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DaimlerChrysler/SCO Case Winds Down

kuwan writes "It was previously reported that SCO moved for and was denied a stay in their case agains DaimlerChrysler. (Remember that all of SCO's claims against DaimlerChrysler were thrown out except for the issue of whether or not DaimlerChrysler made its certification in a timely manner.) The opposition and reply memos for that motion are now available and apparently SCO's motion was so weak that DaimlerChrysler is asking SCO to pay the cost of preparing their opposition memo. A nice summary of the latest maneuvers is available at scofacts.org."

41 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Fall of SCO by October_30th · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Any idea when SCO will finally die?

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
    1. Re:Fall of SCO by FyRE666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, there's been no confirmation from Netcraft yet...

    2. Re:Fall of SCO by tdvaughan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They're probably going to end up wholly owned by Boies and Schiller at this rate. It's sad in a way. Then IBM can pick over what's left and GPL Unix once and for all.

    3. Re:Fall of SCO by w4rl5ck · · Score: 3, Funny

      > Evil never dies... Evil comes down onto itself... ;)

    4. Re:Fall of SCO by multipart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IBM has no interest in putting UNIX under the GPL. They still have Dynix and AIX, remember? Just because they hopped onto the Linux boat doesn't mean they've abandoned their proprierty software base.

    5. Re:Fall of SCO by Metteyya · · Score: 4, Funny

      How do you define "death" of an undead, ie. zombie?

      If you mean "when they will stop moaning and disturbing the living ones" - well, that's a question for an Exorcist, not a geek.

    6. Re:Fall of SCO by HiThere · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But it probably *IS* already BSD licensed. (And most of it is also already GPL licensed.)

      So far there's no evidence of any more bones than a jellyfish.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    7. Re:Fall of SCO by Gherald · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But there is a non-trivial amount left, and IT is what should be BSDed, to completely eradicate all that remains of Microsoft's, Sun's and most notably SCO's FUD. That is what I took the parent to my comment to be talking about.

  2. Nice advert by arivanov · · Score: 3, Funny

    Methinks that the Sybase "one-eyed monster whacking a luser" advert was a perfect fit for this article.

    Dunno if it is luck or the usual Slashdot editor impartial and unbiased reporting :-)

    Hopefully a few more whacks and it will be gone for good.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    1. Re:Nice advert by Shai-kun · · Score: 2, Funny

      one-eyed monster
      a few more whacks

      Enough with the sexual innuendo already! I don't know what exactly your relation with SCO is, but I'm quite sure it's going too far =)

      --
      ...or so I've been told.
  3. SCO Must Die! by IO+ERROR · · Score: 3, Funny

    Way to go! Make SCO pay for everything. Suck up all their blood money and drive them out of business.

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
  4. Raise Money for SCO by Phragmen-Lindelof · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can think of one reason SCO deserves some money from us; they are providing us with a lot of entertainment and they are illustrating how not to conduct legal affairs. I believe that we should all contribute to a pool to improve the lives of (former) SCO (related) employees who are (or will be) housed in our wonderful incarceration facilities. This may need to be a large fund since I suspect that some Canapy Group employees might need some free government lodging. I think we should put PJ in charge of distributing the money; imagine Darl asking PJ for just a little money for a snickers bar.

    1. Re:Raise Money for SCO by AndroidCat · · Score: 3, Funny
      Was that Canopy Group or Canopic Group? A group that keeps dead people's organs in jars seems to fit better. Speaking of entertainment value, if Darl could just fill out this special organ donour card...

      ("We're here for your liver.")

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  5. From back in June 2003 and Beyond competence by NZheretic · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In reply to 9th June posting SCO Shows 80 Lines of Evidence, I posted an outline of the issues the SCO Group had to overcome before even beginning to go after other Linux distributions, developers and users .

    Every point I made back then has since played out in court as predicted. Even the SCO Group is now relying on the same interpretation of the GPL license in its defence against IBM.

