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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?)"
They freak me out.
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'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
Probably the same thing we did before SCO came onto the scene.
Masturbate furiously.
Huzzah!
The #1 spot for Wired News' Vaporware Awards in 2004 goes to:
SCO for their "still pending" lawsuit! Congratulations guys!
When SCO does finally sue someone, it will not be for using a Linux distribution like they want you to think. When the court filings are examined, it will probably be a breach of contract suit for some silly violation, which means they will have to sue a current SCO Unix customer. But they will do their best to spin it to the press as a Linux IP infringement suit, and lots of dumbasses will eat it all up and buy more SCO stock.
If you had read the article the other day on Groklaw it stated that (I'm paraphrasing) that purchasing this license doesn't allow that user to actually USE SCO's intellectual property. All it really does is say "look, we know we're in the wrong here, so let's settle up".
Now because of the fact these people signed up for their license that shows they "admit guilt". So not only did they pay SCO the $799 (or whatever it is now) extortion fee, they also paid SCO to sue them. That's how the legal system works, my friends. EV1 and Lindows (if it's actually true) will get a first hand lesson now.
In a sense, buying a license under these methods and terms is basically the same as signing a confession to a crime that wasn't even committed.
Because originally SCO architected and did the preliminary work as a Service deal. Part of the contract that SCO delivered to Lindows stated that SCO would 'take care' of the GPL aspects of the code and would not provide anything that might get Lindows into trouble such as tainted source code etc etc etc.....
Lindows later went their own way and pursued a more debian focused route, however the contract still stands, though is ulimately open to interpretation
There is no SCO before Unix in that sentance.
Further up the article you will see
It's a safe bet that who ever they are going after is in that list.
I wonder if my SCO spoof will be the target
MoFscker
Ahh the magic of the linked article:
Google, which uses thousands of Linux servers to power its search engine, is not the target of the initial suits, Stowell added.
Besides, I don't know what legal principle they can use to sue any Linux user. Copyright violation? No. Contract violation? No, most don't have any contracts with SCO. Patents? They've never said anything about those. Trade secrets? Nope.
So, what are they mumbling? Anyone they can sue has to have a contract with them, i.e. be a licensee, so they can allege a contract violation (like IBM). Maybe SGI? Novell? Sun? Who knows. They have exactly nothing to go after Linux users in general.
Lindows is a technology company, and isn't in the Fortune 1000, which doesn't seem to match the profile of the targets announced yesterday.
Of course, SCO has said one thing and done another many, many times. If they did attack Lindows.com, then that would certainly dismiss any notion that they aren't shilling for Redmond. Given the potential multi-year delay in the MS trademark litigation, there are probably more than a few experienced IP lawyers on retainer by Lindows.com that are looking for someone else's leg to chew on. And certainly Robertson would love to squeeze more than a little PR out of such a suit.
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.
That somehow it backfires such that when the press spins it, it comes out with headlines like "SCO begins suing own customers".
All this would take is the press paying any attention to anything not directly from SCO's mouth. But maybe that's wishful thinking.
Darl: "Thanks everybody for listening in on this financial meeting. We've got some really good numbers to talk about today. Our core product, Turbo Litigation Plus, is doing very well right now. We've got more penetration in the court room market than any of our competitors and we feel that things are only going to get better from here on out."
Investor: "Can I just say that I love what this latest release had done to stock prices. I'm sleeping on a bed of money at home right now."
Darl: "That's great to hear. We're glad your happy, but please hold your comments until I'm finished speaking."
Investor: "..."
Darl: "Right now I'd like to announce a couple more features that we've added to Turbo Litigation Plus."
Listeners: A hush....Pent up excitement...Maniacal greed...
Darl: "First, we've decided to add Hasbro to our list of targets. We've discovered that the substance that give's Nerf(TM) toys their "Nerfiness", if you will, is actually part of the Intellectual Property of SCO in a very literal sense. It's what makes up 90% of our brains over here."
Investor: "Excellent!"
Darl: "Please man! *slaps the table* Let me speak!"
Investor: "..."
Darl: "Secondly, after a toss up between Ronco, the maker of the indespensible Door Saver(TM) which of course was actually invented by Billy over here, and McDonalds, maker of the McDarl, we've chosen to add, wait for it, ourselves!"
Listeners: Gasp!
Darl: "Yes folks, we're going to sue ourselves. I mean think about it, we own all our own Intellectial Property, we only have to pay half as much in lawyer fees, and I love to cross examine myself."
Listeners: Applause
Darl: "Thank you all for your time. SCO Rules!"
Advisor: "Darl..."
Darl: "Sorry."
One bad monkey spoils the whole barrel.
I bet one of them is AutoZone. SCO is pissed that AutoZone switched from SCO Unix to Linux, and claims that couldn't have been done without violating their IP. The meat of their argument is on groklaw here (Supplemental #8), and if you scroll down you can see some AutoZone employees refute the argument. Search for the comment by 'jbgreer'.
Although SCO's actions have attracted some negative attention from the Open Source Community, many High Scool teacers are exhuberant about the company's recent actions. Bob Frampton, High School calculus teacher at Frederick Davis High said of SCO's recent actions, "It's just great, they're literally changing the way we teach mathematics to our future leaders. It's only thanks to SCO that we can ask exciting new problems such as, 'If every day SCO doubles the number of lawsuits they claim to file the following day, how many days will it take before nobody cares?' or, 'If SCO doesn't play this thing out right, how long will it take before the Fed nails them with fraud? Extra Credit: how many board members will get caught? Support your answer by proof.'"
Not just math teachers are thrilled, though. Says Jane Yargood of another local High School, "Darl McBride really deserves a cookie, it's so great that we can teach students about logical fallacies through real world context!" With the end of this somewhat less than momentous case nowhere in sight, it's good to see that some of our educators can find the silver lining in any situation.
`which fortune`
Yeah, they're known as "bagholders". These are the imbeciles that know nothing about the company, the case(s) or in fact anything, except a) that the PR says "We'll sue" and b) When companies announce that they'll sue, they go up. Also, there was the "We sold an IP license" thingy, you might remember? The one that noone know if it brought in any money for SCOX, but it sure made a lot of PR!
Anyhow; The bagholders are then sold into by insiders, which make a tidy profit.
The job of the bagholders then is to sit around and watch the stock slowly fall down again.
Typically they'll panic and sell at a big loss. Some bagholders are smarter and hang around for the second wave of bagholders and make it out at plus/minus zero.
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!
each company they sue can countersue for defamation
And so? What exactly do they have to loose in the process?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
The slashdot-effect on an 800 number?
Is this a new business model or a non existant one?
It's a brilliant business model. They don't have to actually claim ownership of anyone else's product because they aren't distributing or granting anything related to that product. They don't have to follow the terms of the GPL, because they aren't actually using the GPL. They don't have to cease distributing GPLed products, because they aren't actually violating the GPL, just loudly and constantly threatening they will violate it.
They are selling you a license from SCO to use someone else's product. Can they do this? Well, yes, they aren't actually licensing you anything. It's just a piece of paper that says "SCO says it's okay for you to use Linux". And they can certainly give you a piece of paper that says SCO says you can use something. The trick is that they're then trying to create the impression you're required to have an SCO license to use linux but never actually *DIRECTLY* saying those words-- and seem to be pulling it off.
It is like McDonalds was selling licenses to eat Subway sandwiches and strongly implying it was illegal to eat at Subway without one of these licenses and doing absolutely everything possible to convey this impression without actually saying the exact words "it is illegal to eat at subway without one of these licenses" (which would open them up to a preliminary injunction).
>> It's a safe bet that who ever they are going
;-)
>> after is in that list.
I'm not sure about that. Does the Vatican run Linux? That's about as close as we can get to: "SCO sues God" which seems to be the logical conclusion to all of this.
The open source zealots are committing suicide by the thousands in front of the borders of Utah!! No infidel penguinistas will ever devaluate our stock! Never!
====
Crudely Drawn Games
So what, a company that is broke that gets counter sued is still broke.
SCO has nothing to lose, that's the main reason they are doing this.
They just found a loophole in our legal system and are abusing it. They didn't get that 50M infusion to piss it away trying to sell a product. They already proved they couldn't make money doing that.
But they can can take that 50M into court and cause a lot of problems and increase the FUD.
5. "Darl McBride, -1 Troll!"
4. "New SCO docs at www.tubg...."
3. "Can someone help me fix a Perl script?"
2. "Bad news everyone, Stephen King is dead."
And the number one comment will be:
"Fuck you Darl!"
BTW, I'll be the one with the air horn.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
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 (=
Since they scheduled the announcement for their earnings call, the numbers must be truly awful this quarter. If they had good numbers to report, they wouldn't need a distraction like this.
Do you want to ask Darl McBride an embarrasing question or two in front of most of the financial world? Sure, we all do!
The problem, however, is this: In a financial results call, not just anyone is allowed to ask a question. The people presenting the call get to pick and choose who gets to speak. Usually, private investors, media, and anyone from a company that has generated bad press do not get called on. So what can we do to weasel our way to the front of the question queue?
Well, if SCO has set up their call intelligently, nothing. The access code, 141144, might be the public access code, with a different code (or even a different phone number) given to people who can be trusted to ask "good" questions. But if everyone is coming in on the same number, then we have a chance.
You'll know you have a shot at a question if, instead of being joined to the call immediately after entering your access code, you instead talk to an operator. The operator will most likely ask you your name, your company's name, and maybe your phone number. If this happens, lie to them. Make up a name and phone number, and tell them that you are with an investment firm. Just pick something: CIBC World Markets, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, anything like that will do. Bonus points if you pick a company that has invested in SCO. Write down your information so that you can remember it! The trick is to make yourself look like you'll ask a safe question, so that they'll look at you in the queue and say, "Hey, let's take that Eddie Smith from CSFB next..."
If you do get called on for a question, remember:
1) Be polite. "OMG Darl SUXXORZ!!!" will just generate a "There are no further questions at this time" from the operator.
2) Ask a difficult question that Darl hasn't answered before. Let him hang himself, it'll sink in better with the investors that way.
3) Keep going until they cut you off. They're not likely to let many more unfamiliar names ask questions after this.
4) If anyone asks, you didn't get any of these ideas from Slashdot.
Here's hoping for a great conference tomorrow!
Quoth the poster:
Unfortunately the worst enemy is one who has nothing to lose. SCO knows all their bases belong to IBM and if they lose (which they will) there will be nothing else left.
Excuse me, sir, but I must ask you for your geek card.
All their base are belong to IBM.
IBM to SCO: "You have no chance to survive make your time."
I have more and more emphaty for this company, because they turn out to be just like me...
So, as I've said, I just have to love SCO, because they are just like me. In fact they are just like most of us working here on Duke Nukem Forever. We are working forever...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."