SCO's Motion to dismiss Red Hat's Complaint Denied

Soko writes "The scoop is on Groklaw - SCO's motion to dismiss is denied, and further activity in the case is now pending the outcome of the SCO vs. IBM litigation in Utah. If they lose against IBM, will there be anything left for Red Hat to kick around, though?"

Comments

Anything left to kick around?

[Gabrill]

You forget the fun of dancing on the grave of your foe!

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[cshark]

And don't forget peeing. Urinating on SCO's grave will be something many /.ers will partake in. I would probably join the festivities if I were in Utah to join the fun. The smelly smelly fun.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[AndroidCat]

Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this;
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh;
Stop, traveler, and piss.
-- Lord Byron, on Lord Castlereagh

Dancing? Ha!

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[lofoforabr]

Also, what about the fun of playing soccer with Darl's head instead of a ball?

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[boisepunk]

So many in fact there will be no grass left in the graveyard from all of the acid-piss as a result of bawls and jolt.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[turgid]

You forget the fun of dancing on the grave of your foe!

Or hitting the headstone with the soles of your shoes.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[fred_sanford]

If some enrapturing Photoshop-er would feel like it, I'd love to see an image of Calvin urinating on the SCO logo.

IANAGD (...graphic designer)

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[inaeldi]

Ever tried kicking a bowlingball?

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[lofoforabr]

No, but I guess his head should be very light. What might be inside? For sure, it's not brain.
Maybe air, or even vacuum :)

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[emmetropia]

Your wish is my command.... Calvin Peeing on SCO Logo

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[fred_sanford]

Absolutely freakin' beautiful :D

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Analogy Man]

If they lose against IBM, will there be anything left for Red Hat to kick around, though?

More importantly, one is not cured of a cancer if there is any cancer left. If IBM is the surgery hopefully Redhat will be the chemo.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that dancing on the grave is enough, because we won't be able to hear the laments of their women. That's because SCO is gay. No women.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[DrSkwid]

How odd, I had imagined Lord Byron to spell traveller in his native tongue.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[SCHecklerX]

I'm probably not alone in this but the "peeing calvin" stuff is quite an annoyance to most people who have read and enjoyed watterson's work.

http://www.usedwigs.com/weekly_32.html
http://www.annoying.com/nightmares/obsessive/02/00 01/0001.html
http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/002681.html

Or just google for 'bill watterson peeing OR pissing'

Take the time to read and understand the original comics, and you might see my point of view.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[AndroidCat]

He was too busy rhyming Castlereagh with survey to worry about spelling. :^P

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[DrSkwid]

perhaps he was deluded into Americana by the opium

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Laser Lou]

I'm probably not alone in this but the "peeing calvin" stuff is quite an annoyance to most people who have read and enjoyed watterson's work.

I'm in absolute agreement with you there. The "peeing calvin" shows him as a juvenile delinquent, rather than the hyperactive genius of the comic strip.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[q-the-impaler]

Umm, am I mistaken, or does the first article you listed actually show Bill Watterson endorsing the peeing?

Cartoonist Thrilled to See His Character Peeing

Reclusive cartoonist Bill Watterson, the creator of the popular comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, is ecstatic to see his beloved character make a resurgence on the dented bumpers and dirty back windows of pickup trucks, muscle cars and "sweet rides" across the country...

I was waiting for the article to be a joke, but it seems legit.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[dorlthed]

I'm glad you took the time to read the whole article.

. . . and to turn on your sarcasm detector.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[SCHecklerX]

It was sarcasm. Here is a better article (which is linked from the third I posted...I should have posted this one instead):

http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2003-11-26/featur e.html/print.html

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[the_thunderbird]

Crivens! Aye SCOO be getting a riight kicking from the judge don't ye ken? We have the laaw on ooour side! Aye that be it, the laaw is on ooour side, now that we ken that we can have lawyers on our side!! Hehe, we be making sco cry, "waily waily waily" anytime sooon!

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Neward Rylet]

While Klemens von Metternich was my favorite Congress of Vienna delegate, I do not think Lord Castlereagh is at all deserving of being urinated on in his final resting place. Byron's hatred probably has to do with the 'Peterloo Massacre'.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Le Marteau]

I'm probably not alone in this but the "peeing calvin" stuff is quite an annoyance to most people who have read and enjoyed watterson's work.

Those Calvin sticker perform a useful service. Whenever I see one, I immediatly know the driver is a jackass, and I give him wide berth. Kind of serves the same purpose as those old "Baby On Board" signs.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Spunk]

Or just google for 'bill watterson peeing OR pissing'

I see I'm not the only one with this fetish.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Dick Faze]

You're alone. The Calvin peeing on Ford logo stuff wasn't that funny, but any time techie pranksters claim redneck turf in the name of humor, its always good.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Rasta Prefect]

Ever tried kicking a bowlingball?

Yes. Down the lane. Meant to catch it with my heel, caught it on my foot near the big toe. Limped for a week.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[vistic]

M-W

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[vistic]

I disagree... redneck turf should be left alone by the rest of humanity.

Actually... sealed off underneath an airtight dome and forgotten about is more like it.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[SphericalCrusher]

Well, I don't think there will be a grave when SCO loses to IBM. It'll be more like... a HUGE Kamehameha attack from Gohan kiling Cell -- there won't be anything at all left.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting to see one of Calvin pissing on a Calvin sticker.

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw no sarcasm there..I saw satire, but no sarcasm.

Why don't americans know what sarcasm is?

Re:Anything left to kick around?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Somebody mod the parent up!

does it matter?

[jagilbertvt]

Just as long as SCO goes under in the end, does it really matter?

Re:does it matter?

[cshark]

Well, it would be nice if IBM and all the others were exonerated. But no, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Re:does it matter?

[AKnightCowboy]

Just as long as SCO goes under in the end, does it really matter?

I wish Microsoft would just cut to the chase and buy SCO so they could take over the lawsuit. I guess it's better to sue by proxy to avoid anti-trust issues, but I think we're all reasonably aware of who is really behind this fiasco. Follow the money trail.

Re:does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>To tear down their cities, blacken their sky, sow their ground with salt. To completely, utterly erase them.

Well then, just get them to vote republican!

Re:does it matter?

[thereUare]

I thought the whole point of the RH suit was to squelch SCO from damaging RH business. Waiting for IBM to win doesn't help. I think the judge just screwed RH.

Re:does it matter?

[BigGar']

I seriously doubt that microsoft would be allowed by the SEC to purchase SCO. That whole antitrust thingy, ya' know.

Re:does it matter?

[slim hades]

Just think of all the fun we've had, though.

It's funny, but I am the manager of an ISP and after the whole MyDoom DoSS stuff, me network resolves http://www.sco.com as 127.0.0.1, just in case someone got infected.

Haven't removed that DNS entry yet.

^-^

Re:does it matter?

[Glamdrlng]

Just as long as SCO goes under in the end, does it really matter?

Yes, it does. What will prevent this from ever/ihappening again is a dismissal with prejudice, meaning that not only does the court view the case as meritless, but SCO could never try to resurrect the case. It's kinda the courtroom equivalent of lopping of Darl's head, impaling it on a halberd, and planting said halberd right next to the "Welcome to Lindon" sign for all to see.

Re:does it matter?

[Da_Weasel]

It does matter, if this whole thing is a ploy by the execs to milk the stock holders of all their money...I hope the exec who are dumping all of their stock and then using special deals to snap up more of it for pennies on the dollar are burned at the stake!

Re:does it matter?

[SillySlashdotName]

You are wrong if you are talking about the case in the article. The dismissal was of a TSG motion to dismiss the RedHat request for Declarative Judgement AGAINST TSG. By not dismissing it, the judge has said that TSG could still have the judgement go against them.

I do agree with you in that what is needed is a clear, unambiguous message to other would-be Microsoft serfs that doing stupid stuff gets you stepped on so firmly that there would be no other takes of the Proprietary Software pieces of silver.

That message should be delivered in the IBM case.

Re:does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I guess it's better to sue by proxy to avoid anti-trust issues

No, it's better to sue by proxy so you don't lose TONS of money. If the IBM countersuit and RHAT suit end with SCO owing billion-dollar judgements it won't matter to anybody since they'll be out of business. If MSFT owned SCO then they'd have to actually *pay* all that money.

(IANAL, but I think this point is damn obvious)

Re:does it matter?

[Glamdrlng]

You're exactly right. I was referring to a dismissal w/ prejudice in the IBM case, but I didn't say as much. My point was, SCO's demise alone isn't a desirable endgame. The IBM case being dismissed with prejudice, or some other OSS-friendly decision that establishes a precedent, is the most desirable outcome.

Hmm...

[Bob McCown]

Its amazing how many words can be used to tell someone to zark off. Way to go, judge!

cool

[irokie]

seems pretty cool.
red hat don't have to pay for as much serious litigation as they would've done in the full on trial and they can sit back and relax while IBM pound away at SCO.
and in the event that IBM actually lose, then they're ready and waiting with a second shot.

Re:cool

[timbloid]

If IBM lose, won't it have a detrimental effect on the Red Hat case?

And none of this seems to be having much effect on the SCO share prices...if anything, then end of March saw an upswing in their value...

http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?page=charting &m ode=basics&selected=SCOX

Re:cool

[Stormshadow]

So you're saying that, like a cheap pr0n movie, Red Hat is going to get sloppy seconds? ... Ick... just thinking of the above comment in that light makes me shudder.

Re:cool

[irokie]

good point... it'll probably be woefully detrimental to the red hat case, but hopefullythe red hat legal team will be able to learn from the mistakes of the IBM team. also, IANAL/I don't keep up to date on who SCO's suing this week, but aren't the lawsuits over similar, but separate issues?

Re:cool

[timbloid]

IANAL either, and yes they are over separate issues.

IBM is being sued by SCO for breaking "...its contract by allowing parts of SCO's Unix V source code, licensed to IBM for use in AIX, to be used in the rival Linux operating system kernel.", wheras RedHat is suing SCO for "...making unsubstantiated and untrue public statements attacking Red Hat Linux and the integrity of the Open Source software development process..."

However, a victory for SCO (and such things have happened in recent legal history) would push their share price (and general-public opinion of them) ever upwards, and set a precident that would then have to be overturned...

Noting is certain in love and law ;)

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I would call an $11 per share drop in 3 months a detrimental effect!

Sure, they're back up $3 this week, and about back up even where they were a year ago, but I'd hate to see your portfolio if you call that a non-effect.