    As I stated on March 10, 2004:

    The SCO Group has entered into a series of essentially inherently flawed lawsuits and fraudulent license claims against users of the Linux operating system. Since 1994, Caldera International and the Santa Cruz Operation have been accepting, profiting from and distributing software developed by hundreds of independent developers under the terms of the GPL and LGPL license. The SCO Group has failed to put forward any sustainable legal theory why it should not abide by the terms of the GPL license. Detailed investigation into other facts and evidence which regularly conflict with the SCO Group's various legal claims, filing, press and public statements, raises serous questions which can no longer be explained away by a lack of competence in either the SCO Group's CEOs or the SCO Group's legal representation.
    1. Re:From back in June 2003 and Beyond competence by IANAAC · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'd give you a pat on the back, but your hand is in the way :-)

    2. Re:From back in June 2003 and Beyond competence by NZheretic · · Score: 2, Funny

      The hand is only there to protect it from the knives ;-).

    3. Re:From back in June 2003 and Beyond competence by MuParadigm · · Score: 2, Interesting



      While we're on the subject of articles outlining SCO's problems in the past, please check out my journal article "A Linux User's Response to Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community", originally published here on Sept. 11, 2003:

      http://slashdot.org/~MuParadigm/journal

  6. guilty condcience? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    In a weird sort of way, I kind of feel sorry for SCO.

    I mean geez, they're just another legit company trying to make it in this high tech industry. Won't anyone give them a break?

    1. Re:guilty condcience? by Tony-A · · Score: 3, Funny

      Won't anyone give them a break?

      No.

    2. Re:guilty condcience? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 3, Funny

      Won't anyone give them a break?

      My pleasure. Arm or Leg?

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  7. #1 sign your business is in trouble: by physicsphairy · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is actually profitable to be sued by you.

  8. Re:DaimlerChrysler's Certification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They were an old UNIX licensee from the AT&T days - one of thousands. A while back SCO sent requests to all of those ancient licensees requesting that they certify that they're only using the code in a proper way (and implying that using linux might be in violation; probably an attempt to drum up business for their lawsuit protection racket) Of course the license are for really old versions of UNIX so the question is pretty silly (it'd be like Microsoft suddenly doing a license audit of all Windows 3.0 customers) so almost noone bothered to actually reply.

    DCC was one of the thousands that didn't reply. For whatever reason SCO decided to sue them as an example or something. DC basically replied with "We haven't used the software we licensed from AT&T for over seven years; there we've certified now go away" A judge ruled that this was a valid certification and threw 99% of the case away. They left SCO the option to continue the case soley on the basis of whether DC certified promptly enough (the contract between AT&T and DC didn't mention a deadline for this certification)

    Amazingly SCO decided to continue the case in that vein -- probably so they don't have to admit defeat quite yet. Of course now they're trying to put the case so far on the back burner that it will never actually go to trial. DC is fighting that and trying to get SCO to go to trial now.

  9. Re:DaimlerChrysler's Certification by qcomp · · Score: 2, Informative
    DaimlerChrysler certified (as requested by SCO) that they were in compliance with the Licence Agreement under which they had been using some Unix (bought from a SCO predecessor). (They also certified, that they had stopped using SCO-Unix long ago).

    This is unrelated to the "Linux-IP" licence that SCO tries people to threaten into buying.

  10. Have fun and amaze your friends! by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 3, Funny
    Now -- for a limited time only-- you can use the Nationalistic Moron's Assertion About The Probability Of Other Nation's Linguistic Evolution to justify ~any~ war... while insulting other nations in your favourite, chasm-spanningly idiotic manner!

    "You would all be speaking Farsi and Arabic if not for our brave GIs!"

    "You would all be speaking Afghani if not for our brave... I mean, if not for the Pakistan Army!"

    "You would all be speaking South American and wearing funny hats like Che Guevara if not for the covert operations of our brave CIA agents!"

    And many, many more! Call this number now and have your debt account number ready!

    --
    Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
  11. Out smarted more than out gunned by jav1231 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think DC could have probably played this out to the end just as easily as IBM seems to be able to. DC was smart in that they just didn't have any of SCO's products running in production, as I understand it. It was almost the equivilent of the BSA auditing you for unlicensed M$ products and finding out you're a Linux shop. Oh, and all M$ products sitting on a shelf are in their original boxes and amount to old copies of WFW and MS-DOS 3.2.

