopefully "SCO is Bankrupt" will be the next SCO headline we read.
SCO should still have to show IBM what, exactly, IBM illegally included in Linux.
Then, the legal agreements regarding that material can be judged. It might be that SCO doesn't even have a case against IBM, even if SCO did have the patents.
SCO should get a hold on the IBM case only after SCO has shown what was "stolen" and the contracts have been found to support SCO's case and the "stolen" material is part of the Novell case.
IANAL so feel free to ignore me.
I may be completly wrong about this, anyhow...
It just crossed my mind that in a destructive scenario piling lawsuit on lawsuit may be just a way to "produce" law costs in order to get money/stocks out of the company.
Some weeks ago we had a lot of details on the huge sums that already went to law firms and that it wasn't just Boies but a surprising number of law firms, including McBrides brother. They were paid in cash and stocks.
Now, a law firm receiving it's payment in stocks can sell them without danger of violating any "insider" rules?
Say, their rationale is to liquidate the company in the most lucrative way. They fix a row of dates when insiders will sell stocks and they make sure they have the backing of some unknown interested party by aiming their campaign on Linux. Then carefully select the lawyers (choosing the CEOs brother is a bit to obvious, though). Boom IBM, boing RedHat, boom Novell. Everyone shaking heads, the costs will kill them - but this is not a problem if you intend to use the costs to get money out of the company while the stock prices are still high.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
I would submit to you that there are at least two other options:
3) Change the rules. Don't like the hand your dealt in the game? Change the rules so you have a winning hand. (See one James T Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru Scenario)
4) Don't play. Some games don't have a winning solution. (See Global Thermonuclear War: "This is a strange game. The only way to win is not to play.")
SCO's attitude about litigation, copyright and GPL seems to be some evidence that they've also chosen option 3.
Subject: SCO ANZ Announces IP License for LinuxSCO Announces ANZ Availability of SCO Intellectual Property LicenseFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASESydney, January 20 2004The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIXR operatingsystem and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today announcedthe availability of the SCO Intellectual Property License to companiesand organisations in Australia and New Zealand.The company began the worldwide roll out of the license in the UK,France and other European countries last week, and plans to make thelicense available to many more countries and regions by February 1.The SCO Intellectual Property (IP) License permits the use of SCO'sintellectual property, in binary form only, as contained in Linuxdistributions. By purchasing the license, customers are properlycompensating SCO for the UNIX source code, derivative UNIX code andother UNIX-related intellectual property and copyrights owned by SCO asit is currently found in Linux.Pricing:The SCO IP License is currently available at introductory pricing ofAUD$999.00 per server processor and AUD$285.00 per desktop processor.The company is also offering the license to embedded devicemanufacturers that use Linux to run their devices.In addition to extending the license to customers worldwide, the companyalso announced that the license will shortly be made available throughselect SCO resellers. SCO resellers who are interested in obtainingmore information about providing the SCO IP License to their customerscan contact SCO at anz_info@sco.com after February 1, 2004."While we have identified several problem areas at issue within Linux,we also want to be fair to customers and allow them to continue usingLinux and our intellectual property unencumbered," said Chris Sontag,senior vice president and general manager of SCOsource, the intellectualproperty licensing and protection division of The SCO Group, Inc. "Webelieve the SCO IP License helps customers satisfy the legalrequirements to continue using SCO's UNIX intellectual property in Linuxin a forthright way while properly compensating the company for use ofits property."Kieran O'Shaughnessy, SCO's Regional General Manager, Australia and NewZealand, said he will begin briefing the company's local distributorsthis week regarding the SCO IP License's introduction."The SCO IP License helps organisations in Australia and New Zealand toprotect and leverage the investments they have made in Linux whileproviding the means for them to continue day-to-day business withoutinterruption," he said.Availability:Commercial business end users of Linux, based on the 2.2 kernel andlater, that are interested in more information or in purchasing the SCOIP License in Australia or New Zealand can call +61 2 9440 7577 ore-mail SCO at anz_info@sco.com.ends
Notes for Editors:Forward looking statement safe harbor:This press release contains a forward looking statement regarding TheCompany's plans to make the SCO Intellectual Property License availablein Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., France, and other Europeancountries and many more countries and regions by February 1, 2004. Thisstatement is subject to risks and uncertainties including withoutlimitation those risks and uncertainties identified in our filings withthe SEC and the risk that we will not be in a position to roll out thislicense in such countries and regions as planned. We undertake noobligation to update the information in this release, except as requiredby law.
