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AutoZone Responds To SCO
loftis writes "Groklaw is reporting that AutoZone has responded to The SCO Group's Lawsuit. Here is a link to the Groklaw community's discussion where you can find all the filings in raw form. Here is a text copy of the filing without amendments. AutoZone has pretty much said to the court, SCO has to prove 1) they own the code, and 2) that Linux infringes. Since SCO is litigating these two issues in other cases, they ought to wait until those questions are answered. Or, they say, 'If we cannot wait, we need SCO to tell us what we are infringing upon with specificity.' Since we know how SCO will answer the second question, and the court likely will too, since they amended the filings from SCO v IBM and SCO v RedHat and SCO v Novell, it seems to me (IANAL) that they should get to wait."
I'm not sure linux is held in any responsibility to SCO's actions. I mean, I think people understand the legal system enough to know that people sue for whatever reason they can sometimes: disregarding whether it is justified.
A lot of people scoff at the legal system, I don't think companies would avoid a product because of one companies actions. Now, if microsoft gives similar advances to, say, ten more companies -and they decide to sue, then we got a problem.
IANAL, but I don't see SCO, alone, damaging linux too much....
Isn't this SCO and their funders primary goal?
Actually, the longer this drags out, the more SCO spends in legal fees, and the quicker their ultimate financial demise takes place.
With SCO now fighting on multiple fronts, they are likely to run out of cash before anything but the IBM suit, gets to court. And that suit will eat them alive.
As for companies afraid to use Linux due to SCO's legal shenanigans, I haven't encountered any - have you?! That is surely the worst news for SCO to hear, as their tactic is in essence, legal terrorism.
These lawsuits were stunts to distract from quarterly earnings in the first place, did anyone really expect anything new? Of course, they hinge on the IBM case and, of course, there really isn't anything there without determining what (if anything) infringes. Now had they been reasonable and sued for licensing violations alone, maybe there wouldn't ground for a stay.
The truth is coming to light (thanks in large part to Groklaw) even outside the geek community.
Not quite. If you follow the news regarding SCO, BayStar wanted to pull their investment because they didn't think SCO was investing enough resources in the IP lawsuits, and wanted them to all but entirely ditch their Unix "business." Unless they really are being paid by companies with vested interests in Linux's demise, like Microsoft, they want people to use Linux; that's more people to sue.
So if you have software copyrights, I can claim I didn't steal your code, just your ideas!?! (I'm not talking about Linux in this case, just in general, that seems to be what the lawyers are saying)
The problem is that it seems pretty obvious SCO isn't intending to come out of this alive. This court case has doomed SCO. The unfortunate thing is, that's the point. This entire mess was begun as a stock pump-and-dump, and kept alive by a publically documented huge donation from a certain party interested in encouraging any group that publically hurts linux. In the former case, the lawsuit was an exit strategy for SCO; in the latter case, the lawsuit is a corporate suicide bomb strapped to SCO's back.
Of course SCO is going to die; the Canopy Group and MS are using SCO as the corporate equivilent of a human shield. You don't care whether your human shield survives.
The value provided by GrokLaw is in that it is an excellent source for primary documents. In this case, the primary documents speak for themselves. PJ 's commentary, what that there is, is mainly there as a guide to help persons who might otherwise be blinded by the reams of legalese to interpret the primary documents.
As for PJs opinions, I believe the reason that they tend to be listened to and repeated are because they are (1) well argued and (2) usually argued in the context of specifically cited relevant law. If you disagree with an opinion stated by PJ and can show why the legal context she argues applies is incorrect, feel free to do so. This is how opinions work; PJs survive because no one has offered better counter-opinions.
IBM has asked them exactly that.
I guess SCO hasn't yet been able to verbalize what their complaint is other than that people are no longer buying their POS operating system.
I would think the longer this drags on, the worse it is for SCO. They only have finite money (and some people already want that money back), eventualy they will be unable to finance continued litigation.
Linux, and OSS in general, does not seem to be suffering a significant (or even noticable) negative backlash from all of this, if anything it has been free publicity.
will you please tell us exactly so, and tell us what would be correct? After all, if the opinions are so uninformed, surely you would be able to provide some sort of rebuttal. Any at all.
Oh, what's that you say? You don't have any actual rebuttal to anything Groklaw has said? You don't have any more idea about law than they do? You're bringing this up not because you take actual issue with anything Groklaw has said, but because by trashing Groklaw you get to appear snarky and clever?
Either contribute to the discussion or don't. Groklaw has provided an opinion. If you can't refute this opinion, it stands. "Yeah, well, you don't know anything." is not a refutation.
Would it add more weight to the case against SCO if IBM, Autozone, Novell and other band together with a class action lawsuit due to SCO dragging this out? It's gotta be hurting investment (thus business) for everyone involved.