  12. Re:This is a non-story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dude, 99.99999994% percent of the whole population is considered a troll on groklaw. If this defines credibility, all we are left with is PJ and a couple of paranoid, pussy whipped, virgin geeks.

    As I watched groklaw grow, I thought "man, this woman has no clue about open source", but now that it has devolved into mindless sycophantic cult worship, infighting, backstabbing and replacing emotion for rational discourse, I thought "she finally gets it."

    Good luck with all that.

  13. Re:Wow by Gadzinka · · Score: 2, Informative

    although am not certain if Slavic is primarily East-European or not

    It depends. Some people from Poland, Czech, or post-yugoslavian countries might disagree and punch you in the face ;)

    Thing is, the term "Slavic" crosses the boundary of what was always considered Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Traditionally, before 20th century, East Europe was synonymous with Orthodox Church (Pravoswavny as some Slavs would say), Greek/Byzantium culture, and cyryllic writing. Catholic/Protestant Slavic countries with latin writing were considered Central Europe, identifying rather with Western Europe. Balkan Slavic nations considered themselves primarily Central/Southern Europe.

    After WW2 every Russian vasal country in Europe was considered Eastern Europe, even Russian ocupied part of Germany.

    Most of Slavic people today would like to regain their pre-soviet culture, including their place on geopolitical map of Europe. Hence most of Western Slavs consider themselves Central/Western Europe, Southern Slavs -- Central/Southern Europe and Eastern Slavs -- Eastern Europe (even those living in North-Eastern Asia ;)).

    Robert

    PS Western/Southern/Eastern Slavs are quite strict, scientific terms; just look at the map.

    --
    Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
  14. Re:Wow by catenos · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone else see the irony that this was modded "offtopic"?

    No. "Irony" implies that something different than the expected result happened. I can see nothing unexpected in either
    - a meta-discussion being considered off-topic,
    - an off-topic post mentioning the word off-topic itself,
    - such a post being modded off-topic,
    - ./ mods moderating an on-topic post as off-topic*
    - even if such a post complains about exactly this (this is ./, remember?),
    - a post (indirectly) forseeing its moderation getting modded real high or real low,
    - and so on.

    Regardless how you spin it, there isn't much irony in how it got modded, especially considering this is Slashdot.


    *I don't consider this thread to be on-topic (as its meta-discussion started with a troll), but let's be open-minded for a moment.

    --
    Keep an eye on which arguments are silently dropped in replies. Not always, but often times it's very telling.
  15. Re:DaimlerChrysler's Certification by Eggplant62 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't forget the fact that SCO's letter to Chrysler was peppered with questions that were unrelated to the contract terms. Those questions involved detailing Chrysler's use of Linux to replace SCO's antiquated software, questions which have no relationship to the terms of the original Software License, and to which SCO had no right to even expect answers.

    Again, this case was mostly about the hare-brained scheme that McBride and his cronies cooked up. Having been a litigious bastard in his own right, McBride thought that as soon as he started throwing the word "lawsuit" around, everyone subject to the threat would simply crumple up and pay SCO rather than fight back, and that other UNIX/Linux users would see this and pile on for the SCOSource licenses, thus leading to the huge pump on the stock price in anticipation of this seeming windfall.

    Personally, I think McBride should turn back to his bag o' blow.

  16. I wonder... by THESuperShawn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When DirecTV did a similar (but more aggressive) blanket (and mostly claim-less) lawsuit against supposed "pirates", asking (demanding?)for a "settlement" to avoid legal action, it only took one "win" for the little guys to basically cease DirecTV's actions.

    I am not a lawyer (but I know a few good jokes about them), but would a "win" against SCO basically kill off their entire case? If DC "wins" (or the case is dismissed), does that mean SCO's claims of licensing fees are over? And if that happens, can the few who actually paid SCO "licensing" fees get a refund?

    --
    Repant. Thy end is sheer.
  17. Re:Wow by mrisaacs · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not a question of the political comment or the nationality of the /.ers. The current topic is Daimler Chrysler, SCO and the lawsuit.

