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SCO Names 1st Lawsuit Target: AutoZone [Updated]
An anonymous reader writes "News.com
reports that SCO has filed the first (of two) soon to be infamous lawsuits. This one is aimed against car part retailer AutoZone, a multi-billion, Fortune 500 company according to the site. Who's next?" Another reader excerpts from SCO's posted claim: 'AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights.'
Update: 03/03 16:28 GMT by T : njan writes with the news that SCO just announced during their ongoing conference call another lawsuit, this one "to be filed against Daimler-Chrysler, alleging that they are infringing SCO's copyright by using code relating to 'core operating system functionality' of SCO System 5."
Or perhaps SCO hopes to take on Sun as well?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This will be quite a telling point in SCO's recent history.. whether they fail or succeed..
Let's just hope the judge looks at the merits of the case, and gets it thrown out. Precedent is a scary thing when it's involving IT cases.
I guess the world deserves to see the evidence of those claims. If they don't have one, they should go to hell and sue the devil for putting heat on them.
Well, I hope we can all give them their support anyway.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
The crux of this SCO case seems to not be "Autozone are using linux, and linux contains SCO code (millions of lines or just a few .h files) therefore they're infringing IP" as their press release propaganda infer, but that:
1. Autozone used to use SCO products, and their whole system relied on them
2. Autozone converted to Linux, and IBM made them do so
3. Autozone's custom software which used to run under SCO products now run under Linux
4. They still run well and changed over efficiently, therefore they MUST still be running SCO code/shared libraries/etc with linux to do so, which is a breach of their original contract with SCO.
SCO seem to be insinuating that this is about copyright SCO code in ALL of linux, and autozone are just one of millions of linux users who are infringing, but the details of the case show this is NOT true at all. That makes it FUD. The press have been told for MONTHS that SCO are taking issue with code in linux in general, but now legal action is underway, it's in a case that takes issue with existing SCO code used in linux by a client. No damage to linux in general despite the press releases.
As SCO say...
Upon information and belief, Autozone's new Linux based software implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries which had been stripped out of SCO's UNIX based OpenServer by IBM and embedded inside Autozone's Linux implementation in order to continue to allow the continued operation of Autozone's legacy applications. The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.
They claim IBM made moves to shift Autozone away from Linux, when SCO originally attempted to move autozone to linux themselves
They also claim that SCO shared libraries MUST be being used, because of the efficiency with which this changeover occurred. They don't get it, that they're not indispensible, and Autozone's systems did not rely largely on SCO specific features according to the guy who converted autozone's systems, who posted as such on groklaw here. The relevant parts of his post are:
As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.
As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.
I bet SCO keep insisting this is a generic copyright/linux issue, as they infer by claiming "AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights." and don't stress that it's a unique situation with regards to claims an existing customer switched to linux all too easily so must have both used linux and used SCO code in ways they weren't allowed to under their old contract
SCO is appearing like a jealous partner who just can't bear the thought that they're not the entire world to their clients, and are playing the stalking game, and running around town spreading rumours about infidelity. Nothing more, nothing less.
A case of oil, some new tools, anything else it looks like I might need in the forseable future.
Usually I hate paying for this stuff, but it will be a little sweeter knowing that at least some of it will go towards fighting off SCO.
Anyone out there setting up a legal defense fund so we can chip in to help these guys fight the good fight? If we don't help out SCO targets today, any of us could be next.
--G
If I've gotten this thing right, the claimed SCO source is in some specific versions of the Linux kernel... how exactly does SCO find out which version a company is using?
Out of all of the companies that use Linux, I think they choose the most random company.
Is there a way to DDoS Darl's car? Hmmm...
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
...the sound of the judge as SCO is laughed out of court, and thier lawyers are Disbarred for being DUMBASSes. This is a frivolas lawsuit for which any lawyer supporting deserves disbarring.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
...for fun and profit. I hope those of you considering startups are paying very close attention to SCO's revolutionary example. One day all business will be like this!
Autozone? This is way out of the typical "tech sphere"; I would have expected suits against other tech companies.
Now SCO is going to provoke the wrath of the automotive industry and enthusiasts; an entire new group of people to learn to hate SCO.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Perhaps they chose Autozone as an easy target? Cars aren't normally associated with computers that much so... perhaps they expect a non-tech based company to just get scared and settle for cash or maybe just do a bad job defending itself? This could just be their way of trying to stab at a large and noticeable, but "weak" target.
From GROKLAW with Thanks
Here's what SCO said about AutoZone in its Interrogatory Number 8:
SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSE TO INTERROGATORY NO. 8:
IBM interfered with SCO's software licensing agreement with Autozone for the SCO OpenServer software operating system, Contract # 1V736, effective January 24, 2001 (the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement). Under the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement, Autozone utilized the SCO software as the foundation from which to conduct all store operations including inventory tracking, point of sale transactions, back office server activities, event monitoring and to enable corporate updates to be transmitted to all retail locations.
In mid-2000, upon information and belief, IBM approached Autozone in an effort to induce Autozone to breach its agreement with SCO. In the second quarter of 2001, IBM was actively advising Autozone's internal software group about converting to Linux. In the second quarter of 2001, despite the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement with SCO, upon information and belief, IBM finally successfully induced Autozone to cease using the SCO software and to use Linux with IBM's version of UNIX. Autozone ultimately decided not to pay SCO the annual fee to continue to maintain the SCO products and, upon information and belief, with the encouragement of IBM, began the efforts required for conversion to Linux.
Upon information and belief, Autozone's new Linux based software implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries which had been stripped out of SCO's UNIX based OpenServer by IBM and embedded inside Autozone's Linux implementation in order to continue to allow the continued operation of Autozone's legacy applications. The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.
Upon information and belief, Autozone is currently in breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement in that Autozone is improperly using "shared libraries" (short cuts and methods which allow programs to interface with one another and the services of the operating system) contained in the OpenServer (UNIX based) operating system to enable "legacy applications" to function on Linux. Legacy applications are those versions of software applications that have a lengthy and proven track record of high level function and reliability. The legacy applications utilized by Autozone were designed specifically to operate with OpenServer (UNIX based) shared libraries, but do not function with Linux shared libraries.
IBM was aware of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement. IBM knew that the SCO OpenServer shared libraries were proprietary to SCO. Therefore, IBM knew, or should have known, that by assisting Autozone to implement Linux to support legacy applications by improperly incorporating the SCO OpenServer shared libraries, it was interfering with SCO's agreement with Autozone and otherwise inducing Autozone to act wrongfully towards SCO. Upon information and belief, IBM's inducing and assisting Autozone to breach its license agreement with SCO was an act that constitutes interference with contract. Upon information and belief, IBM profited by the interference by earning significant professional services fees in performing the switch from SCO OpenServer to Linux.
SCO does not presently know the specific dates on which the interference occurred, how it occurred or which IBM or Autozone employees were involved because SCO was not present when IBM sold Linux-related services to Autozone, when IBM assisted Autozone in the design of the new Linux system deploying legacy applications that depended on SCO OpenServer shared libraries in order to function, or when IBM performed the professional services to assist Autozone to improperly deploy OpenServer shared libraries inside its IBM-provided Linux implementation. More specific information, such as which IBM and Autozone employees were involved, is in the possession of IBM and/or Autozone and will require additional discovery from at least IBM and Autozone.
Now that SCO has pu their fraud, extortion, and racketeering on paper, when does the criminal suit from the DoJ get filed?
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada, requests injunctive relief against AutoZone's further use or copying of any part of SCO's copyrighted materials and also requests damages as a result of AutoZone's infringement in an amount to be proven at trial.
The company will discuss this announcement as part of its regularly scheduled conference call related to first quarter earnings, scheduled for Wednesday, March 3 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. To participate on the call, individuals may dial 1-800-818-5264 or 1-913-981-4910 and use the confirmation code: 141144. Alternatively, a listen-only live web cast is available at http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm. Call participants are encouraged to dial in 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.
SCO is having a phone conference today at 9:00am MST (11:00am EST), remember?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Here is an interesting GrokLaw post from the man at AutoZone who helped them transition from UnixWare to Linux, blowing apart most of these claims.
Bearing in mind that this post is over 2 weeks old, you'd think someone at SCO would have noticed that their claims are basically debunked.
PS : SCO quarterly losses up to $2.25 million for fiscal Q1. Ouch.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
And hang them on your Linux box!
Lawsuit Zone!
The Linux(R) Kernel Personality (LKP) for UnixWare 7.1.3 provides Linux environment hosted on the UnixWare kernel. This environment does not contain a Linux kernel, but does contain the RPMs needed to run most Linux applications. By invoking the UnixWare kernel to run the Linux application, the application gets all of the performance and scalability advantages that UnixWare delivers. Linux applications that are disk or database intensive, or require support for a large number of users, typically perform with greater stability, reliability, and scalability when deployed on the UnixWare LKP environment.
Access to the Linux and UNIX environments is provided for both applications and the user. Common system files, such as password files, are automatically updated between environments.
SCO understands that customers are looking for alternatives to Linux. But making changes always introduces risk. LKP is an easy and low risk tool to help the migration from Linux to UnixWare. The benefits of LKP are:
Yeah SCO... you /really/ understand alright!
Problem is, We'll still be waiting a long time before this case is heard out. SCO might even be out of the picture then.. =(
The SCO won't ever give up. Get used to it.
In the second quarter of 2001, despite the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement with SCO, upon information and belief, IBM finally successfully induced Autozone to cease using the SCO software and to use Linux with IBM's version of UNIX. Autozone ultimately decided not to pay SCO the annual fee to continue to maintain the SCO products and, upon information and belief, with the encouragement of IBM, began the efforts required for conversion to Linux.
Sounds like SCO is whining because someone dropped their old, obsolescent Unix. So if I trade in a Chevy for a Ford, GM can sue me if I still have payments left on my loan?
And this:
The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux.
In other words, we at SCO are too dumb to make Linux work, so IBM had to steal our stuff to make their solution work.
And so it begins...
Why would SCO not take on a more easily defeatable company, i.e. a software company? Autozone has thousands if not millions of loyal blue-collar customers that could care less what o/s Autozone is running. If SCO wanted to make a point by suing someone, it should be RedHat or some such company that is distributing the systems. You can't blame Autozone for buying a product, but you can blame the company that sold it to them.
stuff |
So now SCO's sleazy game extends to Autozone shareholders.
The symbol is AZO. As of this writing they're down $4.40, to 84.00, in pre-market trading.
SCO "believes" that AutoZone violated its license with SCO by using shared libraries? Of course, the evidence SCO must have on that one is piled high.
However, I "believe" that SCO is the biggest bunch of dumbasses around. My evidence for that is really piled high.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
SCO: you stole our stuff! ... like, our stuff. ...er? we need more info than that.
Autozone: what stuff?
SCO: you know
Autozone:
SCO: I could tell you but then i would have to kill you!
I can remember more than once being at the 24hr Autozone and not being able to purchase anything cause thier system was down for cleanup. This being like midnight on a friday or such. I disticntly remember the terminals all had SCO in the text blurb on them. Maybe I was confused.. I was afer all getting car parts in the middle of the night. Crappy parts at that, considering I was at Autozone.
Psh... Linux, Unix, whatever. They should just be sued on the grounds that they encourage "ricing out" cars and have that terrible CG tire and jingle in their cable commercials.
Get in the zone... Aww - tow - zone! (We have lightbars for your shitty Honda Civic!)
A bunch of geeks from SCO and their lawyers (IAAL - we're all pencil-necked geeks, too) are taking on a bunch of greaser/gearheads who can call on their new spokesman biker/builder Monster Garage host Jesse James for help.
Those tatooed knuckles and huge guns of his could make short work of this fight.
Yeah, informative with reference to a Slashdot piece from 2 fricjing days ago...
After just reading this thread and Groklaw afterwards... I think that SCO should give /. more credit, especially after the "the ranting and dribble that takes place on Slashdot" comment...
Now then Ye Prophets of SlashDot, what more predictions can we get from our 'crystal balls' (LCD screens will do) today :)
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Mod parent down, the link is mislinked.
The article
Everyone, if you're good at doing so, write a letter
to Autozone so they know the current situation
and won't go down without a fight.
There's one up the road here. While I'm looking for a job, maybe I should apply for a job there to help fight the SCO Evil Empire and promote linux!
is from a reader on Groklaw. He believed that SCO filed suit in Nevada to avoid the judges in Utah because if they had brought this crap before them, the judges in Utah would have whacked SCO so hard on the pee-pee that Darl's grandkids would be sterile.
Go get'em Judge Kimball and Wells!
The meat of SCO's case will not be the IP Infringment. They are also trying to catch AutoZone for a contract violation in the contract they signed when they bought SCO Unix. They might be able to win a breach of contract suit. The problem is that they will do their best to spin it to the press as a Linux IP infringement suit. Just another pump and dump scheme.
Couldn't SCO just, uh, WORK instead of playing the lifetime stoner child that won't leave home?
how the hell did this get marked as informative, did anyone actually CLICK the link? (or look at the url)
interesting comment refuting some of SCOX claims. Here is the full comment in case groklaw is overloaded (quite often these days):
Out of all the companies worldwide that are running linux, they chose autozone?
Is anyone keeping score? How many lawsuits are out there re: sco now anyway.
Sco vs. IBM and IBM countered with
IBM Vs. SCO then Novell jumped in? I checked Groklaw and I can't make heads or tails.
Who's keeping score?
LINDON, Utah, Mar 3, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (SCOX, Trade), owner of the UNIX operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today reported revenue of $11,392,000 for the quarter ended January 31, 2004. In the comparable quarter of the prior year, the Company generated revenue of $13,540,000. Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2004 was in line with the Company's expectations, and was comprised of $11,372,000 from UNIX products and services and $20,000 from SCOsource initiatives.
For the first quarter of fiscal year 2004, the Company reported a net loss applicable to common stockholders of $2,253,000, or $0.16 per diluted common share. The Company reported a net loss applicable to common stockholders of $724,000, or $0.06 per diluted common share, in the comparable quarter of the prior year. The net loss applicable to common stockholders for the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 was reduced by $3,624,000 of income resulting from the change in fair value of the derivative associated with the Company's previously issued Series A Convertible Preferred Stock. The loss from operations for the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 was $5,169,000 compared to a loss of $738,000 for the comparable quarter in the prior year. The loss from operations for the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 includes costs of $3,440,000 related to the Company's SCOsource licensing initiatives. These initiatives had not yet commenced in the comparable quarter of the prior year.
"Our revenue and results of operations for the first quarter were consistent with our expectations," said Darl McBride, President and CEO. "In coming quarters, we will continue to expand our SCOsource initiatives, with an ongoing campaign to defend and protect SCO's intellectual property assets, which will include continued end-user lawsuits and negotiations regarding intellectual property licenses. At the same time, we are committed to supporting our extensive UNIX customer base and leveraging our UNIX business for future growth opportunities. Over time, these two efforts are expected to yield positive long-term results for our stockholders."
Financial Outlook
The following financial outlook reflects expected contributions from the Company's two business lines, SCOsource and UNIX products and services. These statements are forward looking and actual results may differ materially. See the discussion of certain risks and uncertainties related to this financial outlook at the end of this release under "Forward-Looking Statements."
For its second fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2004, the Company currently expects total revenue to be in the range of $10,000,000 to $14,000,000. Revenue from the Company's SCOsource initiatives remains difficult to predict in the short-term due to the nature of these licensing transactions and the variability of the timing of revenue recognition. However, the Company anticipates revenue from its SCOsource initiatives will increase in future periods.
Operating expenses relating to the Company's UNIX business for the next three quarters are anticipated to decrease from the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 and comparable quarters of the prior year as the Company's worldwide operations continue to become more efficient. Expenses associated with SCOsource initiatives for the next three quarters are expected to remain consistent with expenses incurred in the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 as the Company continues its legal strategy to enforce and protect its UNIX intellectual property.
Conference Call
As previously announced, the Company will host a conference call at 11:00 a.m. EST today, March 3, 2004, to discuss its first quarter 2004 results. To participate in the teleconference, please call (800) 818-5264 or (913) 981-4910, confirmation code 141144, approximately five minutes prior to the time stated abo
Apart from checking a publicly accessibly box (i.e. web server), How can you legally prove that company X is running linux - aside from entering the premises and logging in.
And unless the login prompt says "Welcome to company Y's Linux system" how do you prove that such system is running linux - a version of linux that has your "IP".
I don't think that X/Gnome/KDE login screens give the version of linux that you're running either.
I'm not sure if even the version will suffice. The version one admin is running mightn't even have the parts that SCO claim are theirs. Where does that leave you ?
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Being from Memphis, I am well aware how supportive AutoZone folks are of Linux, as many AutoZone techs are members of GOLUM.
I hope AutoZone countersues them into the ground in a most genteel, southernly manner.
Now off for my morning bowl of hot grits.
No, Vern. They just let him in.
The day after I get a job offer from AutoZone, they get sued by SCO. Great. Just fuckin' great.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
It probably just means they run a WebSphere product as an app server. I'm willing to bet their website had nothing at all to do with the decision to litigate. Odds are, they run in-store or warehousing systems, etc. on Linux servers.
There's more than webservers in life, kids.
They must believe that these guys will fold without taking this all the way to trial.
Even though the claims are crap, this has to hurt Autozone in the stock market, where perception is more important than reality.Is there not some kind of law against frivolous lawsuits soley for the purpose of slander?
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of backdoor dealing going on to get a settelment out of this or another case that SCO can waive around to continue the FUD. It would be illegal, but since when has that stopped anyone. Ken Lay got away with it, why not Darl?Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Is it any wonder that they announced this before the opening bell? Autozone's stock is now drifting lower. Darl's probably got a order placed already to snap up some low priced stock.
I call Bullshit either way.. when will the madness end.. Cant someone file a injunction to shut SCO up until this is proven in court?
From their press release, it seems like the AutoZone suit is not particularly related to "SCO IP in Linux," but to some SCO libraries that AutoZone may or may not have used it improperly.
But it does not matter. Could we discuss AutoZone tomorrow, please?
This is only a distraction from a bleak quarterly report. A rather blantantly obvious diversion. And Timothy, you should know better than this. This story should have been titled "SCO losses double for Q1 2004," or something like that. You should not be helping SCO manipulate the press.
