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MS Word File Reveals Changes to SCO's Plans
jfruhlinger writes "Ah, the joys of 'track changes' in MS Word: metadata in a document obtained by Cnet reveals some earlier plans by SCO's legal team. Among them: to sue in February (their original target date), to sue Bank of America, to 'impound ... all Linux software products in the custody or control of Defendant through the pendency of these proceedings', and to accuse in court 'Linus Torvalds and/or others' of 'inclusion into one or more distributions of Linux with the copyright management information intentionally removed.' Good stuff." Also, SCO has announced a few new licensees including Computer Associates.
Ironically, UC Berkeley is also going to be a licensee!!
With SCO being all about their Unix IP, you would think they would prefer to use their own product when writing legal proceedings, instead they use Microsofts....
Memories become legend, Legend fades to myth, and even myth is forgotten by the time that age comes again.-Robert Jordan
I'd be interested to know how many companies got the warning letter from SCO and tossed it in the circular file instead of replying to it.
If I'm not mistaken, SCO filed suit against DC because they never received a response to their letter. I wonder how many more they'll file based on lack of replies.
Anyone able to find a link to the word file? I'd like to see this for myself in its entirety. I did a quick search on Google and didn't turn it up.
IANAL. But suppose a case is brought to court that includes, as part of its collection of evidence, a Word document that tracks changes in much the same way that the Word document in the article apparently did. Could a prosecutor who, for example, sees among the "invisible ink" Neo-Nazi writings by the accused, be able to use that as evidence against him? Could he furthermore deduce "motive" and "intent" from that evidence? On one hand, he is able to glean the evidence simply because something *WAS* there. But that's just the problem: It was in the past, but it has been editted out and substituted by the weekly grocery list of the accused. Would he then be able to point to the "change log", so to speak, and build his case on that?
I would have loved to have seen them try to impound all that equipment. BOA would have destroyed them outright.
Anyone know who SCO banks with?
somehow this happened.
* SCO Group Inc (The) SCOX 11.66 +0.07 (0.60%)
How? What idiot would buy stock now? Microsoft, in a last ditch attempt to give them a shread of crediability? People willing to take a million to one odds that they win any of these lawsuits?
SAILING MISHAP
In seeking relief from the courts, the original version of the document also said that it sought: "impounding all Linux software products in the custody or control of Defendant through the pendency of these proceedings;"
What kind of drug were they on when they thought that a court would allow them to impound all "linux software products" (impounding the hardware would be easier) before the trial had been decided? Proving irreperable harm to SCO would be very hard, and taking all of these computers from BofA would cause incredible harm. No judge would allow such a thing.
Which makes me wonder... who even suggested this - SCO management or their lawyers? Is the management that clueless/reckless?
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
another often overlooked "feature" is good old ^Z (undo). back many years ago (i think before track changes even existed) i was a t.a. for a professor who wanted all assignments turned in with word. if you got two similar assignments all you needed to do was bang on ^Z for a while and you'd see where they changed the name from the origial author to the current one. kinda fun.
You obviously never heard of the penny stock scams that originated in Utah in the 70s... or seen Ruben & Ed... or noticed that everyone and their grandma is a member of a multi-level marketing group...
Welcome to Utah. Home of the lily-white, MBA, fly-by-night, "capitalism"-with-no-laws dorks.
Actually, this data, eventhough hidden from view normally, can be entered in a case directly against SCO. There was a similar case where Laywer A was attempting to setting with Laywer B, and there client was going to settle on a much higher amount, but Laywer B had them decrease it ... and you guessed it, they were using MS Word, so the orginial text of the higher amount was saved, and got sent to Laywer A, who noticed it, and then was able to force Laywer B and his client to settle on the higher amount. I could see this being entered as SCO was attempting to sue anyone, once there was ANY shred of proof the company was connected to Linux. This might just be another nail in the box for SCO, and for once, I have to say thanks to Micro$oft because there "feature" (and I use that term lightly) might just help SCO loose.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
Harvard calls its teaching assistants TFs (teaching fellows)...
Thugs doing extortion on a "little guy" does not make the news. The EV1 deal is only the tip of the iceburg, and we know little about it. Did Microsoft back EV1? Dunno. Did SCO make the whole thing up for more pump and dump? Dunno.
I believe that people are starting to catch on. Look at this 3month trend. And look at what the people in the know are doing with their stock.
That's exactly the point.
I *am* one and I *am* from Utah.
The business climate here is corrupt and out of control. Probably because of the overwhelming one-type of demographic here.
Good grief, just read the local newspapers and you won't wonder why the people at Caldera think they can get away with it.
It's really insane actually. Alot of Mormons are just "Mormons" for the business relations.
A little-bity place inhabited by nuts. Sad really.
I've been a linux user for years, and I had no idea that Autozone, Daimler-Chrysler, and BofA all used linux on a widespread basis.
I'll just bet PHB's are thinking more about Linux, thanks to all the SCO press.
I love irony.
Leaving aside the authenticity of this story or the stupidity of SCO, doesn't this case illustrate why it is stupid to build a track changes feature into your word processor? Especially one that where a document file carries all of its revisions with it.
There ain't no joy in MS Word.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
I think they are hoping to tie up the courts to the point where they are too busy to throw the book at the SCO executives while at the same time counting on their legal carpet-bombing strategy nets them some settlement profits.
They have a few more tricks up their sleeve...from another news(.com)^2 article:
Linux, which runs well on inexpensive Intel processor-based servers, has become increasingly popular despite SCO's actions. Linux has even spread to the Web site of the U.S. District Court in Nevada, where SCO filed its suit against AutoZone, according to site monitoring firm NetCraft.
Soooo...if the courts threaten to dismiss SCOs case and/or charge them with fraud, they can just sue the court system itself!
I tried to buy a license. They refused to sell me one because I wasn't incorporated yet. I told them I was starting a small enterprise with a Linux web server that did not as yet exist, but was in the works. They even refused to give me information on what their product was and if it would protect me from a lawsuit. The only thing I got was this form letter.
Dear Mr. [name witheld to protect me from getting sued],
Thank you for your inquiry to obtain an SCO IP license. At this time, we have announced the license availability for commercial users only. If you wish to pursue a commercial IP license, please enclose the following information.
Corporate Name, Corporate Phone and Address, Corporate officers names and titles, distribution of Linux and release/rev information. Once we have received your updated information, we will contact you with the purchase requirements.
Thank you for your interest in SCO.
SCO
That was what they sent me in answer to a request about what their product was. I followed up but they did not respond to any correspondance I sent.
I am not an expert in this kind of thing, but if I were a large company thinking about buying a license, I would think twice. Buying a license is more likely to get you involved in a lawsuit and it might violate the GPL, opening you up to a lawsuit from any developer who ever contributed to Linux and void your ability to use Linux and barring you from using Linux. You are better off paying a one time penalty than being bound by a SCO license. Buying a SCO license will not make your problems go away, it will only make them worse. Basically what they are doing is going around saying that WE WILL SUE YOU over copyright violations. But the license (which I later read because they finally released copy of it) only sells a useless/unnamed product called 'IP' and does not give any assurances and only restricts rights of Linux users. Read the fine print, you get NOTHING. It does not indemnify you. They are entirely geared towards going after and exploiting existing Linux users based on fear of a lawsuit, they are not geared at providing a service to potential users or a useful product that does something. Their license does not make a single hard claim to any specific Linux product and does nothing but restrict your rights.
Only an idiot would buy this license. It is completely asinine. DO NOT BUY A LICENSE. It is an open ended legal liability.
I doubt what you say is true for two primary reasons:
1) The interfaces to any modern OS are virtually the same. And particularly amongst Unix-like variants, there are certainly fundamental differences in system code, but experienced programmers will use standard c/c++ libraries that are implemented on pretty much every unix-like OS. So if you're trying to do a port of a simple text-based application, the user interface code is a piece of cake because you're writing VT100 level stuff. And the back-end is generic "C" code that will probably compile on any machine with little tweaking.
2) More importantly, without the source code to SCO, how could customers do all this code stealing? Unless SCO distributes source with their OS, but I never heard that before. So how can you steal what you don't have access to?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Yes, ESR gets the math wrong.
Stowell of course is just trying to spin it favourable for SCO. Stowell and McBride are well known liars in my opinion, so why would we trust them?
But forget that, here's another and possibly better SCO story:
Note the word 'insurance'. McBride basically is admitting to racketeering!
I'll bet this will come back to haunt him in court filings in the future.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Posted by Terry, on Groklaw on why SCO is not currently going after Bank of America:
If you look at the time frame involved it makes sense. In TSG's second motion to amend against IBM they use the DMCA as part of the complaint based on the removal / alteration of copyright material.
In the analysis of some of the files presented on Groklaw it appears that there exist quite a variety of copyright information on the same file depending on its ancestry. If TSG could make a basis of a copyright claim this could trigger certain DMCA violation.
So on 2/6/2004 we have the 2nd amended complaint with DMCA charges in it. We also have TSG with registered copyrights conflicting with Novell. But that's OK, as TSG is working on clarifying this in court. Plus, it is possible for two parties to have valid compilation copyrights that reflect "version" or "derivation" content.
Then, on 2/9/2004 Novell throws a big wrench in the works with the Motion to Dismiss. Up till that time the copyrights were contested, however with the motion to dismiss Novell stated in a legal document that they were not transferred. That line drawn, no party can pursue DMCA charges until ownership is cleared up by the courts.
The BA thing was using the "takedown" provisions of the DMCA. Post official notice of contest on 2/9 in Utah court, no judge in the USA was going to use a takedown based on unclear title against some company like BA.
Then some legal eagle's secretary just recycled the BA complaint to fit the new victim. Wonder who's going to lose their job? The nice thing is that this may help wake up corporate America as to how dangerous the DMCA can be in the wrong hands. Maybe some of the "mainline" press will pick up on this also.