My emphasis. I'm sorry - but I have *never* seen a press release regarding a upcoming service with a disclaimer like that!
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
Schedule 1.1(b) Excluded Assets (Page 2 of 2)
V. Intellectual Property:
A. All copyrights and trademarks, except for the copyrights and trademarks owned by Novell as of the date of the Agreement required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition of UNIX and UnixWare technologies. However, in no event shall Novell be liable to SCO for any claim brought by any third party pertaining to said copyrights and trademarks.
B. All Patents
So unless SCO can show that they need these copyrights to exercise it's rights to UNIX (not likely since they just admin the licenses), and UnixWare (they might have a case here) rights, and that they have asked Novell to give them up, they are totally talking out their ass.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
COuld someone point me to a brief "SCO for Dummies" site which would explain to me WHO SCO is (I never heard of them until I started reading SlashDot), what do they do (I mean what business were they in before the litigation), and what's the core litigation about?
Dude, that article rocks.
There have been lots of changes at SCO since your arrival. Last month, the company announced a major shift in its business to return to its Unix roots. What's happening, and what's the future of SCO?
Darl: The opportunity for this company is to really tap into the heritage that it has with the Unix operating system on the Intel platform. Some people are saying we're rushing back to the 1980s with our strategy. I like to think we're going back to the future. The interesting thing when I got here is we started looking at the history of this whole thing.
Where do you see SCO in five years?
Darl: I see SCO five years from now being as significant a technology brand as it was five to 10 years ago. We're going to embrace the great things of our past and our roots in Unix and move forward with a strong set of Unix and Linux offerings. On top of the operating systems business, we see a number of solutions-based opportunities, including in retail point-of-sale software. We're not only going to be getting back to where we were, but going beyond that.
And you can still get a copy at [url=http://cart.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/00700 10833.html]chepbytes.com[/url]. Since linux is only the kernel and not the distribution that means you can get an indemnified copy of the kernel to run with your favorite distro for $7. That's a bunch cheaper than the $699 they want to charge if you use the kernel from some other source. I personally wouldn't want to use it since it came from SCO but you can get an indemnified kernel if you want. I wonder if it's still indemnified if you patch it to the current version...just thinking out loud.
I think the wording of the original agreement, even as changed by amendment 2, makes a strong case that SCO did not acquire the SysV copyright, but there's some wiggle room. In the "excluded assets" (i.e., what SCO didn't get), they list:
"A. All copyrights and trademarks, except for the [...] copyrights and trademarks owned by Novell as of the date of the Agreement required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition of UNIX and UnixWare technologies. However, in no event shall Novell be liable to SCO for any claim brought by any third party pertaining to said copyrights and trademarks."
Two things stand out here. First, the fact that Novell retains "All copyrights and trademarks, except..." stronly implies that they retained most of the copyrights involved (otherwise why would this section be in "excluded assets", rather than putting "All copyrights and trademarks, except..." in the "included assets" section?).
Second, what does the word "acquisition" mean in this context? I would interpret it as saying that SCO required certain copyrights and trademarks in order to be able to legally sell SysV UNIX (since the amendment was a generalization of the phrase "except for the trademarks UNIX and UnixWare"). According to this reading, source code would definitely not be included, and transfer of copyright would take place only as part of the acquisition (i.e., SCO can't come back and claim copyright over other things now). This seems to be Novell's interpretation as well as mine. However, it could be argued that "required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition" is an ongoing thing, and that SCO is now claiming that they need the copyrights in order to continue exercising their rights.
Looking at the section as a whole, and at the history of the document, I'm inclined to lean toward Novell's interpretation, but I have to admit that there's enough ambiguity that SCO might have a case, albeit a weak one.
BTW, FWIW, IANAL. IJLTRLD (I just like to read legal documents).
On stereophonic equipment, the monaural sound obtained through multiple channels will enhance your listening pleasure.
No wonder scox was up another $0.50 today.
Slashdoters who think scox is stupid don't know what they're posting about. This is a great scam. When Darl first took over as ceo, the share price dropped to $0.60! Now the share price is 25X that. Is that your idea of stupid?
Scox-scam going strong for just under a year, so far.