1. Make general noise about Linux
2. Sue company that _might_ have improperly used SCO libraries in a Linux migration
3. If this succeeds, reinforce the first point.
The whole goal seems still to be to create FUB about Linux, not to gain any real compensation. Sueing one of your ex-customers because they switched to another OS? A bit of a bad joke.
The inescapable conclusion is that SCO are acting in someone else's interests, and the obvious winner here would be Microsoft. Maybe SCO just really like MS and really hate Linux.
As soon as I seen they were filing suit against a former customer who had dumped their OS for linux I knew SCO's going down. They just want to slap a couple people on their way out of the building. I mean might as well it's not like it's their money in the stocks.
... just not sure what yet ..
Instead of a golden parachute the CEOs of SCO have opted for a semi-bronze boxing glove.
I'm buying something tonight from Autozone
*DrugCheese rants*
Apparently the best way to get sued by SCO is to do business with them.
1. Autozone used to use SCO products, and their whole system relied on them
Autozone used to be a totally SCO shop for all of their point of sale systems.
2. Autozone converted to Linux, and IBM made them do so
IBM had nothing to do with their switching to linux. It was solely based on the fact SCO did not support Autozon in the way and for the cost Autozone felt they should be handled. THus Autozone decided to go with a cheaper alternative as SCO's support was crap.
So, if you wish to tell a story as a member of The linux user group here in Memphis (Autozone's corporate Headquaters,) Learned a great deal and are supported by autozone and allow us to utilize their meeting rooms to benefit the Linux community. And in this has been a pretty big topic and was expectted.
Essentially, Sco had a choice a long time ago, start making more advanced products that can compete. When this did not occur they lost their market share. Now they are calling foul when they are not able to compete.
I can just see the upcoming headlines...
"SCO group, while announcing on Thursday the impending lawsuit of its last and final customer, saw its stock price rise, then fall, then mysteriously hover at an oddly inflated price."
In a related story, Darl McBride who was recently marooned on a deserted island after a freak plane wreck, was forced to resort to self-cannabalism to survive. Mr. McBride was quoted as saying "ladyfingers-- they taste just like ladyfingers!"
peace
--Pete "I do my shopping at Autozone" Shaw
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
For those of you that have been in an autozone, you notice they have the dumb terminals at the parts counter. If you notice this dumb terminal runs a text based interface where you pu tin the year, car make, model, engine size, etc to look up parts. I was in an Autozone once and the server for the dumb terminals happened to lock up. This was 2 or 3 years ago when it happened. I watched the dumb terminal display as it rebooted and came up with some version of redhat (or another distro, I don't really remember too well) and had kernel 2.3 on it.
Responding to the other replies of this article, just because a company doesn't run Linux on their web server to the world, doesn't mean they don't use Linux for other things.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
before SCO just sues itself for breaching its own contract..
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
You know I really hope Darl doesn't drive a car down those winding streets after a tune-up :-)
yeah, we would have used our computer to diagnose your car but it runs Linux. Thanks for the lawsuit. So instead we threw lawn darts at the internals and leaked all your brake fluid. Have a nice day!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It's really sad that Darl's shining moment during the interview was an O.J. joke...
Yet again, the facts aren't in SCO's favor. Read this comment from the former Sr Technical Advisor at AutoZone, who directed the migration and personally ported much of the code.
SCO's only arguement that AutoZone has copied their shared libs to linux is:
Once more, SCO's making a lot of noise, but the facts are clearly against them.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The headline I want to see is:
Autozone sues SCO under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for attempted extortion.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Need some computer parts?, perhaps a new headlight, some oil, washer fluid... Neon for you cpu case. Driving gloves for those long coding sessions?
You know where to go now...
Make me proud to think that some of the 200 bucks i just spent on parts for my car will go to laying the smack down on Darl. Of course if they roll over I will just have to take my business elsewhere.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Get in the Zone, AutoZone.
You can email autozone's investor relations here:
investor.relations@autozone.com
In a positive way for a change. I'm going to go out and buy a new set of plugs, a filter and a case of oil right now.
It's nice to be able to add someone to the "support them" list instead of the Boycott list, like EV1.
Hang Tight, AZ. You've just gained a mess of geek support.
Imagine Autozone converted to away from SCO UNIX and over to MacOSX or BeOS or OS/2 or Windows instead of Linux
It would be exactly the same case - an SCO ex client moving from UNIX to must have used SCO shared libraries as part of the solution because it went so smoothly.
So really this case has nothing to do with Linux at all, looked at in that manner.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402150 15800694#c78161
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Having owned an old car a few years ago, ...)
I often would run to AutoZone to get some
spare parts (that was a time, when I experimented
with Caldera Linux on one of my boxes
Autozone's IT made a good impression. Their
database impressed me. They always came up
with the right spare parts within seconds.
Not to mention that the mechanics there were
ready to share advise or even lend me some tools.
It looks like Autozone has been using Redhat since 1999.
Zoid.com
Apparently their strategy is to sue their own former and defecting customers. This is a worst-case scenario for SCO customers. Autozone was cited in the complaint against IBM as an example of a licensed Openserver client whom had been lured away to the Linux dark side by IBM, If you know of anyone who is considering signing their company into any SCO contract of any sort, especially an "intellectual property license", THIS SHOULD SERVE AS A WARNING OF WHAT TO EXPECT. All SCO appears to be offering is a license to be sued, and here's the proof.
Jim Greer had a good comment on groklaw a few weeks ago about Autozone and the details of their linux transition.
It is absolutely clear that SCO just wants to slashdot (the word that just pretends to be more friendly than DDOS) those websites. ;-)
I used to laugh at SCO but now they stopped being funny.
/. jokes, but I smiled. A little. At the beginning. ;-)), but now they're just not funny anymore.
Before they sued that company, they were just a dying corp making a big PR splash with a lot of FUD and horseshit to drive their stock price up and make a lot of money. Unethical, dishonest, but no big deal. Now that they're actually suing Fortune 500 Linux-using companie(s), they could actually hurt the OS. Suits will be much more wary about switching if legal tells them they could get sued for it, no matter how much bullshit the lawsuit actually is. At first I laughed at the verbose arguments, the OSS community's cinglant responses and the Slashdot jokes (okay, maybe I didn't laugh at the
They've gone from evil, but ridiculous and harmless, to evil and actually dangerous. The OSS community is a great, grand thing, and now that they're actually starting to get dangerous we should be able to mobilize the power to squash them out of relevance/existence. Couldn't an org like the FSF or a big player like IBM countersue?
The how doesn't matter. What matters is that I've stopped laughing at SCO and I now consider them as a danger.
Jesse James, Autozone's new spokesman. They will probably find all their tires slashed and the doors to SCO headquarters welded shut tomorrow morning.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Their terminals are Linux terminals...
Well, either that or true dumb terminals dumping into a linux server. Whatever the setup, they use alot of linux at autozone.
It's always interesting to see someone roll out a linux box. Incidently, does anyone know what Lowe's is using? (Its IBM hardware... and I can't tell if thats CDE or something goofy)
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Honestly, my experiences with AutoZone have been fairly negative. Prices were high, work was messed up (they suggested I needed an entirely new radiator, when I got a second opinion, it was a faulty cap, a significantly less expensive prospect.)
But c'mon, do we really need to be concerned about this anymore? Both IBM and Autozone have their hordes of starving lawyers waiting to bite chunks out of the decaying body of SCO. I'm sure their other target is going to be equally able to defend itself. And where's it going to go anyway. SCO as of yet hasn't proven any of its code is existent in GNU/Linux. Even if it does, or proves Autozone used some of their shared libraries (unlikely, but in this case actually possible for once), it's going to be a one time deal. Code will be replaced, SCO will get their damages, and maybe postpone their death a little bit.
Honestly, the only thing I'm curious now, is why haven't their programmers already jumped ship, and made whatever attempts they can at disaccociating themselves before the group goes belly-up.
7-eleven and wal-mart. Those pesky buggers at 7-eleven use a modified version of GNU/Linux to run their cash registering machines! I propose we sue them for a trillion billion dollars!
Well, maybe I am wrong, but...
gnu.org is currently down, is it related or offtopic?
How does D. McBride put on his pants in the morning? He obviously can't find his ass with both hands!
"Let's pay $1.5 Million in legal fees to prepare this case against AutoZone" while the case against IBM is still in progress.
If the judgement in the case with IBM is against SCO, won't the case with AutoZone also be decided? (Whether or not SCO has a license to this evil Linux code?)
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Oh, so you have "SCO derivitave works" that were illegally used on Linux, too?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"Get in the ZONE! AUTO ZONE!"
Whoops, looks like a misinterpretation of the commercial.
Will Auto Zone put what's essentially an SCO Tax on car parts if they have to pay up?? Better get your fuzzy dice now before they add five cents to the price of everything...
Of course, since SCO has not proved ownership of the code yet, I expect this to get thrown out of court fairly quickly. Auto Zone can afford good lawyers.
Man o Man...
They are going to get flamed to death for not using "GNU/Linux"....
Poor litigious bastards!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
--From a GrokLaw.net post--
I know Mr. Greer, although not well, as I was hired at the time of his leaving.
Everything he said is verifiably true.
I am still employed by said company, and there is very little truth in SCOs
statement at all. I am one of the ones who helped engineer the method by which
we moved store systems over to Linux, and *I* was almost solely responsible for
it happening as quickly as it did.
We did not, and do not, employ IBM for assisstance with Linux. We do not use a
distribution from IBM, nor have we in the past. The only company who has given
us Linux "services" is RedHat, and that was a support agreement which
did us no good, since they were unable to help us with the migration (they
basically told us that what we wanted to do was impossible). The speed and
efficiency with which Linux was deployed was a direct result of J.Greers work,
followed by the work that myself and a few others did.
By the way, I have patented the method of walking whereby you place one foot in
front of the other.
Anyone walking from now on, is using a derivative work of mine, and you owe me
money by not properly licensing my system of locomotion from me. Also, you
cannot teach anyone else to walk, either by example or description.
Kiss my a$$ SCO.
As a symbolic gesture, I suggest people go to AutoZone and buy an air freshener.. Symbolically, it'll help clear out the stink that SCO's making. Total cost to you: $1-$3.
Put your money where your mouth is: AutoZone Reigonal Store Locator
Even if SCO succeeds, AutoZone will be able to pay them off via air freshener sales to thoughtful Linux users.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Mod parent down. for being a vindictive karma-whore
Article here
(and no I'm not the grand-parent!)
They wanted someone: (a) large enough to have $, (b) large enough to get noticed, (c) with a documented relationship with IBM, (d) AND a documented relationship with SCO but (e) non-technical enough so that they are more easily intimidated.
(c) is important so that they can have something concrete to tie it in to IBM. (d) is important so that they can always try the breach of contract claim if the IP dispute is dismissed. Keeping the breach claim around gives them extra time to try to keep the case around.
With (e) I think their effort here is to pick a technologically weak company with shareholders who have less of a technical education. This allows them to file, the AutoZone shareholders see the suit, panic (because they have less of a technical background than, say, RedHat) and hope tha AZ will settle quickly to make the suit go away.
I don't think it will work, but I can see the logic for picking this particular target for their thug-like tactics.
I would expect something to distinguish the second target so that they couldn't consolidate the two cases.
This will probably be marked redundent since every time SCO puts out another press release or does anything that looks like something wallstreet wets it's pants and SCOX starts to rise in value. /me takes another hit off the crack pipe and buys some more SCOX stock.
contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization
Is this *really* copyrightable? How can you copyright an organization? Perhaps you can patent a method of organizing something, but copyright? I had thought that copyright applies only to a tangible, set of information, such as lines of code, a written document, a work of art.
The first attempts to scare us centered around "infringing code". Now are they trying to say that "Your Linux looks too much like our Unix?" As far as I'm concerend, Looks like and IS are two different things.
Do you think SCO is trying to scare AutoZone into just settling out of court?
Sometimes, it's a whole lot cheaper for a company to just settle out of court. That's a tactic of some companies with IP. They go after companies, especially small ones, knowing that it's cheaper to pay them off instead of fighting the lawsuit. Just scaring them with large legal bills is enough to get folks to settle. It doesn't matter if the suit has merit, proving it in court still costs a shit load.
Sometimes, our legal system really digusts me.
Apologies to Ronnie and the Daytonas and their "GTO" song:
"Little SCO, youre really lookin fine
Three lawsuits and a make me pay $699
Listen to Darl yackin up now, listen to Darl why-ee-eye-ine
Cmon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out SCO"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
..watch out the next time you need a small fix for your car. Might be safer to buy a new one.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
So much for all the people who bragged about knowing it was google. *And of course, if they don't, I'm going to ignore it and hope no one notices :)
I noticed, mr. know-it-all.
Serously though, who would have guessed AutoZone. I didnt even know about them until today. Something tells me this will be a big advertiser for them.
SAILING MISHAP
Hidden away in their financial report, they mention that in the last quarter they sold $20,000 worth of SCOSource licenses. Don't spend it all at once, guys!
Fixed link.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Anyways, now that the Caldera SCOunks have attacked completely uninvolved parties the finishing off of that rabid animal can't be far away.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Gee, I wonder which of them will be next?
I can just see it in the courtroom:
AutoZone: How do you know what we are running?
SCO: Ummmm
AutoZone: Shall I repeat?
SCO: Umm....Magic?
-Charlie
(Note: I know that isn't exactly what Nmap is for, but I thought it was funny and topical)
(Note2: Isn't is sad that disclaimers like this must exist on Slashdot for the sarcasm impared?)
you mean cars have parts ? like a computer?
SCO loss double: here
Heck, I drive a POS anyhow...guess I'll just go to AutoZone to buy my parts for it!
That shall explain this latest of my brainfarts. (crawls under my "zone"...)
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
But here's a link to a yahoo news report filed this morning at 8:21am re: this law suit.
;)? (Still $20,000 too much if you ask me!).
An interesting part is a few paragraphs down;
"Total revenue fell to $11.4 million from $13.5 million, though the most recent period included $20,000 in licensing revenue from Linux users."
Does that settle the argument over how much EV1 paid for their licenses
SCO is going to do a lot to promote linux by
spotlighting companies that use it. My boss will
never again be able to say "no serious company
trusts kiddie software like Linux for anything
critical"
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Shouldn't sco first have to file a cease and desist or something, rather than just going through the lawsuit?
I mean, they would have to prove that AutoZone knowingly and willingly did these things. The way SCO is working would be like arresting someone who found a body burried in the yard of the house they just bought. They didn't know it was there.
If they wrote it in house, how could they have used SCO's code? It's Autozone's code.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
This totally reminds me of college. Oops. Paper's due and I forgot. Time to pull something out of my ass and hope no one notices.
Suing their former customers. Now THAT's how you attract new customers.
Bastards!
Oh this is sweet - I want to see Darl face his acuse-ees - him toe to toe against the guys behind the counter at a bunch of AutoZones.
Can't wait for Darl's next impromptu sidewalk chat.
Who's the next lawsuit, Darl? Teamsters? Gold's Gym? California Governor's Office?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I have to admit, choosing AutoZone was a good move on his part in order to spread his FUD about Linux...
...
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada, requests injunctive relief against AutoZone's further use or copying of
AutoZone uses Linux in their stores, if they were to get this injuction they would effectively shut AutoZone down, a huge chain of stores that effects millions of both geeks and computer illiterate alike. And they (M$ and SCO) would obviously spin it as "See, look what using Linux gets you...."
Autozone might not be in the market of selling tech, but their organization relies on their IT infrastructure, which is ahead of its class in the field. They have an amazing system, it's run like a well oiled (no pun intended) machine, and their IT is their major competitive advantage to keep their costs lower than their competitors.
They're pretty much the FedEx of the auto industry.
for me to go to autozone.... (working on sweet vw rabbit i just bought)
Hi!
There are a couple of reasons to sue AutoZone. Neither have much to do with AutoZone's tech savvy or their understanding of the different *nix kernels. They're both about business.
Let's talk microeconomics
The cost of any good is measured in currency and utility. Put simply, you'll buy a product if a) it contains what you want, and b) you want it badly enough. That's why people routinely pay $1.09 in a convenience store for bottles of water--they realize that the water is worth pennies (at best), but the convenience of the bottle (and the refrigeration) make the purchase worthwhile. Similarly, utility can be expressed as "reputation," "quality," "resale value," and similar terms. The reason you drive a Honda, rather than a substantially less-expensive Chrysler, is the utility cost of the car. Key point: utility is a significant factor in the price of a good.
The point of this lawsuit isn't to punish AutoZone themselves. It is to raise the utility cost of using Linux in the eyes of other businesses. Probably the single biggest utility cost that managers evaluate is risk. The great marketplace advantage of Linux is that a company can download a copy for free. (They could care less about "free as in speech." They're only interested in "free as in beer.") Microsoft has argued that Linux has a higher TCO--which is effectively asserting a utility cost. SCO is now raising another kind of utility cost: the likelihood of being sued.
The impact will be substantial, and immediate: auto parts retailers run thousands of POS systems. Any company using a Unix-based POS system (and there are tens of thousands of them across the U.S.) who has even been contemplating moving to a Linux-based system is having meetings this morning to assure senior management (or just try to assure senior management) that SCO is bluffing. This afternoon those same senior managers will be talking to lawyers, who will likely tell them that while SCO probably is bluffing, SCO can bluff in court for a long time, and who wants to be lawsuit #2? The effect of this lawsuit is to dramatically raise the ultimate cost of any Linux-based solution.
The other reason: making SCO look more attractive to IBM
Remember that SCO is primarily focused on litigation with IBM. SCO claims that IBM is the reason that Unix code "leaked" into Linux--many observers in the financial markets believe that SCO is really angling to get bought by IBM in a new dot-com form of greenmail. IBM was involved in developing AutoZone's new POS system--but evidently did not indemnify AutoZone against claims of infringement (a common practice in licensing these kinds of systems). AutoZone has liability insurance to cover this kind of claim (any company does). But that coverage almost certainly requires that the insurance company have the "free and unfettered right to conduct a defense". Because the suit is based on actions by IBM, the insurance company will instantly seek to force IBM to indemnify AutoZone. If IBM declines, the insurance company will sue IBM on AutoZone's behalf. That instantly creates a bunch of costs (legal costs, outside counsel costs, etc.) for IBM. And, since it's likely that IBM's own insurors will respond to the claim from AutoZone's insurors, sooner or later somebody will say, "hey--it's cheaper to just buy these jerks out." Which is precisely what SCO wants.
