NRF Calls SCO's Claims 'Meritless'

Xenographic writes "The National Retail Federation has just put out a press release in which their CIO concludes that SCO's IP claims are "meritless," and that Novell is the last company which can show a clear title to the code in question. That SCO's claims are meritless is hardly news to anyone who has been following this, but what is interesting is that the NRF was prompted to release this because of legal threats to their membership, specifically SCO's threats to sue "major retailers." So the businesses being menaced by SCO are banding together, making it that much less likely that SCO will be able to generate easy money from mere threats of litigation. SCO's stock, meanwhile, appears to have taken a small dive from this news. Also, you can find further details and analysis on Groklaw."

Comments

The NRF is a heavy mover

[DanTheLewis]

(from their Mission Statement)

The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet and independent stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 20 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2003 sales of $3.8 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations.

Yikes. One in five American workers and $3.8 trillion in Sales can't be wrong!

Or can they?

No.

SCO group layoffs

[Anonymous Coward]

In related news the SCO group lays off 275 to "re-allign" their organization.

Re:SCO group layoffs

[squiggleslash]

In related news the SCO group lays off 275 to "re-allign" their organization

The actual number is more like 27 or 26. From the article:

Spokesman Blake Stowell declined to say how many were cut but said the layoff affected less than 10 percent of the company's staff, which totaled 275 employees before the cut. Jobs were eliminated across the company, including sales, marketing and engineering, he said.

Note apparently no losses in anything related to SCO's new core business, litigation...

Re:Good ol Groklaw

[kryonD]

Google's results are based on a democratically perceived relavence. In other words, the reason why GrokLaw is #5 doesn't mean they have the 5th largest source of SCO stuff, it means they are the 5th most linked to site from other sites that have the word SCO on them. In otherwords, if that many people felt Groklaw was reliable enough to put links to it from their page, then Google can be fairly sure that their site holds relavence to your search.

So yes, in theory, if a particular site could get every page on the internet to have a hyperlink to it, then it would appear #1 on every search that contained a word that was on that page, even if the page held no gramatical structure or information.

So, no, Groklaw is not the top Anti-Sco site on the net, nor is it the 5th ranked one. It just happens to contain the 5th most relavent source of info on SCO as perceived by other webmasters regardless of whether the content if pro, anti, or just a neutral view.

What "NRF CIO" means

[wytcld]

For those of you who think it's kind of odd that a CIO is offering what's a legal opinion - yes it it. The NRF is the largest retail lobbying association. But it's all just a small office in DC. (Used to have a larger office in NYC but the biggest retailers didn't like that some of their dues where going to the NY office's mainly educational mission, which was of most worth to small retail members who didn't have their own in-house educational arm. So they staged a coup in the early nineties and moved the focus just to the lobbying branch in DC.)

Anyway, the NRF has a handful of people given the same titles as typical top retail executives, including CIO and VP of this and that. Each of these has about one person reporting to them - the title is more so that when they organize conferences in their areas they'll have equivalent rank to the top attendees. Most of the have actual backgrounds elsewhere in the departments they're posing as head of, but they're all basically retired from that and in a second career with the trade association.

So this is not a lawyer saying this, and not even a real, current CIO. The NRF has on retainer some of the biggest names in American law. Might make you wonder why they didn't have one of them make the statement (although it's a sure bet one of them put these words in the CIO's mouth). All a bit odd....

Re:Oh really?

[Kierthos]

Yeah, but if you check, they're not even at the level of their 52-week low. (Closer to it then their 52-week high, however.) What would break them would be a dismissal of their suit against IBM, because if that one goes, then the ones against AutoZone, etc. might as well be dismissed as well.

Kierthos

Some Interesting NRF Members

[DrSkwid]

Verisign, Inc.
Kmart Corporation
GO Software
Hewlett-Packard Company
LexisNexis - PeopleWise
South Dakota State University
Washington State University
Southern New Hampshire University

for more see here