Slashdot Mirror
Novell Poised To Strike On Slander Of Title Claim
Xenographic writes "As seen in this Groklaw article, Novell is moving to dismiss SCO's slander of title claim with prejudice. They key to it is that SCO needs Novell's claims to be "knowingly false" to establish malice. Since the judge's own order on the motion to remand (see also part 2) questions whether there really was ever actually a copyright transfer, Novell's assertion that there was no transfer cannot be knowingly false, so SCO's case falls apart. Unfortunately, as Novell points out, the judge would be doing this without actually deciding the underlying issue of who owns what copyrights, and SCO could file a completely different suit for breach of contract or something, even though SCO would be unable to refile this slander of title suit. As an aside, I should mention that this isn't the first or only controversy over defamation we've seen in this fiasco by any means."
Read Rob Enderle's SCO Keynote.
While generally you guys get a lot of things right (constitutional protection, etc), one thing that maddens me about these "only in the USA" stories is the freedom you give to lawyers to run amok with cases and spend all their clients money, forcing the other side to spend even more.
Here in the UK (well England and Wales at least), as you may know, the loser in litigation generally has to pick up the winner's legal fees. Where the claim was, e.g. an abuse of process, the fees can be payable on a punitive ("indemnity") basis. If either side is on a shaky financial footing, they can be forced to pay money into court to cover their opponent's litigation risk.
Is anyone thinking of taking these sort of rules into the US system? Or would that not work with the constitution?
IBM has a policy that says "no" to frivolous lawsuits. Generally speaking, just having the policy discourages most people.
Others, who are not quite as quick on the uptake, must be fought simply to prove that the policy is valid.
SCO just happens to be one of the latter group.
There is absolutely no basis for your idea that Linus "added functionality to" Minix or that Linux was "baed" on Minix. Linus ran Minix, he didn't use it as a base for the Linux code. Given the massive structural differences between the two (Linux is a monolithic kernel, Minix is a micro kernel system) that should be quite apparent.
No, in the memorandum, Novell clearly states that the copyrights ownership is a separate matter for US Copyright Office or another case to decide. In this case, the judge only needs to determine if Novell has a valid case that they own the Unix copyrights. The judge already determined that the transfer of ownership document (Amendment 2) is ambiguous at best and he is leaning that in favor of Novell that they never transferred such copyrights. The judge does not have to decide who owns them but that Novell can demonstrate that they have legal grounds to claim that they own Unix copyrights for the case to be dismissed because "knowingly false" requirement.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wow! Nice link! That's one disturbing piece of work. I took enough psych to see that the man is clearly egomaniacal, I'm curious if he's borderline delusional. Anyone with more training have an insight?
Nor is this well formed apologetics as he fundamentally contradicts himself more than once. For example, he attacks the working man since he asserts that the majority of Linux users are not entrepeneurs. Not that the majority of any OS users are entrepeneurs but ok. So he calls people who work for a living "zombies". Later he proposes to be championing the case of the working man. Dude, you just called him a zombie! (And you wonder why people threaten you?)
Also enjoyed the inference that many Linux users are clueless morons who don't code or play video games!? First, the fact that Linux finally has some non-coders using it is an indication that it is getting more user-friendly. Secondly, do you really want to compare the coding skills of the average Linux user with, say, the average XP user? (Not bashing any of the bright coders who do use XP but you also realize that you do not represent the average user.) And video games? Ooo, how sinister is that? What does that have to do with anything? (However you can make the case that Osama Binladen doesn't play video games. Is it such a stretch to think that non-gamers might be terrorists?)
But let's not throw out the good with the bad. His point that no one has the right to threaten him (or anyone else) with violence is just. Point taken. This is an area where the OSS advocates need to take note and clean up their image a little.
You still get the feeling he's using the image to try to paint Linux advocates as the bully and SCO/Microsoft as the victim.
Too weird.
Dans ce pay-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.--Voltaire
"In this country, it is a good idea to kill an admiral from time to time, so as to encourage the others."
In 1756, Admiral Byng was ordered to prevent the French from taking Minorca. He was supplied with a fleet of thirteen ships that were both ill equipped and undermanned. To make room for the soldiers he was to receive from the Gibraltar garrison, his marines were reassigned to other squadrons.
In Gibraltar, when he requested the reinforcements, Byng was rebuffed, as the local governor feared a French attack on his city.
The admiral sailed on to Minorca-- but his initial engagement with the French fleet proved disastrous. The relative positions of the French and British fleets made the standard "Fighting Instructions" ineffective-- the leading ships of Byng's line engaged the French fleet unsupported, and as a result, were quickly dispatched. Byng refused to break up his line, and shortly thereafter. was forced to withdraw, as his remaining forces could not possibly relieve the siege, even in the absence of a French fleet. He sailed for Gibraltar, and Minorca was taken. Byng was arrested, court martialed, and shot, as he had failed to do his duty.
"Pour encourager les autres" is a rationale for exceptionally harsh punishment. If IBM were to sue SCO for patent infringement, receive the remainder of SCOs assets in a settlement, and then symbolically burn SCO to the ground, such actions could be construed as "Pour encourager les autres,"