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SCO Adds Copyright Claim to IBM Suit
An anonymous reader writes "News.com.com reports that the SCO Group has significantly widened its Unix and Linux lawsuit against IBM,
adding a copyright infringement claim to the already complicated case." There's also another story discussing the copyright claims.
Groklaw has a detailed eye-witness account. It seems SCO's new claims might just be about IBM continuing to distribute AIX after SCO "revoked" their license. And apparently IBM's lawyers wiped the floor with SCO's counsel (it wasn't Darl's brother this time!). Great reading - enjoy!
Now the bad news: Posting it on Groklaw seems to have been enough to /. the court's server, so you're going to have to wait a while to read it (and no, I didn't grab a mirror while I had it - my bad).
Of course, posting the link here is far worse than posting it on Groklaw, so maybe you should try to read it tomorrow...
Late update: I re-tried the link when I did the preview, and got it - so it's back, or perhaps intermittent. I'm going to try to grab it right after I post...
They've posted another story that states that SCO's claims have reached 5 billion (yes, this really is a news.com link).
This will surely give them enough funding from high-risk investors that don't mind losing a few hundred k's for a chance of a big payout.
News got it wrong again..
SCO dropped the trade secrets claims.. and only is going to turn over code in 17 files that they claim is infringing 30 days from now after numerous delays..
see groklaw.com for details..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
The big news the Slashdot post seems to have missed is that:
SCO HAS DROPPED THEIR TRADE SECRET CLAIM
Remember when this crap all began Darl's mantra was "It isn't about copyright, its about trade secrets." Well, apparently not any more. Highly suggest parusing Groklaw for some great coverage. IBM's court filings from yesterday are brilliant.
They replaced the previous claims with the copyright claims because they were completely and utterly able to provide the minimum amount of information during discovery.
So saying the case has been "widened" is wrong.
Also, they didn't add the claims yet. The asked the judge to allow them to add the claims. This is because they missed the deadline to add claims to the lawsuit.
You'd think there would be more reliable information from a place where Linux people supposedly hang out.
As from the SCOX Message board (found on Finance.Yahoo.com): IBM's Report on SCO's Compliance with the December 12th order. http://pacer.utd.uscourts.gov/images/203cv00294000 00103.pdf
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
The SCO Group's stock symbol is SCOX not SCO.
The SCO Groups' market cap is $190M and falling
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
Much as I hate the idea, I can see how the SCO execs could read the Asset Purchase Agreement to mean that they DID buy the copyrights:
SCO could easily read this as "You now own the source code. That includes (as an explicit exception to the copyright exclusion) all of Novell's copyrights on the source code that you need to enforce your ownership of the source code."
Another poster (in a previous article) wrote:
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.
But SCO can argue that this was just a request for confirmation of what they believed the contract meant, in preparation for their suit to enforce their copyrights. Then they could argue that Novell's refusal to give that "confirmation" was just Novell trying to back out the deal once they discovered they'd given away the store to someone who was actually going to KEEP it.
(None of which, even if the court upholds SCO's interpretation, in any way releases them from promptly identifying the alleged infringing code in Linux, so the open source community can expunge it, end the alleged infringement, and minimize the alleged damages.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
And, of course, Groklaw has a summary of today's court action. Basically SCO ends up looking stupid again.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
If you read through the notes from the hearing, it's clear that SCO continues to refuse to, or is unable to, identify specific infringing code, and the judge doesn't like it. The judge said "The problem is, unless you identify those codes, then IBM is not in a position to have a response. We're at an impasse, and the case cannot continue with an impasse, that's why there was a court order". That's a clear indication from the judge. The judge isn't buying SCO's nebulous theory of general infringement.
Cravath is slowly boxing in SCO. Notice that the trade secret claim has been dropped. The copyright claim isn't in the case yet, and IBM can probably insist that it doesn't go in without SCO showing the original and the purported copy side by side.
Look for some rulings unfavorable to SCO shortly.