Life is not for the lazy.
It's been on Slashdot before.
In a nutshell, AutoZone rapidly migrated from an SCO UnixWare solution to a Linux solution, and SCO is convinced that AutoZone couldn't possibly have done so and must be using SCO IP to run their Linux operations.
Or, they say, 'If we cannot wait, we need SCO to tell us what we are infringing upon with specificity.' Since we know how SCO will answer the second question, and the court likely will too, since they amended the filings from SCO v IBM and SCO v RedHat and SCO v Novell, it seems to me (IANAL) that they should get to wait."
You mean how they'll answer based on the IBM case?
SCO: "Your honor, in order to list the lines with specificity, we need a copy of AutoZone's customer database, of their parts blueprints, and of all source involved with moving away from any SCO products."
May we never see th
She is, however, a paralegal. Doing legal research is her job, so I'd take her opinion over yours or Enderle's anyday. Note that I said opinion, if anyone wants legal advice, even PJ recommends you hire an attorney.
I think its funny how SCo told Autozone that they were no longer going to support their OpenServer installation and told Autozone they would have to upgrade(I use that term loosely) to System V. It seems as if Autozone was happy with their previous installation but was forced to look at another alternative as a result of SCo's actions. Sounds like a baby crying over spilled milk to me.
Perhaps in time it will be recognized that SCO is the *BEST* thing that could have happened to Linux... Microsoft will eventually slap themselves in the forehead for their support of SCO. SCO is providing the flame for the Linux phoenix... after the flame dies down, the phoenix will rise, more powerful than ever. The phoenix will just look like a penguin, of course. Any attention is good attention. Think of how many more people know about Linux after all the SCO FUD? When the FUD goes away with SCO, Linux will explode. Look how the Napster beat-down turned everyone onto music sharing (via Gnutella etc.)
IIRC - SCO thinks that AutoZone (in addition to using Linux generally) is using actual UnixWare OS libraries/ABIs to enable binary compatibility between its old UnixWare applications and its new Linux platform. They think that IBM (the vendor who migrated AutoZone to Linux) did the engineering to get AutoZone's UnixWare apps integrated to run on Linux by taking the short cut of actually stripping the libraries off the old UnixWare installation and putting them into the new Linux installation. If that is true, then it *really would* be a case of copyright infringement. But like most SCO claims, it is probably suspect.
Yes, but at least when they do answer your question, they get it right.
Unlike their competition, advance auto parts...which sold me the wrong size of belts (twice) and also the incorrect set of spark plugs (once).
Of course, the average age of employees might have something to do with it. (advance = 17, autozone = 30)
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Wrong. Groklaw's advice comes from a paralegal, whose job is legal research. PJ isn't a lawyer, but she's trained to read and interpret law and she has a lot of experience doing it. She's not worth $400 an hour, but she's better by training and experience than your average ./ poster.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
If AutoZone wins this motion, anybody else SCO sues can just cite that, and their case will go in the queue after IBM/Novell/Red Hat. At that point, litigation against Linux users from SCO becomes an empty threat. You don't have to pay big legal fees to defend the case; you just have to have a lawyer file a motion citing AutoZone, and the case goes on hold for years, while three Fortune 1000 companies crush SCO in court.
There are some great lines in AutoZone's motion. "There is no reason for SCO to have been so obtuse in its pleading, unless SCO is intentionally trying to avoid identifying the nature and basis of its purported claims." "Rule 8 does not require the defendants in federal court lititgation to engage in such guessing games." "However, SCO's "hide-the-eight-ball" tactics in the IBM case leave AutoZone with little realistic belief that SCO will voluntarily identify the basis for its claims without this Court's intervention.".
Meanwhile, SCO stock is down to 7.05 today. There was a big runup last Thursday morning, probably due to SCO's stock buyback program. The overall effect is that the price is back to where it was a week ago. SCO is down about 60% since the beginning of the year.
Time is now against SCO. Nobody is going to pay them unless they win all those lawsuits. It looks like they'll run out of money first.
Something to think about: when SCO tanks, somebody will buy the "UNIX intellectual property". Who's likely to do that? Sun? Microsoft? Red Hat?
At this point it's in IBM's interest to make sure someone else doesn't acquire the SCO remnants and restart this whole crapfest. I'm sure a payoff, um, settlement was in SCO's mind when they filed suit, and IBM in return has chosen to pursue a scorched-and-salted-earth policy to ensure it only has to do this once. That they may validate the GPL in court in the process is a serendipitous side effect.
SCO delenda est!!
No, that's apparently what patents are for (JPEG, one-click, etc). Based on the way they're granting patents and the low bar for inventiveness, I could probably patent the sandwich.
And there you have it...
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic