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SCO Postpones Lawsuit, Now Threatening Two
zzxc writes "In a surprise turn of events, SCO says that they need more time to prepare an announcement of who they are going to sue. According to SCO, the lawsuits will be announced tomorrow morning shortly before a phone-in conference in which will be outlining their financial report. You can call 1-800-818-5264 code 141144 Wednesday at 9:00am MST to join in with your questions, or listen to the webcast. They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses. (EV1.net servers or Lindows?)"
Obviously logic hasn't played a big part in any of their actions, but why in the hell would they sue EV1, one of the few companies that bothered to buy an SCO license, not to mention the fact that they admitted it!
It's not exactly case of biting the hand that feeds you, but it certainly be a case of alienating an ally that probably doesn't need to be alienated.
All this play by play of SCO is really tiring. It's like a bunch of fleas issuing flyers every time the dog takes a walk. Yes, something's happening. No, it's not that important.
I have been pwned because my
I predict that SCO will be heavily traded tomorrow: People intellegent enough to know when they see the horrid profit reports to drop the stock. And a bunch of saps who will buy up the stock (ooh! litigation! money!). Oh, and I'm starting a pool on who will be sued: My guesses: SGI and HP
Jason Faulkner
Old Os Administrator
jason@oldos.org
oldos.
I'd hate to pay the bill for that telecon. Considering it usually costs $1 per minute per participant, perhaps we can put a dent in their extortion fund!
Seriously though, I hope the company that is hosting the telecon has a lot of lines reserved.
This is the second announcement about an upcoming announcement today by SCO, right?
Meanwhile PJ at Groklaw is busy tearing them a new one over mentioning her in one of their propaganda blasts. Good reading. Hate to have her as one of my enemies.
This guy is way out there
I can't believe they are still around. Other countries take control and don't let them spread their junk. Why can't they be stopped here in the US too? I mean, it just urks me that after producing no evidence and spreading FUD, they haven't been required to stop, and in fact will file another backless lawsuit (or so the claim). Atleast its a good sign that they are taking so long. It shows that they're running out of juice
http://www.beyourowneviloverlord.tk
http://www.frozenchickenthrowing.tk
http://www.killercamel.tk
"They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses." Wow. That's a great business plan. Alienate your few and diminishing customers.
"They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses."
Wow, sounds like they're taking a page out of Metallica's book for this one.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html
The SCO Group has failed to put forward ANY substantial legal theory why the SCO Group should not be obligated to abide by the terms of the GPL.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/sco/sco-without-fear
The SCO Group obligations under the GPL has been reiterated and reinforced in the legal positions of IBM, Redhat and Novell in their respective cases against the SCO Group.
It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.
The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.
The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.
The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.
So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html [harvard.edu]
The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733
Somebody get on the call and ask them "If you have such a strong company and case, why do you feel the need to couple lawsuit announcements with your financial call?"
:-)
:-)
I would LOVE to see the Slashdot effect at work on this conference call. I don't suppose we're so lucky as for SCO to have set this up on a system where they pay per user connected, are we?
That and it would be great having 10,000 slashdotters heckling them
Mechanik
I don't think they'll sue EV1... yet, but they'll definitely go after current or former TSG customers (for running the compatibility layer on linux)
So this isn't actually directed directly at linux, it's more about SCO following through on their slogan:
"Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with" -- http://e-businessadvisor.com/doc/12514
They'll just hope the press will go with them and focus on the Linux part not the "SCO Unix(R)" part.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
... does anyone ever wonder what we /.'ers will ever do once SCO finally succumbs(sp?) to their demise?
/.ers would do if SCO won.
No, but I do wonder what
(I'm not saying that it's likely to happen, but it would be amusing to watch the bleating.)
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Could it be Pixar? Dont they have a huge render farm of linux boxes chugging away.. not an isp or net services and its a pretty well known company (Toy story, Monsters Inc, etc)..
However, I don't know if SCO had a unix contract with them which I believe was one of the things Darl said they would use against the company/companies.
This actually seems like a really good idea, it's like a DOS attack just over the phone...we can easily have them swamped with questions they really don't want to answer.
The only thing that would make sense in this context ("making sense" of course in a fskd up SCO way...) is that the suit will be a breach of contract suit vs a copyright infringement case.
What I mean by that is that SCO will claim that the defendant is breaching its UNIX license by NOT paying the Unix per-server fee for Linux servers. Said another way, if the defendant has agreed to pay SCO $X per UNIX server under its SCO Unix license, and has been calculating the license fees assuming that Linux servers didn't count, then SCO would claim that -- because Linux is UNIX (don't ya know) -- the licensee/defendant has been underpaying SCO.
SCO is likely to get more bang for its litigation buck by suing customers under this theory (however wack that is) then suing companies who have no contractual relationship to it.
But then again, I am not an IP lawyer.
Does anyone in the justice system have any common sense?
The whole thing that SCO is trying to "sell" is a binary runtime license(WTF-TM). Yet SCO will not distribute the binary to you, nor will it supply any support for the "product". Notwithstanding that there is no legal grounds to support SCO's ownership of said intellectual property (yet).