Re:cool

[SillySlashdotName]

How is the parent insightful? It just restates the obvious, but with a highly unlikely condition.

If I won the lottery, wouldn't it have a detrimental effect on my level of poverty?

If cows could fly, wouldn't it have a detrimental effect on commercial aviation?

You are also incorrect in the statement about the value of the shares. Their PRICE rose, but their value has not changed. Their value, as a share of ownership in a doomed company is still nil.

As far as the stock price, it started the year at about $18, it is now at about $11. Since April 1st, it is up about $1.30 - but it is down $0.45 already today.

In addition, the maximum trade volume hour for any day in the previous four months was an order of magnitude smaller than all but two trades since April 1st. Kinda interesting that the TSG board of directors authorized a stock buyback from themselves (on the open market, in block trades and in privately negotiated transactions privately negotiated transactions - with 88.58% ownership by institutions and insiders, that effectively means buying from themselves - and specifically does not preclude buying from themselves...interesting...) on March 10th, and that purchases made after April 1st won't show up on SEC filings until at least August - oh wait, the first 100k transaction took place after April 1st ... Gee, I am SURE there is no connection...

So it looks like TSG is buying stock back from TSG executives, paying 800-900% more than the price of the options that got them the stock in the first place, and that is keeping the price up in the stock market. Hey, everyone, mod me insightful!

Kicking SCO when they are down...

[MosesJones]

IBM will leave a pulp of tissue with the blood sucked out of it...

On the plus side you can make a decent soccer ball out of dried human body parts so Red Hat should be able to have a decent kick-around after winning the rights to the dismembered body parts.

Estimated value of this football game is around $1m as it will be considered "conceptual art" and snapped up in minutes.

The football match will be titled

"Icarus compressed"

"If they loose..."

[ccarr.com]

Don't you mean "When they loose against IBM"?

Re:"If they loose..."

[Marc2k]

Are you suggesting that they are pretty tight now? I'd be inclined to disagree, they're already pretty loose.

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, no, he meant "If they lose against IBM". What in God's name possessed you to think "loose" was the correct spelling and, worse, rewrite the sentence fragment with your "corrected" version?

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but I'm pretty sure they mean "When they lose" you fucknut.

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "When they *lose*"

Loose is the opposite of tight. And tight is what IBM's case is against SCO.

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

.....and when SCO LOSES, the sphincters of their dead bodies will LOOSE a flood of crap. Of course, they've already loosed so much that it probably won't amount to much more.....

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

a quote from my business law teacher:
"no matter how good you think your case is, at best you still only have a 50% chance of winning."

Re:"If they loose..."

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

SCO is loose as a goose!

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

a quote from my business law teacher:
"no matter how good you think your case is, at best you still only have a 50% chance of winning."

Tell him you're going to sue him for that comment as it caused you to collapse and die. Tell him you're claiming $50 billion for emotional damage and funeral expenses. Ask him if he's likely to lose sleep over your 50% chance of winning. Point out to him that he's a moron.

Re:"If they loose..."

[Queuetue]

Your business law teacher *may* have forgotten the corollary to that rule: ...unless you are against IBM.

Re:"If they loose..."

[rainman_bc]

IANAL but I play one on Slashdot...

Thing is, (and yes, I h8 sco 2), they may have a case with the breech of contract. SCO's FUD campaign is retarded, and I don't believe they are entitled to any ownership of the Linux Kernal, but who's to say that IBM didn't breech a contract with SCO by adding System V code to the Kernel?

I mean, maybe SCO doesn't own the Sys V code and Novell does, sounds pretty compelling. Still if I have something I don't own that I tell you not to use it in a contract you have with, and you use it, don't I have a case?

SCO will have a hard time proving damages if they don't own the code. So it's plausible that they could win the breech of contract case, but not for $1 Billion.... They won't get even a fraction of that.

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope he means "When they lose against IBM"

Re:"If they loose..."

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

You seem to think that IBM has a history of screwing up when it comes to legal matters. Obviously you are unfamiliar with this entity called IBM. Ask the DOJ (who did manage at least a victory in title against MS).....they fought IBM for 10 years with a good case...and finally they threw in the towel..you know why. Simple....IBM has those killer Ninja Lawyers... :) Really you will find that IBM is a top rate corporation that knows how to take care of business. They been around a long time and will continue to be.

Re:"If they loose..."

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "breach" not "breech". Breeches are what horse riders wear, so breeching a contract only makes sense in the same sense as one might trouser a contract, which I don't think is what you meant.

There's One More Thing

[RailGunner]

SUre, there's still one more thing that Red Hat could get - criminal charges filed against Darl McBride. Barratry, Racketeering, and Extortion.

Even better? Pin some of it on his Microsoft puppetmasters.

Re:There's One More Thing

[bwraith]

amen to that one brother, let's see how the redman like's it when the table's get turned on them

It's about time

[Egekrusher2K]

I've been waiting for something like this. SCO have been complete hypocrites about all of this. They claim they have IP rights on code that is being used in Linux/Unix. They wait MONTHS to produce the said code, and only by the order of a judge. Said code was stolen by SCO from ANOTHER COMPANY!!! They have no backing. Now, they are completely fucked, and I sit here in my chair and laugh. They need to be put out of business... permanently.

Re:It's about time

[mu-sly]

...and their management team needs to face criminal charges and do the jail time if found guilty.

Re:It's about time

[BootSpooge]

Said code was stolen by SCO from ANOTHER COMPANY!!!

What have I missed here. What code and from what company? I haven't seen anything on groklaw about this.

Re:It's about time

[mdfst13]

I can see two things to which your parent could have been referring (neither of which would be quite correct):

1. Novell claims to own the Unix copyright still. SCO does have the right to license Unix code though. It's not stolen.

2. Unix (for lack of a better name; pre-SCO) apparently used some code that Linus Torvalds wrote. (Unix also used some code written by Donald Knuth or someone like that.) Linus isn't a company though.

If neither of those are it, then I don't know to what your parent was referring. While I realize this is slashdot, I too would be interested in references for "code...stolen by SCO from ANOTHER COMPANY" that might be in Linux.

Irony in the worst

[bwraith]

It seems like SCO is getting the royal rump treatment now after issuing it's first jab against the *nix community, just as it is stated on the groklaw boards "this is just the first nail to be slammed into SCO's legal coffin"

Let's hope this leads to a faster resolution of this most ridiculous case brought upon by SCO.

If?

[DavidBartlett]

If they lose against IBM
If they lose? How about when they lose?

Install Linux in them.

[WgT2]

When Red Hat gets their turn, maybe they can install linux in them and call them a badger.

Re:Install Linux in them.

[3dr]

Ha ha! Good tie in.

But in six months someone may read it and say "WTF?!????777 Mod 5+Funny? For that dadaistic quip?"

Re:Install Linux in them.

[Vindicator9000]

Well, we'll just put this linky in, so everyone in the future will get the joke.

Public Opinion on the SCO case

[ponds]

First off, I've seen alot less SCO news lately. I hope that this is a sign that it's almost over. Now on to the meat of my issue, we who are in the know, not just Linux Users, alot of people that I know who cant stand anything but MS: we are fairly informed about the SCO case. I used to assume that the public felt that way as well, but I don't anymore. We had a guest speaker in my infosec class last week, a professor from the University of Hawaii who wrote the textbook that we use. Dr. Panko's speech at some point turned to OSS vs proprietary software in terms of security. Panko claimed that the argument that OSS code is more secure was bunk, because all OSS code he has seen is crappy code (I doubt this is an informed opinion), and that most of it is just stolen from proprietary software anyway. Later in the speech someone asked a question regarding the subject of whether the security community will have to deal with MS's security methods forever. Panko quickly proclaimed that Linux is dying due to insurmountable legal trouble, and that they will likely never get out if it. I think that we do not have a good view of what the uninformed think about the SCO case. And while the case is substanceless, the PR is not. We need to take every opportunity to inform non-geeks, with the ample factual evidence that is out there, that this is an example of a pump and jump stock scam based on frivilous litigation, and that our chosen innovation paradigm (Open Source) is legit.

Re:Public Opinion on the SCO case

[dj245]

I wonder how much closed source software this guy saw. Judging from the comments about Microsoft's code leak (bad code, sloppy, etc..) OSS software can't be all that bad. I know that Microsoft's code leak was two years old Windows 2000 code, but still; a coder is a coder. If he pronounced OSS code as sloppy and bad code, he should say what he is comparing it to. Has he actually seen Microsoft's latest code?

I can say that my car shifts smoothly and corners nicely, but I have no basis for comparison since I have never owned any other car. Has he seen any proprietary code? Thats what I want to know.

Re:Public Opinion on the SCO case

[DataCannibal]

After hearing what you report this guy said and having had a quick look at his web site, I'd say you had a pretty strong case for suing your school if they claim that they are selling you an "infosec" course.

I would ask him for evidence of where this stolen code is and could he please produce an example. Accusing someone of stealing is quite a serious allegation.

Claiming that "Linux has insurmountable legal trouble" is an opinion he is not qualified to give and he is expressing such an opinion in his professional capacity (unless his doctorate is in law which would help explain his ignorance about computer matters).

These two statements alone inidcate that he has pretty low professional standards.

Re:Public Opinion on the SCO case

[m00nun1t]

Maybe you should read up more before you make your "bad code" comments. Here's a review of the source code:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/715 52/7795

I'll quote for you since you are on /.:
"...the quality of the code is generally excellent. Modules are small, and procedures generally fit on a single screen. The commenting is very detailed about intentions, but doesn't fall into "add one to i" redundancy..."

"...Microsoft does not steal open-source code. Their older code is flaky, their modern code excellent. Their programmers are skilled and enthusiastic. Problems are generally due to a trade-off of current quality against vast hardware, software and backward compatibility..."

Re:Public Opinion on the SCO case

[_Sprocket_]

Maybe you should read up more before you make your "bad code" comments.

...

"...the quality of the code is generally excellent. Modules are small, and procedures generally fit on a single screen. The commenting is very detailed about intentions, but doesn't fall into "add one to i" redundancy..."

The article also notes:

However, not everything is so rosy. Some of the modules are clearly suffering from the hacks upon hacks mentioned earlier. As someone who struggled immensely trying to get the MSInet control working not long after this code was released, it's a relief to see that the inet code is as bad as I thought.

Although it goes on to say that most of these hacks seem to be due to backwards-compatability. However, having said that, bad code is bad code. A hack is a hack. And it would seem that indeed, even the vaunted Microsoft produces its share of hacks.

