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?)"

Comments

I know I need to suspend logic with SCO...

[metallicagoaltender]

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.

News?

[ObviousGuy]

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.

slashdot the telecon?

[sroddy]

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.

Basically

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

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.

Haha!

[cliffy2000]

"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.

Re:irresponsible

[Mechanik]

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

Re:Ummm....

[hackstraw]

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?

SCO Unix != SCO IP

[Tony]

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.

Darl's an ass

[codefungus]

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?

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/ yourmon ey/29boss.html

Re:Ummm.... SGI

[glk572]

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.

Slashdot the 800 number?

[danwiz]

Don't toll-free 800 numbers cost the company money on a per-user basis? What would the financial impact of everyone with an interest in Linux dialing in to listen?

The slashdot-effect on an 800 number?

Re:Suing SCO licensees?

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

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?

Won't work

[TrentC]

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 (=

Re:Won't work

[barzok]

SCO pretty much has to do this. The last time I listened to a conference call my company's top brass gave, they had about a half-dozen callers basically ruin the party. Management stuck to their BS story, tried to brush off the queries, but it was obvious they were in a major bind because they simply couldn't handle having to answer those questions in such an environment.

SCO sues two more of their own customers

[Stephen Samuel]

According to the news.com.com article, SCO is suing two more companies that have contracts with them... That makes 4 companies that they've sued in the last year -- all of whom have previous contracts with SCO (IBM, Novell and the two unnamed SCOldiers).

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.

Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.
You'll be so much much safer when I've baked you in my pie.

I'm going to guess McDonalds

[BeBoxer]

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.

Not unheard off

[SmallFurryCreature]

Bioware released neverwinter nights for linux. Well kinda off. Their license with their windows installer supplier forbids them from using other installer software. Meaning someone else had to write an installer script. Not to difficult for the linux community but still prove that idiotic contracts keep getting signed.

Granted this was using two different products at the same time but close enough.