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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."
Autozone is one of the few companies doing well right now... They do not need our assistance... YET...
Your best assistance would be to go to http://finance.yahoo.com under the stock symbol AZO. Go to the messageboards and reassure the stock holders reading the messageboard there that this is just part of SCO's continuing practice and the lawsuit should be taken lightly.
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.
In spite of the main focus of a lot of online denizens, there is more to the world than The Internet. The 'market share' of Web Servers, for instance, is not defined by the number of them that Netcraft can access. Some of the most important web servers are on intranets and totally inaccessable to the public. Some of the most important servers are internal to businesses and unreachable on the Internet.
Really, except for companies that do most of their business in ecommerce (still a real minority) it's only the throw-away boxes that are facing outward.
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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.
So? They paid for the original licenses, they can do anything the want with the libraries except re-sell them or reverse engineer them with an intent to reveal the information for profit. SCO would only have a case if AZ was paying a maintenance license, and let it expire.
You gotta be kidding me! This isn't an intellectual property issue, it's a EULA-violation issue. I'd be laughing my ass off if it wasn't for the fact that I'm seriously pissed off about Auto Zone (long time customer).
Bush and crew, if you want re-election, look here: Barratry is bad for business! Tell Ashcroft to stop worrying about abortion doctors and start protecting American jobs and investors!
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
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.
I imagine that SCO will have to show that specific machines are running Linux
Screw that, they have to first prove what parts of linux are allegedly "stolen"
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
This is why the Fortune 500 company for whom I work has adopted a new Linux strategy:
We don't talk about Linux to the press.
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.
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
And if SCO wins in court or AutoZone settles, does anyone think the press will note the distinction?
The press probably will not note the distinction. However, a court of law would. The future ruling/settlement would have nothing to do with the IBM, Novell or Red Hat cases.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
You have just fullfilled Microsoft's goal in this suit. If they can obscure the growing use of Linux, they may yet survive...
To have merit, SCO's "belief" that AutoZone copied their shared libs to Linux would need to be proven true.
But it is indeed not true. AutoZone did not use SCO's shared libraries. So not only is the case not really about companies simply using Linux being at risk, but the wrongdoing AutoZone is accused of is merely speculation on SCO's part.
But this case should be a wake-up call for anyone who has actually copied SCO's shared libs.... to either replace them with the GPL's alternative, or do a true port and make a clean break away from anything remoting having to do with compatibility with OpenServer and UnixWare.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Not to state the obvious but the court of public opinion here is just as important (if not more so?) then the courts of law. If SCO wins with their FUD then we are all screwed.
I can imagine a future where anybody using Linux is automatically labeled a "hacker" or some other such label by ignorant congresscritters/others in power who have bought into the SCO FUD -- "What? Your using Linux? Why? Do you share movies or something?"
The best thing that could happen here is for SCO to lose and be exposed as the money grubbing litigious bastards that they are. Microsoft's (alleged) involvement being exposed wouldn't hurt either -- shitty software/security aside it'd be nice to expose their ruthless backstabbing business practices to John Q. Public.
However if SCO wins this (or any other lawsuit for that matter) -- and I'm sure they picked something with at least a little bit of merit (they aren't stupid) we could be in serious trouble. You think the FUD and the public perception (DoS attacks against SCO's website don't help us here any) is bad now? Just wait and see how bad it gets if they win one of these...
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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 know this is off-topic, but I've seen this quite a bit. Now that Redhat have discontinued their end-user distribution, how many large contracts will they miss out on because the department head is familiar with some other distribution instead?
No, the "court of public opinion" instead wears a green robe with dollar signs 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."
Absolutely true, but the damage to be done by public opinion is not in the courts, but rather in the IT spending budgets. A shutdown of spending on Linux due to misperception of the facts is nearly as deadly as SCO winning their suit against IBM.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
O.J.Simpson lost the "court of public opinion" and he is still walking around a free man.
Yeh, he's free, but remeber how O.J. Simpson used to be do lots of television commercials for major corporations at one time? Now he's basically shunned by everyone. I don't think that's the future free software supporters are hoping for for Linux.
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)