It would seem this has less to do with Open Source vs. Proprietary software than simply being the nature of the beast.

Re:Public Opinion on the SCO case

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you guys are kidding yourself if you don't think Linux/glibc is full of backwards-compatibility "hacks" and yes even some "bad code".

ready to go?

[xlyz]

looking forward to see which of its customer this time SCO will kick to prove to the press that they have a case

"If" they lose against IBM?

[JessLeah]

If they DON'T lose against IBM, we will have a lot to worry about.

Let's hope and pray to $DEITY_NAME that SCO will lose. As I'm now 100% sure that SCO is just Microsoft's puppet, realize that this isn't just SCO (a piddly little company) versus IBM (a behemoth). It's Microsoft versus IBM. I'm pretty scared... how 'bout you?

Re:"If" they lose against IBM?

[Egekrusher2K]

It doesn't matter if it IS MS vs. IBM. They have no case (SCO). They WILL

Re:"If" they lose against IBM?

[irokie]

It's Microsoft versus IBM. I'm pretty scared... how 'bout you?

scared???
dude, i wish i'd been selling tickets for this one!

Re:"If" they lose against IBM?

[kalidasa]

Kinda like the Vietnam war: it was big gun USA against the piddling little Viet Cong, who were really just standins for the huge USSR.

Wait a minute, I don't really want THAT simile, do I?

Re:"If" they lose against IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about SCO as "puppet" of Microsoft. Rather, SCO's a horse on which Microsoft has bet a lot of money. Whether SCO wins their cases or not is probably irrelevant to Microsoft. Microsoft (via financing SCO's legal warchest) has successfully discouraged many home and enterprise users from even considering a Free *nix or OSS. Previous posts (e.g., the guest lecturer for someone's CS class) suggest that's a fair assessment of general public perception. As such, they've already won, regardless of the outcome of the various related lawsuits. Until Halloween '04 -- or whenever the memos from Billy G saying otherwise are finally leaked -- it's best to assume that the MS connection is evidence of little more than well-funded FUD.

Re:"If" they lose against IBM?

[OwlWhacker]

Can you imagine the uproar that would occur if IBM lost?

I highly doubt that everybody would just give in and start paying SCO Linux licenses. There would probably be global chaos, and the US would probably be even more despised than it already is.

Re:"If" they lose against IBM?

[obeythefist]

It's Microsoft vs IBM in the same way that the Vietnam "conflict" was USA vs Soviet Union. MS is using SCO quite happily as a little proxy for IBM to napalm.

If IBM loses, then the MS borg strategy strikes a severe blow to free software.

If IBM wins, MS finds a new puppet and starts all over again. They've got the cash. The only way it can stop is if Ikea steps in.

Stock value?

[CaptainBaz]

Perhaps this will reverse the recent increase in their stock price. They haven't been spreading much FUD recently, so why has their stock been going up?

Re:Stock value?

[kiwimate]

Don't know (I am not a stock broker), but as I've pointed out frequently in the past, their bottom line has certainly profited from everything going on.

Re:Stock value?

[platipusrc]

I think they're somehow getting the best of all worlds:

No news is good news,

Bad news is good news,

and Good news is good news.

Re:Stock value?

[micromoog]

"bottom line"? I believe you mean "PR-fueled fantasy Internet play money". Their bottom line is shit, and has been shit for years.

Re:Stock value?

[supermojoman]

Don't know exactly, but my first suspicion would be the buyback program. Choice quote (click link for source):

"'Some critics believe the buyback frenzy was nothing more than executives seeking to maximize their own wealth. 'They boost the price in the short term and then sell their shares,' says Kathleen M. Kahle..."

Definetely check that Groklaw link for more information. I'm just a programmer, so really, I don't know what I'm talking about. But the buyback program seems like a good place to start.

Re:Stock value?

[Progman3K]

>They haven't been spreading much FUD recently, so why has their stock been going up?

Simple, it is public knowledge that Microsoft has put aside about 80 million dollars for this, so they're obviously artificially keeping SCO's stock high by buying shares.

two front war

[HealYourChurchWebSit]

What my non-legal mind takes from this is that SCO now has to hire more lawyers because they've got a real problem on their hand with Red Hat.

As I see it, and I could be wrong, if SCO wins against IBM, then they make Red Hat's case. Even if SCO loses, they've still got some real damages claims to deal with.

Worse, it means they're going to have to put-up or shut-up proving their accusations for the Red Hat case, evidence, which if admitted, could bolster IBM's defense.

Either way, SCO has failed to learn from history.

No

[Mr. Underbridge]

SUre, there's still one more thing that Red Hat could get - criminal charges filed against Darl McBride. Barratry, Racketeering, and Extortion.

No, you can't. The standard for such charges are pretty high. First, for barratry, one would have to have solid evidence that Darl/SCO/Canopy acted in bad faith, and were suing for fun. You'd have to have evidence that not only are their claims crap, but THEY KNEW IT. Good luck.

For racketeering and extortion, which I'm assuming you're using to attack their "licensing" behavior, you won't get that either. Reason is because they at least have a reasonable claim on their actions - basically, it's not extortion for them to defend their rights, and until it's damned clear they don't have such rights (like after some court case), you'll lose this one too. Also, what's the "weapon" (ie, the "or else...") behind the extortion claim? A lawsuit? So in that case, you'd have to prove the barratry case before starting the extortion case, and that won't work on it's own.

So I know the /. crowd loves the idea of criminal actions against Darl, including stoning, hanging, or general torture. But it isn't realistic, and I think people should learn the *legal* background of such terms if this barratry argument is to keep going around and around for another couple of years like it has so far.

Re:No

[Scarblac]

First, they distribute Linux under the GPL. Then a while later, they go around telling people they owe $699 to them or they have to stop using Linux. How is that not extortion?

Re:No

[0x0d0a]

Technically, if someone managed to break into Darl's computer and dropped a set of anonymous tips, if Darl is silly enough to keep incriminating evidence that he *knew* he was filing bogus lawsuits, I suppose he could get in trouble.

Note that an anonymous tip would be very different from getting a bunch of (obviously not legitimately obtained) documents and handing them to the police, who then wouldn't be able to use them.

Re:No

[whisper_jeff]

So I know the /. crowd loves the idea of criminal actions against Darl, including stoning, hanging, or general torture. But it isn't realistic, and I think people should learn the *legal* background of such terms if this barratry argument is to keep going around and around for another couple of years like it has so far.

This is the internet. When has becoming informed about an idea or opinion ever been a part of posting to the internet?

Re:No

[kilgortrout]

Barratry is a civil tort not a criminal action. Daryl has a perfect defense to any criminal RICO/extortion claim - "I relied on the advise of my prestigious attorneys". So I think that goes nowhere. If he has any criminal exposure, it will be in the securities fraud area but I imagine he's been very careful in the timing of his stock sales.

Re:No

[Brad Mace]

They SHOULD know their claims are crap. Ignorance is no excuse, right?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that an anonymous tip would be very different from getting a bunch of (obviously not legitimately obtained) documents and handing them to the police, who then wouldn't be able to use them.

What about handing them to, say, the Economist? That might be even worse for Darl than if they wound up in the hands of the police.

Re:No

[Tielman]

"but THEY KNEW IT."

Hmmm.. I wonder, can't Daryl's comments be used against him on this one.

Re:No

[babyrat]

How is that not extortion?

EXTORTION - The use, or the express or implicit threat of the use, of violence or other criminal means to cause harm to person, reputation, or property as a means to obtain property from someone else with his consent. USC 18,

'cuz it's not?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

well they need to change the law then.

Re:No

[ZeeTeeKiwi]

Oh but it is!

EXTORTION - The use, or the express or implicit threat of the use, of ... criminal means to cause harm to person, reputation, or property as a means to obtain property from someone else with his consent.

Barraty is a crime, and therefore SCO is committing extortion as well.

Re:No

[CAIMLAS]

Um, they'd be liable for barratry, as there would be quite solid evidence acted in bad faith, ie, they knew they didn't have a case and were suing for fun.

They evidently know there's not evidence of violation within linux, as they have the SCO Unix source code to compare it. If there'd beeen evidence, they'd have presented it already. But instead they keep shifting about trying to find something that sticks. If they didn't initially know they were being fraudulent, then they would have dropped their case instead of shifting ground and claiming something else as "infringing on their IP".

Seems pretty obvious to me.

Re:No

[awksedfred]

What about TSG trying to extort money from users? It seems like that would be illegal.

This sucks !

[Anonymous Coward]

No, really, this sucks.

RedHat tried to get SCO to shut the f**** up until the SCO vs IBM trial has gone through. The judge answers that although their claim (of SCO being a liar scaring their customers), they have to wait and see until the other trial is over.
In other words, SCO may carry on lying and RedHat can do nothing but cry over their and Linux' reputation until IBM is done.
And when IBM is done, there'll be nothing left of SCO for RedHat to be compensated with.
No, really, this is not a victory for RedHat...

Stephane

Re:This sucks !

[IPFreely]

RedHat should request a temporary restraining order until the outcome of the IBM case.

Since the purpose of the RedHat case was to make SCO shut up, and the case has been delayed pending the IBM case, then RedHat is being denied justice pending another case. Since SCO started the IBM case, they are effectively in the drivers seat on both. That denies RedHat justice, under the control of SCO. RedHat should get something, like some type of temporary restraining order against SCO at least until SCO clears up their IBM case.

Re:This sucks !

[SpaceLifeForm]

Justice delayed is justice denied.

SCO knows this, that's why they keep screwing around just to keep the courts tied up for as long as possible.

In this case, the real question is 'Why?'. Why did the judge delay? Was the judge overwhelmed with BS and confused as result? And can Redhat appeal the judges ruling to delay?

Re:This sucks !

[mystkdragon]

This is a fuzzy win for SCO. Ultimately their goal was to either get rid of or stall the process of RH's suit against them.

It seems that the OSS world is so hungry for a loss by SCO that they are blind to a hidden victory.

While I believe IBM will win, if they lose, you better start writing a new OS.

Re:This sucks !

[(1)down]

I count 4 stars fucks? freak? fdisk?

Dancing? Nah the Limbo

[Mattygfunk1]

How low can you go, how low can you go.

Re:Dancing? Nah the Limbo

[$rtbl_this]

It doesn't look quite the same if you take the five day view. SCO were doing pretty badly until last week and then their stock price almost doubled. Maybe it was an April fool gone wrong.

