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Groklaw Turns One

Posted by michael on from the slow-sunday dept.

JuliusRV writes "Today is Groklaw's one-year anniversary! As PJ writes, 'What a difference a year makes. When we started, all the headlines were saying that SCO was going to destroy Linux or at least make it cry. Now, looking around today, I see almost everyone predicting SCO's imminent doom instead. I think the truth, as usual, isn't in the headlines, and that it's somewhere in between those two extremes.' Thanks, PJ and all other Groklawyers, keep up the good work!"

6 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. SCO's Imminent Doom by cammoblammo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder what it would take to bring about the demise of SCO. I always assumed that SCO were a company who had turned to litigation because they couldn't sell products. Given that they've started to lay off staff around the world you'd think that their belts must need tightening. Does history have any examples of these things turn out?

    Regardless of what you think of the business direction SCO has taken, it must be worrying for the staff who still have families to feed. ATle ast they'll still be able to afford GNU/Linux...

    --

    Cogito, ergo sig.

  2. SCOX at $5.15 - Where's the bottom by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Groklaw has done a great job in dispelling Darl's FUD. Nobody takes SCO's threats seriously any more. Of course, Cravath and IBM are doing the heavy work, but nobody would notice without Groklaw. It's not at all common for pre-trial motions to be followed this closely.

    The remaining question for SCOX is "how low can it go"? Except for that bump in early April, when SCO tried, unsuccessfully, a stock buyback to prop up the price, the decline from 14 to 5 has been close to linear. If you just project the line out, SCOX goes to zero around late summer. It probably won't go to penny stock levels for a while, though; they have some cash left. But with no licensing revenue and a huge legal burn rate, they can't go on for all that long.

    The real question at this point, and it's one the players in the Open Source industry need to think about, is, who ends up with the rights to UNIX when SCO is gone? Sun? IBM? Red Hat? Boies?

    It's sad, in a way, to realize that the best thing the original UNIX can do is go away.

  3. not accessible from China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It seems like groklaw is not accessible from China - or perhaps it is just from my location.

    Anyone else in China able to get to it?

    Why would it be inaccessible, I wonder?

    1. Re:not accessible from China? by MathFox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think it is because we share our webserver with a few Tibetan websites (All Ibiblio websites are blocked). Off course, the censors in China won't tell anyone why a certain website is filtered, even when asked!

      --
      extern warranty;
      main()
      {
      (void)warranty;
      }
  4. Re:post-SCO by rifftide · · Score: 5, Interesting
    SCO doesn't have any patents. I think they're asserting rights to code that was added to derivative versions of System V by their licensees. But their story changes every few weeks or so. Re "post-SCO", I'd be interested to see what Groklaw morphs into if and when the SCO case settles down. Maybe they'll perform a similar service (analysis of legal documents and courtroom proceedings) for other IP property disputes with widespread repercussions in the tech industry.

    Some are already saying that SCO may be the tip of the iceberg as far as FOSS IP problems are concerned, even as SCO's case seems to be declining. (See the current issue of Fortune magazine, with Darl McBride on the cover, unfortunately not available online except to paid subscribers). Of course, one can argue that proprietary software should be held to same standards, but in practice FOSS is an easier target because the source code can be examined by hungry lawyers and they can always bring up the worldwide, quasi-anonymous nature of development of some projects.

  5. I've said it before, but ... by krumms · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I always assumed that SCO were a company who had turned to litigation because they couldn't sell products.

    Well, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

    The rest of it is that BayStar (and others?) delivered a truckload of cash to SCO with a prod in the ribs and a wink.

    SCO is evil.
    BayStar is more evil, because it funds companies to play the asshole/evil war against the big guns - encouraging companies to take up the rifles of Intellectual Property (and I don't just mean those companies being funded - I mean other companies seeing BayStar make a dollar and wanting to jump on the bandwagon).

    This ENCOURAGES shitty patents. The broader the better: the more you can sue.

    Linux must have looked like a fucking gold mine to BayStar.

    I find the whole idea disturbing. I'm crossing my fingers that before SCO dies, BayStar breathes its last too.