This isn't about free software.
Darl and his investors aren't doing this out of a noble belief in the goodness of their cause--or due to a bad case of technomegalomania. They're doing it because they expect an significant return on their investment. They use a legal claim that has enough merit to at least get them into court, and they leverage that claim to make enough of a nuisance that IBM buys them out at a premium. They make a couple of million, and move on. It's about money.
Anyone? SCO openserver. They called it OLD & DOS. Lucky for me I know how to boot SCO from my tech support days. So I didn't have to wait.
They were saying they had a new system to replace the "OLD DOS" one out back waiting to be installed. Hopefully it's Linux based.
Wonder how long it will be before companies are asking SCO to sue them, just for the marketing boost.....
The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, ...
What a sweet testimonial to the ease of migration to Linux! I hope all the Linux companies will make use of SCO's public opinion in their marketing materials.
Thanks, SCO!... that I will continue to talk out of my ass about things which I have no real knowledge of, and I will certainly not RTFA. This, however, will not affect any moderation.
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
So, Mr CEO Marsh, do you feel *more* protected from scox now that you have a contract with scox?
Remember the words of scox's cfo, chriss sontag: "contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with."
What you have bought, for your $1M+, Mr Marsh? Now your company is much more at risk of a lawsuit from scox. Plus, you've alienated the linux community. Last I read, about 28% of your linux users are threatening to take their business elsewhere. What does it take to get a job like yours, Mr Marsh? An IQ below 80?
In a better world, AutoZone would be in trouble over the cheesy car trinkets they sell, not for using Linux.
My wife (and a Linux user) will be hopping mad!
If I were Autozone, I'd just ask Jesse James to go help Darl McBride get in the, "Zone". :)
Then maybe SCO would come to their senses?!#& :)
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Benjamin Franklin"
Sorry you can't transfer ownership of a vehicle while there is a lien outstanding.
The person suing you would be that Ford dealer for not actually giving ownership of the vehicle to them.
Anyone notice in the Hardball video clip next to zdnet story, that Darl uses the same example of unpredictability in the courts (that OJ was acquitted) that Robert Marsh uses in his letter to EV1 customers justifying buying a SCO license? And it appears that the Darl Hardball interview happened on the same day that people report seeing Darl and Robert "hanging out" together, just before the announcement of this deal was made.
I can just picture Daryl with his arm around Bob's shoulder, trying to convince him to buy the license...
"Come on man, we're like OJ."
Please be Disney...
Please be Disney....
Please be Disney....
I hope Autozone files a countersuit. I wonder how many charges they could stack up. Racketeering? Extortion? SLAPP (I believe Utah has SLAPP laws)? They could go get the AT&T vs the Regents of the University of California case unsealed, prove that the original UNIX copyrights are all but unenforcable (Didn't Caldera GPL them anyway?) and have SCO owing them the $3 Billion that SCO's trying to get from IBM before that case is even done.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
All we probably need to do whenever we see SCO FUD is to have a quick look at a small selection of natural fallacies. This should clear things up quickly.
So, shall I gratuitously quote the Wookie defense, because that's probably all SCO has going for it now?
I work for one of AutoZone's competitors (of sorts...we do more wholesale than retail business).
I'm largely a counterpart to Mr. Greer from AutoZone.
We use an ASP-type approach. All of our software is text-based, with our primary servers running in our datacenter, with a large frame-relay network for connectivity. Each and everyone of our stores has a Linux system sitting in it, handling the terminals, printers, desktop (Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.), and back-office networking.
Our application servers in our datacenter still run on SCO, with Sybase running under W2K (at our vendor's request, at the time).
We're looking at doing the same thing as AutoZone sometime soon--a port to Linux server-side as well, moving to our app servers running Linux, and our database under Linux as well.
Here's one for hoping AutoZone pulls this one off right! The last thing I need is someone here getting into a panic over this crap!
The first rule of Linux is... you do not talk about Linux.
The second rule of Linux is... you DO NOT talk about Linux!!!
Third rule of Linux: when SCO yells "stop", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.
yup.
>> SCO is probably banking on being able to cow AutoZone into an out of court settlement to fatten the coffers.
I think it's more likely that SCO knows that AZ realizes that this is lawsuit is without merit. This suit is either part of their stock agenda, or a favor to some players in the tech market (eg microsoft). As others have noted, Bill is not unhappy with SCO's current actions.
and I will also continue to spell correctly, but use the wrong word.
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
It's a one time opportunity to be worthy of a "I got sued by SCO" T-shirt
xb0x
Given my reading of the previous filings by SCO, I think that the parent is correct. Those two are HIGHLY likely to be the next victims.
Do you honestly think EV1Servers paid the SCO tax? I suspect..SCO would have just asked them to show up as their first licensee (to show the world that companies are taking them seriously) while actually letting them have it for free. I would not be surprised, if it was SCO which paid EV1Servers for the shoddy deal !!!
Think about it, in it's own way its brilliant...
/.'s, just think of the spin (M$ and SCO) would put on this if they were able to get an injuction against AutoZone from using Linux, effectively shutting down their stores - millions of people, that have nothing to do with the tech industry would be effected. It would be all over the news - and why? They used Linux... I would have no doubt that one of either SCO or M$ would spin this so that everything is blamed on soley using Linux it self, and in effect while the tech world loves her - the rest of the world would despise and only view Legal as very illegal, consequently staying very far away from it...
Autozone has thousands if not millions of loyal blue-collar customers...
These customers, are for the majority are computer illiterate in comparison to us
You can blame autozone for buying a product and not paying the fees associated with that product and that is exactly what SCO is doing.
Keep in mind the goal is not to display dominance on the linux desktop (or server) market but it is to get the money they feel they are owed.
You hit a big fish like autozone and every other company out there using a linux system pays attention.
...they are fed up with being chewed up and spat out by knowledgeable tech companies. Thus they hope Autozone consists of a bunch of grease-monkeys and box-pushers, easily scared by technological jargon.
(please at least consider it)
They have how much in the bank, and are losing how much a quarter? Lets toss out a few pseudo-facts. Ambulance chasers will take a case if there is money backing it or they know they have a decent shot at prevailing. No one in their right mind will invest in SCO any more.
Those things said, some simple math will tell you when they will 'give up' due to lack of funds. Some more complex math, basically interpolating based on increasing quarterly losses put them at 'giving up' a few quarters earlier. If you were an SCO customer right now, would you renew your support contracts based on the fact that they will be there to answer the phone in a year?
Smart money says this lawsuit will make the few remaining clients they have run to the hills, and they will go away quite quickly.
-Charlie
Trading has only been going on for 10 minutes and already their stock has dropped almost 10%. SCO bastards need to die!!!
Yeah, it's inevitable he'll have to be deposed or testify if the case goes to trial, but his testimony (and/or Autozone's paper trail for the process) will kill the case dead, so it may well be worth the inconvenience (that's easy for ME to say...).
Of course, unless SCO can provide evidence with their complaint that their libraries WERE used, it may well not get to trial (remember that plaintiffs have to already have evidence of wrongdoing to sue, they cannot simply go discovery-fishing for it). For example, a sworn deposition and paper trail showing no improper use of SCO libraries could well result in a summary dismissal, if SCO does not show any reasonable prospect of prevailing on the merits. I think that is likely in this case.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I think they're making the calculation: "they're car parts people, they must be dumb. They don't understand software and will settle". Actually, AZO seems like a really tech savvy company. They're 7B$ big and won't let SCO get away with this crap. I also think we're going to see software companies come to their rescue in the lawsuit with money and/or legal briefs supporting them.
there's no place like ~
I am not sure why they would target AutoZone first? They are not making money from the software, just using it in their website, correct? Not a lot of gearheads that I know even have the slightest idea what this is about, and who can blame them. SCO is sure making a lot of enemies. Why not go after Nascar as well? I am sure they are using the technology somewhere.
SCO wants Linux users to buy licenses from them. So far, everyone SCO has sued has had a contract/license with them. SCO has said that contracts are tools to use AGAINST your business partners. Autozone was just one of the few companies that had a SCO Unix license (not a SCO Linux as far as I know). They will run out of SCO Unix customers to sue in short order. If you read the SCO Linux license you can see that it is very strict and easy to break (binary only, ie. can't compile your own kernel). Obviously they just want to sell Linux licenses so you can violate them. How many Linux users never compile the kernel from source? I bet not many. Looks to me that they just want to sell Linux licenses to get a bigger pool of companies to sue.
Let them know at the cash that you are buying your automotive needs from them because SCO is suing them, and that this is part of showing support for Autozone against SCO. You don't have to spend a lot of money, but make sure they know why you are buying it there rather than at PepBoys or your local gas station.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
You cannot test the GPL without someone sueing someone else... it may suck for the defendants, but you can't prove yourself without a challenge.
meh
How can this be any form of long term business model? I can't imagine that the cost of filing each of these suits is less than the license fees that they are bringing in. The base cost of the lawyers needed to research and produce the suit is much greater than what people have speculated that EV1 paid in fees.
This model only becomes effective if they can gain some sort of cost efficiency of mass suits and quick rollover rates.
Anyway, are any of these customers going to become long term SCO customers? No way....
This comment on GrokLaw speaks for itself:
Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST
I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.
As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.
As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.
One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.
I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.
Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.
Regards, Jim Greer
All I know is that I should be going to AutoZone instead of Advanced Auto Parts. Thanks SCO!
It seem to see a lot of mix up here. So far what I have understood is that the code SCO claims property to is that for allowing SVRV x86 apps to run on Linux, i.e. code that is not included in genral Linux distros and is primarily only of interest for people migrating from SCO to Linux (requires less mods to do a porting).
And yet reading press releases such as those linked to here we get the impression that SCO is claiming rights over Linux in general.
In reality there only claim would seem to be the right to charge rats for deserting a sinking ship.
Because this was the only even remotely reasonable outline of a case they could develop against anyone. Any other case (like one against Red Hat) would be put on hold until the IBM case was sorted out due to similarities. This one against AutoZone is different enough that it can progress independantly of the IBM case.
It's time to bring the law to SCO in he form of a suit citing RICO Act. These SCO Nazis are doing the same thing that the RIAA is doing. Blackmailing/coercing people/businesses into paying a bogus fee under threat of lawsuits.
but of course they won't do that. I don't have any assets (not compared to large companies). Big deal, sue me for $5 Billing and you might get all of $5 from me. Change my system over to BSD until they start suing them too. That should buy us 10 years or so to develop a completely new *nix replacement.
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
Isn't Jesse James pimping for them now?
Can you imagine him in this new ad campaign?
"I use RedHat Enterprise Linux 3 at West Coast Choppers... because it's just wrong."
Followed by him driving away in his jet powered Toyota Supra, dragging a server behind him.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
This lawsuit is only a PR stunt in order to distract attention from today's SCOX 1Q statement. So let me post a short summary:
The SCOX 1Q seems to be highly correlated with SCOX IQ --- i.e. it totally scox.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Well looks like the market didnt look the other way. SCO is down 10%.
Shame.
Currently AZO is off 5.5%.
Here's the scheme:
- Darl McBride is a Mormon, and this fact has been commented on.
- He is engaged in clearly fraudulent behavior, and holding Mormonism up for scorn.
- The LDS has been known to kick people out for giving the church a bad rap (e.g. Alice Cooper was excommunicated.)
- So... Let's start petitioning to have Darl excommunicated!
Think about it - sending him to hell for eternal damnation is much better than sending him to some Federal love-feast prison for stock fraud. Believe me, Hell is a real pound-you-in-the-&*(*&# kind of place.(No, I'm not a Mormon, and am not seriously proposing this - but if I were a Mormon, I would consider raising the issue. There are any number of articles out there pointing out the Mormon influence in SCOgroup/Caldera. This kind of fraudulent and misleading nonsense does nothing to promote the Mormons' nice-to-little-old-ladies-and-family-values PR campaigns.)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
So AutoZone broke the EUALA of UnixWare and put some binaray UnixWare .so files into some other OS (that happened to be Linux) without permission from SCO. If they had used a Linux only solution they would have bin fine.
Well, if this is the case, I hate to admit that I really think SCO should be compensated. After all if you have an agrement both parties are supposed to honer it. Just like SCO are supposed to honer GPL for their contributions to Linux.
This just shows that you should not under any circumstances do business with SCO.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
More proof this is just FUD!
Take a look at the headlines in the news articles about this case on google news
All along the lines of "SCO Sues AutoZone Over Use of Linux"
The case IS NOT ABOUT LINUX. It is about using SCO claiming that autozone are using SCO SHARED LIBRARIES IN A WAY THEY'RE NOT LICENSED TO.
I understand that and it seems you understand too.
However, the 'Linux community' has done this to themselves. By calling anything that touches a Linux Kernel "Linux" - SCO can now 'get away' with calling this case "SCO Sues AutoZone Over Use of Linux".
Yes, in the short term, an IBM buyout of SCO would settle all this. However, in the long run this makes "claiming to own a peice of the Linux pie, making outrageos self-contradictory statements, and suing everyone" a VERY attractive business model.
That idea is the reason governments and large companies will not pay a ransom if one of their executives is kidnapped. In the short term you may get the exec back, but in the long term you make them and all your other employees attractive targets for future kidnappings.
The only way for this to really end is for SCO's claims to be defeated in court and have SCO forced into bankruptcy. Any buyout offer opens the door for Sun or HP or Microsoft or someone we've never heard of to claim that they "own Linux" and start issuing lawsuits.
0 1 - just my two bits
Rule number one - if you're going to make an example of a company for your petty little war, don't pick the company that will be selling you brake pads and brake lines next month:
Clerk : Will that be all, sir? Just this replacement brake master cylinder?
Darl : Yes, thank you.
Clerk : May I have your name, sir?
Darl : Darl McBride
Clerk : [typing] Oh... Uh huh... Actually this isn't the right part sir. We do happen to have this special one for you right here, which is EXACTLY what you need.
Darl : Good. Because I really want my brakes to work well.
Clerk : Oh yes sir, this will really do the trick.
On our next episode of "You Picked the Wrong Target", SCO's legal team picks Allied Colonoscope Corporation to make their next example.
And in two weeks on a very special edition of "Wrong Target", Darl suffers a heart attack and discovers and mutters the immortal line "I didn't know defibrillators ran on Linux".
why can't tell SCO to shut the f*ck up, until they show the evidence or whatever. what a country of bastards.
Is it absolutely necessary to have a sig. ?
Autozone stock (AZO on NYSE) is down almost 7% as I write this. That's uninformed reaction... might be some easy money here. :)
Now if could either:
a) outsource the lawyers, or
b) get a law firm to sue another law firm for using Linux for their database / accounting systems...step back and watch the whole thing blow up in an tangled infinite loop of lawsuits.
I've been thinking about this whole SCO/Unix crap, and realized that, in all likelihood, SCO is going to lose because of a court case that dealt with a similar cloning incident.
The case was IBM's suit against Compaq for creating a clone of their IBM PC.
IBM lost primarily because the courts were ignorant at the time to the concepts of intellectual property that are commonplace now in the tech world. In my interpretation, the courts said that a "computer was a computer" and made little distinction between the uniqueness of the IBM PC and the ubiquity of the firmware and operating system it needed. In simpler terms, SCO may have an uphill battle because (1) Unix has been genericized by all the compatible versions and clones, and (2) SCO has waited too long to resolve this, and (3) remedies that SCO would desire through the courts would have grave financial and operational ramifications that could very well undermine the country's businesses' ability to conduct business if they had to drop what they are using, just to use an SCO product. (Never mind the monopolistic intent of SCO in this matter.)
Compare the PC clone wars to the Unix argument. If you as a development see (as in read) a piece of copyrighted Unix code, then whip out your computer and write up code that handles the same task as what you read without actually creating a copy of what you read, but only the ideas spawned from it, then you haven't violated a thing.
SCO must show that their code was truly and unmistakably copied (as in plagiarized) from their actual code base.
SCO will likely be unable to provide this proof because look and feel is not the argument, but the code's true origin is. In other words, just because some software looks like SCO's duck and walks like SCO's duck doesn't mean that it was created from any of SCO duck's DNA. The actual code to make a program is copyrightable, but as any book publisher can tell you, the idea of making the code is NOT copyrightable.
Unix design standards are like the design of the hammer. It is genericized enough now that copyright of the OS will be very hard to prove.
(IANAL)
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
It is quite pleasant to see that at least two major business news services have their headlines right. Both Reuters and Dow Jones Business News have articles with headlines that mention the doubling of SCO's losses before their lawsuit against AutoZone. The articles are more focused on the massive financial losses SCO has generated and seem to mention the AutoZone suit as more of a side note.
Unix is huge in the automotive software industry. Most part store cataloging systems use it not only on the backend servers, but the terminals as well. Autozone, Hi-Lo/O'Reilly's, NAPA, Pep Boys all at one point used this type of a setup. Firestone also used it during the 90's when I worked for them, but I don't know what they are running now.
If SCO filed this suit solely looking for a suitor to buy them out, they picked a good one here. Owning the rights to the system that literally every major parts house uses would give them a huge push over the top in the industry.
is it just me, or have we all moved to the finance boards?
Renski
They really ARE against any from of "do it yourself", aren't they?
"Your Honor, these dirty hippies are using software that was designed to subvert and destroy the good capitalist software companies in America to sell parts to other dirty hippies that use them to fix their own cars. This deprives the good capitalist auto repair industry of money they are entitled to"
Finkployd
Next week's monster garage project will feature host (and autozone spokesman) Jesse James building a "Monster Car Crusher."
-Use of a "family owned" New Jersey Junkyard: 500.00
-2003 BMW with strange smell coming from the trunk and "l337SCO" California Plates: Freebee
Monster garage factoid: We swear our new sponsor deal with autozone had nothing to do with the making of this episode. we swear.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Apparently investors are none too thrilled about this announcement:
SCOX is down 10% in early trading
It gives them the impression of being more important than they really are. The issue moves from being an obscure geek-tech issue to involving a major company that does business with the average person.