Re:Dancing? Nah the Limbo

[avdp]

$8.50 -> $11 is nowhere near doubling.

Re:Dancing? Nah the Limbo

[Xenographic]

How low can you go, how low can you go.
--->

Very low. See my sig...

Re:Dancing? Nah the Limbo

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't look quite the same if you take the five day view. SCO were doing pretty badly until last week and then their stock price almost doubled.

Please learn to read diagrams. Does the bottom of the chart correspond to zero? No it doesn't.

Re:Dancing? Nah the Limbo

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking for an idea why you chose to use
SCO were
rather than
SCO was
My current theory is that this falls in the same neighborhood as "boxen" and "virii" so I am curious.

TIA

Why it matters

[Allen Zadr]

The problem is that if there is still suspicion - and it's found that Novell still owns the UNIX patent - then what would keep Novell from doing the same (flush SuSE as SCO flushed Caldera), starting this whole nightmare over again.

Re:Why it matters

[HiThere]

The UNIX copyrights aren't exactly being claimed by Novell. I don't exactly understand the details, but Novell was claiming that registering for whatever copyrights they might be entitled to...without it being clear that they were entitled to any. Note that the results of the BSD case are still sealed, but that in that case the judge offered to invalidate all of the copyrights...and then the disputants came to a secret deal. And SCO appears to have not much more idea of what that deal was than we do, but a secret deal can't be binding on non-participants. If you (and your agent) don't sign the contract, then it doesn't bind you.

Re:Why it matters

[big-giant-head]

IBM and Novell have already inked agreements for IBM to sell SUSE and use it as thier OS of choice. Novell has no reason to go after other *nix vendors. They stand to make more money playing fair than behaving like SCO.

Re:Why it matters

[OwlWhacker]

I think you'll find that Novell wants to succeed in business, not just make a gamble to see if it can rake in a large amount of money before its business goes under.

What company would want to be despised to the extent that SCO is? If you're into death threats, hey, go for it. Whatever floats your boat.

Re:Why it matters

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM and Caldera had already inked agreements for IBM to sell UnitedLinux. Caldera has no reason to go after other Linux vendors. blah blah blah

Re:Why it matters

[Anonymous Coward]

what would keep Novell from doing the same (flush SuSE as SCO flushed Caldera), starting this whole nightmare over again.

There's a huge difference. Novell has an actual reputation and history, actual products, actual revenue, and actual customers. Novell is not in line to make a desperation move like SCO did.

Re:Why it matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Megabyte: Bob, do we really have to go through this all over again?
Bob: If necessary!

Re:Why it matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not Novell, as we speak, knowingly distributing the kernel under the GPL?

It would be absurd for them to try to claim, in a way that it is not absurd for SCO to claim (although this latter is still absurd in a different way), that they didn't know they were distributing their own copyrighted material.

Re:Why it matters

[z00z]

what would keep Novell from doing the same (flush SuSE as SCO flushed Caldera), starting this whole nightmare over again.

They can't even if they wanted to. SCO's downfall will create a legal precedence that will only strengthen the GPL's legal footing. From then on, any GPLed code will undisputedly be recognized as so.

Re:Why it matters

[big-giant-head]

Except UnitedLinux never materialized, and in the move from Caldera to SCO the entire board and Co. Changed.

Re:Why it matters

[cshark]

Nothing except the fact that Novell has more to gain from the openness of linux than otherwise. Novell has had financial problems in the past, but I don't think they would ever do anything that would cause the company to implode the way sco has. Besides, Novell has partnership agreements with IBM and others that will keep their linux strategy, or some variation of it strong for years to come.

If you're going to worry about Novell, worry about the fact that they're integrating Mono directly into Suse to create a hybrid .NET capable operating system. Worry about the fact that Microsoft has patented almost every patentable aspect of the .NET framework, and could slap Novell with a cease and decist at a moment's notice. C# may be an open standard, but it's still subject to patents, and last I checked ADO.NET was not part of the C# standard. What Xamien's done is nothing short of cloning the next generation of Windows systems on Linux. And if that doesn't scare you, nothing will.

"Will there be anything left to kick around..."

[truthsearch]

If they lose against IBM, will there be anything left for Red Hat to kick around, though?

Red Hat isn't looking to kick them around after they lose to IBM. Red Hat has a few goals: bring more of SCO's actions to light and into court by putting them on the legal defensive; helping IBM by bringing these things to light and legitimizing IBM's arguments if they win; hedging their bets in case IBM loses (if IBM loses, Red Hat's in big trouble, so this pre-emptive strike may help protect them or at least raise money for their future legal defense).

I think all Red Hat cares about is IBM winning. After they win it doesn't matter if there's anything left to kick around.

Of course the usual IANAL applies... :)

Re:"Will there be anything left to kick around..."

[The Lynxpro]

"Red Hat has a few goals: bring more of SCO's actions to light and into court by putting them on the legal defensive; helping IBM by bringing these things to light and legitimizing IBM's arguments if they win; hedging their bets in case IBM loses (if IBM loses, Red Hat's in big trouble, so this pre-emptive strike may help protect them or at least raise money for their future legal defense)."

Even if IBM loses this round, IBM will definitely appeal. That means the case will be drawn out even longer, and SCO will burn through more reserve cash. They can't exactly sell any more licenses to Microsoft for funding, and if they file against more corporations, that means more costs and more distractions which probably won't generate any more cash to fund the ongoing lawsuit against IBM. Compared to SCO, IBM has the funding behind it similar to Microsoft. IBM won't settle this either; they have too much pride to settle with such an insignificant company as SCO. If they did, they'd set a precident for more insignificant companies to try to sue them over dubious claims. The truth is, IBM is going to go thermonuclear and I doubt they'll sell-out to Microsoft in the end like Time Warner and now Sun have done.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[WhiskerTheMad]

In short, YES.

Remember, SCO's purpose here is not to win, or even survive, it's to spread disinformation and fear about open source and Linux. The *real* win comes when SCO is exposed as the passel of lying, greedy, goat-molesting asshats they are, and when their claims about "IP Problems with Linux" are shoved firmly where they belong (namely, certain executives' orifices.

Orifices? Orifii? What's the plural of orifice? Anybody?

Mis-spoken word

[Allen Zadr]

Sorry - before telling my I'm stupid - yes, it's not a patent, it's Intellectual Property and Copyright. My fingers were faster than my brain.

SCO's Motion to dismiss Red Hat's Complaint Denied

[DFJA]

There's a lot of speculation on Groklaw as to whether this is good or bad for SCO (and Red Hat). My view is that everyone will ultimately be a loser in this whole saga, except for the lawyers. If Red Hat, IBM, Novell etc. win the arguments in court, they are unlikely to get any money from SCO as by then they will have been bled dry. (unless Microshaft or a.n.other give them another wodge of money).

graves

[phyruxus]

Moderators, use your points as you will.

however, I think it worth noting that SCO has essentially been screaming from the ramparts "We are SCO, we are greedy morons, we deserve to be removed from existence."

I just wanted to say that before a slew of soi-trolls began yammering about how biased /. is.

Re:graves

[ShadowRage]

Microsoft has been screaming that for years, but they're still around unfortunately.

Here's an idea

[WormholeFiend]

If you can install Linux on a dead badger...

We could install Linux on a dead Darl.

Wouldnt it be alanis-morrissette-like ironic?

Imagine Darl, eyes glazed over with a bluish skintone, shuffling himself about arms outstretched, moaning "liceeeeeeeense... LICEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNSE".

Re:Here's an idea

[AndroidCat]

What do you mean imagine? Isn't that what Darl's doing right now?

Re:Here's an idea

[WormholeFiend]

well he's not dead yet... to continue the zombie analogy, he's just been bitten, and the infection is spreading.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

> Wouldnt it be alanis-morrissette-like ironic?

meaning it has nothing to do with irony?

Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko website

[0x0d0a]

This sounded kind of interesting, so I googled and quickly found Dr. Panko's website (there aren't many people out there by the name of "Panko").

He's got a number of websites, one of which is here.

He definitely, ah, favors Microsoft. :-) Very unusual for a security guy.

SCO's stock nosedive begins

[Whafro]

Yeah, it's only 10:10am and SCOX is down 3.8% on the morning, with the ask prices looking abysmally low.

Could be a very long day for SCO.

Re:SCO's stock nosedive begins

[Error27]

You wish.

The is some organization buying huge lots of SCOX and so no sort of news affects the share price these days. It's not the stock buy back, since SCO can only buy employee stock.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[micromoog]

Orifices? Orifii? What's the plural of orifice? Anybody?

Assholes.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[Anonymous Coward]

// offtopic:
plural for orifice: holes ?

Playing the two cases off each other...

[Vexler]

I like the idea that the judge is playing the cases off each other, probably wanting to see the Utah case as a precedent with which she can then use against SCO. If it doesn't go fast enough, though, she reserves the right (wisely) to proceed without it (probably thinking that SCO doesn't have a chance in Delaware either). In either case SCO may have just hit the point of no return: The hand's stuck in the cookie jar, and now the question is not whether to deny that it did it, but to see how much of their collective hand gets lopped off.

Re:Playing the two cases off each other...

[kilgortrout]

Don't forget that IBM has a motion to dismiss pending in its case with SCO specifically addressing those counts in SCO's complaint dealing with its contention that linux contains SCO IP. IBM's motion dovetails nicely with the Novel motion to dismiss where the main issue is whether or not Novel ever transferred the copyrights which SCO claims it owns re Unix. If SCO loses those motions, they will probably be barred from taking a contrary position in the redhat case under the doctrine of collateral estoppel. In that case, redhat will be back in court on a motion for summary judgment. Note, collateral estoppel is a judicial doctrine which forbids a party from relitigating an issue in the present litigation which has been adversely decided against it in pior litigation with a different party. Caution, the application of collateral estoppel and the circumstances under which it applies is very technical.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[tacotruckcmdr]

Orifices? Is this a good time for that..hum, goatse joke right? I dunno.

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[BenjyD]

People take computer advice from someone who:

a) uses Frontpage
b) doesn't change the title of the pages from "New Page 1"

Worrying.

Hint at the market reaction ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at the market value of the companies involved :
- IBM : $160 billions
- Novell : $4.6 billions
- Red Hat : $4.2 billions
against :
- SCOx : $156 millions
Rest my case : scox is a sure looser (at least market-wise)!!

Re:Hint at the market reaction ....