Is this a new business model or a non existant one?
They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses. (EV1.net servers or Lindows?)
Seems like they are saying they are going to sue someone who has already licensed Unixware or some other SCO-sold Unix OS, and *not* someone who has already licensed their "SCO IP," like EV1.
I bet they go after someone who has used SCO's OS in the past, but has been migrating to Linux. Nothing like a little retribution.
Of course, it's hard to tell with these bastards. They don't seem to be too.... stable. Mentally. Financially. Whatever.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
...also was recently posted at Groklaw. Their lawyers really did a decent job in making most Darl's rantings nice and legal like.
BSD users might find paragraph 84 interesting, since SCO basically claims it was impossible for Linux to achieve "complex multi-processor functionality" without SCO's UNIX code.
Actually, Lindows also licenses form them (there was a pre-existing contract)
-DB-
E-mail is like a prison: a prison with no walls... and no toilet. -Strong Bad
He spent 2 years in Osaka trying to convert Buddhists to MORMANS and the most intellegent thing he can say about it is that he got free Japanese lessons?
/ yourmon ey/29boss.html
And the reason why Darl is the way he is?
"I am absolutely driven by people saying I can't do something."
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/business
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
I hope this is a joke, I mean a suprise??? The announcement did exactly what SCO et al intended, it turned around their falling stock price just prior to a quarterly finantial announcment. Just more FUD.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Sgi is the only party that I can think of that Sco has any real beef with, if they're smart that's who they'll go after.
Then again when you assume you make an ass out of u and me, and assuming that Sco is smart is risky.
Well art is art isn't it, but then again water is water; and east is east; and west is west; and if you take cranberries
The slashdot-effect on an 800 number?
SCO was unprofitable last quarter but would have been in the black if not for a $9 million payout to its attorneys, In most companies, wouldn't this be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I was wondering when someone was going to catch that. I think the first 50 guesses on this thread could be modded off-topic.
My personal guess is SGI and HP. Sun already bought a license and SCO is already suing Novell and IBM. I doubt they would go after a university, they want a quick settlement to fuel their pump and dump scheme and a university might fight longer.
Anyone got odds?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
I would not paint the investors as being innocent babes along for the ride. Anyone who would invest (or stay invested) in a company that produces legal action instead of product is just as crooked as the CEO.
I think it more likely that Lindows will be sent to the doghouse.
We could only be so lucky!
Michael Roberts would have a field day with this. As much as I think the guys is sort of a goof, I'd love to see this happen. The potential comedy factor alone would be well worth it.
I can't find the Groklaw article now, but a summary from a Groklaw reader who "attended" one of their conference calls said that it was pretty obvious that SCO wasn't letting anybody ask questions that they didn't know (and therefore couldn't predict or spin to their advantage).
No sense in upsetting the investors with those questions they don't want to answer...
Jay (=
At the same time, they're claiming that the best way to avoid litigation with them is to sign a contract that acknowledges that they have more power over you (and Linux code) than most people believe they have any hope of proving in court.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
a big chamber with 1000 ping pong balls in it. These of course correspond to the top 1000 linux using companies in the US. Woohoo.
McDonalds is my guess. Someone else guessed AutoZone because they are also moving away from SCO Unix. But I think McDonalds will have better PR punch, so that's where I'm putting my money. I think it's also realistic to assume that they will also make the announcement during the "earnings" call itself so as to minimize the amount of time they have to spend discussing just how horrible their balance sheet was last quarter.
They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses
I'm confused So are they saying that they are going to start by prosecuting their own customers? How, in any form, is that smart??? Am I not understanding this remark??
Seems to me if I was a SCO Unix customer, this would be evidence that I need to take my business somewhere else and fast.
Wow HUGE ..
Darl actually suggested that if Drug companies come up with a new formula for a drug on a linux machine they would have to license the formula under the GPL.
This guy clearly wins the "No Clue" award when it comes to licenses. Now at least we know that he most likely has misintepreted the Unix contracts
dvnull
"They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses"
So if I read this correctly, if you purchased a SCO license then SCO can sue you? huh? Pardon my ignorance but wasn't the whole reason these guys purchased licenses was to be protected from lawsuit?
Signed... really confused SCO hater.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Granted this was using two different products at the same time but close enough.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It seems very likely, for AutoZone to maintain their same functioning infrastructure, they re-used some SCO interface or something that is considered an IP contract violations. (reasons to never sign anything in conjunction with SCO)
The other company has to be something approved by Microsoft, and presumably serving Microsoft's plan for world domination. It would also have to be another knock against Open Source, and a SCO contract/license holder.
Maybe this is all a big orchestrated move by EV1 & SCO to "sue" EV1 over linux usage, and then EV1 moves all linux servers over to SCO-approved binaries and SCO drops the lawsuits. (Why the hell else would EV1 be the first company to come out of the closet publicly regarding giving SCO extortion $$)
Darl and friends can also be sued personally. If their company is kaput, it cannot compensate them.
This and related personal swords of Damocles are probably why they are persisting in the suits now that they are past the point of no return.
IANAL