Slashdot Mirror
Infinium vs. HardOCP Court Docs
jtcm writes "In a follow-up to several previous articles, The Inquirer has obtained a copy of of the suit filed in the Infinium vs. HardOCP case. It's certainly worth perusal."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am Mr. Darl McBride currently serving as the president and chief executive officer of the SCO Group, formerly known as Caldera Systems International, in Lindon, Utah, United States of America. I know this letter might surprise you because we have had no previous communications or business dealings before now.
My associates have recently made claim to computer softwares worth an estimated $1 billion U.S. dollars. I am writing to you in confidence because we urgently require your assistance to obtain these funds.
In the early 1970s the American Telephone and Telegraph corporation developed at great expense the computer operating system software known as UNIX. Unfortunately the laws of my country prohibited them from selling these softwares and so their valuable source codes remained privately held. Under a special arrangement some programmers from the California University of Berkeley did add more codes to this operating system, increasing its value, but not in any way to dilute or disparage our full and rightful ownership of these codes, despite any agreement between American Telephone and Telegraph and the California University of Berkeley, which agreement we deny and disavow.
In the year 1984 a change of regime in my country allowed the American Telephone and Telegraph corporation to make profits from these softwares. In the year 1990 ownership of these softwares was transferred to the corporation UNIX System Laboratories. In the year 1993 this corporation was sold to the corporation Novell. In the year 1994 some employees of Novell formed the corporation Caldera Systems International, which began to distribute an upstart operating system known as Linux. In the year 1995 Novell sold the UNIX software codes to SCO. In the year 2001 occurred a separation of SCO, and the SCO brand name and UNIX codes were acquired by the Caldera Systems International, and in the following year the Caldera Systems International was renamed SCO Group, of which i currently serve as chief executive officer.
My associates and I of the SCO Group are therefore the full and rightful owners of the operating system softwares known as UNIX. Our engineers have discovered that no fewer than seventy (70) lines of our valuable and proprietary source codes have appeared in the upstart operating system Linux. As you can plainly see, this gives us a claim on the millions of lines of valuable software codes which comprise this Linux and which has been sold at great profit to very many business enterprises. Our legal experts have advised us that our contribution to these codes is worth an estimated one (1) billion U.S. dollars.
Unfortunately we are having difficulty extracting our funds from these computer softwares. To this effect i have been given the mandate by my colleagues to contact you and ask for your assistance. We are prepared to sell you a share in this enterprise, which will soon be very profitable, that will grant you the rights to use these valuable softwares in your business enterprise. Unfortunately we are not able at this time to set a price on these rights. Therefore it is our respectful suggestion, that you may be immediately a party to this enterprise, before others accept these lucrative terms, that you send us the number of a banking account where we can withdraw funds of a suitable amount to guarantee your participation in this enterprise. As an alternative you may send us the number and expiration date of your major credit card, or you may send to us a signed check from your banking account payable to "SCO Group" and with the amount left blank for us to conveniently supply.
Kindly treat this request as very important and strictly confidential. I honestly assure you that this transaction is 100% legal and risk-free.
Signed, GNAA president
PS. If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.
________________________________________________
| _____________________
http://penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-02-23& res=l
Penny Arcade is not funny.
Having read the previous stories, I didn't find anthing new here, it's just the same old whining dressed up in badly written legalese. Oh, and a badly scanned in black and white print of the website.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
This is not funny either
when i opened the PDF and it said SARASOTA at the top.. thats where I live.
Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
I had to stop reading after the first 8 pages I was in such hysterics! Some sig-worthy lines:
Infinium was positioned to become an industry leading global entertainment and interactive game company.
Severe damage has been caused to the Plaintiffs reputations in the business community...
The Article was published with the specific and malicious intent of causing damage to the reputations of Roberts, Infinium, and the Infinium Phantom Game System.
While Mr. Roberts is right that his reputation has been tarnished, [H]ardOCP just reported on the obvious. Roberts did himself in with his spotty history and lack of forthrightness.
As a gamer, I'd like another capable system to choose from. But I don't think these guys have it. Or maybe they do. Someone should check if they've got DNF as a launch title...
GTRacer
- Really, this is a joke, right?
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Articles about DNF being pushed back stopped being newsworthy around the turn of the millenium. Jokes about DNF being vaporware stopped being funny the day after.
We need some quality control in the jokes department people.
Hot grits indeed...
Now they can blame the console not coming to markey on HardOCP, rather than take personal responsibility for their own vaporware. If you read the lawsuit, it says that the console was already developed, but because of Kyle Bennet's article they lost funding and can't mass produce it. It also says they lost their good standing reputation in the gaming community. Honestly, who liked these guys? They had no offices, produced no working Phantom consoles for anyone to review, and never let anyone tour their "production facility". Kyle was 100% right about these guys and Roberts et al deserves to go to jail for the way he has driven companies into bankruptcy and bilked investors.
You know...as much as I love laughing at Infinium, I do have to wonder what kind of impact the system will have when/if it is released. Going up against the big 3 will be an uphill battle to say the least, but maybe it'll become a successful "fringe system?"
Seems to me that it's really all about the games. If they can get a library that's interesting enough, not even necessarily expansive enough or having the big names, but one that sparks enough gamer interest, they might have a shot at, at the very least, success in their own arena. The biggest problem I see with the Xbox is that there are so many sports and driving games, one (theoretically, from my POV) wouldn't know where to begin, much less what's good and what's bad. Review websites notwithstanding, it's difficult to separate the cream of the crop from the cream of the crap in a scenario like that. Gamecube has plenty of action/adventure games and platformers, but is a little bit lacking in other genres. PS2 has such a large library that there's a lot of room for crap to slip through. If Infinium can get a good, decently-sized, and balanced library with some original titles, and maybe some "concept games" like Rez, Vib Ribbon, Fantavision, and the like; games that break molds and create some of their own, they could try for an Apple-style "think different" image.
Of course, then they'd face the wrath of Apple's legal team, and the days of Tycho and Gabe's merciless heckling will seem pleasant to them.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com