[marika]

It's hard to belive that a company with a dead product can be so high. Sco has been died for more than 15 years for me. I will never underestimate the power of bs again... May Sco return to its grave as soon as possible.

Re:Hint at the market reaction ....

[Dav3K]

You forgot one... - MS : $400+ billions scox may be a looser, but this is far from over

Re:Hint at the market reaction ....

[thejuggler]

Hmmm...Maybe IBM should just buy SCO and Novel. This way, no mater which company is determined to have the rights to the IP code in question, IBM will own it all. Problem solved.

One man with lots of money can buy whatever he wants, even if he just wants to destroy it.

Re:Hint at the market reaction ....

[zCyl]

Hmmm...Maybe IBM should just buy SCO and Novel. This way, no mater which company is determined to have the rights to the IP code in question, IBM will own it all. Problem solved.

Except that the people running IBM are a little bit smarter than that. They have invested in the success of Linux, and thus have a vested interest in crushing any public impression of weakness of the GPL in the courts. For the price of just legal fees, this is a much better deal for them than buying a stock that's overvalued by about tenfold.

Re:Hint at the market reaction ....

[Anonymous Coward]

"One man with lots of money can buy whatever he wants, even if he just wants to destroy it."

Bill Gates' moto :^)

If?

[appelflapje]

If they lose against IBM, will there be anything left for Red Hat to kick around, though? When is more appropriate. :)

SCO in context to the article

[stecoop]

Enough tangents and wishing SCO to simply vanishing - it's going to be around a little while.

The issue at hand in the article and context is SCO will not be battling Red Hat and IBM at the same time. The case against SCO from Red Hat wasn't dismissed but deferred. Red Hat claims damages from SCO in regards to harming the Linux kernel because of the lawsuit and publicity towards suing IBM over the Unix core system.

In context against IBM - that is another story and we'll be seeing that unfold. In my opinion that is going to be a tough case to win for SCO. Remember SCO was a happy go lucky company and then Linux IPO Caldera Systems bought SCO. I can't see a Linux company coming to power and suing others over the Unix System even though IBM already had a license for the Unix core system.

Now back to Red Hats Case. RH is suing SCO basically over the suite against IBM. I seriously doubt that RH will win this case because the grounds of suing someone because you sued someone. RH is must prove malice in the context of SCO public statements. This is very hard to prove.

The break it down here is what's going to happen. First RH has to wait, IBM will win, RH will lose the Case against SCO, SCO will loose market share from other litigation cases yet to be determined.

Re:SCO in context to the article

[jgoemat]

Now back to Red Hats Case. RH is suing SCO basically over the suite against IBM. I seriously doubt that RH will win this case because the grounds of suing someone because you sued someone. RH is must prove malice in the context of SCO public statements. This is very hard to prove.

It's not really that difficult. SCO has been publicly saying that RedHat shouldn't be selling Linux, and also going to RedHat customers and demanding money to use what they purchased from RedHat. They have been taking a product that RedHat sells and supports and claiming ownership of part of it. Combine that with the lack of good-faith in not showing any proof and not using the proper channels to sue the contributors instead of the customers and I think it's a pretty good case. If there is any code in Linux that infringes on SCO's copyrights then whoever copied that code from SCO's code and distributed it under a different license should be the one being sued, not the customers (and potential customers) of another company. Failing that, they should have sued the major distributors of Linux (RedHat, SuSe, Mandrake, etc.). This could be a textbook case on unfair competitive practices.

Re:SCO in context to the article

[stecoop]

malice: a legal term which means the defendant knew his statement was false or recklessly disregarded the truth or falsity of his statement. In general, in most jurisdictions individuals must show only that the defendant was negligent, that he failed to act with due care in the situation.

In this context if SCO says 'we own the license and we are excising our royalties/license agreement', than I see no malice. This may not be a popular opinion but ask any lawyer about proving malice cases and 9/10 times you'll hear that malice is the most difficult to prove.

But you do provide insight that the case may not be based on malice but on some aspect of unfair competitive practices - I don't know the law behind this as well. Can anyone expand upon this?

Re:SCO in context to the article

[jgoemat]

In general, in most jurisdictions individuals must show only that the defendant was negligent, that he failed to act with due care in the situation.

The way that SCO is going about it is negligent. They are not trying to cure the supposed violations, they are just interested in seeing how much money they can make and in trying to disrupt the use of a competing product. If they actually had a case, don't you think they'd be selling licenses to use Linux? The problem is that they can't, even if their code was in Linux it would violate the GPL and Linux couldn't be used anyway.

Look at the licenses they are offering, they are offering a license for one of their products with the added bonus that they say they won't sue you. That would be like me telling companies that Microsoft Word contains code from my proprietary product and that they need to purchase a license for my product to use Microsoft Word even if they don't intend to use my product. Then I would sue a major Microsoft consulting firm that installs Mircosoft Office for other companies and provides add-ons for it for billions of dollars, but I wouldn't target Microsoft itself. Then after a year of threats I would sue a couple of companies that use Microsoft Office saying they had to buy a $1200 (but discounted to $700 for now) license for my crappy word processor).

This ruling is NOT good for RedHat

[bug]

It seems like most of the conclusions regarding this ruling, including that from Groklaw, are that this is good news for RedHat. I simply can't understand that. Sure, the judge ruled against SCO's motion to dismiss, but on the other hand, the judge ruled that no further action can be taken until the IBM case is resolved. That's not going to happen for months or years.

Most of the point of the RedHat vs SCO lawsuit is to eliminate the FUD surrounding Linux. This would allow RedHat to continue to market its products without its prospective customers shying away due to potential legal issues. When the judge ruled that the case is effectively on hold until the IBM case is decided, the judge effectively denied RedHat its best legal opportunity to end the SCO FUD machine in any useful timeframe. As the old saying goes, "justice delayed is justice denied."

Re:This ruling is NOT good for RedHat

[BigBadBri]

You'll notice that the judge also instructed both parties to inform the court in writing every 90 days of the progress of the IBM case.

This is very good news for Red Hat, as it provides at least three opportunities between now and next April for them to convince the judge that SCO is dragging its feet on the IBM case, being obstructive in discovery, etc. etc., and so persuade the judge to deny SCO's Motion To Dismiss and to make the case move forwards.

Conversely, SCO has to justify its actions every three months without upsetting the judge.

If Red Hat plays the situation correctly, this delay may only last the first 90 days, since there is already ample evidence to show that SCO has been dilatory at best in its handling of the IBM discovery motions.

I don't think it's as black as you paint it.

Re:This ruling is NOT good for RedHat

[Vexler]

Keep in mind the implications of having the motion denied, however: This means that not only does the judge think there is enough for RedHat to go on, but that SCO can't back out of the case anymore. If anything, this is not only very good for RedHat, but also very bad for SCO both from legal and from PR viewpoints.

A couple of questions

[Pedrito]

1: Is there anyone on Slashdot that honestly feels there's even the slightest probability that SCO will win?

2: If we all know they're going to lose, why do people keep posting stories about it?

I don't want to troll, but I really don't think anyone here things SCO has a chance in hell. We also know that when they lose this lawsuit, they're going to go out of business and a year or two afterwards, nobody will be thinking about them. So why are we paying so much attention to this. I mean, the whole thing is really a non-event and by constantly running stories about it, you're only helping Red Hat. Any publicity they get just makes them seem more legitimate. They're not legitimate at all.

I really can't wait for them to just lose their case, go out of business, and be out of everyone's mind.

Re:A couple of questions

[Pedrito]

Oops, I meant by "running these stories you're only helping SCO" not Red Hat. Hey, maybe it's helping Red Hat. If it is, hurry. Sorry for the booboo. Shoulda previewed....

Re:A couple of questions

[TiggsPanther]

1: Is there anyone on Slashdot that honestly feels there's even the slightest probability that SCO will win?

Unfortunately, yes I do. Yes, I think it's only a slight probability (and it'd be the wrong outcome), but the problem is that it all rests with the Lawyers now. Well, and the courts. But bein ghe cynical bastard that I am, and having no trust is lawyers or fath in the legal system of any country, I can't dismiss the possibility that SCO may well win.

Doesn't stop me sharing the belief that they're talking out of their arses and that their claims are all unfounded.
It also doesn't make me believe for one second that should the courts find SCO right that Linux can easily be stopped. One way or another Linux will survive. I'm just too cynical to automatically assume that SCO will lose.

Re:A couple of questions

[mabu]

Is there anyone on Slashdot that honestly feels there's even the slightest probability that SCO will win?

There is always a possibility that IBM *could* settle with SCO, which would throw the entire Linux community into chaos and make things even worse. While it looks like IBM intends to fully-pursue the case, there is a chance this could happen and it could benefit IBM as well, by branding them as one of the few sources of "legitimate" Linux as dictated by SCO.

If we all know they're going to lose, why do people keep posting stories about it?

It's important to make as many people as possible aware of the ongoing activities involved in this case. I probably don't even need to mention that being "right" is no guarantee of a fair trial. Public opinion is a very powerful influence in cases like this, just look at SCO's FUD campaign. It's the OS community's responsibility to clear that cloud of smoke.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[4of12]

Remember, SCO's purpose here is not to win, or even survive, it's to spread disinformation and fear about open source and Linux.

Sure seems that it's either that, or to make a lot of money on stock prices that jump around.

Proof of either motivation will be hard to come by, but it sure would be nice to see it come out in the open...

In the end, the legal team defending SCO will still maintain that "they were pursuing what they believed to be genuine issues with misappropriation of SCO intellectual property" even if the evidence is shown to reduce to laughably absurdites (eg, "They have some include file names the same as ours and some of the lines are the same, too, like this:

/*
* Get system dependent values and data structures.
*/

.

SCOrifice

[RelliK]

Henceforth, the plural of orifice is scorifice.

Re:SCOrifice

[Hooya]

hear, hear. those SCOmbags deserve just such a dedication.

pray to $DEITY_NAME

[Qeygh]

I'm an athiest, you insensitive clod.

Re:pray to $DEITY_NAME

[Anonymous Coward]

Then pray that $DEITY_NAME ignores you!

Re:pray to $DEITY_NAME

[Ranger96]

So,

export DEITY_NAME=""

Re:pray to $DEITY_NAME

[kclittle]

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.-Ecclesiastes 1:9

I dunno, the Linux-in-a-dead-badger installation is pretty novel, IMHO...

Re:pray to $DEITY_NAME

[Maarek_1]

so then $DEITY_NAME = null ......

I didn't see the varible declaration, so I don't see why it wouldn't allow a null string.... I am not sure I will have to check if the /.++ language allows null strings.

Re:pray to $DEITY_NAME

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously though, people don't disagree over what the name of the deity (if any) is, so you may as well call it God. Everyone knows what the word "God" is supposed to mean, or at least everyone can figure it out to the extent that it has a clear meaning at all. People disagree whether God exists or is like this or that, not whether God is called "God".

Re:pray to $DEITY_NAME

[Anonymous Coward]

You almost had me ... then I realized that "useless" has already been done.

Thanks, dude!

[NumbThumb]

you just made my day :-)

they are wasting out of money anyway

[auzy]

I doubt SCO will have any money left by the end of the IBM case to be honest (they will have to file for bankrupsy before then) http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SCOX&t=3m&l=on&z=m &q=l&c= I expect the climb in that graph to start dropping again quickly cause of this.. At some point SCO will have to give up anyway.. The funny thing about this whole lawsuit is that even if SCO by some off chance wins, IBM will just sue them anyway again.. And there must be at least a few hundred pending lawsuits against SCO now in every country (which are waiting the conclusion of this case). What I predict will happen is that these lawsuits will be emphasised more close to the end of the lawsuit, and SCO's stocks will drop like a brick at that point forcing them to completely cut back their operations and sell everything to make it through this case. So, what is happening now is irrelevant, its what happens near the end of the case where things will really warm up

proof

[hhawk]

Agreeing with the poster that is about FUD, proving claims that this open source stuff is "messy" and the "IP is murky" and so many millions wasted on legal "issues" and even top lawyer(s) feeling there was "merit" to the issues.

Even with a clear lose, this suit stinks up the room for a long time and might even force some "splits" in the linux/BSD source tree (divide then conquer).

IBM will NOT lose

[Anonymous Coward]

So quit bringing it up.

Damn people, do you know anything about the SCO case?

Re:does it matter? YES.

[surprise_audit]

Orifices? Orifii? What's the plural of orifice? Anybody?

How about oriface, as in "shoving it down their throats until they choke"...

SCO lucks out again

[wardk]

So SCO gets to defame Redhat with FUD and old fashioned lies until the IBM case is completed. Redhat gets no immediate relief.

This is a small gain for Redhat on one side (as if anyone thought this would get dismissed), but a bigger loss for Redhat on the other (as if we thought RH would get screwed for possibly 2 more years with no recourse).

Re:SCO lucks out again

[seb249]

As the article says, Both parties get to write to advise the judge every 90 days on how the IBM/SCOX case is running. The judge said that if it was not progressing she would consider lifting the stay.
RTFA

this action is a draw

[zogger]

---redhat and linux can keep being publically damaged by the judge not really doing anything. Sucks, but typical. I hope the masses didn't think it was going to be different. Surface level it looks like a win, in reality this decision is a loss. The "wait and see" (with the IBM case) blather is just passing the buck for awhile while damage continues. There was little reason to do so, the wait and see, which is another odor du rodentia to me.

Perhaps what might speed it up is a large class action motion against SCO by interested end users, to either put up or shutup, or offer an out of court binding arbitration. Not the distro guys or or BB, real end users and small contractors. Perhaps even just a coordinated very local small claims effort, they would have to show up in a zillion local courts. If anyone "you" has lost a contract due to your potential clients "uncertainties" of "is linux free and legal" etc BS,anything along those lines that you can document, seems to me that is enough to go to small claims court with. That might be quite a few folks out there by now...

Back to arbitration, if sco really had anything, they would take it, if they rejected it, it would show that they have been fishing and using the courts to manipulate stock prices (more or less) and perhaps acting as the stalking horse and spoiler for MS,which I think has merit now but not much anecdotal and would never be actionable without serious insider leak- auge to help..

And is it still revolving around sysV? If so, is there any on-going work devoted to replacing that anyway, as a backup linux strategy? I mean, just go ahead and pull it out now, not wait for any court case? I don't know that, I guess I will assume that that might be a bear of a coding job.

*If* they lose?

[lavalyn]

You misspelled when.

Re:*If* they lose?

[Anonymous Coward]

When is the last time you observed the US legal system doing the right thing, according to common sense? I wouldn't count on *anything* until the fat lady sings.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, SCO's purpose here is not to win, or even survive, it's to spread disinformation and fear about open source and Linux. The *real* win comes when SCO is exposed as the passel of lying, greedy, goat-molesting asshats they are...

Hey, watch it! You're giving us goat-moleters a bad name!

It's not "almost over".

[hcg50a]

I've seen alot less SCO news lately. I hope that this is a sign that it's almost over.

"Almost over"?

The SCO trial with IBM hasn't even begun yet.

There are one or two other cases with SCO (vs. Novell and/or Red Hat) -- I don't know what phase those are in.

They are still in the discovery phase in the case of SCO vs. IBM, where they are debating what evidence will be included in the trial, and both IBM and SCO are pressing each other for information they believe is there, or for information that one side claims is there, but the other side claims does not exist.

This thing may never reach trial -- I assume that is SCO's goal. IBM wants it to, so that precedents are set and issues are settled. SCO just wants people to do what they tell them and they want money. They want to keep things murky and scary.

Re:It's not "almost over".

[Tielman]

Do you think that the motion to dismiss with prejudice from IBM is going to fail?? I imagine that the other guy was thinking that it actually might suceed....... :)

Re:It's not "almost over".

[Anonymous Coward]

>There are one or two other cases with SCO (vs. Novell and/or Red Hat) -- I don't know what phase those are in.

You would probably know what phase one of them is in if you RTFA.

Re:It's not "almost over".

[hcg50a]

I wasn't counting on it succeeding, but if it does, that would certainly shorten the time frame!

It's actually kind of funny what has happened so far: Metaphorically speaking, IBM has been turning over stones, send SCO scurrying, cockroach-like, for cover under another stone.

Eventually they're going to run out of stones, or they're going to get squished, or they will find a stone that resists turning over.

Red Hat's suit (unlike SCO's) not about money

[RunzWithScissors]

The reason that Red Hat sued SCO was because SCO was making, as of yet, unfounded claims to customers that Red Hat was infringing on their IP for UNIX. Red Hat's suit is more about keeping SCO from saying derogatory things about The Hat than getting a hefty settlement from SCO for damages. Besides, what would Red Hat do with $6 bln? Probably buy a kickass RV, no wait, they did that already...

-Runz

Re:Red Hat's suit (unlike SCO's) not about money

[ArtisteTerroriste]

Is 6 billion enought to PAVE the entire surface area of Redmond Washington?

Novell != SCO

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

With publicly owned corporations, nothing is for sure when it comes to profit; remember that the boards of directors of all publicly traded companies are tasked with maximizing stockholder value.

That said, I don't think Novell would take the SCO route, all the signs are against it, and they have seen what is going to be the fate of SCO. But this is still a good point, a good reason that we really NEED the IBM issue to come to it's complete end.

Re:Novell != SCO

[Lodragandraoidh]

Agreed. The worse thing SCO could do now would be to cut and run. We need definitive case law that shows where open source stands for the future - and this is the perfect case to use for that purpose.

My new word fo the day - Lackadaisical

[ziegast]

Lackadaisical (adj.) - 1) Lacking spirit, liveliness, or interest; languid: "There'll be no time to correct lackadaisical driving techniques after trouble develops" (William J. Hampton). 2) Affectedly pensive; languidly sentimental.

And now thanks to SCO and the RedHat lawsuit (page 5) referenced by the Groklaw article we might see an expansion of the definition for lawyers and geeks alike...

3) Lacking urgency and passionate conviction: "[SCO is] ... taking a lackadaisical attitude toward pursuing its claims."

But they can't be doing that bad

[drizst 'n drat]

Their stock has been rising since last week and is currently above $11 a share. For a company allegedly on the ropes, they're not doing too bad. Go figure ...

Re:But they can't be doing that bad

[GPLDAN]

Check Yahoo and see what percentage of outstanding shares are holding a short position. What you are seeing is called a 'short squeeze'. Microsoft, or some institutional investor fronting for them, is trying to get a string of buybacks running.

Re:But they can't be doing that bad

[mabu]

People need to send an email to enforcement@sec.gov and request a formal investigation into this stock situation with SCOX.

So need to post that here

[Anonymous Coward]

Add that one here... http://www.annoying.com/nightmares/obsessive/02/00 01/gallery.html

Totally awesome.

RedHat delay

[Allen Zadr]

Actually, that's why the order can be reversed if the IBM case does not proceed smoothly from this point on - As all indications are that the SCO/IBM judge is tired of SCO induced delays.

Remeber, too, that this is in reponse for a request for delay from SCO in _this_ case.

Bitten?

[pjt33]

Are you confusing zombies and vampires?

Re:Bitten?

[WormholeFiend]

not at all. both genres use a similar plot device, but it works differently in each case.

Re:Bitten?

[AndroidCat]

I think the Night of the Living Darl, er, Dead zombies were space-infection zombies. (The $2 Zombie night at The Pioneer always worked for me. In the morning, something had definitely bitten me!)

Re:Bitten?

[Anonymous Coward]

A little clarification. Not space-infection. Military-infection. A leak of secret chemical weapon under development (failed attempt at creating immortal soldiers)

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[Anonymous Coward]

From mr. Panko's site:

As discussed below, some security certifications, such as CompTIA's Security+, pride themselves in being vendor neutral. Although this has some theoretical benefits, it is pretty useless in practice.

''Nitsivoo, it's a monoculture and I'm getting nice discounts from m$.''

It is an introductory course that covers all the key aspects of IT security for graduates who will work in corporations that implement security, rather than for vendor firms that create security products.

...and covering microsoft stuff is covering all the key aspects?

I could be wrong of course but don't really think m$ products are what ''large corporations that implement security'' rely on.

Re:does it matter? YES.

[vwjeff]

I agree that SCO has no intention to win here. What I do think they are after is money. Usually in a case like this a company like IBM would make an offer to buy out the smaller company. I believe SCO's original plan was for this to happen but IBM realized the negative press they would get for buying SCO.

As bad as it might sound I think a company will have to buy the IP rights to UNIX in order to shut SCO up. SCO will not win this case and the value of the "company" will drop. At this point someone will buy them.

Who will buy them? IBM? Novell? (not likely) Microsoft?

Maybe that is why the release date for Longhorn is moving back. Windows based on UNIX. Microsoft's perfect weapon against Linux. (I meant this last part to be a joke however you can't rule this possibility out) :(

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[menace3society]

He definitely, ah, favors Microsoft. :-) Very unusual for a security guy.

Not really. This way he'll always have a job.

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[FattMattP]

Here's his personal site: http://www.panko.com/

Sco case (the dead parrot)

[blueZ3]

- Look, I took the liberty of examining SCO's case, and I discovered that the only reason that it had been sitting in court in the first place was that it had been nailed there.

- Well of course it was nailed there. Otherwise it would muscle up to those bars and voom.

- Look matey, this case wouldn't go voom if I put four thousand volts through it. It's bleeding demised.

- It's not. It's pining.

- It's not pining, it's passed on. This case is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late legal case. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. When they get nailed in court, it will be pushing up the daisies. It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-case.

(with apologies to MP)

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[resprung]

No! No! No!

No way I saw that!

Dr. Panko's website has the title

"New Page 1"

The Frontpage default. OMG.

Here's an 'expert' I won't be trusting!

Here's how..

[Mr. Underbridge]

First, they distribute Linux under the GPL. Then a while later, they go around telling people they owe $699 to them or they have to stop using Linux. How is that not extortion?

First, because it's not clear, legally, at this point, that the GPL has invalidated their IP that could possibly be in linux. There are a number of reasons for this, which I won't belabor here, if for no other reason than it's been knocked around for over a year now. Yes, yes, we all "know" SCO's claims (whatever they are today) are false, but until this is substantiated, they have every right to suggest that companies license. Anyone sued has an obvious tactic, which is to petition the court to wait until the IBM, Novell, etc. cases are resolved, but it's still not extortion to try to receive payment for something you think is yours. In effect, you're saying that a company must decide for itself whether its claims are bunk or not, and any attempt to reach an out-of-court settlement by a party who "would have" lost is extortion. And that's not going to work.

If you're still not convinced, look at the DirecTV racketeering lawsuit that was thrown out, and there was a great deal more evidence against them than exists against SCO.

Again, just because we don't like SCO doesn't mean they've committed a crime. They may be subject to civil decisions, but that's a different matter.

That doesn't work.

[Mr. Underbridge]

They SHOULD know their claims are crap. Ignorance is no excuse, right?

So, what, anyone who loses a civil suit is immediately guilty of extortion? SCO's claims, while probably false, pass the laugh test. There have been enough people who have looked at them and found them wanting, but not ridiculous, for them to pass that standard.

Why hasn't MS bought SCO

[alex_tibbles]

the very fact that MS has not bought SCO suggests that MS believe that there is a substantial chance that SCO will lose and be liable for large damages to IBM, Redhat et al, which MS does not want to be liable for.
But that's just one possible explanation...

Re:Why hasn't MS bought SCO

[GreyWolf3000]

Not really--MS aquiring UNIX IP would be a blatant violation of an earlier anti-trust ruling.

Re:Why hasn't MS bought SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

MS aquiring UNIX IP would be a blatant violation of an earlier anti-trust ruling.

True. But I thought we were talking about them acquiring SCO's assets?

Re:Why hasn't MS bought SCO

[AKnightCowboy]

True. But I thought we were talking about them acquiring SCO's assets?

What on earth would any legitimate company need with that many lawyers? Microsoft and SCO's legal teams combined would be a legal powerhouse rivaling the largest law firms.

SCO's opening statement to dismiss RH complaint

[mabu]

went something like this...

"Your honor, I'm just a caveman. I was frozen in some ice millions of years ago and thawed out..."

Did you try watching the stock a few weeks ago?

[aug24]

There was some pretty damn obvious stock manipulation going on. I'd be guessing that *someone* was doing it (derr!), that if traced, it would be someone who knew Darl et al, and I would hope that from there you would have a decent chance of getting the SEC to investigate.

J.

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[the_flatlander]

He definitely, ah, favors Microsoft. :-) Very unusual for a security guy.

Microsoft is a security consultant's wet-dream come true. It's like, lifetime employment. Fix/indentify one exploit, and *pop* there's another. No fear of working yourself out of a job.

The Flatlander

SCO stock going.... up??

[adrenaline_junky]

Just wanted to take note of some strangeness. In the last week or so as SCO's position has arguably been considerably weakened from its already weak position, SCO stock has actually gone UP from about $7 to about $11 now. Very strange.

Re:SCO stock going.... up??

[Animats]

That's probably SCO's announced stock buyback. They're using their own cash (which they got from Microsoft) to buy back their own stock, and thus prop up the price.

Nosedive? Au contraire, my dear Whatsfrom

[SlashDread]

sure, if you look at the ONE DAY graph.

Look at the FIVE DAY graph. These "stock nosedive begins" are beginning to resemble "*BSD is dying" posts.

peace

"/Dread"

Re:Nosedive? Au contraire, my dear Whatsfrom

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom.

if SCO looses to IBM ..

[josepha48]

.. then Redhat and probably a few other people will be able to get whatever is left over. If all that is left over is IP rights, the question will then become will Redhat be able to get those rights and what would they do with them if they did?

Would Redhat finally open source and free the IP?

Free IP free IP.. I think that it is obvious SCO is going down...

Re:if SCO looses to IBM ..

[Anonymous Coward]

if SCO looses to IBM ..

Are there any posters out there who know the difference between loose and lose???!!!

Come on people...

Re:if SCO looses to IBM ..

[BCW2]

When SCO loses to IBM. There may not be any IP for anyone depending on Novells suit.

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot monkies mostly lie about facts, we all know it, they don't know where they stand, they favor Apple most of the time, on the same exact issues they bash Microsoft and others. Slashdot favors Open Source in some cases where Apple is not involved.

So, if you consider anybody who doesn't favor open source as someone at fault, then you are pretty much on your own. The only chance you have is to make terrorist attacks on others, and sooner or later courts will teach you what law means. SCO case would be the first one I hope.

There's no such thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

...an atheist's god is godlessness. BTW, that makes for chaos. Not too hard to understand, really. It's why the worst philosophers are always inconsistent (at best) when talking about how to maintain an ordered society.

Re:There's no such thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's why the worst philosophers are always inconsistent (at best)

Uh, can't you see how saying:

"the worst X are Y (at best)" ...is completely meaningless?

Re:does it matter? YES.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the judgment goes against SCO and they can't pay or finance payment, then they would have to go into liquidation and their assets, including their intellectual property would be sold. Hopefully in such a case the winners of court cases against them, as aggrieved parties, would have priority over creditors and might be willing to accept the intellectual property in lieue of part of the money due to them. i.e. IBM and Redhat will probably fight over the IP instead of having to bid for it in the open against Microsoft, Sun, and anybody else.

Re:SCO's Motion to dismiss Red Hat's Complaint Den

[rajafarian]

... by then they will have been bled dry.

Time to go after The Canopy Group?

GPL Violations Harm Everyone

[DanTheLewis]

SCO's licensing behavior, as IBM has been pointing out in their Counterclaims to the SCO lawsuit (Counterclaim 6, para. 142-147 is especially relevant), violates the GPL, because SCO distributed Linux and other GPL software, then attempted to alter the terms of the license using SCOsource.

Paragraph 147 shows what kinds of damages open source developers have a right to expect:

147. As a result of SCO's breaches of the GPL, countless developers and users of Linux, including IBM, have suffered and will continue to suffer damages and other irreparable injury. IBM is entitled to a declaration that SCO's rights under the GPL terminated, an injunction prohibiting SCO from its continuing and threatened breaches of the GPL and an award of damages in an amount to be determined at trial.

SCO is unpopular with "the /. crowd" precisely because a significant number of them are Linux and open source developers. Yes, all open source projects get tarred with the same brush in the non-tech public (read: investors) when SCO claims the GPL is unconstitutional and threatens to sue end-users. These guys aren't multimillionaires being bankrolled by M$ and don't have the money, time, or ability to get into a legal fight with SCO. They all lose customers and support until the lawsuits are over. When the Yankee Group publishes yet another TCO study that says "Linux is great, but, oops, the costs of indemnity from legal challenges pending in the courts forced us to revise our cost estimate upward," businesses learn that Linux is risky until the court cases are over. Developers lose.

Someone must be responsible! Someone must pay for this damage! The thought that Darl McBride, Canopy, M$ et al. will come away from these lawsuits, no matter what, with their reputations, fortunes, business practices, quotidian lives intact is like a maddening thorn in the brain of "the /. crowd". That's why everyone keeps asking about criminal charges... not because they really hope to see these people in jail, but because they are yearning for justice.

Re:GPL Violations Harm Everyone

[Captain DaFt]

Three evil words: Class action suit. I'm sure there are *MANY* law firms out there willing to take the case against SCO on behalf of independent programmers. (Lawyers get the cash -as usual- evertone else gets a grave to piss on. };->

"Market Focussed" book

[GillBates0]

It's sad that his security book is "market-focused" -- as in it focusses on security from a product (read Windows) point of view rather than providing a strong theoretical base for the subject matter. I think the CS gurus (read Stallman, Tanenbaum, Stevens, Djikstra) would tend to differ This quote is pretty telling:

Up-to-Date Market-Focused Coverage

As discussed below, some security certifications, such as CompTIA's Security+, pride themselves in being vendor neutral. Although this has some theoretical benefits, it is pretty useless in practice. In corporations today, over 90% of all clients are Windows computers. Any security course that fails to reflect that reality is pretty unrealistic. In all areas, this book attempts to focus on the state of the market in technology today.

In addition, this book focuses on today's and tomorrow's issues--not on things that used to be important but are not today. There is an enormous amount of material to cover; so covering irrelevant issues is an expensive luxury that we cannot afford.

Re:"Market Focussed" book

[0x0d0a]

In corporations today, over 90% of all clients are Windows computers. Any security course that fails to reflect that reality is pretty unrealistic.

One does wonder about the emphasis on the client -- traditionally, it seems that more emphasis goes into securing the server (of which there is a predominance of *IX boxes) than clients.

I dunno...it just seems that even if people aren't *writing* secure software, learning how a secure architecture works at a high level (rather than learning a bunch of commands to create Windows firewall rules under XP, as he presents in his book), is a better use of college time. I mean, you can teach someone to use a particular version of a program, but if that's all they learn at university they're going to be in an uncomfortable spot five years down the read when all the software they learned operates differently.

Also, my experience has been that closed-source vendors have a stronger tendancy to steal code than open-source types (just because a number of closed-source developers seem to think that they can "get away with it", since few will see their code). I've really seen very little theft of code in open source software, and of the stuff I've run into, it's almost exclusively accidental and minor (like a Linux coder that thought that he didn't have to include copyright notices from a BSD piece of software when incorporating it into the Linux kernel, or someone misinterpreting the GPL (and providing a link to someone else's FTP site for source rather than distributing their source themselves)). If a company is considering relying on the intellectual property purity of a codebase, I'd be more comfortable advising them to bet on an open than a closed codebase (other issues aside, of course).

Yes: If IBM didn't win it alreay - UNIX. B-)

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Anything left to kick around?

Yes:

If IBM didn't already win it in THEIR counter-suit: The remaining assets of SCO, including Netware and whatever remains of their claims to Unix.

Red Had could then, for instance, explicitly open-source it all - under multiple licenses. This would solve the "linux is a derived work of unix" issue from all time, and would also give anyone still stuck with a Netware deployment the opportunity to have it supported after SCO goes down.

SCO Stock Buyback?

[MooseByte]

"SCO were doing pretty badly until last week and then their stock price almost doubled."

In addition to a broader market rebound at the time, I wonder whether SCO Group's stock buy-back program was exercised in order to artificially boost the recent gains?

With some careful timing, a little buy back can go a long way in shifting a day's trading momentum.

Rubish.

[jotaeleemeese]

There is no way SCO wins. Period. Too long to go all over the issues, but it may very well be they will not have money by the time the trial starts.

If your fears would become true, then IBM would be declared in breach of contract for the bits (which ones?) that they allegedely wrote by breaking the contract.

Do you see any suit against kernel developpers or FLOSS contributors? Nope. SCO has been clouding the issues and there are imbeciles that are even paying them fro the show, but so far they have not challenged Linux in any court whatsoever.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

anything left for Red Hat to kick around

Not sure, but this is going to be one dead horse that is going to be fun to kick around. C'mon everyone take a shot.

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[Anonymous Coward]

"People take computer advice from someone who:
a) uses Frontpage
b) doesn't change the title of the pages from "New Page 1"
Worrying."

I took a whole university course from people who used Frontpage, and didn't change the title of their pages from "New Page 1", you insensitive clod!

Worrying.

Re:Irony in the best

[rhizome]

Maybe yes, maybe no. This about the hundredth "first nail" development, so much so that I noticed that the Groklaw has decided to start including exclamation points in its story titles, perhaps to differentiate from the other beginnings of ends..

Re:does it matter? YES.

[SillySlashdotName]

As bad as it might sound I think a company will have to buy the IP rights to UNIX in order to shut SCO up. SCO will not win this case and the value of the "company" will drop. At this point someone will buy them.

Why would anyone buy them? I am serious.

What does TSG have that is worth ANYTHING to another business? Their claim to the IP that is supposedly in Linux is being fought in court, and TSG has not yet shown they will (or even could possibly on a day when the weather forecast in Hades is particularly chilly) prevail in their claims of ownership.

They don't own office space (rented from Canopy), real estate (rented from Canopy), office furnishings (rented from Canopy), inventions or patents that are in demand. They don't have any key technology, resources, or even executives that have a clue. Why would anyone want to buy TSG?

With a book value of $1.31 per share, buying them AT MARKET would entail a premium of about 840% over what it would cost to start over from scratch.

The only asset they have is a lawsuit against IBM that, IF they win (not bloody likely, from what I have been reading) could be worth about 20 times their current market capitalization. Other than some Microsoft shills (Enderly? Didio?) they are not convincing many that they have any chance of winning, though - and I really think the Microsoft shills are not convinced, they are just selling their integrity to the highest bidder.

Again, why would anyone buy them?

I do agree, though, that it would be nice for SOMEONE to shut them up. SEC, DOJ, are you listening?

Novell and SuSE

[Allen Zadr]

Like the way SCO was distributing Caldera Linux? Like SCO was part of the UnitedLinux project?

Sorry, but I don't see the difference, I think they are both equally absurd, thus are equally plausible.

Re:SCO's Motion to dismiss Red Hat's Complaint Den

[Anonymous Coward]

If Red Hat, IBM, Novell etc. win the arguments in court, they are unlikely to get any money from SCO as by then they will have been bled dry.

IBM isn't in court to get money from TSG.

IBM intends to drive TSG so deep into the ground that it will take weeks before the smoke rises to the surface, and we can call it a smoking crater when it does.

This is will be the object lesson for the next outfit that thinks about chickenboning money from Linux.

Worthless lazy judge?

[walterbyrd]

Beer company A falsely claims that the employees of beer company B are urinating in company B's product. How unfair is that to company B?

Now imagine that company A's claims are headline news in dozens of publications for over a year. Sure, company B could call company A a liar, but a lot of people will avoid beer from company B, just to be safe.

The scox case is exactly like that. Msft/scox is loadly claiming that Linux is "contaminated" with UNIX code. Yet, after an entire year, scox offers no evidence.

After sitting on scox's laughable motion to dismiss for over six months. The judge *finally* declares: "I'm too stupid and lazy to set a court date, or to tell scox to lay off the unproven statements against scox's competitors. So, I'll just allow scox to unfairly bash the competition, maybe Utah will do something and spare me the trouble."

This decision could not have possibly been more favorable to scox. Maybe the USA could learn something from Germany's justice system.

Re:Worthless lazy judge?

[seb249]

The article does say that the parties will be submitting a letter every 90 days to update the judge on how the ibm/sco case is progressing. So its not as bad as it fist looks

Re:Worthless lazy judge?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US could probably learn something from most countries' justice system.

typo

[TheLittleJetson]

article contains a typographical error. 'If they lose against IBM" should read "WHEN they lose against IBM" -- sorry for any confusion.

Re:Irony in the best

[bwraith]

Yes you are probably right in which I conceed to your comment there is no doubt a multitude of "first nail" comments though each one may constitute it's own special section of the coffin in a whole, kind of like combining a whole bunch of boards then nailing down the steel plating for good measure :)

Re:Yes: If IBM didn't win it alreay - UNIX. B-)

[Anonymous Coward]

im confused by your post, netware is not and never has been an asset of sco

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[grassy_knoll]

He definitely, ah, favors Microsoft. :-) Very unusual for a security guy.

Not really. Our security guy favors Microsoft; this way there's always something around to monitor / patch. ;-)

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[Anonymous Coward]

He definitely, ah, favors Microsoft. :-) Very unusual for a security guy.

Quote from his website:

As discussed below, some security certifications, such as CompTIA's Security+, pride themselves in being vendor neutral. Although this has some theoretical benefits, it is pretty useless in practice. In corporations today, over 90% of all clients are Windows computers. Any security course that fails to reflect that reality is pretty unrealistic. In all areas, this book attempts to focus on the state of the market in technology today.

Re:Yes: If IBM didn't win it alreay - UNIX. B-)

[Anonymous Coward]

::: tap, tap ::: That's the sound of the clue bat. NetWare is owned by Novell and SCO has no claims whatsoever to it.

That's not criminal

[Mr. Underbridge]

SCO's licensing behavior, as IBM has been pointing out in their Counterclaims to the SCO lawsuit (Counterclaim 6, para. 142-147 is especially relevant), violates the GPL, because SCO distributed Linux and other GPL software, then attempted to alter the terms of the license using SCOsource.

Thanks for either 1) the troll (which was great if it was) or 2) the thread-irrelevant RMS parrotting. Bottom line is there are no criminal penalties for these sorts of contract disputes. None of what you say makes any of the executives at SCO, nor SCO in general, guilty of a crime, no matter how much you might like. You can bitch and moan all you like, but there is no criminal code in the US that they have violated. Don't give me any of the weak barratry, extortion, etc arguments. If you have another idea, let's hear it.

don't bitch on /.

[Mr. Underbridge]

email your congress(wo)man.

Calvin car stickers.

[vistic]

In one of the Calvin and Hobbes compilations... the one with a lot of comments by Watterson on the characters and stuff... he opens up the book by explaining how he never, ever agreed to merchandise Calvin and Hobbes (you never see a suction-cup Hobbes for your car window like the Garfield ones) even though he stood to make a lot more money if he had sold out.

It just angers me when I see all the Calvin stickers on people's cars... *ESPECIALLY* the ones with Calvin kneeling down and praying before a cross. Not only is that disrespecting the artist, but also it is completely not something Calvin would ever do. I'm going to start tearing those stupid things off when I see them.

Oops. I was confused.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

im confused by your post, netware is not and never has been an asset of sco

Oops. Sorry. *I*'m the one who was confused.

I meant whatever the SCO unix is - not Novell's netware.

My point was, though, that a major judgement against SCO could end up with the plantif - Red Hat, IBM, or whomever won it - holding all of SCO's remaining assets - which would include:
- whatever it was about Unix that SCO used as a basis for their suit, plus
- their code base for their current products.

So when SCO goes down, the winner can both
- free Linux AND Unix from further, similar threats.
- open the SCO code available (or support it themselves) so their remaining customers aren't left with an orphan product.

- SCO goes away.
- Linux is free.
- Unix is free.
- The old-SCO customers (who bought in good faith before all this hit the fan) aren't stuck.
- SCO execs are out of jobs and the people who bought into their scheme are out big buck$,
- Corporate execs who might think of mounting a similar attack on open-source have an object lesson: Be DAMED sure you're right - because if you're wrong your company dies. Take that risk into account when you make your decision.

Re:Slashdotters, feel free to examine Panko websit

[Anonymous Coward]

CLIPART!

How about "I will eat pancakes on your grave!"

[Flower]

That Kids in the Hall skit always makes me smile.

The real strategy behind SCO/MS ...

[quarkscat]

... is the spread of FUD, while stretching
any/all lawsuits out in the courts for many
years. MS, particularly, employs this scheme
because they can count on either technical
progress or "reality on the ground" to change
enough to make the original lawsuit a moot
point (at which time they settle for a small
fraction of all the additional money made in
the mean time, or else cross-license technology
to whatever remains of their competition).
All thanks to (1) deep pockets, (2) bevy of
lawyers, and (3) slow gears of American
jurisprudence. Really too bad that the Bush
DoJ snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,
and caved to MS over monopolistic practices --
the IT world would be a much more interesting
place with a Microsoft broken into 3 or 4
pieces.

Re: Butch's helpful hint #329

[Anonymous Coward]

Butch's helpful hint #329

Shitting on the graves of your rivals may be fun, satisfying and cathartic, but be forewarned... Overdoing it can lead to lush floral growth, making them seem far more popular then you'd like.

a.k.a. where there's smoke there must be fire?