Personally, I think a briliant move would be for IBM to cover AutoZone's legal fees. AZ doesn't need any help paying their fees; but I think it would be a HUGE public relations boost for IBM. It would be cool to see IBM step up and tell AutoZone that as a show of support, and to back up their assurances that they did nothing wrong during the Linux conversion, they will pay the legal fees.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
What will happen is that they will NOT get an injuction, the judge will find that that would cause undue grievous harm to AutoZone. So what then? Well, SCOX will be locked in another costly long term litigation game with a giant, litigation that will only cost them money and give nothing in return. Oh, they'll try to get good PR, but it'll fail.
I love SCO, they're so fucking clueless.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Who do you think is propping up SCO's stock? Mormons! The church itself (through its venture-capitalist subsidiary Angel Partners) is a major stockholder in SCO.
The LDS church has a vested interest in keeping this thing going. Since they control the state government and most (if not all) of Utah's judges are Mormon, they can keep IBM, Red Hat, Novell (which used to be a Mormon company but is now Officially Heretic), and everyone else that wants to sue, at bay for many more months, if not years.
BTW, I don't believe Alice Cooper was Mormon.
As has been shown in Germany, where an injunction effectively nipped their entire FUD campaign in the bud and they are forbidden from making statements they cannot prove without showing evidence, there is a big legal loophole in the US. The fact that SCO can make any wild claim that they want, sue anyone they want on the wildest of baseless claims, and get awaya with not having to produce actual evidence in order to go to court is a real problem.
Many companies who are frightened of getting sued by these bastards have little other legal options. Not many, apart from badly researched ZDNet trashmag articles, believe that SCo has the slightest chance of success, but what about the financial damage to companies that are getting sued from loss in stock value, and the fact that there is no way in hell that SCO could really afford to pay for the damages once IBM, RedHat and Novell have finished with them.
What is to stop the next POS crap company that is going down from sueing everybody left right and centre?
You see, businesses today often use many, many computers, especially large businesses, like Fortune 500 companies. The web server, which Netcraft looks at, is often one or two computers out of possible tens of thousands of computer in organizations. So, asking Netcraft what kind of computer runs their web site is largely irrelevant in this case, since more than likely, Autozone owns more than one computer (the webserver).
Of course, I guess that it is possible that Autozone owns just that one computer, and the rest of their multi-million dollar business is run with paper and pencils. However, I've been into an Autozone before and I saw at least 3 different computer terminals. That means that Autozone owns *at least* 3 other computers other than the webserver, all of which could be running code that SCO has a problem with.
They obviously chose AutoZone because their terminals are clearly visible by customers. I wouldn't be a bit suprised if they go after Lowe's or Home Depot next. Those companies also run linux GUIs and customers can see the X terminals (and 5250 emulators) as they walk around the store.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
emerge -uDp world
...done!
These are the packages that I would merge, in order:
Calculating world dependencies
[ebuild N ] SCO-license/IPlicense-1.0.0
Where can I get a Jessie James vs SCO T-Shirt?
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
I am just a little curious about your statement:
I used to work for Autozone, and I can tell you that they used to run UNIX for all of their parts lookup terminals, and they switched to LINUX. And I can almost guarantee you that code that they wrote in-house (under UNIX, that probably used some of SCO's code) was copied over to the LINUX operating system.
Because you follow up with this:
And I'm torn, because I hate SCO for this lawsuit stuff, but being a former (and still disgruntled, after 5 years) employee of AutoZone, I'm not sure who I want to lose.
Now, if you ceased to be an employee of AutoZone 5 years ago, and the Linux migration didnt START until only 4 years ago (Accroding to Red Hat) How exactly can you almost guarantee anything?
Just a sticking point, I know, but we have already seen commnentary from the guy who STARTED the Migration at AutoZone and from the guy who came in as he was leaving and helped complete the Migration at Autozone (admittedly it was posted anonymously) and neither account confirms what you are saying here...
so I am left to infer that you are A: as you said, a disgruntled ex-employee who just cant let it go, or B: someone with legit information but no proof other than "I said vs He Said", or C: someone with a story that has as many holes in it as SCOs entire fullisade of lawsuits.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Damn it. Now I'm going to have to go to Autozone and buy lightbars to rice out my PII-350 to show my support.
Suing a company that A) is huge and can settle and B) does not understand the true situation and has no motivation to 'stand up for its rights'.
They'll settle for some medium to low amount that is confidential and further justify the case.
Bad times ahead....
Because SCO has no intention of showing us their complete lack of proof, this case WILL settle out of court. SCO will make AutoZone a nominal settlement offer. AutoZone will take it. The parties will have the file sealed.
Then SCO will claim in the press that it won the lawsuit with the implicit threat that everyone else running Linux had better start paying.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
SCOX
Althought SCOX is manipulating their stock price in other ways(with trading between their own companies...).
After reading Jim Greer's post on Groklaw, it's pretty clear that SCO does NOT have a chance of winning this lawsuit, and is opening itself up to what would probably be an easy-to-win countersuit.
Stupid, evil fuckers.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
With claimed revenue of $20K FROM Linux user licences. That's one way to run a business.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Ifsothenstopwriting alot becausewhenyoudo, educatedpeopledismissyouandyouropinions.
Are you going to go back to Advanced after AutoZone settles out-of-court with SCO?
It looks like the announcement isn't helping SCO. They're down $1.32 this morning. If someone is listening to the conference call at 11:00 EST, please let us know what they announce. So far, they have reported a net loss of 16 cents per share ($2.25 million). Their share price is down roughly 50% from their 52 week high. They're on a roll, and it's downhill.
Autozone was predicted in a comment made on yesterday's story along with a link to that very groklaw comment.
The thing is, every lazy journo out there will assume the copyright violations are in the Linux codebase .
So, /.ers, here's the plan: every clueless tech-journo needs to be put right as soon as - if not before - they report SCO's (and whoever *cough*microsoft*cough is behind them) misleading PR as fact and the whole movement looks like it may be dodgy.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
SCO: Your honor, AutoZone has violated our copyrights!
Judge: What copyrights?
SCO: Err, I mean our patents?
Judge: What patents?
SCO: Ummm, they breached their contract?
Judge: Okay, how?
SCO: They are using our libraries illegally!
Judge: Do you have proof?
SCO: Ummm, No. But they must have! No one could write software as good as ours! Make them fess up to their wrong doings and prove our case for us!
Judge: That didn't work against IBM, and it's not going to work here.
SCO: But our stock price will fall!
Judge: Have you met my friend, the SEC? They would like to ask you some questions...
SCOX is largly owned by canopy, and canopy is largely owned by a shadowy group called "Angel Investors." Angel Invesors is *very* closely associated with the church of LDS.
I work for Autozone's major competitor, Advance Auto Parts, and we're nearing completion of a company-wide changeover from linux based in-store servers and terminals to, ahem, 'another' opreating system. Boy, guess those Advance executives were really thinking ahead- that was a close one, wheew.
The Mormon Church invests in many ventures, including venture capital groups in the state of Utah. Angel Investors is one such group, but it neither shadowy nor tightly controlled by the LDS Church. Some of its investments also include Linux Networx, on of only a handful of companies with contracts to build supercomputers for the military, and I believe the only one that uses Linux to do so.
Does anyone have an email address for AutoZone? Then we can send advice on how to get this crap dismissed. No settlement! Do a helpful Slashdoting of their headquarters.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
choosing a victim with the correct pocket depth...
To implicate all of Mormonism into some sort of pro-SCO conspiracy is distasteful, but beyond that, rather unbelievable. SCO is fighting for exactly the opposite of the Mormon ideal.
Sugar in the gastank and hose it down with saline?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
okay, maybe i'm a noob, or have just been living under a box trying to escape the complexity of this case. either way, can someone answer this for me?
why is this any different than a musician's music who has been sampled for use on another musician's album? I own a few thousand CD's, and I'd bet that several of them contain uncleared samples from other artists on them. i've yet to be sued, nor am i likely to be. isn't the offending artist sued in this case?
sure, in some cases a sample might be obfuscated or modified beyond recognition, but the genesis of the resulting sound is still the same. if the sample is not cleared by the owner of the original sample, a clear case to sue is present.
why then can these fu&*ers go after end-users (or the listener, in my example) for using technology sold to them by the 'artist' who allegedly stole the IP from it's creator?
imagine EMI going after everyone who has a copy of The Grey Album instead of going after DJ Danger Mouse like they are doing.
a little help? i'm very confused. thanks.
.... which big company today is lacking IT at its core?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well, they may have just received a Very Good Deal on their Windows machines from a little company called Microsoft. <wink>
Perhaps this is payback? It certainly isn't 'protecting our customers against lawsuits' as Marsh has lie^H^H^Hsaid, because the customers rent the use of the boxes, rather than purchase them and have them hosted.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Often, such councils are postponed if a civil or criminal trial is already underway, and the council will then take into consideration the outcomes of such legal trials. Since there are no civil or criminal trials in process against Darl, maybe a good Mormon in Darl's home town can point us to the name of his Bishop or Stake President so that we can start the process ourselves?
We are pass that phase of Linux adoption by at least one year, maybe two.
If your boss needs this kind of eye opener I suugest that he doe not have his eyes on the happening in the IT world.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
AUTOZONE!
(Everyone tell them you heard about them thanks to SCO's frivolous lawsuit)
They're a major chain, with a large number of real world employees. Jessie James does TV spot for them. Think Radio Shack, but for car stuff.
Having every Linux nerd in the world upset with you is one thing, but every car nerd, that's considerably more dangerous.
With luck, the lawyers (on both sides) will have SCO bled dry in short order and we can stop hearing about all this.
Did anyone listen to Autozone's earnings call this morning? Did they have anything interesting to say on the suit?
So when Darl's vehicle gets "mysteriously" run over by a monster-truck, none of us will be surprised will we.
I'm just hoping that Darl will be in the vehicle at the time...
The real question about this lawsuit is will it affect Jesse James or any new apisodes of Monster garage?
____________ Do or Do not there is no Try.
NEWS FLASH: Slashdot user AuT0Z0NE seen posting threatening messages daily including hot topics such as "Darl spanks his monkey" and "Darl, BRING IT ON, Sue me!" has had his identity revealed. Turns out he actually WAS CEO of Autozone. Stay tuned!
Mod +5 Drunk
No, I don't think so. "The court of public opinion" does not ware a black robe with "Judge" embroidered on it. The Judge, if he / she is worth 10 cents of what it cost to go to law school, will consider the facts, not "the court of public opinion." In either case, SCO will lose, and bad.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
SCOX share prices are taking a hit today, down almost 12% as of twenty minutes ago. It's a good thing the SCO executives have been bailing out when they have. They really could have taken a hit today.
You'd think they planned that or something!
I love the headline of the Reuters article. It keys in on SCO strategy: no business plan, no propsects, no problem! We'll steal from, er, sue somebody!
SCO Group (NASDAQ SC:SCOX)
12.02 -1.40 / -10.43%
10:45 03/03/2004
It'll be interesting to see if that stock price goes back up after the 11:00 am EST conference call...
This seems a great time to remind you that it's like this everywhere. When reading news articles in fields you aren't intimately familiar with, make sure to take them all with the same grain of salt you're reading SCO stories with. Because they are all of roughly similar accuracy.
Here is the latest interview with Darl: http://techupdate.zdnet.com/special_report/Face_to _Face:_Darl_McBride.html?tag=tu.arch.link
1. Start business
2. Offer shitty/overpriced products/support
3. Sue customers when they leave
4. Profit?
Ahh the new business model of the new millenium, the y2k bug didnt affect many computers. But it sure did seem to affect a lot of peoples brains.
IANAL, but I would expect a preliminary injunction against the use of the software is very unlikely. It would destroy AutoZone, which is a strong no-no, and continued use creates no new damage, technically, and certainly nothing that can't be adequately addressed via a larger fine in the end. I wouldn't expect SCO to get any injunctions at all against AutoZone.
Hopefully the CIO & Co are sticking to their principles and going to court (becasue they can afford to).
If AutoZone settle, this may "set a precedent" for other companies to follow suit.. is this the plan? To find a high profile case where the CIO will just cave in rather than fight for what is right?
The upshot of all of this is that SCOX is getting slammed at the moment (9am MST) in heavy trading, 50% over the normal daily volume already, and down 12%.
It climbed the previous two days, no doubt in anticipation of the lawsuit. Perhaps after seeing what SCO are actually suing over, investors are realizing they're the last rats on the ship. And the fire is nearing the ammo hold....
A sign of long-overdue investor sanity?
Holy sh*t!
SCO are now sueing DaimlerChrysler!
Interesting choice, given they are a German company!
Funfunfun!
I get your point, but I think it's far more likely that Novell is the "owner" of Unix. Of course, this remains to be determined in court, but IMHO the evidence is in Novell's favor.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
anybody else getting something like this message when they try the link in the article?
I'm using Opera, so your message may vary. I've gotten messages like this previously; it seems SCO isn't keeping track of which certificate gets used where. doesn't bode well for their general grip on things, but then we already knew that weak, I spoze.wtf they using a certificate for anyway?
Just released, DaimlerChrysler is the second target. Note to mods: in the event the post is updated, this comment is before that.
-no broken link
That sounds to me, if it is accurate, like a victory for Linux either way this AutoZone case is decided. If AZ wins, it's status quo (Linux on top), SCO wasted their money attacking a company that could afford to defend itself. If AZ loses, with the court finding that their OpenServer license did not entitle them to incorporate OpenServer libraries in a separate product (homegrown app, Linux based, or otherwise), that is a precedent protecting any Linux libraries distributed with the same "derived work" types of restrictions. So what if SCO wins, even collects damages, while paying for court enforcement of strategic Linux technology protections: SCO will not survive their inevitable loss of the actual case against IBM, that actually threatens Linux (unless SCO has paid off the dumbest liar in the Senate, Orrin Hatch R-UT, but that's another story). Meanwhile, they're spending their money to increase the value of Linux to developers, by proving that Linux can't be stolen by people who don't abide by the GPL, using the same logic that does protect even scalawags like SCO. We should be the first to welcome Linux's new GPL-defending overlords, as their pretention to the throne is by autoregicide.
--
make install -not war
These guys are hilarious: Diamler-Chrysler is the other company being sued.
just announced...
sco, meet jesse james, autozone media darling.
jesse, meet sco, guys who wanna take money away from you.
sick em jesse. yer in the 'zone.
The conference call was supposed to start 25 minutes ago, but all I have been getting on the webcast is "this stream is not available." Is anyone else having trouble? Has the call been cancelled?
Assuming you're not a troll --
These are questions that have been asked here before; they're logical.
The simple answer is: SCO doesn't have a case, and it knows it. This is not an actual attempt to prove something in court, since it'd need to prove that
What SCO is hoping is that AutoZone will simply settle, setting a precedent for other defendents, and creating what Darl obviously promised the SCOX Board: a new "revenue stream." SCO is now in the Lawsuit Business -- and it didn't actually have to do anything to get there.
My hope: IBM lends some of its lawyers to AutoZone so that it can actually defend itself and perhaps even counter-sue. That'd stuff a fat cork in SCO's pipe.
Also, it's been mentioned many times here that SCO's tactics may be illegal under the US RICO Act (used to prosecute racketeers like the Mafia).
If you want more insight (perhaps better-informed insight than what you're getting from me :), check out Groklaw.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
If they don't cave, I know where I'm buying my next car.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
...since AAA Auto Supplies comes before AutoZone in the phone book ;P
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
It looks like their next lawsuit is against DaimlerChrysler. Check out http://ir.sco.com.
Here's a link
l
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040303/law083_1.htm
SCO Reponse: Damn... now they're using free speech against us! What shall we do?
:-)
Same we do every night, McBride: claim that it's outside the U.S. Constitution!
Stock Charts for Companies Du Jour
According to cnet, the second company that SCO is going after is DaimlerChrysler. I really think that they have now spread themselves too thin. These are companies with large legal departments that do not generally settle hen frivoulous lawsuits are brought against them.
Let us hope that both of them do not settle, as it would indeed be a bad precedent.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040303/law083_1.html
Wow, two more major lawsuits on the same day.
Lemme see, so far, that's: IBM,NOVL,AZO,DCX . . .
O.J.Simpson lost the "court of public opinion" and he is still walking around a free man.
the joke news headline:
"Man Sticks Out Tongue between the bars of Wolf Cage at Local Zoo - bloody mess ensues".
Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
Foley good.
Since SCO licenses are reallly expensive, why not create a small--and relatively inexpensive--company that will assist you in your move off of SCO and/or help you install Linux in a way that doesn't violate any of SCO's IP?
Seems like there's a fortune to be made there.
I wish Lee Iacocca Were alive to see this... He'd *skin* that punk McBride alive.
[Posted anonymously to avoid karma whoring]
Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST
I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.
As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.
As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.
One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.
I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.
Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.
Regards, Jim Greer
MS isn't done and won't be done anytime soon! They have enough cash in the bank to make it for a long, long time. Especially if the MS (L)users out there choose to buy XP Reloaded or whatever the hell Microsoft decides to call their upcoming interim release of XP. I have an idea Billy boy, why don't you call it Windows SR, where SR stands for "Suckers Re-pay" or "Shitty Re-release".
Wanna bet that target goes to like $0.45 now?
OMFG it's just like that Douglas Adams book! They've got a list of EVERY SINGLE LAST LINUX USER, and they're going to SUE THEM ALL... IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER!!!
Somebody remind me how that went, substituting Darl for the big puss-oozing monster, or whoever it was.
1. Autozone used to use SCO products, and their whole system relied on them
:) As evidenced by the post at groklaw that everyone keeps linking to.
Autozone used to be a totally SCO shop for all of their point of sale systems.
2. Autozone converted to Linux, and IBM made them do so
IBM had nothing to do with their switching to linux.
The original poster who posted points 1 and 2 (as well as two others), was not saying This is what happened, I know because I am uber-smart slashdot nerd, he's saying that that is what SCO is claiming, and as many others have pointed out, SCO is full of crap.
Joseph?
Jeep owners tend to be a pretty close knit group. We also know of plenty of heavily wooded areas free of people where you can bury stuff....
>Yes I am kidding. I don't avocate the use of violence or law suits to accumulate wealth
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
In case you do not know who Mr Greer is, read his comment on Groklaw. Summery: He was the AutoZone transisition manager and states that SCO is full of crap
Help fight continental drift.
when the SCO body's has no pulse, videotape the dismemberment and ship the body parts to be incinerated. If you have the money, ship the ashes into space; barring that, place them in a lead-lined container and drop them in the deep Pacific.
SCO should looked at like Carthage; not only should they be annhilated, but the ground out of which they sprung should be salted over so that nothing else will ever come from it again. The more companies that think that SCO's business plan is a good idea, the less legitimate companies with legitimate claims will be able to seek relief, while more companies will be inhibited from doing useful saleable work. Nuke 'em till they glow, and then nuke 'em again, just to be sure.
Why AutoZone? 90% of SCO's current customer base are Retail Point-Of-Sale users.
By suing one of their own former Retail customers, they're basically trying to scare their current customer base to stay on SCO UNIX until this is resovled some how (or get them to pay for "Linux Licences" if they are serious about converting). This buys SCO a few more quarters of revenue before all the rats flee the sinking ship.
This makes a lot more sense than suing a bank or an insurance company or someone else that doesn't give a crap about SCO. Retail users can not afford to be SCO's enemy in the short term.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Do I get this right, they're sueing DC because they did not comply with that weird addition to existing SCO licenses that required licensees to declare that they will not use Linux and accepting this as an extension of the existing contract. This was a month ago or so?
That's amazing. No talk about any Linux use or infringement or anything, let alone redistribution. They failed to comply with the "all your base" addendum which probably wasn't legal at all anyway.
Sorry for posting as AC, I already modded.
--Ricin
If SCO wins this one, I can't think of a better profession in this world.
What other job can you make claims like this at this hell hole of an economy and be profitable... while getting global attention from slashdot etc. Only lawyers can do this.
I'll probably get modded down for this.... the richer the lawyer, the bigger the scum bag.
I think crack dealers should use this strategy... "If you buy from someone other than me, I'll turn you into the cops for buying drugs".
Don't give SCO any more business ideas. I hear they're stocking some powerful shit. Though I guess they're too busy stealing from their own inventory to actually sell something.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
... the end of the road for Mr McBride and his chronies! The diversion did not work.
The stock market has spoken.
You are fucked as in fucked up the ass.
Hint: Check the SCO stock.
He just identified the music industry with the software industry.
Here's a paraphrased quote..
"When Napster was in it's heyday there were 40 million users. Then there was word that it might be illegal and people were like "Oh! I didn't know." So we're seeing some rebound now that people realize linux is illegal."
Oh. Downloading linux is illegal?
= Grow a brain...
...this one "to be filed against Daimler-Chrysler, alleging that they are infringing SCO's copyright by using code relating to 'core operating system functionality' of SCO System 5."...
In other news, Darl McBride, CEO of SCO, was unexpectedly killed yesterday when his vehicle's braking system inexplicably malfunctioned on I-40 yesterday...
May we never see th
When I first read this, I wasn't familiar with who Auto Zone are. I assumed they were some low level parts company susceptible to being blackmailed by SCO. When I realised they were a major player/Fortune 500 company, I just shook my head. These guys keep picking on the biggest gorillas they can find, and you think they aren't stupid? Unless of course Billy Boy is funding them, in which case SCO is just acting as a front organization and it doesn't matter how dumb they are since it's M$'s nearly infinite resources at risk here. Someone really does need to do a RICO investigation here.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
They wanted someone:
a) large enough to have $,
Not only does AutoZone have $ enough to pay a handsome fine to SCO, but they might actually have some $'s to fight the extortion.
(b) large enough to get noticed,
Yeah, like when you hit that 5 tonne elephant, with a stick, across the balls, the whole jungle knows both your name, and how fast you died/ran.
(c) with a documented relationship with IBM,
IBM will *not* let one of their customers get sued for something IBM sold them.. SCO is soon going to have a giant, bad tempered, Gorilla screaming at them.
(d) AND a documented relationship with SCO
That point may be the only smart thing in the whole mess.
(e) non-technical enough so that they are more easily intimidated.
SCO is not exactly doing this quietly in a corner .. They have positioned themselves in the middle of the arena with their big mouth and whoever they take on will be risking his Job if he just "folds in" to SCO's demands.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The wave of the future!
When the corporate hotshots are done outsourcing all the productive jobs, we can all become lawyers and spend all day suing each other.
What fun!
Everyone should shun and ignore SCO and its products - go Linux and refuse to pay SCO a penny. Everyone from corporate execs making decisions to judges, and every IT professional. A 100% picket of SCO and their wares - drive em out I say!
I'm baffled...
o fdesign/MA.CO URSE/09/LCH.htmlt lc-faq.htm#2.10
Is SCO still attempting to scare businesses into buying licenses? Even if they are I believe they are taking an egregious chance by attempting to fight on far too many fronts simultaneously. The gambit could be lucrative if (and only if I believe) Autozone and Chrylser settle out of court. Is this thinking completely incorrect? If the Chinese have a hell devoted to legal suberfuge, obfuscation, and litigation we're in it....
Other Chinese hells: (unrelated but intresting)
http://www.adh.brighton.ac.uk/school
http://www.wingkong.net/files/b
Will the German ownership (and subsequent court actions in Germany against SCO) of Chrysler play a part stateside?
I'm smart as a showbox, (empty one at that) so can someone please explain (and have relevant linkage to support said explainations)?
"Neither. Being that it's part of SCO's pump and dump scam I'd call it fraud."
Also simply known as Bullshit.
The only choice for any company that is running SCO code on Linux is to switch back to SCO Unix and pay us our due royalties. Otherwise, its off to court you go!
- Darl
Revenue from operations appears to be shrinking fast, down from $13.5 m to $11.4 m in a single quarter, resulting in a $5 m operational loss.
I'm presuming their operations are, in the long run, toast. Why, then, do they still have significant marketing and R&D expenses? Why not go into "harvest" mode? They do, however, say their expenses will drop in the future as they become "more efficient", so maybe this is just what they have in mind.
They also list $3.7 m in "Other Income, Net". What the hell is this? Linux Licensings fees?
Their "war chest" (that is, cash) dropped from $64 m to $57 m, giving a burn rate of more than $2 m / month. One would expect this burn rate to increase as they open up new litigation fronts with AutoZone, DaimlerChrysler, and the rest of western civilization. Even so, they should be good for at least a year, and maybe two, of litigation.
The number of shares increased by about 2.5 million. Obviously they made good use of the high stock price. Without a cash flow statement, though, I'm having a little trouble seeing where the money went, and what their true litigation expenses are. Perhaps their burn rate is far greater than the last paragraph estimated.
I notice they list over $9 million in "Goodwill and intangibles". Who says accountants don't have a sense of humour?
Funny, I thought it was "AT&T Unix System V, as licensed to Novell, as sublicensed to Caldera, which changed it's name to SCO". But I guess just calling it "SCO System 5" is shorter, if not entirely historically accurate.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Tired of not being able to read the best resource on this whole fiasco.
If you do link, please also link to their paypal account link.
Maybe if 1 out of 1000 of you slashdotters who hit groklaw and see it got hosed will go back when it is up and donate a couple bucks, they can add a server or two.
TIA,
Dave
(BTW, I've donated already, twice)
Well you should, if as you say you care "what the rest of the public thinks about Linux". If SCO wins, neither you nor very many people at all will be using Linux for awhile. Pull your head out of your ass and stop blathering. If SCO wins, they will, as you say, "destroy the public perception of free-software and Linux." Therefor, you should care if SCO wins or loses.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Is is just me or is the Groklaw site unavailable to everyone else too? Do you think this is an indirect /. effect, people who see the SCO news here checking things there? Or did PJ just take it down to add the lawsuits and SCO financial report information?
Damn SCO lying bastards, they promised they were going to sue someone yesterday.. A whole 24 hours late.. Most people would have been fired for missing a deadline by that much. Proof that SCO is FUD. Fear = SCO (laugh), Uncertainty = We will sue you tomorrow (maybe), Doubt = Bullshit!
Mod +5 Drunk
sco has opted for a neat strategy ... auto industry is directly related to patriotism in US ...
this will generate more heat among ordinary people than suing some other corp would!
SCO invented the automobile ! Next lawsuit, airplane companies!
This kind of detailed refutation, obviously easily obtainable by any serious person truly concerned with the theft of their intellectual property, continues to astound me and reinforce in the most blatant manner my conclusion and that of many, many others that the true motive of said SCO Corp. is strictly the destruction of the open source movement in the West and that it is being funded by the usual gang of suspects.
What those "suspects" don't realise is that such an outcome will leave the field open to a complete Far Eastern takeover of open source in the form of that other major player in this area, the various TRONs running on more devices worldwide than either Linux or Windows and will ultimately lead to the demise of Billy Boy and his evil empire. Not a silver lining but a just come-uppance none the less.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
I would like to take this moment to point out that the brown acid is just fine. Those hippies do not know of what they speak.
~Darl
You are right but this was scap specific to the AutoZone lawsuit. If you read the Groklaw comment (Currently being /.'ed) he states:
As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port is false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.
Help fight continental drift.
Their stock is down 10%... Though admittedly part of that is due to widened losses...
My favourite parts:
.... If It happened within the last 12 hours, I wouldn't be aware of it.... next question!"
Some guy: "Sooner or later this case will be decided upon by a court, and what will happen if at the end of all this it turns out you are wrong? there will be a lot of angry customers. Will you refund their money?"
Darl: "Well, errrr, we wo... umm, the way I see it is that, errr, well, "
and:
Some person: "Can you comment on the outstanding lawsuit against you"
Darl: "There are currently no lawsuits against SCO..."
Some Person: "One sec.... Australian company.... called CyberNight/Night... I have the information here."
Darl: "uhhh, ermm, ahhh, ermm
Jesse James works for AutoZone, and he's a tough guy. Why once, I saw him pitch a hissy fit over a hovercraft and he fired a guy that didn't work for him. Tough guy.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Someone had to say it, and, I do, really, drive a Civic.
The Flatlander
First of all, shyster is what you call a lawyer, not a judge. Get your terminology right. A corrupt judge is called a corrupt judge. A biased court, in which the outcome is predetermined for whatever reason, is called a Kangaroo Court.
Nevertheless, all indications and evidence are contrary to your assertions that Kimball and Wells are corrupt judges. As far as anyone reasonable can tell, they are competent and ethical judges. There is absolutely nothing that could offer even a suspicion that they are corrupt.
Such a comment as you made shows that you're very careless in what you say. You don't even offer a hint support for your allegations.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
What's up with that? Doesn't the legal system kind of frown on shopping for the friendliest jurisdiction? Isn't the first move going to be to transfer jurisdiction to someplace sane? (Not a comment on Nevada's sanity, just that as a jurisdiction for this trial, Nevada makes no sense).
So, doesn't filing this in Nevada just serve to stall? Is this another SCO "we want the publicity from having done something, but we don't ever want anything to get resolved" move? Or have I missed something, and Nevada actually makes sense for some reason?
In the late 90's, SCO was promoting the Autozone/SCO relationship publically for a while. I remember this well, because it was one of my introductions to how effective a few Unix servers could be when connected to 2000 dumb terminals.
I remember that Autozone used to run a bunch of Unixware servers with dumb terminals at all of the stores. They had some other Un*xes to run various applications such as the Database, but I remember SCO touting Unixware as the system that integrated a bunch of disparate Unix and NT systems.
Here's an article about Autozone & SCO (Actually, it's an article about IBM and SCO cooperating on a new project, but Autozone was going to be one of the first new customers to use the project, or something).
Around 1999, Autozone switched to RedHat. Rumor was that the decision was apparently very contraversial within SCO, as it was a real sign of things to come--- people switching from expensive SCO systems to cheaper Linux.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I'm somewhat amazed that nobody sees the apparent transparency here by the SCO (Sue Corporations Optimistically) legal team. I had expected them to sue some poor little corporation into non-existence, and then trumpet their 'success'. But they went after larger corporations with (theoretically) bigger legal guns. The goal with Autozone is to get a cheapo settlement from someone with only licensing fees at stake, then use that in their PR machine. The Damiler goal is something else- get embedded software licensing fees ($699 per car, bitte), and then using that on everyone (Yo NASA- fork over for each of those rovers !). I see Autozone folding. I see Damiler fighting them like IBM will.
Let's see what the market thinks about SCOX's strong-armed tactics:
SCOX 12:16PM ET 11.98 -1.44 -10.73%
Thanks to SCO's FUD I lost my biggest job at my biggest customer. They want to put the project on hold and review it with their legal department.
Basically, I'm screwed. If SCO survives these suits and loses I should sue them for lost buisness.
Upset and Frustrated.
Daniel
Why couldnt have SCO sue'd a regular linux user? Wouldnt there point havent got across better? This is just more blantant greed and its completely obvious. This is do or die for SCO, if they lose these lawsuits they are essientially not a major player anymore. They already arent, they have dug themselfs in a trench. Some buisness practices you just gotta bitch about.
GrokLaw's page says "The GrokLaw site is under a DoS attack. We're waiting till the attack is over.\nWe don't know who's behind the attacs."
I have a feeling they just don't understand the slashdot effect. Then again they apparently can't speak English so well...
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
17:38 GMT, www.groklaw.net is giving the following:
"The GrokLaw site is under a DoS attack. We're waiting till the attack is over.\nWe don't know who's behind the attacs."
Any thoughts?
A computer company which has admitted to using litigation as a last-ditch attempt to avoid bankruptcy, taking on the AUTO INDUSTRY? About the only thing worse would be taking on the oil industry itself. Does anyone else think that SCO is going to be slaughtered, not because their claim is invalid, but also because they're failing company taking on a huge juggernaut?
I didn't see anyone else speculating this, so..
Maybe SCO knows someone at AutoZone and thinks that AutoZone will lay down easily?
AutoZone doesn't want to deal with a lawsuit and
1. Pays for a license
2. Settles out of Court
Perhaps there are other outcomes that will appear favorable to SCO and not be particularly damaging to AutoZone?
-greg
You left something out.
*BSD == John the Baptist (proclaimed the coming of Linux; dead)
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
SCO had to choose a company that had run SCO in the past, so they could sue over contract violations, not copyrights which they still have not proved they own. Most tech companies are either new enough or smart enough to have avoided SCO software altogether. That leaves only about a few hundred companies that were short-sighted enough to install SCO point of sale systems as suitable (pun intended) targets.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Surprisingly their stock is down already today, sco i mean. Yeah thats a big surprise. Darl: I didn't like my last Benz i bought so lets go after them.
Hey Darl don't fuck with the Germans you know they are good at fighting. Go after a French company if anything......might explain ev1 then "We know you have this code of ours that we won't tell you what is but we'll sue you if you don't buy our license" GivesheadSurfer "ok we surrender!"
Sheesh...SCO is not just burning their bridges, they are nuking them and spreading radioactive cobalt behind them. Who in their right mind would now EVER contemplate doing ANY business with SCO? I mean, even Microsoft tries to hold on to customers, but SCO is just light years beyond idiocy in their most recent moves of litigating against CUSTOMERS.
I keep trying to imagine the code that SCO claims relies on their libraries, and that couldn't possibly be ported to Linux in such a small amount of time:
....
sprintf(str, "Order code: %s", order).
if (getenv("bleh"))...
exit(0);
Okay, there was probably lots of GUI stuff too. But seeing how this was an older Unix app., it's probably using some common X library.
This is starting to get uglier according to this single line message at Groklaw.net, following unsuccessful attempts to read their latest thread:
"The GrokLaw site is under a DoS attack. We're waiting till the attack is over.\nWe don't know who's behind the attacs."
"In addition, revenue generated from SCO's SCOsource licensing initiative was $20,000" Looks like all the licence sales total add up to $20,000! I'm not sure if that figure includes the $ extorted from webhost EV1. http://ir.sco.com/EdgarDetail.cfm?CompanyID=CALD&C IK=1102542&FID=1104659-04-6300&SID=04-00
This might have been suggested before: A few respected stocks analyst should study the SCO cases carefully - reviewing all the facts and discussions here, groklaw, etc. (Anyone close enough to these people to explain it gently to them?) If they can see the reality instead of the FUD, then they should recommend a sell instead of a hold or buy.
I guess the mods think I'm an insensitive clod too. The comment used to be +5 Funny
Moderation
+1
60% Funny
40% Overrated
Darl: Good morning. My name is Napol^H^H^H^H^HDarl Bonap^H^H^H^H^HMcBride and I'll be your host this morning. First order of business, we're going to be Invad^H^H^H^H^HSuing everyone in sight....
Really? Here I thought things were improving rapidly... hmmm...
That's what I was thinking too. Plus, can they *actually* expect to just shut down a multi-billion dollar national chain store just like that, especially when their own statements make it clear that hey have no concrete evidence? And we all know how quick SCO is to find offending code...
do not read this line twice.
As a newmade fan of Need for Speed:Underground I can't say that's a completely bad thing, gotta love Grape Neon.
Oh, you mean in Real Life ?
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Darl McBride & company will be -walking- to the courts...
Darl: I'd like to buy a car.
Car maker: Our vehicles contain IP that we will not license to you.
Jason Faulkner
Old Os Administrator
jason@oldos.org
oldos.
AutoZone shares slipped 1.4 percent to $88.40.
Also Diamler-Chrysler DCX Last:44.14 Change: -0.77 -1.71%
and the good news:
SCO shares fell 11.25 % (down 1.51 to 11.91.)
Perhaps this wasn't the result they were expecting.(giggle)
Dean G.
You can't read it now -- someone's apparently DoSing Groklaw at the moment, according to the message that comes up on their website. I assume that there's probably a competent IT type or two trying to track down whoever's doing it.
:-)
I did read that before Groklaw went down, though. Facinating.
May we never see th
As of noon EST, SCOX is down over ten percent.
This is not my sandwich.
I wouldn't want Bush to be re-elected even if he agreed to send me his twin daughters, a Guinness truck, Natalie Portman and a truckload of grits!
Bush **IS** big business. Note the recent happenings with Clear Channel firing DJs as a n^Hripple effect of the Superbowl fiasco. Clear Channel is in bed with the Bush administration all the way. And they aren't the only ones by far.
Bush and crew - your days are numbered.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Hmm.. I listened to the webcast and I really like to think they came across so stupid the price will eventually settle in a downward direction
seems that SCOsource was a rather weak source of income:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040303/law039_1.html
The SCO Group Announces First Quarter 2004 Results
Wednesday March 3, 7:02 am ET
LINDON, Utah, March 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX - News), owner of the UNIX operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today reported revenue of $11,392,000 for the quarter ended January 31, 2004. In the comparable quarter of the prior year, the Company generated revenue of $13,540,000. Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2004 was in line with the Company's expectations, and was comprised of $11,372,000 from UNIX products and services and $20,000 from SCOsource initiatives.
...
As of right now, SCOX is down $1.55. They are slowly going down the drain, and this has been a trend for...what, 2 weeks now?
This sig no verb.
The guy that did the port says he didn't use SCOG libraries.
> About SCO
...
Proxy Error: Host not found: www.sco.com .
>
> For more information on SCO products and services, visit http://www.sco.com.
>
*click*
---------------
---------------
Hehe, seems to me there are no SCO products and services available.
Too bad they shut off that host name.
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Does anyone know anything about this?
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
I wonder when are we to be targeted..
This is really annoying to have to RE-justify using linux to management, due to SCO's irresponsible money grabbing behavior.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The good analogy would be: I made use of Windows DLL's from an original CD I own in a Wine install.
Should be okay, I think.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
SCOX off by 12.82% at this time for the day. Great job guys even stock holders are starting to think you are insane for taking on 3 multi-billion dollar companies at the same time.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
If Novell sent permissions to the defendants here on behalf of SCO, pursuant to Novell's ownership of the copyrights, maybe too a judge could be convinced to just throw the suits out.
The Flatlander
Sony? why not lets go after a nice big Japanese company with deep pockets.
It seems all to familiar: "In December 1970 Dirk sued Stig and Nasty, Barry sued Dirk, Nasty sued Stig and Barry, and Stig sued himself accidentally. It was the end of a Golden Era, and the beginning of another one for lawyers everywhere".
Isn't that a recipe for some serious stuff coming back at them from the other side of the Atlantic?
I lubricated a whinning PC fan with car oil before and it shut up for another half a year until I upgraded the whole thing anyway.
SCO has to know that DC won't just keel over (they have lawyers too, better ones then SCO does) and buy licences, or SCO itself. DC is one of the largest corperations on earth. SCO is an insignificant mosqueto in comparison. Why does SCO believe that that it won't be slapped?
Hmm, DC is big enought that they could try for a private prosicution of SCO for fraud charges. That would be intresting to watch.
...as posted on the Yahoo SCOX board by stdsoft0... (link below)
.16.
.27 per share.
t io n=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=1 01762
Announced results are simply lies. SCO has ALWAYS announced Pro Forma results to the public in the past. Today, they conveniently elected to announce GAAP results.
-
Make no mistake, on a Pro Forma basis SCO lost 0.43 per share, not
-
Anybody else notice that SCO is conveniently parading the GAAP numbers? They are saying nothing about Pro Forma results. Why? Because Pro Forma EPS results are much worse than the (0.16) GAAP numbers. The GAAP results take into account the one-time addition of $3.76MM in income due to derivative accounting on the PIPE deal. The deal was restructured to eliminate this from the Income Statement. As it should be, SCO will not record any future benefit from a falling stock price.
Meanwhile, Pro Forma results cannot include this income, which means that SCO actually lost another
Just another thing for the SEC to look at.
-
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&ac
You have nicely summarized an important part of the SCOG strategy. Darl's (et al.) big mouth has been way off-base compared to SCOG's claims in court. All of this has pretty successfully suckered the media, esp. the Didiots and Pretenderles, and has pumped the stock as required. I had hoped the Utah judge would slap Darl hard enough to shut him up, but no such luck. Now, if the judge in Deleware would get off the pot ...
Regarding the subject here, Darl isn't evil. He's fucking stupid, high, or both.
Why does the netcraft.com scan of their server yield the info that they're running Apache on LINUX?
m
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=sco.co
"Enqiring minds want to know..." (tm) N.E.
BWAHHH! The call was freakin' BRUTAL on SCO. Let me see if I can recap the Q&A
Q1: So, what's the basis for the AutoZone suit? I read the guy who did the conversion says IBM wasn't involved, nor did they use any of your code. [This was on Groklaw]
A: Third party sites are really just shills for IBM. But sorry, Wells [judge in the IBM case] told us not to get into specifics. This is about our IP though blah blah protectrightscakes. We'll leave it for the courtroom.
Q2 [Skiba]: Is the $3.4 mil you spent on legal expenses expected to cover the new suits too?
A: Yes
Q3 [Boston Globe]: So what does the Daimler suit have to do with Linux?
A: It's actually about them not answering the letter we sent them ordering them to state they're not illegally running any of our stuff, as they should of done, since we had a contract.
Follow Up Q: So, this doesn't have anything to do with Linux per se?
A: Well, we don't have any proof, but they haven't said that they're NOT infringing, so we'll sue and see what happens.
Q4: Why AutoZone and Daimler?
A: AZ's using our IP and DC hasn't answered our letter.
Q5 [E-Week]: Clarify on AutoZone... is it about the conversion libraries?
A: It's an issue, but it's not the core of the copyright claim.
Q6 [Computerworld]: So what happens if companies continue to not pay?
A: We'll sue them too.
FUQ: Will you return the money if you lose the relevant cases, and it's found that you have no IP rights in Linux?
A: We revealed some code last summer and Linux people admitted our code was erroneously in Linux. We're very confident that infringement is occuring. [Totally ducks the question]
Q7: So you're not actually claiming any infringement on Daimler?
A: No.
Q8: Don't these two new suits hinge on you winning vs. Novell to show who actually owns the IP?
A: No, because we own the IP. We have a filed copyright for it.
Q9: Are you planning to take this litigation strategy abroad?
A: Yes, we're looking into Asia and Europe right now.
Q10 [Investors Business Daily]: Aren't you afraid of sending the message you're going after your own customers first? When are you going to sue Linux users who AREN'T your customers?
A: AutoZone and Daimler aren't CURRENT SCO customers, they haven't paid us for a while. But they're still bound by our licenses and contracts, so we're suing them.
Q11: How's this timeline for the new cases going to be affected by the IBM and Novell cases?
A: It's impossible to predict the future, neither of these are relevant to the IBM case, and the Daimler suit is s astate case, so it will proceed more quickly.
Q12: Any upcoming suits in the UK, say in the next few months?
A: Not going to discuss that today. We're working on IP enforcement in Europe and Japan, but they're a bit behind.
FUQ: Can you comment on the Australian case? [A group called CyberKnights have filed complaints with the Australian CCC (like the FTC in the US) that's similar to the RedHat v. SCO suit].
A: Nobody's suing us in Australia.
FUQ: You're not familiar with CyberKnights?
A: No.
Q13: So we've seen SCOsource have one customer [EV1]. How do you count that revenue?
A: As we receive the money. Some are one time, some are over time. EV1 is paying over time, but we can't go into specifics.
Q14: You said before the Novell suit has no bearing on these cases, but it seems like it has a lot of bearing on any copyright suit.
A: Well, they said they had it, then backed off, then came back. We've always said the copyright is ours.
FUQ: But both of you have registered the copyright. Don't you have to prove you own it?
A: That's for the court to decide.
FUQ: Why's you file in Nevada for AutoZone?
A: That's where they are.
FUQ: Back to the bit about suing ex-/customers, don't you think that'll scare off potential customers?
A: Our current customers love us, they're cheering us on for protecting their rights.
FUQ: I mean FUTURE customers.
A:
I think you answered your own question. Their main base of supporters indeed do not care what OS they run, thus they don't know if this is truly illegal or not.....so why would they support AZ on an issue that most of their support base don't understand?
Buy more AZO stock! You're buying it at a discount from the unbelievers, so don't think that the low price is really hurting AutoZone. When the price goes back up, it will be those who buy it now that will benefit.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
In the call (at about 16 minutes), Darl directly compares SCO suing end users to the RIAA suing p2p users. Gee, I thought only slashdotters made this connection :)
If SCO's experience with other Germans (SUSE) is any indicator, SCO may have picked a poor target.
I doubt DaimlerChrysler will just roll over and accept a settlement offer.
Enter Darl McBride in his 2003 Jeep Cherokee. He's needing brakes and his monthly checkup:
Service: Well, well. MrMcBride. Why how are you? What can I do for you today?
Darl: Uh, I need brakes and my engine starts off sluggish. Whats your schedule like today?
Service: Hmmmm let me see . Yeah, we can fit you in right now. Hows that?
Darl Fine. Brakes gonna be a problem?
Service: Why, no problem at all. We'll just pop over to the AutoZone across the street and get their... Managers _Special_ Brakes.
Darl: Uhhh Ummmm ok, I guess. What about the engine? Need a tune up or something?
Service: Hmmmmmm . Looks as though you are not using original Jeep parts either. Cracked block. Warped camshaft. Mr. McBride, have you been putting any Alternative Parts on here?
Darl: Uhhhhh, no why do you ask?
Service: No matter. We have just the parts for you. See you at... six (6 6) Darl.
Just then dark clouds appear and we see a fade away shot of frightened Darl against a blood red sky, the serviceman transforming slowly into a minion of Satan. Swirls of orange and red light piercing through an ominous sky.
One more day in the life of Lindon UT -- the day Hell came to town.
The Twilight Zone.
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I that a resounding defeat of SCO in any one of their lawsuits will actually vindicate Free Software. Additionally, the press *is* starting to be a bit more skeptical of the SCO PR crap.
These lawsuits *are* important for a number of reasons, but the most important one is that they will be precedent setting, and whatever happens next year in the PR world, the lawsuits will shape the playing field for years of decades to come. Markets do come around. And the most SCO can do if they don't win is set the market back a few years (as I think that USL succeeded in doing in 1994). Lets face it-- after the USL suit, the BSD's were seriously injured, but they are doing better now.
The public will come around. The real issue is what the courts will do.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In case you needed another reason to never do business with SCO they have given you yet another. Apparently SCO has well and truly abandoned any thought of ever being in the business of selling operating systems again. Anyone who is considering buying anything from SCO are now warned, once you buy you can't change platforms later under the threat of legal action. You would be a complete fool to do business with SCO.
Actually, more than extortionism or racketeering, wouldn't this act count more as terrorism (and subject to -- what was it? -- the Patriot Act)? They've been doing nothing but terrorize companies and the public from acting in their best interest.
Here's one possible way this can go. .
Who does the Auto Industry tip its hat to? That's right. Big Oil.
Who controls Big Oil? That's right. Evil Government.
Does Evil Government like Open Source?
No. They Do Not. In fact, Homeland Security is very deliberately run on Microsoft, because Gates is willing to play ball and put Big Brother code into Windows.
All these people are in bed with each other, and the unwritten rules of conduct and old croney secret winks makes this whole scenario look dangerous to me. All the Auto Industry has to do is put up a half-assed show and then deliberately take a fall, allowing SCO to win, thus setting huge legal precedent in regards to the legality of Linux.
Still, I have faith in Evil's tendency to be run by a bunch of coke-heads. One favorite quote from Colin Powell. .
Yeah. The White House is run on sleeping pills. (As compared to Jolt Cola and Mountain Dew driven code monkeys where Linux found its birth. --I think Caffeine is one of the very few 'good' drugs in the world; peps up brain activity without altering awareness or screwing with perception.) So, really, there's all kinds of ways SCO's big play can go wrong. Plus there's the unexpected random factors which control freeks can't deal with and never take into account exactly because they are control freeks.
Still. . . with a suddenly visible mechanism in place which can vault SCO to the top, I am at once feeling a lot more attentive!
-FL
You know SCO doing this puts the whole Linux project at risk because why would I company want to use something that might be stolen or have the chance of being sued for? I would think that would jepordize their position in the unix community as well causing more companies to go to windows based servers... this is stupid as hell, what the hell are they thinking.
Regards, Derek Hardison Formally Goldnova.com; someone stole it, ill kill them later YamahaBrez on AIM, 1018
Poor taste aside, whenever I put on my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, I find myself wondering if SCO's executives haven't got some sort of backroom deal with certain large anti-linux companies to commit a metaphorical corporate "suicide 'bombing'(litigation)"...
Is the intended end result that SCO goes completely bankrupt in a flashy manner trying to sue as many large alleged 'infringers', such that they hope to leave a cloud of 'legal uncertainty' over Linux due to the lawsuits being left unfinished when SCO ceases to exist?
("There was so much infringement that we went broke before we could have those Linux miscreants punished! Oh, woe is us! Thankfully, due to my job experience dealing with the horrible illegalities that we allege in Linux, Microsoft has gladly offered me a new job on the newly-created Linux Legal Issues department, where I can continue to spread my warnings...")
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
AutoZone quit using SCO's product. So they shouldn't have to pay for it. Of course, had AutoZone signed a contract that say they would pay for a certain period, whether they use it or not, then by not paying, it's just a contract issue.
But this appears to be a case where SCO believes that part of their system, the shared library, was used on a Linux server to make the porting of AutoZone's application easier. Since the porting went so smoothly and quickly (presumably with IBM's help), SCO believes they must have cheated somewhere.
Apparently SCO has a poor track record in the past of porting other company's applications to SCO's crappy system, but somehow they think that's the norm. Welcome to the real world, Darl, where well written applications can simply be recompiled and run anywhere (even on Windows).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
According to ZDNET, "The Nevada court where SCO has filed a lawsuit against AutoZone over its use of Linux is itself a user of the open-source software." Apparently the court has its own web site running on Linux. If SCO loses they can appeal based on a conflict of interest.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Thing is AutoZone makes their money from things like spark plugs. (barring sales where they go below value to get you in the door). Sure each one is a buck each, but they sell a lot of spark plugs.
I'm sure sales of water pumps, starters, and the like account for more money, but they don't sell as many of them either.
If you have a car you will need parts. You alone don't matter much, but every penny counts to that bottom line.
SCO has filed suit against DaimlerChrysler for not responding to letters sent to Unix licencees demanding they perform a software audit proving they are complying with the confidentiality provisions and other terms of the software licence.
SCO is seeking an injunction to bar DaimlerChrysler from further violations of that licence, to fix past violations and be awarded damages to be decided in court as well as costs.
However, the violation in question is simply that of not responding to the audit request, rather than any misappropriation of trade secrets or use of Linux as with other litigation SCO is pursuing.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Does anyone have transcripts of the conference call up yet? or at least highlights and a review? I cant call in from work, unfortunately, but am very interested in what was said, especially in the Q/A portion.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Here is a bittorrent of a mp3 of the call today from SCO at http://sco.penguinman.com
SCO is probably entirely within their rights. AutoZone should port their applications to Linux natively and stop using the ABI files. The only thing I'm worried about is how much money they're going to have to give SCO in settlement fees - not because I'm particularly worried about AutoZone but because I'm concerned about anything that puts more cash into SCO's war chest.
+++ATH0
Maybe, as SCO shows, it is really difficult to convince a judge that a lawsuit doesn't have merit.
First of all, we have to wonder: why AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler? When the AutoZone lawsuit was announced, I figured they were chosen because they were a large company, but not a huge company, and they may just settle out of court instead of risk litigous waters. However, DaimlerChrysler is a giant with hordes of corporate lawyers. These lawsuits were not chosen out of weakness of the defendants. Which brings me to a second point. I can't imagine ANY corporate lawyers, how stupid SCO's may be, advising a company to file two HUGE, high profile lawsuits if the suits have no legal ground to stand on. With all this PR generated, to have the suits thrown out of court would just be stupid. Which brings me to wonder: Do Darl and the gang have an ace in the hole? There has to be a reason that they believe that these cases will go through, or be settled. And unfortunately, if they do, we may be in for a bigger battle than we imagined.
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. -- Anonymous
Best reporting ever!
The Nevada court where SCO Group has filed a lawsuit against US retailer AutoZone could itself theoretically be subject to legal proceedings because the court is using Linux to run its Web site.
(Is this considered a conflict of interest? I'll bet even SCO didn't see this one coming)
post as AC? never!
(Nice lady in a bikini puts a leigh of flowers around the neck of a man emerging from the conference call.)
(Dapper man in white suit, dramatically): Welcome Mr McBride, to Fantasy Island!
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
A while back, there was a utility called ipcs, which could take core SCO UNIX libraries, and make them available under linux for programs compiled to run under SCO OpenServer.
Almost all of AutoZone's store inventory and pick machines used to be Wyse terminals connected to an X86 SCO server in the back room, running a Progress application for the front-end.
In order to have a clean migration path away from what was at the time viewed as a dying technology, they probably used IPCS, along with the libraries from their previously purchased SCO servers for new Progress rollouts under linux.
Eventually, Progress Corporation got bright enough to natively support glibc, and Autozone could hopefully do away with all of the SCO hybrids in place. Unfortunately, SCO licensing has always been on a per-user basis, so they're going to hit up AutoZone for proof that they didn't have 500 users connected to libraries that were stripped from a server licensed for five users.
WTF any of this has to do with their lawsuit against IBM is up for debate, but this looks like a bait and switch.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
http://www.investor.reuters.com/StockOverview.aspx ?ticker=SCOX.O
Check it out. It's... kind of funny.
please, sue me.
I have enough spare time to cope with it, and will collect enough money from the whole Italian anti-SCO community to give them a hell of a hard time over Europe that they'll all become pizza-makers shortly.
It would be fun to be sued by SCO. Maybe'll meet Linus himself!!
Obviously I'm kidding. But a "SCO please sue me" t-shirt would be nice to wear in the summer.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Dirk, Gary, Nancy, Sue, Jim, Rebecca, and Dwight are sitting at a round table. If Jim sues Rebecca two seats to his right, Sue sues Dwight, who is sitting next to her, Dirk sues Gary to his left and Jim across from him, Rebecca sues Gary next to her and Dirk two places to her right, and Nancy sues the person two places to her left, who did Nancy sue?
i ran caldara 2.3, does this mean that SCO is going to sue me for coping some data to my redhat box? geez, come on now folks, ya'll need to grow up and start writing some software, not sue over something that you went out and bought from another company. then you can go out and sue sombody for copyright infrengment.
Most slashdotter's have a home page set in one of the larger browsers, and typically that home page has stock market coverage somewhere on it. If you're following all these SCO stories, try this: SCO's stock is listed under SCOX. IBM's is just IBM. Redhat is RHAT. Autozone's is AZO. (While you're at it Pixar and Disney are PIXR and DIS.).
If you want to see some background, on what stocks in general do, you can just watch the DOW aggregates and such , but often you'll get a better picture if you can add some of the really large companies out there, like: International Paper (IP), AT&T (T), General Electric (GE), Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter (MWD), Ford Motor (F), ConAgra (CAG), MetLIfe (MET), or Exxon-Mobil (XOM).
Once you set this up, you can click a link and see how big the stock actually is, get charts of trends, and so on. SCO is currently playing a David & Goliath game. There are now three Goliaths in the arena. All of them remembered to bring their helmets.
Who is John Cabal?
(Anon post for whore-avoidance)
OUR TAKE
SCO Digs a Deeper Hole
By Seth Jayson
March 3, 2004
Hey, if you're not making money the old-fashioned way, you might as well see what you can get through lawsuits. That seems to be the primary strategy these days at UNIX software provider SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX).
The trouble is, the company's litigious attempts at jump starting revenue cost a lot more than they bring back. This morning's first-quarter earnings provide a revealing glimpse at this poorly executed strategy.
For those who need a brief recap, SCO appears to own a version of UNIX that it claims has been duplicated, at least in part, in the open-source operating system Linux. For months now, the company has been threatening to sue anyone who uses Linux without paying SCO a license fee. Verified targets have so far have included IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL), which build and support Linux enterprise software.
In response to these shakedowns, a band of technology companies including other heavy-hitters like Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Dell (Nasdaq: Dell), Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) formed a legal defense fund.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2004, revenues dropped 16% to $11.4 million. Losses totaled $2.3 million, or $0.16 per share, more than twice the $0.06 per-share loss from the period before.
But it gets worse. The red ink was tempered by a one-time benefit of $3.8 million related to a "change in fair value" of the derivative associated with its series A convertible preferred stock. Without this credit, the loss on operations would have amounted to over $0.37 per share. (Now we know why the maxim, "Earnings are an opinion." makes sense.)
It's my opinion that SCO is doing everything wrong. In addition to the horrific, self-inflicted damage to its reputation, the licensing-lawsuit strategy is delivering a one-two punch to SCO's bottom line. Efforts to license Linux cost SCO $3.4 million in Q1. That's right, one-third of total revenue was wiped out. The payback? $20,000. That's not a typo. I know guys who make that much mowing lawns for a summer. Moreover, the balance sheet already currently lists $8 million in liabilities to legal firms. That number is likely to increase with the firm's new lawsuit against AutoZone (NYSE: AZO).
With declining revenues, increasing losses, plus an expensive and damaging litigation policy, SCO looks like one of the best short candidates I've seen in a while.
Got Linux questions? Consult the experts in the Fool's Linux User's Group.
Fool contributor Seth Jayson wonders how much SCO would charge him for a Linux license on his home-built PCs. He has no stake in any of the companies mentioned here.
So, how come SCO keeps sending OpenLinux security updates to all the lists, if they only have a couple dozen "licensed" customers? You think they could just send them to those guys.
CNet had an article about the recent dvdXcopy lawsuit, where the judge said that they didn't need to protect the fair use right to make copies of DVD's because people could make nondigital backup copies of DVD's. Never mind that there is no way to make any kind of copies - hook up your DVD player to a VCR (unless you've hacked it) and MacroVision will prevent you from doing that.
In the Microsoft antitrust case, the judge at one point says that Microsoft had to be lying about IE being an unremovable part of Windows unremovable, because he had removed it. In reality, he had deleted the icons.
I have blog like everyone else
Please judge for yourself. .
Looks like they're suing to demand that D-Chrysler let 'em inspect their machines.
Then comes a demand for $$$$$
And they're using Napster's old legal defenders, Boies' firm
Truly a classic interview on news.com. McBride compares his situation to OJ simpson, implying if the people they are sueing win and get off. Another interesting point was when Farber asks "what about the secure specialized versions of linux that people like the FBI and CIA use, will you be suing them to?" McBride: "No, we dont plan on having them named in the lawsuit tomarrow". McBrides interviews always seem to go in circles. http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5168921.html?tag=nl
Watched with amusement as the same thing happened at AZ one day, and RedHat 7.2 (Enigma) came up in the upper left-hand corner of the terminal screen when things were initializing. Didn't catch the kernel version, but late 2.2.x makes sense.
Come to think of it, I haven't been back to Checker since seeing that. I need a fuel pump soon and I'll be going to AutoZone.
Autozone has been relatively high-profile in their support of linux. Not only do they use(and pay RedHat for) linux, they host the meetings of the Memphis, Tennessee user's group(GOLUM) at their corporate headquarters in downtown Memphis! I believe Jim Greer, the guy that's being quoted a lot in this thread, is the former secretary of Golum.
So I HIGHLY suspect that this lawsuit has more to do with "punishing" a customer for their vocal support of linux instead of any real damages done to SCO.
If you live in the Memphis, TN area, please think about going to Golum to show your support! Their next meeting is tommorow, March 4th on 7:30pm at AutoZone HQ. Directions and map here. Parking is free, you just pull into their driveway in front of their HQ and park in the garage.
I thought the .so files were not binary compatible on different OSes ? (or is this some ibcs or stuff like that ?)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
'til ol' McBride has a problem with his vehicle. He goes to Auto Zone:
"Well, if it ain't Mr. McBride. What can I do fer ya today?"
"I need some parts."
"Well, we can offer ya some parts, but ya gotta sign this here license agreement saying that you will not go to any other parts provider, and that you give us written proof that you never have. Otherwise, we'll sue you fer using our store."
The Penguin Producer
AutoZone? Daimer-Chrysler?
Companies that have deep pockets and idle lawyers just looking for something to do. Maybe AutoZone to a lesser degree, but Daimler-Chrysler?
For gawd's sake, is Darl finally going totally insane? This is more than just a David vs. Goliath. This is like a cockroach with a bad attitude trying to take on a couple of steamrollers. This is megalomania in it's finest form.
Personally, someone at Canopy Group needs to have Darl tucked into a wrap-around tuxedo and carried off in a butterfly net. This guy is unbelievable.
SCO's hunting easy game here ... that is CEOs who have relatively no idea what their IT department is doing ...
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
There are some interesting parallels. First off, they both treat their customers like criminals, assuming that they have stolen from them, then wonder why their sales are down. Second, they both are completely ignorant of how hated they are by their peers. Third, they both employ high powered attorneys who would rather sue then negotiate anything. Finally, both seem completely clueless regarding the fact that technology has made them obsolete. Rather then embracing the new frontier, they both seem to want to sue it out of existance. This last reason is why both will ultimately fail.....
Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. It takes a complete moron to fight a war on 5 fronts.
- Londo Molari
(Paraphrased a little). So SCO is now suing Novell, RedHat, IBM, AutoZone, and Chrysler. Then there's this matter of that Austrailian company suing SCO. Not to mention the German court case. These SCO boys are real f'd up.
Please stop spreading your FUD, mmmkay?
The lesson is simiple. Do not ever do any kind of business with SCO. If you decide to go to another vendor (because SCO sucks), they will put you first on the list of people to sue as part of their new business model.
What's the betting that SCO picked these two based on their inept response to SCO's extortion letters. Perhaps they smelled blood in the water and maybe have some incriminating response in letter form. Ether that or they just picked the largest targets. SCO need to be countersued for this and WHERE THE HECK ARE THE U.S. ATTOURNEY GENERALS? They're supposed to stop this kind of blatant shakedown.
who did Nancy sue?
Either Sue or Dwight - impossible to determine which from the information given.
But what does this have to do with IP protocol 47 (Generic Routing Encapsulation)?
Can't someone find SCO code in the leaked Microsoft sources? That would keep them both busy!
SCO are attacking their own customer again over a contract issue, they want to audit Daimler Chrysler based on an earlier Unix license. This has nothing to do with Linux. But it should be a warning to anyone thinking of buying a license from SCO. Watch out because the assholes at SCO will use any contract you sign as a foot in the door and use it to sue you down the line.
Nor can I. I always wondered how the judges in the US handle the fact that rightfull court rulings are not so rarely opposed to the public's preference.
One of those Europeans...
there she goes!
I liked the joke, so this is just for your information.
MS wrote the code for automatic exterior defibrulator (AED) machines. I learned this in my CPR class.
I think my hatred of SCO can be summed up in a nutshell. If people did steal some of their code (which is highly unlikely) TELL US WHICH CODE! It is hard to prove a negative ("did you steal an item similar to the one in this sealed box?") And also, why would you try to alienate, intimidate, and otherwise annoy the people who once paid for your services, back when you did make software, and were not a company whose profit depends on "licensing fees" from decades old technology, which explains the loss of $2,500,000. All a company has to do to indemnify themselves is recompile their kernel.
I hate sigs.
The story behind the story is that they announced Wednesday that they will have a wider first-quarter loss vs. a year ago on declining revenue. When somebody's drowning, they'll grab at anything they can.
The case IS NOT ABOUT LINUX. It is about using SCO claiming that autozone are using SCO SHARED LIBRARIES IN A WAY THEY'RE NOT LICENSED TO.
STOP PRESSES--THIS JUST IN: News reporters, and articles inflate and stretch story facts to generate more interest and contraversy! More at 11!
G-Force music visualization
Autozone: Well, you could try...
(many slaps and punches are heard until a body hits the floor)
Autozone: How does that taste, Darl? Next time, maybe you won't go into a knife fight with a spork. Dumb@$%!
...I've heard that some other countries force the loser to pay the winner's costs. As can be imagined, this cuts down dramatically on friviolous or petty lawsuits.
It would be interesting to have such a thing here in the USA I think.
OK, AutoZone I can see, but DAIMLER-CHRYSLER?? LMAO! SCO has bitten off way more than it can chew. Just hope this doesn't make my car payment go up.
-jls
Techno-pagan
Down about 15% as investors realize "I don't need no tax write-offs yet !" .
Bow your head and join me in a quick silent prayer to the Deity of your choice....
So, if there is a real deity, we get to choose what this deity is like? Surely if there is a deity, it has some nature and characteristics to it, independent of what *I* think? I propose it must therefore be my duty to discern the nature of said deity, based on sound logic, and not merely settle by whim on "the deity of my choice". We don't get to choose.
Are you a flatlander like in that crazy video about the shape of space? If so, flatlanders rule!
how about a six-inch screw or maybe the sandpaper coated "fatality Special" brake pads?
You sir, are too smart for your own good :)
Think about it - sending him to hell for eternal damnation is much better than sending him to some Federal love-feast prison for stock fraud. Believe me, Hell is a real pound-you-in-the-&*(*&# kind of place.
...and even they don't want him.
Yes, public opinion matters, but Linux and Open Source are unstoppable.
Do you think that IBM is a bunch of ignorant hippies?
Maybe SCO will (is) doing some damage but nothing that time would not cure.
I used to work for DaimlerChrysler IS/ITM up until fairly recently.
DISCLAIMER: It's a big company. I couldn't possibly have been aware of everything going on there.
That being said... SCO targeting DCX makes zero sense, as not only was there not much SCO product there, there's not much Linux there either.
I was there for 7 years, and I saw exactly ONE SCO server in that whole time - and it was a legacy deal running some service that was due to go away soon. Maybe there was some more in the plants (plants always seem to have strange things going on) but certainly there wasn't much in the core ops.
DCX, at least the Chrysler half, runs mostly on IBM mainframes. 3270 green-screen stuff. While the amount of UNIX use was growing, THAT was mostly Solaris with a few IBM AIX boxes mixed in to keep things interesting.
There were a few people investigating Linux (and I know we had at least one running instance of Linux-on-a-mainframe) but I'm not aware of any production Linux deployments. If they existed, they were very low-key and not widespread.
I had a Linux box as one of my workstations, but I did that on my own.
If there was any signifigant SCO deployments in the plants, they would probably have been replaced by Solaris or AIX boxes, not Linux. SCO just wasn't taken seriously as a UNIX.
Why SCO picked DCX to target is beyond me.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Against that vile evil villainous villain...
TIME WARNER!
They will be sued for a fabricated reason of which I can produce no evidence aside from spectral testitony. Thomas Jefferson heard the whole damn thing.
QUIVER AOHELL BEFORE MY LEGAL MIGHT AND BRILLIANCE!
Fukn twits.
SCO's conference call, Click
This guy is way out there
And make a purchase...
Has anybody else noticed that SCO put out a number of security advisories today?
This lawsuit news kind of covers that up..
I didn't read the full advisory, so maybe they didn't put out anything significant at all.
Still kinda interesting.
The problem with the Carthage analogy, however, is that the armies of Carthage under Darl Hannibal savaged the Roman republic for years causing untold suffering and carnage before they were taken down. In fact, I think that there were a total of three Punic wars. So we should ask ourselves if anyone is in the position to spring up after SCO to take up the same business model and start wars II and III.
What is SCO?
Is "we think they used our libraries" really sufficient grounds for a lawsuit? Aren't they required to use due diligence first, before filing? Something along the lines of 1) sending a letter to AutoZone stating "We beleive you are using our libraries contrary to our contract with you. Please cease and desist." 2) Receive a reponse from AutoZone stating "No we are not. Kindly fuck off." 3) Sending another letter stating "We think you are lying. When may we audit you?" 4) Receiving a response from AutoZone stating "We have given our security guards orders to shoot on sight anyone identifying themselves as representing SCO." Then maybe they would have grounds for a lawsuit -- or maybe if AutoZone never bothered responding to their C&D letter, as apparently Daimler-Chrysler never did. What due diligence actions did SCO take before hauling AutoZone into court?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Darl Mcbride to start amateur boxing career. His first opponents will be Mike Tyson, George Forman and Evander Holyfield.
When asked if he would honestly fight against these opponents, mr. McBride responded "Yes, after speaking with my counsels, the lawyers at Boies, we've determinated that these opponent would be perfect for me to initially test my skills. I applied my strategic expertise to the world of boxing, and these were natural matches, considering that these boxers are retired and I've been working out for 6 weeks".
Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST
I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.
As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.
As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.
One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.
I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.
Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.
Regards, Jim Greer
--
(end of Mr. Greer's comments)
______
For thosw who haven't been following groklaw, Suplemental no. 8 refers to SCO's Supplemental Response to Interrogatory Number 8, in IBM's Exhibit 1, (disclosure) where they accused IBM of nefarious dealings with AugoZone because they thought that the switch over went too cleanly
(yeah.. I'm serious... IBM could make a commercial about this one).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
So Sco is sueing a car company and an auto parts store.. HMM why not use the slashdot effect to make a point ...)
1 purchase a Crysler compatible part from AutoZone
2 mail the part to Sco's corp office with a note
(explain why the suits are bad
3 Profit!!
Viewers and participants all,
Keep your eyes peeled and ears cocked.
Here thus we see,
the very first steps of SCO's end-game.
--
Simple:
Jesus == (an aspect of) God (not just some peasant in Judea)
good ideas == inspiration
inspiration == "from the (Holy) Spirit" (another aspect of God)
therefore,
good ideas come from Jesus
If schools and local governments used nothing but OSS, then they wouldn't have Microsoft breathing down their necks threatening them to pay their tax or face an audit.
If everyone was using OSS in the first place, there would have already been DVD software for Linux and BSD, so that poor foreign kid wouldn't have been sued.
There would have been no DeCSS mess. A judge wouldn't have ruled that code != free speech. There might not even had been an encryption clause in the DMCA.
If anything, its a text book example on why proprietary software/information is the bane of this century.
Atomic Fro
Thanks, Darl, i needed the laugh.
So where do we draw the line between "frivolous SCO lawsuit" and "economic/technological SCO terrorism"?
SCO's basically spreading an information virus (FUD), and trying to hold Linux hostage. Linux is very widely used in the backend of many companies' systems.
Then again, the current administration will never prosecute anyone for spreading misleading information to their own benefit, lest they be forced to practice what they preach. I wonder how the SCO case will change once Kerry is in the white house.
$8.95/mo web hosting
I have seen statements, allegedly from SCO, claiming AutoZone is a copyright infringement case regarding System V code in Linux. I have also seen statements, allegedly from SCO, claiming that the case is regarding OpenServer shared libraries.
To be blunt, we don't know which it is, or if it's neither or both. The only way we will know is to read the case, and unless you are in the Nevada Courts Clerk's office to pick it up, you're going to have to wait for it to hit Pacer, or Groklaw, or any of the other sites that will make the filings available online.
Until then, it might well be about Linux, or it might not be. Your claim that it isn't is just as much speculation as their claim that it is.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I'm hoping we'll improve on past history and learn from it (hope against hope).
Besides, I'm guessing Autozone, IBM, Daimler-Chrysler, and Red Hat may be able to get more lawyers together than Rome had soldiers in its army - one hopes that they can finish SCO more quickly than Rome finished Carthage.
let's count the lawsuits hehe
Sco sues IBM
IBM sues sco
redhat sues sco
sco sues novell
sco sues autozone
sco sues chyrstler
Keep it up they'll catch up with the riaa!
SCO's attack looked very weak when they started in against IBM with the $1 billion lawsuit but now they are starting to do some serious damage. The lawsuits against Autozone and Daimler-Chrysler will drag on for years and cast a cloud over thousands of other similar companies contemplating developing a similar sort of Linux-based infrastructure.
SCO reminds me of the star trek episode "Journey to Babel" where the small enemy scout ship was able to launch devastating attacks against the much-more-powerful Enterprise because it used 100% power for suicide attacks leaving none for a return to base. The Enterprise wins, however, by pretending to be mortally wounded thus luring the enemy into close range to be dispatched by an Enterprise photon torpedo.
SCO is obviously on a suicide mission of their own so maybe Autozone and Daimler-Chrsler should lure them into range by entering into negotiations with SCO and then use SCO's negotiating positions to show that SCO is not really seeking legitimate monetary damages to compensate them for the alleged misuse of their IP but is instead seeking to cast a pall of FUD over corporate use of Linux.
Damn, you got at least two of those wrong that I can see...good job though you useless analfuck.
I am willing to donate just to keep them from settling.
But even if the timid companies will be scared away from linux by SCO, timid companies would not jump on linux before it has passed the 50 % marked domination anyway. And even if the short effect would be misinformed news paper articles about SCO having a legal case, all those news papers will proclaim to the world that big companies like Daimler-Chrysler uses Linux to run their everyday operation. Even to be the pictured as the bad boys of IT, is better than the spin tried before that Linux is a toy by hobby programmers.
So SCO, keep up the good work, dig your own grave and make as much PR for linux as you can on your way to your own demiss.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Hypathetical Question.
If Bill Gates were to take copyrighted material say a pirated MP3 and incorporate it in his operating system. Who would be responsible for infringing on the copyright? Bill or the consumer? In all fairness wouldn't Bill Gates be responsible for all copies distributed? I'm by far not an expert on the law but this suit seems asinine and appears to be a gold mining operation/pipe dream/Mob like strong arm tactics. When are they going to gag SCO?
AutoZone is a multi-billion what? Parts, employees, dollars? What?
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
Motley Fool
It was up during SCO's webcast, it's down now.
Take a look at all the information posted on Groklaw today and yesterday. Can you say INFORMATION OVERLOAD?!
The strategy here is to overwhelm everyone with massive amounts of data to sift through. Again, when the mess is cleaned up it won't mean shit, but what it DOES do is buy them some more time.
Unbelievable. God, I hate these f*cking guys...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
To answer your question, in Mormon theology, Christ:
As creator of this world, do Mormons believe that Christ understood semiconductor tech before 1960? Yes. Do they believe that he understands ideas and technologies that won't be discovered by humanity for 100 years? Yes.
After all, information wants to be free.
Can we not maintain some modicum of respect for Christians, even if we are not among them ourselves? I would think the parent's subj line would be pretty offensive.
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/pdf/ne/2004/AutoZoneFin alComplaint.pdf
Nevada is Auto Zone's state of incorporation. That's why they are in Nevada.
As a former employee of The Home Depot:
and 5250 emulators
They aren't actually 5250 emulators. Way back in the day, most of the THD techs accessed the IBM mainframe. Then, back in the 80s, when the company put HP-UX machines in all the stores, the IS department wrote a "5250-like" shell so that employees could access the HP box and not have to be retrained (in theory). Lots of this "Mainframe-like" software still exists in the company, and it is still some of the worst software I ever remember seeing. Compared to 5250 shells, it's less functional, slower, more buggy, less rational, and monochrome.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
If I choose to smoke or drink, no one will punish me at Church. Only those who are committing the sin of unrighteously judging will look down on me.
However, you may find it somewhat of a paradox that the teaching of the Church regarding alcohol, tobacco, and other perjudical drugs are to be avoided is actually driven, at least as I understand it, from a desire to expand the individual's freedom, not restrict it. You will find few people that will claim an addiction expands choice instead of restricting it. Did opium free China? Isn't this the exact analogy (that of restricting choice) when we something is "the opiate of the masses?"
As a Mormon, I do actually happen to believe that evolution is as likely an explanation for how life evolved as anything else that has been put forward; the "Mormon God" is not a God of magic tricks and finger snapping, and I believe the creation account in both the Bible and Mormon scripture is bolstered by evolutionary theory, not degraded by it (explain, for example, how Moses and Abraham both got the order in which creatures appeared almost dead right? And doesn't the phrase "and the waters brought forth every living creature" jump right out at you? How did they know this stuff several millenia before the birth of Christ?). But I will admit that there are Mormons who are adamantly opposed to evolution. It's an open debate of opinions in Mormonism. The Church's official stance on biological evolution is that they have no official stance (and has been since 1912).
Birth control is not prohibited in Mormonism.
I believe that "all this god crap" is no lie, but as an imperfect soul with finite knowledge, I admit that I don't know everything, and that even the things I think I know, I know imperfectly. But I continue to believe with conviction in Him and in His Gospel.
Lastly, Mormonism is one of the only religions in the world, AFAIK, which teaches that the other 99.999% of people are saved. First, all of mankind will be resurrected, regardless of how they lived. Thus, we are all saved from death, through Christ's resurrection. Second, Mormons believe in posthumus baptism for the dead (Christianity in general is encumbered by not understanding Christ's instruction that in order to be "saved" one must be baptized. In Mormonism, we fulfill this requirement for those who never had a chance in this life to do so, and even for those who had a chance but didn't understand it, i.e., everyone. We leave the rest up to Christ at judgemnet day, and rely on his justic and mercy).
Since that is where Auto Zone is incorporated.
I was sorta amused that RedHat was offering Chrysler financial support for legal issues
AZO stock down $4.76, on 87mm shares outstanding, for a total loss of $414 million in market capital.
SCOX stock down $1.83, on 14.3mm shares outstanding, for a total loss of $26 million in market capital.
The market perceives this as a negative for both companies (when corporations sue each other, the only winners are lawyers.)
If I can make the following observation: AZO stock is a huge value right here. They are excellent stewards of capital with a great business plan and proven results over the past three years. Their twelve-month trailing return on investor's equity is an amazing 87%, unparalleled by almost any business in the US. They just reported stellar financial results and have reaffirmed their commitment to return capital to shareholders through share repurchase plans. At 12.1x next year's estimated earnings, this is also one of the cheapest stocks in the S&P 500. The market reaction to the lawsuit is totally absurd: does anyone realistically think this lawsuit can destroy $400 million in shareholder equity? I for one do not. BUY AZO.
On the other hand SCOX is a huge sell right here. Their plan to sue their way to wealth seems unfounded and unlikely to succeed; they have yet to produce any hard evidence that their code was misappropriated. Also a business plan that involves suing your former customers is a great way to insure that you do not obtain any future customers. They reported large losses this quarter and do not seem to making any great inroads with their linux distro. SELL SCOX.
Let's see...SCO files suit against IBM, Autozone, and Daimler-Chrysler...
Talk about taking on a family of 800-lb gorillas!
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Darl: "There are currently no lawsuits against SCO..."
Forget Cyberknight (or whatever they're called), what about Red Hat! Did Darl just happen to forget that they're being sued by Red Hat? In addition to being countersued by IBM, and having already lost two cases in Germany (although to be fair, those were against SCOG Gmbh, not SCOG Inc., and, being over, could be considered "not an outstanding lawsuit).
The Cyberknight thing isn't actually a lawsuit AFAIK. It's a complaint filed with a government body, not with a court. (How many slashdotters have (e)mailed the FTC?) But pretending the Red Hat lawsuit doesn't exist...aren't there laws about lying to investors? Is mind-boggling stupidity a legal defense in such cases?
As if IBM wasn't big enough, they go after Daimler-Chrysler??
Does this company know no limits or have an ounce of common sense left anywhere? The only way I can think they can top this is of they go after BP or Phillip Morris.
This is going to be one hell of a trainwreck. This is going to go down in history. I bet 10 years from now "who do you think you are? SCO?" will be a common phrase for people who make massive stupidity "bold" actions, like jumping from a plane at 10,000 feet with no parachute or something.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Not only have you angered open source people, then IBM (general computer people), but now you have angered people in the automotive industry.
This means that you have also angered people from some of the most powerful political lobbyists and poeple who now see you as possible problems to their job security (UNIONS).....
--
Time is on my side
Lovely. Why is my city, Las Vegas, always seeming to be the epicenter for stuff like this?
Heck, I've walked by the place where Skylarov was arrested at least dozens of times.
Is the trial going to be at the Las Vegas or the Reno location?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
What a freakin' liar this guy is!!!
Ol' Darl must be training for politics.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes
Rule number two: don't get high on your own supply.
-- Franky Lopez, _Scarface_
You would be amazed at how many people get offended only by asking questions like those about them or their religion.
I'm glad you choose to answer. Guess I'll google a little and try to read more about your religion. You see, anthropology is a sort of hobby for me, and religion is one of the biggest expressions of mankind.
Anyway, nice answers.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
Damn, why does it take an MBA to step in and settle a techie argument about numbers ;)
.5 * 5 * 15 or 350,00 * 75 or a bit over $26M bucks. Now lets say us techies with the job market being slow decide to do a few basic repairs on our own and save Unemployment checks for Beer and Pizza ;) Say, another $150/yr for things like brake pads,plugs, hand cleaner, tools, etc. Say 50% of the 50% do this and thats 700,000 * .25 * 100 or 17.5M. Add the two totals and you get about $43M bucks. Thats 45E06/ 5.5E09 or .008, or 8/10ths of 1%. So assuming my estimates are not off by factors of 10, it really does not make a difference to AZ. So either we need more Linux guys to work on thier cars instead of code or we need them to spring for more expensive parts in order to make a difference.
Lets say there are approx 1 Million Linux users in the USA who actually pay attention to the SCO BS. Knowing that "a enemy of my enemy is my friend" rings very true with the SCO cases lets say 70% of these guys decide to visit an Autozone for Auto parts and accessories. It costs somewhere around $15 or an oil change (most common Auto Repair) so lets say 50% of the 70% change the oil 5X per year. Thats 700,000 *
Listening to the mp3 of the call today, can someone teach Dar-ell how to pronounce 'software industry', and not in-duh-strie.
Jesus.
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women." - Conan
When will it hit bottom?
Please mod parent up: +5, Funny!
is the 28th largest economy in the world.
New Zealand is 81.
Holy cow.
Hi Eric!
Thanks for your kind words. A paragraph in your post intrigued me:
As it happens, I've done some work with liability claims for a large insurance company, and I've done other insurance work as well. I'm pretty familiar with the mechanics, as you put it, of how liability claims are handled.
A casualty insurance claim is based on a loss: something of value that you own (or lease) is damaged or destroyed. Your car is wrecked, a tree falls on your house, your wife's engagement ring is stolen, or your boat sinks. You realize what happens, and you call up the insurance company and say, "Ack! My boat sank!" The claims technician identifies your policy, identifies the limits on the policy, and initiates a financial transaction called "establishing a reserve". That means that the insurance company is aware that it will have to pay a claim for your $45,000 boat--and by law the company is required to set aside cash equal to the value of all claims that it will have to pay in the short term.
A liability claim is a little bit different: the claim is typically a lawsuit. And a liability policy almost always includes a requirement that the insurance company have "the free and unfettered right" to defend the claim. Which is to say, AutoZone's insurors will respond to the lawsuit from SCO--AutoZone's internal counsel will not. Remember the bit above about establishing a reserve? The same thing happens with a liability claim--except that it isn't quite as cut and dried. The insurance company will evaluate the claim based on a number of factors (nature of the claim [i.e. is it a known issue, such as asbestos], prior history with this plaintiff, prior history with plaintiff's counsel, prior history in this jurisdiction, etc.) and try to determine an adequate reserve to set aside. The insuror wants to set aside the smallest possible reserve, but also wants to ensure that the reserve is adequate so that an insurance examiner (a government official) does not find that they are under-reserving.
So what's the big deal about the insurance reserve? And why does it matter in SCO v. AutoZone?
The reserve set-aside is a transaction that takes funds (real, cold, hard, U.S. currency one-dollar simolians) from the company's assets and sets them aside as a liability. The insurance company must also set aside money from its cash accounts when it issues a new policy--and the insurance company must keep a percentage of its total assets in cash. The effect of this is to create a tension between claims and underwriting: if too much cash is set aside as a reserve, the company will not have enough cash to underwrite new policies. Or, if too many policies are written, the company will not have enough cash to set aside to handle potential claims. So when some jerk (read "D-a-r-l") sues a policyholder for $1 billion (or whatever) the insuror appears to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have to set aside an adequate reserve--but they want to set aside as little as possible. Too much, they lose sales (and profits). Too little, and they get in big trouble with the insurance examiners. What to do?
The answer? Look for someone else to blame. You can reduce your reserve set-aside requirement by the amount you expect to recover from another party. In this case, the other party is IBM. You can reduce your set-aside by suing the other party, but typically (especially in a case like this, where the plaintif
Hi!
Lawsuits between businesses practically never end up in court. My employer is presently involved in a patent law case that has been going on for years. It may well end up on court--but the vast majority of lawsuits are settled.
Why? For starters, a billing rate of $300 per hour for an associate, which is to say, somebody who graduated from law school in the past couple of years. And who is expected to bill 50-60 hours per week. Assemble a staff of associates, along with several partners billing at $400 to $600 per hour, and you're talking about an incredible legal bill.
And who pays the bill? As I've explained elsewhere, the company doesn't. The company's liability insurance company will conduct the defense of the lawsuit, and the insurance company will pay the bill. Which gives the insurance company a powerful incentive to settle the case.
On Wall Street they call this "greenmail."
Back in the 1980s, during the huge craze for Mergers & Acquisitions (see, for instance, Barbarians at the Gate) an investment firm would raise enough capital to buy a significant chunk of a firm's stock. They would surreptitiously buy just under 6% (the threshold at which you have to declare ownership), then "move" on the stock in a short period to take a big chunk of additional stock while driving up the price. They would then announce a "takeover bid"--and in the parlance of the street, the victim company would be "in play."
One of four things would happen: the victim company's executives would fight off the takeover attempt with a long, drawn-out proxy fight; they would attempt to keep control by encouraging another company (called a "white knight" to buy them instead); or they would buy the attacker's stake at a premium to the already-inflated price. Or they'd succumb to the takeover, and watch their company get pillaged (since the takeover firm would then promptly sell as many liquid assets as they could find, to recoup their cash.)
In theory, the "buyout firm" (the attacker) would be happy with any of the four outcomes. In practice, they achieved the highest return on their investment (in a ridiculously short period of time) when the victim company bought their stake. And once the buyout firms ("sharks") figured this out, they started beating the bushes looking for companies with lots of liquid assets on the balance sheet, but with relatively low stock prices. When they identified a victim, they would plunder the company of its liquid assets (cash, saleable real estate, accounts receivable, etc.)--while congratulating themselves for making the victims "more efficient." When they'd talk about "shareholder rights"--they typically meant "victimizing anybody else." The now cash-starved victims typically were forced to close plants, lay off employees, and drastically downsize--while the sharks moved on to the next victim.
But it didn't always work
In order to successfully put a target "into play," the attacker had to have a viable business plan. They had to have a company willing to buy the target, or a management team with "Street credibility" that could step in and take over. Sometimes the victim company would mount a "Pac-Man" defense--where the takeover target would respond by going after the attacking company. Instead of fighting off an attacker, they'd just buy them.
SCO is doing something very similar.
As I have written elsewhere in this thread, SCO is doing something very similar. And they have some history: SCO is the corporate successor to Caldera, and Caldera was spun off from Novell by Ray Noorda, Novell's founder, when Novell went public. Caldera had one asset: the surviving legal claims of Digital Research (which had been bought by Novell) a
Thanks a bunch... 275kB/s download. :D
http://sco.com/keyword.php?kid=sue+me
/home/www/www.caldera.com/html/keyword.php on line 77
Parse error: parse error, expecting `')'' in
Open source scripting language, eh?
Technically, the DaimlerChrysler case is NOT about Linux in SysV (err, other way round ;-p), but it's just SCO's way to say :
:
"Please talk to me."
Apparently, DaimlerChrysler had once a contract with SCO.
Apparently SCO thinks that because of this, they must answer every letter SCO sends to them.
Apparently DaimlerChrysler doesnt think so.
(Or they didnt even notice, hey, they make more revenu every 4 hours (including weekends and nights!) than SCO makes in a year)
As this isnt directly about Linux, the german court order might not be important. (But I'm sure DC's lawyers will look into every possibility to play the court order against SCO in a countersuit)
Prediction
DC will settle if SCO pays the cost for the audit themself and accepts a nifty NDA.
The little annoyance of having SCO looking through their files doesnt justify the costs of a lawsuit.
However, if SCO starts sueing them for Linux use, they will feel the wrath of the worlds seventh[1] largest company. If they just whisper the possibility to quit the US, Bush (or however is President then) will personally call, bah, take a flight to Stuttgart to talk them out of it.
IBM may be huge, but DC is twice[1] as big and has it much easier to shut down all of his US facilities.
[1] - in terms of sales, building cars is less hyped than IT, so DC's market value is lower than IBM's.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
Perhaps the companies who are at risk (and others) should join together to just buy SCO (and other such troublesome companies.) I believe SCO Group's market cap was $170 million when I last looked. A consortium could buy the company and eliminate license issues for less than the cost of litigation.
Come on ./, let's get with it here. Believing that something like that could/would happen is a crime against reality.
Let's all re-write those areas ann copyright it and release it into GPL, screw these bastards!
Can't wait till they release what lines they think they own, let's write all over those places!
All autozone has to do is just stop using it, use our modified version and what can they do? Try to back chage them? screw SCO!
Everyone buy a Chrysler compatible screw from autozone and mail it to SCO with the note "You"
ok, I may be an idiot or I just don't see the situation...
Can SCO point at the piece of code they are claiming to own? If yes, how do they define the ownership? Do they have that code in Unix versons that appeared before Linux?
And if they can't point at the code, why do lawsuits ever make it to life?
Darl bought a Prowler, the warrantee doesn't cover squirrels stuck in the exposed front suspension, and he can't get the spininng hubs he bought at Autozone to work right... so Bwahahahaha it is!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I can't wait to see when the most deep pocketed publishers will get in to this. someone like Gannett or Knight Ridder could sue $hit out of SCO, it would make headlines before they finish with them. And also they would bnefit on this. more news more money
In answer to your question: yes.
If my "blasphemy" offends others, then that's their hang up. I certainly don't see why I should sanitise my language because of some quiche-eating notion of political correctness. If you don't want to be offended, stay the fuck off the internet, and for that matter, off the streets.You never know when someone will utter a dirty word, or maybe even take the Holy Mother's name in vain!
from netcraft.com:
u rt _that_will_hear_sco_v_autozone_lawsuit_itself_runs _linux.html
Executives at Autozone must be feeling unlucky at being the recipient of a lawsuit from SCO when there are so many other corporate Linux users that SCO could have chosen from.
However, the defence may take heart that the court in which SCO filed suit runs its own web site on Linux, and that the key electronic documents SCO filed in the case will be living on a Linux server. Plaintiffs filing lawsuits must enter copies of their legal documents in Adobe PDF format in the court's Linux-based Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system, which will provide electronic updates of case information for the litigants and their lawyers.
Presumably, that means SCO's lawyers filed the lawsuit using a system that it contends infringes its intellectual property. SCO's numerous press pronouncements have thus far not mentioned whether its lawyers sent the Nevada court a cease-and-desist letter prior to filing the documents, or indeed whether it plans to file suit against the court itself.
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/03/03/co