Slashdot Mirror
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."
Pep Boys is funding SCO with cash!
Shouldn't they just send over Jesse and the boys to do some mods on the SCO folks?
Someone really needs to start a live counter of SCOs legal costs..
This is taking forever, the longer SCO drags this out, the more companies will be afraid of using Linux. When does this cross the line of being a lawsuit, to being racketeering? Am I being unreasonable? When they first went to court, why didn't SCO just put all the cards on the table? Is it because they don't have any cards to show?
CVB
free ipod and free gmail!
have you ever gone to autozone? they keep you waiting for years before someone finally decides to help you. i think SCO saw this one coming
It's about time someone asked SCO "Stop crying like a spoiled brat and tell us what your exact complaint is" -A
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
So they don't trust SCO's word? What's this world coming to when a fine outfit like SCO can't be trusted?
ask me! *raised hand*
"there are trillions even quadrillions of infringing lines in linux. all your atoms comprising our lines of code are belong to us. hence you clearly and specifically infringed on SCO's rights."
Sincerely,
Darryl
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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....
After pissing off a legion of auto-philes by suing Autozone, SCO has now set their legal sights on the organizations of the NRA, the KKK, and the NY Association of the Russian Mafia for infringing on intellectual property by using Linux in their daily operations.
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 module SCO is talking about is the one implemented in the AutoZone system that make sure six different colors of shifter knobs are always in stock and the simple part you need for your car never is.
And it would be even cooler if you kept a live counter on the same page of the amount of money that board members, the Canopy Group, and SCO insiders have made by selling off SCO stock since this corporate kamakaze mission began...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Yawn".
I don't care. Nope. Not even a little.
SCO has ceased to exist in my opinion. Based on the delay of AZ's response, I had assumed they to decided to pretend SCO doesn't exist, and to just ignore them.
Nope. (Places fingers in ears and slowly rocks back and forth chanting "blah blah blah i can't hear you blay blah blah" over and over)
The only interesting part of all of this? The amusing phrasing I've seen from the various briefs and filings and fnords and amendments and so on and so forth... "Hide the eight-ball"? I don't quite know the meaning of that in normal language, can someone elaborate on its specific legal-context meaning?
I know, I know; it was probably a troll...
Sinepaw.org: Grape Winos
it seems to me (IANAL) that they should get to wait.
Is it just me, or does IANAL sound like a code in the personal ads?
Three IPs for the Linux kings under the sky,
Seven for IBM in their halls of stone,
Nine for SGI doomed to die,
One for the dark Darl on his dark throne
In the land of Utah where the shadows lie.
One IP to rule them all, one IP to find them,
One IP to sue them all and in the courtrooms bind them,
In the land of Utah where the shadows lie.
(Yes, this has also been posted once on Groklaw. No, this isn't a karma whore - I'm the guy who posted it there. And no, I don't necessarily think that SGI is doomed to die, though things haven't been looking good for them lately...)
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.
It's time for a new section. It's time for an SCO section, ala Games or YRO. A section devoted entirely to SCO stories, because I (and I imagine a lot of other people) simply do not care about them anymore.
Yeah, I've got karma to spare.
Don't fret, AutoZone, it's all safe in a briefcase in Germany...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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.
Actually, when SCO stock hit $7.18, a bunch of them actually bought SCO stock. Not sure the "pump and dump" thing is playing out. Honestly, I think they are all just spoiled kiddies.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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.
Everyone knows Apple's doomed; industry analysts keep saying it....
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
i always read it as "I Anal"...
When SCO originally sued AutoZone, I thought they were claiming that AZ copied SCO's libraries to their Linux environment to make porting of AZ's software possible. -- This was debunked by a former AZ employee, who confirmed that the application was cleanly ported to Linux, requiring no SCO code.
But, AZ's response seems to imply that not even that was clear from SCO's claim. They don't even know if they are talking about the kernel, pieces from SCO's OS, applications, etc.
Most of us who read Groklaw filter postings from Anonymous Cowards so we don't get as many "noise" postings. Its amazing how much better the quality of the posted comments are once you filter this drivel.
Oh, sorry.
BTW, the setting is under the preferences link on the left side of the page once you log in. Its right under their award for "Best News Site" from OSDir so its easy to find. But of course, if you don't log in, you would never see it.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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.
Get in the zone, Auto Zone.
"Hide the eight-ball"? I don't quite know the meaning of that in normal language, can someone elaborate on its specific legal-context meaning?
Somebody needs to make SCO give the judge back his "Magic 8-Ball" so he can a "reliable and informed" judgement on these court cases. God forbid the judge use his legal expertise and exprerience to decide these cases on merit or lack thereof.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
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.
I have, for perhaps the last 8 months almost begun to wonder if by chance this company knew it was failing, and with its finaly resources perhaps SCO is trying to do the linux comunity a (covert) favor by actually
/shrug
1.) getting linux in the news so people know hear and talk about it, and
2.) Getting the GPL tested and legitimised in court, so that people who never knew about linux before hand will then think about actually implementing it in the future... in all seriousness a non-tech savy buisnessman would probably be VERY leery of using a product that was completely free, with zero strings attached.
But hey, maybe SCO really is as stupid as they appear.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
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.
Nahh they'll never take on the NRA...... Moses would just cause a local river to rush over SCO headquarters and obliterate them. Besides having the pillar of fire appearing at all the pretrial hearings would be pretty un-nerving for Darl......
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
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!!
I'm glad to see that AutoZone is not just rolling over on this case. As others have already noted, SCO is not likely to survive all of this litigation intact and probably never really intended to.
With that in mind, I would say the latest round of high profile lawsuits against both corporate and government bodies is the intentional beginning of the endgame. I think that the legal team orchestrating all of this has decided that it's time to fall on the sword and end it all. So they start a round of suits they know they cannot win and cannot survive so that they can finally call this thing to a close.
Obviously, there will never be any proof that this is what is happening. But the fact that the U.S. legal and financial systems allow this level of abuse is the saddest revelation of this whole affair.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
There wasn't any stock to short (at my broker) when SCOX last ran up to 11 or so, but when it dropped back around 10, it became available again. I don't know what made it unavailable for shorting (if not booming short interest), but as the price drops, short sellers who cash out will make some shares available for shorting. One can probably infer that any more pumps of SCOX stock will be met by spikes in shorting. Drops in price will result in some short shares becoming available, but not mine, I'm riding this one all the way down (my short positions, that is).