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

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.

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.

If?

[DavidBartlett]

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

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?

[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.

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

[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: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.

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: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.
*/

.

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: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.

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.

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: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.

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:"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.

[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) :(

"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.

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.