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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.
If we apply that standard to /., wouldn't 99.9% of the stories go away? How many of them start with "NYTimes is reporting... According to CNN.com..."
The problem is that if someone were to actually buy SCO, it would set a dangerous precedent and other failing compaines would be sure to follow.
No the only way to put an end to this is to make sure that SCO goes down in a ball of fire that can be seen around the world.
So now they want to claim extra damages for an infringement of "registered" copyright when the registration was filed after the lawsuit? IANAL but this really seems like grasping at straws, otherwise this would always happen in a copyright dispute to get the extra damages.
Plus, doesn't this now potentially get them in trouble with Novell who claims that the copyrights are still theirs? Criminal plagiarism, anybody?
This just seems like another tactic to stall their case. Personally, I believe that there is something more sinister than just a dying company in its death throws here. The longer this goes on, the more damage being done to Linux and open source in general. Obviously, when they finally have to account for any of their claims they will quickly lose, but the longer they can take to prevent that the better (if you support my hypothesis).
My guess is they'll go to court and say "Your honour, you asked us to provide these documents to IBM before the case could continue, however since that ruling we've ammended our suite and would ask that we can push back that date as a result."
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Suppose some terrorists took innocent hostages in order to exchance them for known terrorists in prison, and demanded an exchance. If we actually went though with the exchance, it would be a short term good at a severe long term cost when more groups of innocent people are taken hostage by other groups.
Buying out the SCO would encourage more bad behaviour. Better to stick this through, no matter what the cost. It may be messy in the short term, but in the long term it will dissuade this sor tof behaviour.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
Actually, for this to be a proper example, there also needs to be an attachment of Darl's private fortunes. If the CEO can get away with his pockets full, then it isn't much of an example. If a company is dying, the CEO doesn't care about the company, he cares about himself. So unless you ensure that HE has to pay, you haven't discouraged copycats very effectively.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
MS won't buy. If they did, they'd purchase the legal liabilities as well as the benefits. And then IBM would dig in for damages. And lots of contingency lawyers would start courting everyone who ever contributed anything to the kernel. And every company that did consulting in Linux.
No. There was a good reason that MS wanted this kept at arms length. If they wanted closer ties, they could have had them cheaply a year ago. (All they needed to do is offer to guarantee 4 profitable quarters and Darl would have done nearly anything.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
SCO's case is completely falling appart.
Apparently, the new copyright claim is that IBM continued to distribute AIX even after SCO "terminated" their license.
In other words, the copyright claim doesn't have anything to do with the alleged copying of code from SysV to Linux.
Additionally, SCO responded to IBMs interrogatory (asking which Linux files SCO claims any rights to) by listing only 17 files (and not identifying specific lines in those files) and indicating that none of these 17 files contain code from SysV.
I really expected them to do much better. I don't see how IBM can be ordered to proceed with discovery given existing case law. (Although it seems like IBM might voluntarily produce information so they can limit SCOs avenues of appeal.
I like this quote from Groklaw:
One of the SCO lawyers "...went on to claim that they have identified 400 million lines of Unix code and 300 million lines of Linux code affected, but also admitted that SCO has not submitted everything required by the court order."
Where did they find 300 million lines of Linux code to begin with, much less 300 million infringing lines?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
They might run out of money first... then they have to start selling the Linux and Unix again.
Who'd buy it from them?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Report on SCO's Compliance With the Court's order sums up the whole fiasco pretty well I think. It's a line from Paragraph 5:
Duh! And Darl wants $5 Billion for this?!?! For what exactly? I can't wait for the stomping to commence.
I still think they're going after the angle that JFS, NuMA, et al (basically anything that looks or smells like Unix) are "derivatives" of SysV, and their ownership of Unix means that they control everything related. Thus, IBM shouldn't have contributed to the kernel without first asking SCO's permission. This, I believe, is the heart of their case (they are also still saying there's actual SysV code in Linux, but haven't show squat legally and isn't part of the case as far as I know).
Of course, this is going to be hard to win since it requires them to prove:
a) the license with IBM actually gives them control of derivatives
b) IBM's code is a derivative of SysV
Frankly, I thought they had a much better chance with the Trade Secret stuff since there may have been some Monterey issues non of us knew about. The "derivative" argument seems like one hell of a stretch considering copyright and contract law along with the *BSD settlement.
Basically, though, the new copyright stuff seems pretty damn empty. I'll be surprised if it goes anywhere.
Yes, that is the big news, someone please mod that Insightful. IBM, in not filing for summary judgement against SCO, seems to be saying that they want case law on this one. A dismissal means anyone, even SCO (unless it is dismissed with prejudice) if they are sufficiently imbalanced (and I believe they may well be) can come along and try the same thing again in the future, either with Linux or some other piece of FOSS to which IBM has contributed.
If IBM goes to trial and wins a crushing victory over SCO in court, then countersues for damages and bankrupts SCO (although simply losing this case will probably do that on its own) and then buys them up for pennies on the dollar out of bankruptcy and fires all of senior management, no one will dare try something like this again, even if they think they might have a case. The price to be paid for failure will scare them off. Put more simply, IBM will probably seek not only case law, but to make an example of Darl and friends.
And how would you like to be Darl, looking for your next job when this is all over, with the most prominent entry on your resume being something like "Embarked on frivolous and ill-fated lawsuit against IBM, sent my then-employer into bankruptcy as a result, seeking challenging position at tech company." He'd be lucky to get a challenging position emptying the wastebaskets. Of course, he's made millions selling SCO stock since this fiasco began, he'll never need to work again. These executive types seem addicted to work, so he'll probably try, but I bet that will be one long, hard job search.
I think IBM recognizes this situation exactly as the shakedown that it is, and sees perfectly well that if they give in it in any way, even taking a summary judgement and getting no case law, that anyone else thinking about shaking down IBM would be tempted to try it. They also know, as the oldest practioner of FUD in the computer business (heck, they invented it; every old mainframer like me knows the saying "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"), that they dare not give quarter. As with any shakedown, giving in or giving quarter will only incite others to go after you. If you bust up the one who's trying to shake you down and make an example of him, nobody will dare. That, I think, is what IBM has in mind for SCO.