    American poitics, the general intelligence of Americans, idiotic foriegn policies and the tribulations of having to live with Bush are off the topic.

    Want to discuss those topics? Submit an article to /.

    --
    ...carrier dead.....
  18. On the day sco dies. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    We should register SCO.COM and put a website with Nelson from the Simpsons just pointing and going "Ha HA!"

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  19. Costs on Motion by eldapo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Requesting attorneys fees and costs from your opponent on a motion is pretty much standard practice. What will be interesting to see is if the defendants (Daimler/Chrysler) later move for sanctions under the local "frivolous claim" rule in their jurisdiction. These kinds of rules exist in the Federal courts (Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) and most states. It looks like Michigan has a similar rule in effect (MCR 2.625(A)(2), MCL 600.2591(2)). Nice thing about these kinds of provisions is that their sanctions can be directed against the attorneys as well as the parties. Sorry for not including links to the citations, but for obvious reasons I don't want to be responsible for the "slashdotting" of a particular Federal or state court website. Just Google it.

    --
    eldapo
  20. Nice variety of sources by sphealey · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Kudos to the author for using a variety of source sites. I count Grokkaw, SCOfacts, and ip-wars at a minimum. This is an excellent diversity of sources and points to a healthy community of discussion.

    sPh

  21. Please attack the arguement, not the man by walterbyrd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You said:

    'Petrovsky's "analysis" is weak and off-base, as usual.'

    Okay, please be specific about where and how the arguement is "off base" and "weak." I don't care who considers Pertrovsky a troll. I want specific facts.

    Thank you for your reply.

  22. Re:What a troll! - absolutely not a troll by walterbyrd · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have been reading groklaw for about 18 months.

    I 100% agree that PJ will accept nothing but yes-men. Anything that does not follow the groklaw party line 100% is deleted. PJ is even known to delete accounts for what people posts on other boards.

    You will not find meaningful discussion on groklaw anymore, I can assure you of that.

  23. For someone... by mrscott · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As an American that did NOT vote for GW Bush and as an American that does NOT like the direction our country is headed, particularly with respect to what we're doing around the world, I have to say that I don't like your comment. I think it would have been fine if you hadn't included that part about "And *YET* the moment you bring this up, some USian will come up and pretend that they care." Guess what? Some of us do. Just slightly under 1/2 of us do care, according to the results of a national poll we had a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the so-called "moral majority" got out the vote.

    It's too bad that people can get up on their soapbox like the parent post, but can't do so under their own names.

    1. Re:For someone... by NotoriousQ · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I am an American who dislikes Kerry for his domestic policy. I also dislike Bush for his opinions on science and education. I did not vote for either of them. But a lot of people I know voted (or would have voted, some of them did not) in the Bush camp, and here is what they have to say:

      They think that the war in Iraq was started in light of incredibly bad intelligence, and that the president is an idiot to have made the conclusion to go to war this soon. They do not care whether or not abortion is outlawed, since it does not affect any of us directly, and if abortion does become outlawed, it will practically take a constitutional amendment, and a huge court case, etc anyway. Education is a problem that they believe is not solved. All in all they are pretty embarassed over Bushes track record, but they still voted for him.

      Why? Mostly because these people (as well as most Americans) do not believe in third parties. And when deciding between Bush and Kerry, Bush is still more appealing. Why do they think so? A couple of things.
      1. getting out of iraq now is very bad for our reputation. If you got involved at least try your best
      2. Bush actually got something done in the israel deal. Not a lot to his credit, but he is actually getting involved, and not simply hosting the talks. Under clinton, talks and promises only escalated the violence.
      3. As much of a spender Bush is and as much as he runs up the debt, and as stupid as tax cuts are wihtout cutting the spending, his economic policy is saner than that of Kerry's. Liberals will yell on me for saying this, and will not reason about it, but here is why. Minimum wage is a worse idea than cutting taxes. If you do not see why, take an economics course. Next up is Kerry's idea on how to fix social security and health insurance: "it needs to be fixed, do not ask my how because I have no clue". As far as I am concerned that is Bush's policy, except Bush might actually try to get out of SS completely, which is a saner policy (yes, it will suck for some, but the whole country might not go down the same hole).
      4. It is unlikely that we will enter another war, unless we aboslutely have to. Even Bush would learn the lesson of checking facts. However, there is a worry that Kerry might realize that he has to go into war too late, especially if he felt his voting base were the peaceniks.

      There are more reasons as well, but they become too specific. Note that most of these people are non-christian, and yet they still vote for Bush, not because they are a "moral majority", but because they continued to feel that Bush is still a better candidate to Kerry.

      So please do not lump the Bush voters with the heartless, wrestling watching, SUV driving, anything to get cheaper oil crowd. Not all of them are. Some of us hate the "pave the planet" crowd, "redefine pi as 3 crowd", "do not teach evolution" crowd, "only christian prayer and at all events" crowd. However, these people continue to think that Bush is still a better choice, mostly because although he is one of those people, he does not make the country even more so. We still have our freedoms to not follow Bush's ideal, and we speak out against them at any opportunity we have. And yet we still vote for Bush. Because of the two people who could be elected, he represents the least damage.

      At least in our opinion. If you say that our opinion is wrong, back up with fact saying why Kerry is a better choice than Bush. I can assure you that has an IQ of the carrot and acts like a chimp argument has already been considered, and deemed irrelevant, as only the decisions that he makes are relevant. Bush does not make much of his own decisions anyway, but the party's (or Cheney's) decisions could still be better than Kerry's.

      Oh, and please make your comments about minimum wage being a good idea. I would love to hear them, but so far I have heard only the straw arguments, and people claiming that completely devalued dollar and high unemployment is good for the eco

      --
      badness 10000
  24. Re:The trouble with Groklaw. by MuParadigm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ninthwave: "My id here is the same as on Groklaw and I have had some serious disagreement with PJ and my account has remained."

    Why don't you tell us about them? I guarantee your account will be sandoxed within a week and removed within six weeks if you do.

    Alternately, having even said as much as you have on /., you may find that your account will be gone soon anyway.

    I have never broken any of the posting guidelines at Groklaw, yet my account was removed anyway, and the authorial attributions for all my posts, over 425 at latest count, many quite lengthy, have been removed.

    When I asked what the underlying offense was, I was told in an e-mail from Pam Jones, "You know why."

    Well, I don't. And still don't. The only plausible hypothesis, seemingly confirmed by Pam, though she's so vague it's hard to know for sure, is that I posted some commentary at Y!SCOX to that made Pam's life "difficult" by pointing out that she need to clarify GL's CCL licensing grant, because the way it was worded implied that posts as well as articles were licensed under the CCL.

    After clarifying the licensing notice, as suggested, she then went forth and called everyone involved in the discussion "SCO shills, trolls, and astroturfers".

    Yeah, a real reasonable person to deal with.

  25. Re:for USAsian crusaders every dissident is a here by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 2, Informative
    All I will say is don't judge a whole nation on the actions of a few.

    You forget, it's not a few, it's the majority that is accepting this, and the rest of the world is well in its rights to judge a nation by the actions of its majority. Iraq has happened, Guantanamo bay has happened, Abu Ghraib has happened, Falluja has happened, Molub and other towns are happening, and the ones ultimately responsible have been given a carte blanche to screw up some more. Face it, the excuse that the fuckup government was an accident does not work anymore. The US has chosen to go the Bush route and the nation (note, not every single individual) is judged by this. Right now, the US is well underway of becoming intensely evil, regardless of the large amount of decency that still exists.

  26. Re:Wow by Doomdark · · Score: 2, Informative
    • Be warned, even Rome fell.

    Correct, however it took thousands of years. Using your analogy, the world should be under the foot of the US for another 1800 years or so.

    Ok, I know this is nitpicking but although one could claim it was about 1800 years (until 1453 defeat of Byzantine, eastern Rome), in practice the full roman hegemony "only" lasted for couple of centuries (maybe from ~100BC until ~300 AD). The fall of western Rome (476?) split the empire in half, and although Byzantine did recover some land areas for a while, it never regained the same glory as pre-split, and started steady decline before crusades (triggered by the islamic expansion on 7th century AD).

    Not that this really weakens your main point but... :-)

    --
    I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes