SCO On the Rocks

Netromancer wrote in to alert us to a Businessweek Online article discussing the downward spiral in SCO's fortunes and luck. From the article: "The mouse that roared is barely squeaking these days. A string of recent setbacks raises grave questions about SCO's finances, its court case, and its management."

Comments

Whoa

[LFS.Morpheus]

Didn't see that coming. Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation, scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

Re:Whoa

[fidget42]

Didn't see that coming. Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation, scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

SCO? (sorry, that was just too easy)

Re:Whoa

[KiloByte]

Well, well... that's a popular business strategy, and often, it works.

Re:Whoa

[northcat]

More important, suing such a big fucking company as IBM was a very bad business decicion (and an immoral one too).

Re:Whoa

[stephenisu]

There is is nothing immoral about suing a large corporation. Now, suing them for something unfounded costing taxpayer money while simultaniously raising costs that get passed to the consumer, THAT is immoral.

I still feel kinda bad for the SCO employees who had nothing to do with the litigation and have faced an extra hard time getting employment after leaving because "They were there".

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation, scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

I agree. They can't be so stupid not to understand that the courts would eventually figure out what they're doing and put an end to this. In my experience, judges are very down-to-earth people and really frown upon people/organizations who are trying to take advantage of the system. Of course, it seems that SCO & friends knew that it would take a ton of time and money to demonstrate to the non-technical folks (e.g. judges, corporate execs.) that their case is frivolous, and that the news of a lawsuit against Linux would strike fear in the hearts of corporate execs, whose job security depends on their ability to make decisions that help the company in the long run.

In that sense, SCO succeeded in buying (a) commercial OS maker(s) some time to fix their (its) flawed products. I take pleasure in the fact that it doesn't seem to have been enough time... I recently talked with an exec at a company that just switched to Linux and they're saving over $1 million annually! As long as Linux works for them---and it does---why wouldn't they make the switch. It's simple business. That's what has the big OS companies (company) shaking in their (its) penny loafers.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstand... read the title again. They're celebrating!

They've invented a new drink called "SCO on the rocks", add one $699 Linux license fee, a splash of Stoli vodka, and top with ice, serve ice cold like their lawyers hearts...

Re:Whoa

[Fred_A]

Damn !

(tears up business plan)

Now I need to find another idea.

Re:Whoa

[tambo]

I still feel kinda bad for the SCO employees who had nothing to do with the litigation and have faced an extra hard time getting employment after leaving because "They were there".

First, they've had ample notice that the company was going down the tubes, so they should have been dusting off their resumes a year ago.

Second, I doubt that SCO's outcome will adversely any non-manager employee. Presumably, the HR reps/slave traders in the industry can tell the difference between an engineer and a corporate officer. (And, by that same token, I hope the business leaders over at SCO are seen as pariahs for the next decade.)

- David Stein

Re:Whoa

[morleron]

This is a bit off-topic, but your point about the exec who's saving over $1 million a year with Linux is important. Word of mouth, in the IT world as most other places, is the best advertising there is. That's something that MS hasn't figured out about its "Get The Facts" campaign. It isn't working because the people who make decisions about strategic Linux installations/conversions don't generally pay much attention to glitzy ads and websites. Instead, they have lunch with Joe down the street whose company just switched to Linux and is saving X dollars per year. To them, that's much more relevant than any amount of advertising.

That's also why the SCO suit failed to have much lasting impact on the adoption of Linux. After the initial flood of "the world of Linux is falling" stories, people realized that the SCO move is nothing but a blatant attempt to blackmail IBM and the Linux community for the benefit of MS. Once the facts of the MS involvement in backing SCO financially, combined with the utter lack of factual backing for SCO's claims, became known most people, except perhaps Laura Didio, understand that the whole SCO ploy is a sham and nothing to worry about.

I hope that the SEC starts looking into the stock manipulations that McBride and company have been pulling. It would be fitting to see all of them follow Martha into imprisonment. It would be even nicer if they ended up in someplace like Marion, in with the general population.

Just my $.02,
Ron

Re:Whoa

[TokyoBoy]

I used to work as an engineer on the Caldera server and desktop teams. I was part of the many layoffs which reduced the engineering forces there to nothing. It was sas seeing friends go and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before it was their turn.

However, also being a founding trustee memeber of the Salt Lake Linux Users Group and a Linux and OpenSource advocate for years, I am very grateful that I was able to leave before the name change to SCO and the "direction change" - I would have had to quit anyway.

I still have a couple friends there. The amazing thing is that I ran into one of them (Walt Hammond) yesterday (Fri. March 4, 2005) at lunch. I was amazed at his comments. The feeling inside the company is very positive! I couldn't beleive it. It seems that (from my stand point) that the co-workers are completely blind to what is really happening. Not only with reguard to what is happening but also related to the morality (or lack thereof IMO) of their actions. He was completely positive saying that (parapharasing) "things looks so good for us right now but if you read the press, you'd think we were a sinking ship" and (again, paraphrasing) "the press says we've had major set backs but if you look, we've been winning".

I don't know if it's the blind leading the blind or if he really believes what he told me. Of course, being at the director level or above, I'd think you'd have to tote the company line or you wouldn't be around very long at SCO. So, who knows what he really believes.

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

One thing that's nice about this is that we get the unfairness in reverse. People think that Linux has been much more legally tested than it has been as a result of this case.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

> Presumably, the HR reps/slave traders in the industry can tell the difference between an engineer and a corporate officer.

Given what I've seen of hiring 'professionals' [1] you give them waaaaay more credit than deserved.

[1] replies to an email with a text resume of 'we did not receive your resume springs to mind. Just to top it off the entire text (including the resume) are in the reply.

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

That's a good point. It would be very interesting to see a break-down of what has been tested by this case, and any others. On the other hand, I don't think SCO is a bunch of idiots, as some people tend to believe. I think that if there was anything at all that they could have built a legitimate case on, they would have found it. Also, I'm sure that MS has taken apart Linux and looked at it carefully under a microscope. And SCO's case is the best thing that they could find to encourage/support? Seems like a pretty good test to me, but I really don't know. Thoughts?

Re:Whoa

[baomike]

If you spell it correctly it makes a lot more sense:
Gimme cracked corn and I don't care
gimme cracked corn and I don't care

The substance in question is corn whiskey.
White lignting, moonshine, mountain dew etc ...

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

That's something that MS hasn't figured out about its "Get The Facts" campaign. It isn't working because the people who make decisions about strategic Linux installations/conversions don't generally pay much attention to glitzy ads and websites

Had any of you Linux Zealots had actually bothered to "Get the Facts", you'd see that it's very much targetted towards Oracle, BEA, and IBM customers.

These PHBs very much love slick salesmen and free golf games before they drop millions of dollars on (Linux-based) software. They are not listening to the stinking hippies who think the world begins and ends with "LAMP".

Re:Whoa

[stephenisu]

MODS: sorry, yes this is OT, Mod as appropriate.

[1] replies to an email with a text resume of 'we did not receive your resume springs to mind. Just to top it off the entire text (including the resume) are in the reply.

If you are emailing your resume out, many times they are fed to HR by a script of some kind that looks for an attatched MS Word *.doc file. While I am not a fan of the format myself, this could be the source of your problem.

Re:Whoa

[stephenisu]

Thank you,
my sig is an experiment to see if people understand what we teach our kids... Nursery rimes and songs have some sick and twisted meanings. I love it.

Re:Whoa

[2004.3]

Actually, they may face difficulty, depending on what their job was. If they are developers, they may have trouble working for a Linux-related company, simply because of what they know about Unix. But then again, maybe not.

Re:Whoa

[drinkypoo]

It often works when you're not trying to go after giants like IBM... Could SCO possibly have displayed more unwarranted hubris?

Re:Whoa

[Kippesoep]

Slashdot misses a moderation option here. "+1 Astonishing" seems appropriate.

Re:Whoa

[KarmaMB84]

If they are developers, that doesn't mean their only option is a Linux or even Unix company.

Re:Whoa

[2004.3]

Agreed. Thank you for pointing that out. It depends on their future roles, I guess (I am just thinking about Linus's reasons for not looking at the SCO code)

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

Nothing has been tested in court, that's what the judge means by "not a single disputed fact". However a great deal has been semi-tested in that SCO couldn't find anything:

1) The origins of Linux pan out
2) The multi-processor stuff that Alan Cox put in Linux came from where he says it did
3) Unix is solely a trademark
4) There isn't any SCO code in Linux.

Still to be tested will be SCO's theory of law
5) Free copyright licenses that encourage cooperation but not commerce have full force of law.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, wait a minute, it is working. Now that they have IBM's source code in hand, they are planning a major new release for this summer.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bothered to log in to see your sig, but based on the other poster's comment, I think I have an idea :)

As for the Jimmy Crack Corn thing - it intrigued me enough to do a cursory google search. And it appears there are at least two other possible interpretations of the chorus.

From "cracking corn" meaning to snore, or meaning gossip (with the blue tail fly apparently being abolitionist troops).

Even with the "jimmy crack corn" there appear many different versions with jimmy/gimme, crack/cracked and even "jim crack o' corn".

It's certainly not that clear-cut :) But I agree, most nursery rhymes do have disturbing implications.

BTW - did you know that a likely explanation of "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni" from Yankee Doodle Dandy, is that putting a feather in something is effiminate, and thus the dandy (a term for an effete or overly foppish man) made his cap "macaroni", which was slang for gay in that time.

Throws a whole new spin on things doesn't it?

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

AFAIK (and IDKM [I don't know much]), there's nothing about encouraging commerce in the copyright laws, other than the fact that they exist to protect the copyright owners' rights to make all the money, if any, off of the copyrighted product. People make a lot of money off Linux, myself included, but there's nothing that prevents a copyright holder from giving his/her product away, even if (s)he puts restrictions on who uses it or how it's used. Linux is here to stay. MS is too, but I think that they're eventually going to have to play fair.

Re:Whoa

[first.last]

...trying to come up with a good CSI joke, anyone?

Re:Whoa

[Gilmoure]

Don't tell me that "Ole King Coal" was not about the rise Andrew Carnegie and how happy he was being rich.

Re:Whoa

[eclectro]

He was completely positive saying that (parapharasing) "things looks so good for us right now but if you read the press, you'd think we were a sinking ship"

Tell your friend not to drink the kool-aid.

Re:Whoa

[timeOday]

Second, I doubt that SCO's outcome will adversely any non-manager employee.

Do you suppose it will hurt the executive officers? They're famous now! Check out Carly Fiorina who lead HP to a 50% reduction in value. They paid her 45 million just to go away, prompting an immediate 7% spike in HP stock. Her punishment? Serious consideration for the job of World Bank President!

Once you've "in," nothing matters anymore. In extreme cases you might get fired and be forced to retire in luxury.

Re:Whoa

[Alioth]

Next time I'm in SLC, can you get ahold of whatever he's smoking 'cos I want some. It must be good shit.

Re:Whoa

[cgenman]

From the article:

McBride says that while his staff is small in numbers, it's high on engineering expertise.

Apparently his staff is high on something.

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

I think SCO's argument is stupid and incorrect as well. The constitution grants Congress the right, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" This has been interpreted traditionally as:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to profit from the mass production of their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The GPL be enforcable since it doesn't do this. Again I think SCO is wrong but that is the their theory of the law.

Re:Whoa

[rjch]

Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation, scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

I would have thought Microsoft was doing pretty well, actually.

Re:Whoa

[barfomar]

Playing devils advocate:

Crazier things have happened on the last minute in this weird legal system we have.

If they can get it in front of a jury of Joe 12-packs, add the right spin, it could still go SCO's way.

There's nothing logical or rational about the present system. It's still a roll of the dice. Daryl could come out smelling like a rose.

In the mean time, the lawyers (on both sides) are trying real hard not to kill the job. It's to their benefit to drag it out as long as possible.

Re:Whoa

[BlueLightning]

Except this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, and therefore a jury does not come into it. So they really only have to convince one person (the judge), and so far they haven't really done very well on that front at all.

Re:Whoa

[DashEvil]

Why'd they request trial by jury then?

Re:Whoa

[trewornan]

the SCO move is nothing but a blatant attempt to blackmail IBM and the Linux community for the benefit of MS

No, I don't think that's what happened - there's only one explanation of this that makes sense to me:

SCO execs decided to sue IBM on the assumption that IBM would then buy them out just to shut down the case. Darl and cronies would then have made a nice killing on their stocks/options.

Instead, IBM decided to make an example of SCO to discourage other rats from trying the same thing.

SCO found themselves in a position where they couldn't back down and have been desperately trying to put off the inevitable with any slimy trick they can think of.

MS didn't get involved until things were already well advanced, at which point they saw a PR opportunity and slung a load of money to SCO but got caught and it backfired. I can't imagine MS are still funneling money to SCO since nobody takes them seriously anymore.

Re:Whoa

[flosofl]

Except this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, and therefore a jury does not come into it

Wrong.

There are juries in civil suits, also. The number of jurors is different, however. I beleive instead of 12, as in criminal court, there are only 6. What your referring to is a bench trial, and that has to be specifically requested (and I've also only heard of those in regard to criminal proceedings). When the news talks about juries awarding astounding damage claims to plaintiffs, they are talking about juries in civil cases.

Right now, the case is still in discovery, so the jury hasn't even been selected yet.

Re:Whoa

[yuri benjamin]

This guy sounds like he belongs to a cult.
Does he also share McBride's religious beliefs?

Re:Whoa

[swillden]

Does he also share McBride's religious beliefs?

I think it's quite clear that McBride doesn't have any religious beliefs. Regardless of whether or not he goes to church.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but considering Bush's love affair with global institutions, such as the UN, he's probably barracking for Fiorina to do the same to the world bank as she did to HP.

Re:Whoa

[blippy]

Or how about the case of Marconi, in the UK. It was run successfully by Lord Weinstock for years. The company had a large cash balance, but he was ousted by City-friendly management who then went on a high-tech spending spree in the late 90's. And we all know what happened to the tech industry come the turn of the century.

Result? The whole company gets flushed down the toilet, shareholders loose money, and normal employees loose their jobs. The directors, who's decisions led to this disaster in the first place, walk away with Big Cash Prizes.

Ugly face of capitalism, or what?

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

If I write something and publish it, I'm not obligated to make a profit on it; I'm not even obligated to try. I can give it to anyone I want and, if I want, I can put restrictions on it's use for as long as I hold the copyright.

The GPL is a license. It says that the authors are permitting anyone who's willing to follow some rules can use the product that the author has the rights to. (IOW: The authors are forfeiting their exclusive rights over the product with some restrictions.)

There is nothing illegal about the GPL---at least not in its general concept---under any reasonable theory of law. The problem is that the idea of giving something away for free really undermines the whole concept of capitalism. Those who rely on bullying competitors with their almost limitless funds don't like this. But I do. :-)

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

You are begging the question here. That is you are assuming SCO's theory of the law is incorrect when you just blanketly assert that your rights aren't dependent upon you trying to place restrictions that don't result in you making money.

Again I don't agree with SCO's theory and I think its stupid but its an important legal principle for all of free software to establish definitely that SCO's theory of the law is incorrect. Remember how this thread started you had asked what things get proven in court and I had given this as something yet to be shown but that actually was before the courts.

(Incidentally virtually every lawyer who has written on the topic thinks the GPL has less legally questionable things than virtually any other software license).

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can get it in front of a jury of Joe 12-packs, add the right spin, it could still go SCO's way.

So.. you're saying that people are upbeat because *IF* they can get in front of a jury, and *IF* that jury is clueless, and *IF* they can spin it right, they *MIGHT* be able to pull off a lawsuit without any cause or evidence.

Yeah, that would make *me* happy.

Re:Whoa

[tambo]

Do you suppose it will hurt the executive officers? They're famous now! Check out Carly Fiorina who lead HP to a 50% reduction in value. They paid her 45 million just to go away, prompting an immediate 7% spike in HP stock. Her punishment? Serious consideration for the job of World Bank President!

Carly's case is a little different. People saw her as ineffective, but not necessarily incompetent. HP didn't go completely balls-up in the process; it's still tooling along, with strong sales in printers and (combined with Toshiba) a good share of desktop/notebook sales. Summary: lukewarm.

SCO is different. SCO exploded. A few years ago, it was a respected distro and a friend of the Linux community; now it's got Microsoft's reputation and BE's user base. Summary: an undeniable and very public failure.

I have to think that these scenarios have different results on the CEOs' future prospects. Sure, they walk away with a boatload of cash - that's typical - but where they go from here will be interesting to see.

- David Stein

Re:Whoa

[CrimsonAvenger]

You are begging the question here. That is you are assuming SCO's theory of the law is incorrect when you just blanketly assert that your rights aren't dependent upon you trying to place restrictions that don't result in you making money.

You seem to be ignoring the little detail that without the GPL, noone but you has ANY rights to your work.

1) I write code and GPL same.
2) You want to use my code, but don't want to accept the terms of the GPL.
3) Because you refuse to accept the terms of the GPL, you have NO right to use my code. Not until it goes out of copyright in ~100 years (absent any further copyright extensions by Congress).

Whether I choose to make a profit on my code is irrelevant to YOUR use of my code. YOU may only use it under the conditions *I* specify (my code, my Copyright).

SCO's theory is basically absurd.

Note that it is just barely possible that a Judge could be found that ruled the GPL unconstitutional. But, upon that event occurring, it would then be illegal (violation of Copyright laws) for ANYONE OTHER THAN THE AUTHOR(S) to make use of the GPL'd code. It would NOT become Public Domain (as SCO seems to believe).

Unless SCO is willing to wait 100 years, anyway.

Admittedly, MS would LOVE that particular outcome.

Except for the fact that the author(s) of GPL'd code could leave it GPL'd, and just sue the socks off of anyone that used it that they didn't approve of. Remember, NO rights to use someone else's Copyrighted code without a license (and by definition in the USA, all code is Copyrighted, just as all writing is (including this ramble)).

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

You seem to be ignoring the little detail that without the GPL, noone but you has ANY rights to your work.

First off if you follow the thread up I was just producing a list of stuff. I hate defending a legal theory I happen to think is wrong.

However its not that simple. Noone has the right to the work because of the copyright. If the copyright is GPLed and the GPL is invalid then the work is copyrighted at all. Under US copyright law this isn't the case, but SCO's argument is constitutional that congress is not empower to permit this type of copyright hence there is no copyright hence anyone can copy it (essentially public domain).

Re:Whoa

[CrimsonAvenger]

However its not that simple. Noone has the right to the work because of the copyright. If the copyright is GPLed and the GPL is invalid then the work is copyrighted at all. Under US copyright law this isn't the case, but SCO's argument is constitutional that congress is not empower to permit this type of copyright hence there is no copyright hence anyone can copy it (essentially public domain).

Umm, no. From Title 17, Section 201:

(a) Initial Ownership.-- Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowners of copyright in the work.

(b) Works Made for Hire.-- In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.

(c) Contributions to Collective Works.-- Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.

(d) Transfer of Ownership.--
(1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.
(2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title.

(e) Involuntary Transfer.-- When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11.

Title 11 covers bankruptcy, by the way. Note that Copyright resides with the orignal author, unless voluntarily transferred, and that there are no involuntary transfers allowed (except under conditions of bankruptcy). So even if a judge were to rule that the GPL is unconstitutional, the judge has no power to transfer ownership of the copyrights from the original authors.

So, yes, people DO have a right to the work because of Copyright. Specifically, the AUTHOR(S) have such a right. My code is mine. Your code is your's. I may not use your code without your express permission, nor may you use mine. The GPL is such a grant of permission, but if it were deemed illegal/unconstitutional, the permission to use the code would disappear. The Copyright would NOT disappear, though...

Note that the GPL is NOT a "type of copyright" - it is a license to copy, which is not at all the same thing. I may grant a license to copy my copyrighted works if I wish (in fact, I have to do so to get a book published - the publisher cannot legally make copies of my work without a license to do so from me). I am not forced to do so.

Nor are the author(s) of GPL'd works. They may license their work in any fashion they desire, or not at all. The default under Copyright Law is "not at all", by the way. Abs

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

First, jbolden, I recognize that you don't agree with SCO's position and you're doing this just to keep the conversation going in order to test out SCO's theory... Thanks for that...

A major point that I was trying to make is that (AFAIK & IDKM) there is nothing in the copyright law that requires the copyright holder to make money---or to intend to make money---off the copyrighted work. The copyright law is there to protect rights of the originator. A right is not an obligation. If the originator chooses to let others copy his/her product, that's fine. The GPL does just that. It's a lot like the rest of the law: If I buy (or grow) an apple, I can give it to you for free. Nobody's going to court, even if I put Billy's Fruit Stand out of business because of it. On the other hand, if you take my apple without permission, I could take you to court for the fair market value of the apple plus any cost I incur in the process of making you pay the fair market value (plus the fact that the apple was MY BEST FRIEND and, oh <cries> the pain and suffering!!!)

Re:Whoa

[morleron]

You may be right, but I find the timing of MS's "purchase" of a UNIX license suspicious. It strikes me as more of a conspiracy between between the charlatans who run SCO and His Billness to cause trouble for the FOSS world. As seems to be the usual outcome of anyone dealing with His Billness the SCO crowd got screwed worse than they ever imagined they would.

Just my $.02,
Ron

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

SCO agrees the law doesn't require that. There argument is constitutional; that is that the law must require that because the constitution requires that. The constitution empowers congress to pass laws and punish the guilty it doesn't empower them to pass laws and punish the innocent. So if they passed a law to punish the innocent it would be invalid. SCO position is that the laws protection of a GPL work (i.e. upholding the license) would be similarly invalid.

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

I agree with your theory of the law. But you aren't addressing SCO's position which is that the above law is unconstitutional. That is that works not created for profit simply cannot be protected under the law. Again I happen to think they are wrong but this is their argument.

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

Well, if that's their argument, then Linux is safe, because that's insane. It's neither illegal nor unconstitutional to give up your rights. It's just practically unheard of, which is why it's stirring the pot so much.

Re:Whoa

[CrimsonAvenger]

No, SCO's position is NOT that Title 17 is unconstitutional. SCO's position is that the GPL is unconstitutional.

Note that if Title 17 were unconstitutional, SCO would have no case, by definition - can't have a copyright violation without a copyright. And if you read the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power

.... (extraneous clauses deleted)

Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Note that Copyright isn't actually specified as part of the Constitution. Instead, it is specifically ALLOWED under the Constitution. NOt required, but allowed. Without a law to enact same, there are no copyrights.

Instead of invalidating Title 17 (which noone wants), SCO wants to invalidate the GPL. However, the GPL is MORE permissive than Title 17 - if the GPL goes, so does SCO's permission to use ANY GPL'd code without specific permission from EACH author of the code. And somehow, I don't think the authors would be willing to give SCO a glass of water if SCO were on fire, much less permission to use their code.

SCO's opinion that the end of the GPL means that GPL'd code instantly becomes public domain (which is what they were basing their case on, back when their case was about copyrights - note that now that IBM is suing SCO for Copyright violations, SCO is insisting that the GPL is perfectly valid, and in fact that they never once said it was invalid/unconstitutional) is obviously false from a five minute perusal of the text of the law in question.

Re:Whoa

[jbolden]

Exactly. There whole case has been insane. But honestly I think it was good for Linux that the first case was weak. We built up an infastructure to handle these types of cases (for example Groklaw) which will be important if/when we have a case that isn't so weak.

Re:Whoa

[hhlost]

As I said before, the fact that their case is weak suggests that a stronger case cannot be made. If there was a stronger case to be made, SCO would have made it, or if there was a stronger case that couldn't be made by SCO but could be made by a different entity, MS would have supported them instead of SCO. I guess we'll see...

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps SCO can sue itself to raise cash

Re:Perhaps

[AndroidCat]

Darl sued his last employer, so why not?

Re:Perhaps

[MatthewNewberg]

If SCO was going to sue SCO I would buy a Unix Lincense from SCO. I need to keep this lawsuit thing going. My life would be boring without the on going story of SCO sueing people. What does this mean for BBspot? Are they now going to go out of business without anythign to write about. Save SCO or my world is going to end!!!

Re:Perhaps

[EnronHaliburton2004]

This new business plan can go with their new name modeled after "GNU's Not Unix":

SCO = "SCO's Court Order"

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Darl has a history of litigation. He's sued THREE of his employers, has taken legal action against one of his kid's schools, sued 2 financial advisors and one of his wives is involved in 2 lawsuits against neighbours.

It's a bit like the social situation where generations of families become dependent on welfare, and as it's all they know it's all they continue doing. With Darl, it's litigation.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, "one of his wives..."

Is he really a polygamist, or are you just talking out of your ass?

Either way, it's fscking hilarious (esp. to an ex-Mormon), and I would have modded you up if I had the points.

Re:Perhaps

[freakmn]

I've heard that it may be a possibility.

Re:Perhaps

[AndroidCat]

Is he really a polygamist, or are you just talking out of your ass?

He might be one of those serial monogamists.

Re:Perhaps

[2004.3]

Litigation? Welfare? Isn't that the same thing in this case?

Re:Perhaps

[MyDixieWrecked]

Perhaps SCO can sue itself to raise cash

That may seem like a good idea to them, given their poor judgement which Linus said best, "They must be smoking crack." (or something to that effect).

Gives new meaning to "SCO on the rocks"

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's what I'd call bootstrapping.

Re:Perhaps

[timeOday]

Is he really a polygamist?

No, but it's funny how the word "polygamy" makes people's heads explode, even though they have no qualms with marrying and divorcing repeatedly, or even just sleeping around.

Re:Perhaps

[tbuckner]

I think now of Bleak House, by Dickens. It's about a lawsuit that outlives all its litigants.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

So says some AC. Any references to back it up?

Some other AC

Re:Perhaps

[dabigpaybackski]

Litigation? Welfare? Isn't that the same thing in this case?

Yes. That's because the wealthiest people in corrupt societies live off subsidies, weather legal settlements or government handouts. They're like bandit kings, living under the delusion that the world owes them a living. Not that I'm indicting rich people--far from it. It's just that there is a certain quite antisocial faction of the wealthy to which we can attribute most of our problems. Since they lack scruples, they inevitably rise to positions from which they can cause damage. Darl is a tragicomic example of this breed, ruining everything he touches. I feel sorry for his employees.

Re:Perhaps

[swillden]

Is he really a polygamist, or are you just talking out of your ass?

No, he's not a polygamist. If he were, he would have been excommunicated by now. Unfortunately, the church doesn't excommunicate dishonest businessmen.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Polygamy is worse for society than serial monogomy (or sleeping around) because it allows one man to monopolize the services of more than one woman, leaving some other man with no potential mate. Long-term, men w/o mates do crazy things like drinking their money away, starting wars, quitting steady work.

What? SCO needs money?

[DrEldarion]

Surely there must be someone else they can sue.

Re:What? SCO needs money?

[spac3manspiff]

Or they can devote their efforts towards something productive. But that's too obvious.

Re:What? SCO needs money?

[jaavaaguru]

They could try suing God.

Re:What? SCO needs money?

[Ralph Yarro]

Surely there must be someone else they can sue.

Yes, we'll be suing Boies Schiller & Flexner next but don't tell them I said so.

Re:What? SCO needs money?

[spektr]

Whose G O D ?

Re:What? SCO needs money?

[midav]

Holy schneike, man. Congratulations on 'Informative' post.

Also I tip my hat to moderators. You've made my day.

well..

[Anonymous Coward]

> Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation,
> scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

Microsoft?

Re:well..

[Anonymous Coward]

From what i've been seeing on the net, that company is based on insecurity and buggy software. I've seen a lot of people stand up for them so they are probably doing one or two things right but still.

Re:well..

[JPriest]

You mean Apple? In most of Microsoft's court cases it is usually them being attacked.

Re:well..

[crossconnects]

Are you saying Microsoft doesn't bring it on itself?

Pun Intended

[Anonymous Coward]

"The mouse that roared is barely squeaking these days. A string of recent setbacks raises grave questions about SCO's finances, its court case, and its management."

"Grave" questions, dying company... How apropos.

Re:Pun Intended

[AndroidCat]

They've been dead for quite some time. Those zombies certainly haven't found any brains, so they need to lie down and shut up.

Re:Pun Intended

[VoidWraith]

I don't think they could have intended it... I mean, the sentence doesn't even have proper grammar.

Another Dot Com Failure

[fm6]

So litigation isn't a reliable business model either. We're doomed!

Re:Another Dot Com Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats slander, I'll see you in court!

Re:Another Dot Com Failure

[mersy]

Give 'em time, I'm sure sombody will find a way to make it profitable.

Re:Another Dot Com Failure

[moonbender]

You missed an apostrophe, I'll see you in court!

Re:Another Dot Com Failure

[fm6]

The apostrophe is really there, here's a 500-page legal brief that says so. See you in court!

Re:Another Dot Com Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we're back to..

1. Litigate
2. ???
3. Profit

Damn, we were so close.

Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer my SCO neat with a splash of water.

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

Shaken, not stirred.

Re:Neat

[mankey wanker]

Neat means undiluted, moron.

Re:Neat

[heybo]

I prefer my SCO on the rocks!

Seems they are there!

Another 3 points down...

[SharpFang]

Going down
Still waiting for reaching the level from before the bubble though. (but as you watch the quotes history, the Linux lawsuit was a start of the downward spiral...)

Re:Another 3 points down...

[JimmytheGeek]

Still not at 52 week low. YET

Die, sleazoids, die!

uh huh..

[TheHawke]

The question is not as of when will the guillotine fall, it's how high will it be before it does.
Considering SCO's screwups and legal wranglings, i'd say that the height will be stratospheric and more than a few heads will be in the stocks when it falls.

Re:uh huh..

[KiloByte]

Wrong. If a company dies, it's the stockholders who lose, not the management. The managers simply need to find a new job -- and note that even during the company's agony they still get paid in full. Their pay is also orders of magnitude bigger than those of a common employee.

Re:uh huh..

[superpulpsicle]

Yeah management jobs are always a win-win situation in the U.S.

1.) They can do a good job and get paid x number of dollars.

2.) They do a bad job and get axed. But rewarded with a massive severance package.

It's unfair in every way to the share holders.

Re:uh huh..

[MrResistor]

The real question is: what happens to the Unix source when they die. In the long run, I think that's really the only question that matters.

Re:uh huh..

[Dun Malg]

The real question is: what happens to the Unix source when they die. In the long run, I think that's really the only question that matters.

Not likely to happen, but I think it would be a hoot if IBM bought UNIX at the SCO bankruptcy auction for peanuts.

Re:uh huh..

[twiddlingbits]

SCOX does not own the UNIX source code base as they want you to think. Novell owns most of it, IBM and others who have contributed to the various versions own the code they wrote. All SCOX may own is anything special that did for SCOs UNIX offering.

Re:uh huh..

[midav]

Normally, yes.

However, if the other party gets really upset, they can try to 'pierce corporate veil'. I.e. try to prove that the individuals in charge of the first company were pursuing their private interests at the expenses of the company they were in charge of.

Then the company gets of the hook, and personal responsibility of its senior officers kicks in. It's a rare situation, but it can happen, right?

Re:uh huh..

[InvalidError]

This depends... Enron and Nortel's management had quite a bit of trouble with the SEC and shareholder class-action suits when their suspicious accounting practices and stock manipulations came to light.

If the court concludes that SCO's IBM lawsuit was only a diversionary tactic meant to float stock prices before management dumped theirs, they will almost certainly get investigated by the SEC and get a class-action case from their shareholders seeking compensation.

So not all is lost for the loss-making shareholders yet.

Re:uh huh..

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Is it unfair to the share holders? I don't think so in the least.

Shareholders have a responsibility to look into the operations of a company. If the shareholders weren't such money-grubbing pricks the world wouldn't have these 'CEO xx is getting paid so much money boo hoo' problems.... Because the companies that did that would have no shareholders, and thus, no money.

Not unfair at all. Perfectly fair, really. It is the shareholders that direct public companies.

Thought experiment: If Intel hired Carly tomorrow, what indicator would be used to fire her on monday? You got it! The 10% drop in stock value!

Cheers,

Re:uh huh..

[MrResistor]

They own enough to release ancestral Unix code without getting smacked down. Whatever rights they have they bought from the real SCO, which suggests they could be bought by someone else.

Re:uh huh..

[twiddlingbits]

Ancestral UNIX code such as BSD and a LOT of Sys V R4 is public domain as the copyrights were not enforced. Like I said this has been all documented over at GrokLaw.

Re:uh huh..

[MrResistor]

I'm aware of that.

Are you prepared to prove that every single line of ancestral Unix source they released was already public domain? If not, then you must concede that somebody owned the rights to at least some of that code, and since no one yelped when Caldera/SCO open sourced it, it seems a reasonable bet that their claim to it was strong.

Re:uh huh..

[twiddlingbits]

I'm not going to concede that and neither has IBM. All SCO owns is what they have in SCO Unix that they did NOT make public. Since some of SCO Unix made it into SCO Linux and Moneterrey there is some question as to what DO they own, not what DON'T they own. CHeck out the archives on Groklaw, its all there from folks who are much more expert than I am.

Re:uh huh..

[MrResistor]

What claim SCO has to ancestral Unix is totally irrelevant to the IBM case, where SCO is trying to claim rights to code IBM wrote.

You must be very confused about the issues to be arguing my very simple and obvious origional point. It's you who needs to check the archives at Groklaw, specifically the agreements between SCO and Novell.

SCO clearly has some rights to Unix, even if there is confusion as to what those rights actually are. If you can't recognize that simple fact, then I see no reason to waste any more time on you.

Re:uh huh..

[twiddlingbits]

SCO is trying to say UNIX code THEY OWN made it into Linux, they couldn't find any so now they want to go with the crazy theory that AIX violates thier copyright on UNIX. ALL SCO got from Novell was the right to distribute System V and to make a version of UNIX based on that. If SCO v Novell was over, there would be no need for SCO v IBM.

Re:uh huh..

[MrResistor]

Maybe you haven't been around long enough, or maybe you just weren't paying attention, but you simply don't know what the hell you're talking about. At the risk of being repetative, here it is again:

Before the current SCO v. Linux, et al, situation, during the transition from Caldera to SCOX, they open sourced a bunch of ancestral (i.e. pre-SysV) Unix code, and Novell didn't say shit about it, nor did anyone else. This is a fact. Feel free to search the slashdot archives, I'm sure you'll find a few articles about it.

This was NOT done by Novell, it was done by Caldera/SCO, and since Novell never said a word it is a reasonable bet that Caldera/SCO had the legal right to do so. This is a big part of their ownership claim on SysV. It is also a big part of of the Linux defense, since not only does SCO have to prove that there is Unix code residing in Linux, and that it doesn't derive from BSD, but also that it didn't come from the ancestral Unix code they themselves open-sourced.

Seriously, if you're going to start arguements over stuff like this, try learning the actual facts first.

Re:uh huh..

[twiddlingbits]

I've been around UNIX 25 yrs, since the days BEFORE BSD and System V. I wrote code on Xenix the old MS flavor of UNIX derived from Sys III. We are saying the SAME thing, that SCO has crap to claim they own Linux. The Unix "tree" is full of leaks of code into the public domain, so much so that AT&T simply gave up a lot of rights in Sys V BEFORE Novell/Caldera/SCO ever got into the loop. I think a lot of folks (Novell/Caldera/SCOX) who thought they own UNIX are holding a mostly empty bag. If you don't protect your copyrights you can lose them. SCO has dropped the claims regarding Linux as a whole and seems to now be focusing on a "contract dispute" that code from Project Monterey made it into AIX and then into Linux. And SCO has NEVER produced anything to say they got the UNIX copyrights from Caldera. If SCO DID own the copyrights why did they have to pass 90% plus of any revenues from Sales on to Novell? The history of UNIX is so damn convoluted and full of things no one would do today with IP that I'm not sure anyone involved can prove what they own and don't own. I know the facts, you seem to read a lot into posts that are not there. Typical for this place. At least on Groklaw you don't get jumped for things but it gets explained.

Re:uh huh..

[MrResistor]

If you don't protect your copyrights you can lose them.

You're confused. It's trademarks you have to protect. Copyright used to be that way, but isn't anymore.

And, if you've been around as long as you claim, you know that wasn't why AT&T "gave up", but rather that their code was so contaminated with unattributed BSD code that they were in serious danger of having the balance of offense tip against them.

And SCO has NEVER produced anything to say they got the UNIX copyrights from Caldera.

Dude, SCOX is Caldera. Where the hell have you been?

The history of UNIX is so damn convoluted and full of things no one would do today with IP that I'm not sure anyone involved can prove what they own and don't own.

I'll agree with that. But, SCOX clearly has something, and whatever it is, it's percieved value is greater than 0 (at least in some circles). One of the saying popular in corporate management today is "perception is reality". Therefore, it seems prudent to ask what happens to whatever it is SCOX has, and maybe keep an eye on it lest it end up in the hands of someone who's bought into McBrides version of things and this ends up being an ongoing problem.

Re:uh huh..

[twiddlingbits]

Therefore, it seems prudent to ask what happens to whatever it is SCOX has, and maybe keep an eye on it lest it end up in the hands of someone who's bought into McBrides version of things and this ends up being an ongoing problem. That's right. I want this settled not some out of court agreement. I think IBM will not settle until Linux and thier good name are both cleared. I fear SCOX pulling some sort of shady bankruptcy deal and leaving Linux hanging in regards to whether UNIX "contamination" is present. SCOX is Caldera but it's not the same mindset as Caldera was. Caldera actually produced a product, and the remains of that company still do make a Citrix like product that some say is quite good. SCOX produces lots of BS and legal work for Boise Schiller. I think AT&T did "give up". They made a corporate decision to sell the UNIX business, as they didn't see any profit in it and they weren't sure what they owned. Rather than fight they sold. In hindsight it was probably a good business decision but it did lead to a proliferation of UNIX "flavors" which fragmented the market and introduced incompatabilities. UNIX was no longer Sys V or BSD, it was HP-UX, Solaris, SGI-IRIX, IBM AIX, etc.

The sad thing is

[argoff]

... isn't all the peoples lives who have been interrupted because of the lawsuit, but all the people who bought the propaganda that SCO was enterprise "material" back in the 90's while blowing off Linux.

Re:The sad thing is

[thogard]

So is now a good time to start a slander suit against SCO and then once its Chap 7, then do the same for anyone of its sr. management that walked away with any cash?

Re:The sad thing is

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? In the mid 90s, SCO UNIX _was_ better enterprise material than Linux. It was more mature, had stronger corporate support, and was generally a better choice. Yes, _now_ you'd be daft to choose SCO over Linux, but things haven't always been like this, you know.

You really need to get over such zealotry, and learn about the real world.

To the Zealots

[bogaboga]

This is to the [Linux] zealots: You must be celebrating this news somehow. Of course you wish for even better news. Remember one thing...after SCO, another will be minted. Also remember that according to Microsoft's Ballmer, there is no significant Linux deployment anywhere on earth. One wonders where those revenues are coming from.

Re:To the Zealots

[wasted]

...according to Microsoft's Ballmer, there is no significant Linux deployment anywhere on earth...

I don't think that I would believe anything coming from Ballmer concering Linux.

Re:To the Zealots

[MrResistor]

Remember one thing...after SCO, another will be minted.

Yes, I'm sure it will be similarly successful. Of course, depending on what happens to the ancestral Unix code when SCO dies, there may not actually be anything to sue over.

There hasn't been a successful suit against Linux yet, and I don't see one in the future. There's a good reason the GPL hasn't been tested in court: it's so strong that nobody has the balls to go up against it.

Also remember that according to Microsoft's Ballmer, there is no significant Linux deployment anywhere on earth.

Maybe Ballmer needs to remember how Microsoft got in it's position in the first place.

Re:To the Zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if ballmer says so it must be true as he's clearly a reliable and neutral observer with no vested interest what so ever. Of course he's ignoring insignificant deployments such as Google, IBM, Novell and so on and so on...

Personally I do feel sorry for SCO's employees as I do for anyone whose likely to loose their job through incompetant management.

Re:To the Zealots

[MikeBabcock]

Nobody who relies on Copyright for revenues wants to fight a Copyright battle in court against someone else's rights to do the same.

Microsoft doesn't want Copyrights defeated for its own sake, and the GPL is just a "take it or leave it" implicit license; if you violate it, assume that you've broken Copyright law and are doomed.

Re:To the Zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The FSF's hypothesis of "If you link to our DLLs, we 0wn your warez" is a much more expansive definition of copyright that Bill Gates has ever imagined.

Microsoft would love it the FSF's world view was ratified in court because it would give them effecitive control over competing software from Apple, Real, WordPerfect, Sun, and even GNU.

Re:To the Zealots

[oliverthered]

except the GPL is based on copyright.
The 'Abstraction, Filtration, Comparison' process used by the courts to decide if software violates copyright, would return nill-points for using a DLL violating the copyright of that DLL.
unless possibly it was a simple wrapper that you were selling as your own.

Re:To the Zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if nobody else is using Linux, then the revenue must all be coming from the 2000 odd servers that we have running...

Re:To the Zealots

[Hooya]

> This is to the [Linux] zealots: You must be celebrating this news somehow.

not really. you don't really celebrate the inevitable events. there are simply far too many.

> Remember one thing...after SCO, another will be minted.

nobody said "world dominance" came uncontested.

> Also remember that according to Microsoft's Ballmer...

what's ballmer going to say about GNU/linux? that even MS has deployed it in their labs to see what they can learn and copy from it? by the same token, the iraqi information minister said the US troops were surrendering by the thousands. what's your point?

> there is no significant Linux deployment anywhere on earth

well then there's no where to go but up, isn't it?

> One wonders where those revenues are coming from

certainly not from gouging licensing fees.

cheers.

Re:To the Zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

You added too many words. It should be I don't think that I would believe anything coming from Ballmer.

Re:To the Zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

remember... "according to Microsoft's Ballmer"..

Does Ballmer strike you as a man who tells the truth regardless of questions of personal or professional interest? No, me neither...

As for "no significant Linux deployment anywhere on earth", does Google ring any bells, Steve? You know, the company that has been kicking the shite out of you in the oh-so-vital search engine market? If you're not even willing to acknowledge the existence of competition,then your odds of beating it are vanishingly slim, at best...

Re:To the Zealots

[mark-t]

You have a misconception of the GPL, one that seems to be shared by a large number of people.

The GPL governs COPYING, nothing more. GPL'd works are copyrighted not by the authors of the GPL itself (well, not necessarily... some are), but by the people who actually wrote those works in the first place.

Now, as is the case with any copyrighted work, it is illegal for anyone else to copy it or any (significant) portions of it (barring for personal use or within the boundaries of what would be allowed for fair use) without obtaining permission from the copyright holder.

The file named COPYING that accompanies all GPL'd works outlines what terms a person needs to agree to in order to acquire permission from the copyright holder. There is no written permission slip required in the case of the GPL, simply agreeing to the terms outlined in the COPYING document is sufficient and grants you the permission to copy the work.

So far, there isn't any problem with this for most people... if copyright is a good thing, then an author _SHOULD_ have the right to choose who else may or may not copy his works, and should be free to dictate the terms for obtaining permission from him.

Where people seem to have a problem with the GPL is in the realm of "derivative works". That the GPL is somehow "viral" because it propogates forward into any new works produced that were based on a GPL'd work. There is, however, a perfectly valid reason for this that still falls well within the accepted understanding of copyright.

Consider the case where one person makes a product, releases it under the GPL, then another person makes significant changes to it, and when faced with rereleasing, feels that the original author having GPL'd the work is somehow shortchanging him from releasing his works under a license he may have preferred to use instead of the GPL.

Unless the second person has made changes to the program that are so significant that it amounts to an effective complete rewrite of the program, then there are liable to still be many significant portions of the original program (which are still copyrighted by the first person) within the new work. The second person isn't really free to bundle the whole work under his own license that isn't compatible with the GPL because in order to get permission to make copies of the original program, he needed to agree to the terms of the GPL. Now while he can always change his mind and decide he no longer agrees with the terms, at that point, he no longer has permission to copy the original work. But since significant portions of the original work are within his own larger work, he has effectively barricaded himself from distributing this new work at all, unless he can acquire alternative permission from the copyright holder of the original work (which may or may not be possible). At this point, without some reconcilliation, the new program must be relegated for internal use only, or must be yet more heavily modified so as to ultimately amount to a complete rewrite, which contains no code that was in the original work (and governed by the GPL). The other alternative is, of course, for the author to decide to GPL his own work in entirety as well. These are the only choices available if he desires to honor the copyrights on the code that he did not produce himself (and his only legal options).

So it's not really unfair for the author to say you have to put your own work under the GPL if you derive from his work because your work probably still contains a significant portion of his work anyways (and without agreeing to the GPL you don't have any rights to copy his work at all), and again if copyright is to be seen as a good thing, then the copyright owner should always be free to say who may and who may not copy his works and also be free to dictate the terms for acquiring permission from him (if he so desires).

Which leaves one issue remaining... why should linking leave one subject to the GPL?

The reason is because, dynamic lin

Re:To the Zealots

[crossconnects]

Do you believe anything by Ballmer on anything?

Re:To the Zealots

[msevior]

Also remember that according to Microsoft's Ballmer, there is no significant Linux deployment anywhere on earth. One wonders where those revenues are coming from.

Ever heard of tiny little company called google? At least 100,000 Linux boxes there.

Re:To the Zealots

[wasted]

I would believe Ballmer if he said something that

1) I already knew to be true, and

2) Did not, in any way, benefit Microsoft by being said.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for those conditions to be met, though.

Re:To the Zealots

[swillden]

Now while dynamic linking does indeed avoid actually bundling the library in with the application directly, it still contains what is effectively a "stub" for the library that gets bundled with the program, and the copyright holder of the library also owns the copyright on that stub.

Be very careful with this argument. If copyright law is interpreted this way for GPL software, it should be interpreted the same way for all software. The implications of that are clearly unacceptable -- it makes every Windows program a derivative work of Microsoft-owned code, for starters.

So, to make this argument, you either need to justify why GPL-licensed code should receive a broader interpretation of copyright law that other software, or you have to view the GPL as a contract that imposes additional constraints beyond those provided by copyright law. The former seems difficult, and the latter makes the GPL much more fragile.

Re:To the Zealots

[mark-t]

Actually, yes... but Microsoft's copyrights on its stubs do not currently require you to comply to any particular terms.

Re:To the Zealots

[swillden]

Actually, yes... but Microsoft's copyrights on its stubs do not currently require you to comply to any particular terms.

So you're saying that Microsoft has granted everyone an unconditional right to use their stubs? Can you point to the legal document that provides this grant?

Re:To the Zealots

[mark-t]

Look under the category of "redistributables" that comes with MSVC++.

Re:To the Zealots

[swillden]

What if I don't use MSVC++? If I use any of Borland's products, or MingW, or Intel's compiler, or any of a number of other tools, do I not have a license, making my software a derivative work of Microsoft Windows?

uh

[suezz]

who is this sco?

Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[defile]

I've been trying since they were nearly $20/share but my broker said something about it not being available. Did Wall Street see them as being full of shit, too?

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[sqlrob]

IIRC, something along the lines of 30% of the shares are shorted. That's a huge amount compared to what happens normally.

Unfortunately, I don't think Wall Street sees them as full of shit, otherwise the price of the stock would be much, much lower.

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Anonymous Coward]

In order for you to sell a stock short, your broker has to find someone who owns it and is willing to lend it to you. After all, whoever buys it from you is expecting to take delivery of the stock, and you don't have it to deliver.

Nowadays, most stock is held in so-called "street name": the owner doesn't actually hold certificates but rather leaves it in his broker's name. Stock held this way is available for borrowing. For example, every brokerage firm has *some* customer who is long, say, MSFT but has left it in street name; if you want to short MSFT, the firm can borrow the stock from that customer. (That right to borrow your stock is explicitly written into the terms and conditions of brokerage accounts.)

Stocks in a death spiral, such as SCOX / SCOXE, are often hard to locate for borrowing and subsequent short selling. Under such circumstances, the prices of put options (the right but not the obligation to sell the stock at a specified price until a specified date) can and do go through the roof.

Incidentally, the money to be made shorting SCOX / SCOXE has already been made. There's not much more room left for the stock to go down.

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Phil Karn]

To track the short ratio, follow this page: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SCOXE

Looks like the short ratio is either 34% or 43.86% as of January 10, depending on how you count shares.

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Zeinfeld]

To track the short ratio, follow this page: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SCOXE

SCOXE? Is that a link to scoatsex?

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[defile]

Incidentally, the money to be made shorting SCOX / SCOXE has already been made. There's not much more room left for the stock to go down.

Thank you for the helpful explanation. I suspected it was something like this for larger transactions, but wondered if market makers could provide some kind of virtual liquidity for wannabe big-shot daytraders (I wasn't planning to risk more than some change on it.)

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[ucblockhead]

I did. I made a fair amount of money doing it, too.

It was a bit nervewracking as for a few months after I shorted it, it went up in price. But I held steady and about doubled my money.

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Captain Nitpick]

SCOXE? Is that a link to scoatsex?

SCOX is the normal four-letter NASDAQ symbol for The SCO Group (SCO is the NYSE symbol for Scor SA). The E added on the end indicates that the stock issuer is delinquent in their SEC filings.

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>There's not much more room left for the stock to go down.

There's an old Wall Street joke:

Customer: "It's already down 75%! How much more can it lose?"
Broker: "Another 75%".

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Zeinfeld]

SCOX is the normal four-letter NASDAQ symbol for The SCO Group (SCO is the NYSE symbol for Scor SA). The E added on the end indicates that the stock issuer is delinquent in their SEC filings.

And GOATSE consists of the five letter SLASHDAQ symbol GOATS, the letter E is added to indicate that the holder is delinquent.

A sign perhaps that Daryl is making himself ready for the time that is rapidly approach when the IBM lawyers demonstrate the meaning of the term 'rebuttal'.

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[bhmit1]

I never short stocks (it tends to be easier, cheaper, and less risky to play in the small and micro cap markets), so corrections to this are welcome.

To short the stock, you're broker will most likely need to find the stock held in a margin account (perhaps there are other ways, but I believe this is the most common). That's why when you hold a stock with a dividend in a margin account, sometimes you get the dividend and the tax benefits, and other times you get a payment from the person who borrowed your stock to short. I don't know if brokers will only search their own accounts or not, so there's the possibility that you can't find any shares, but someone at a different brokerage can.

That being said, this thing looks to be saturated by shorts (and therefore something I say away from since it can be painful to be buying back your shares in a short squeeze):

[ From Yahoo ]
Float: 10.00M
% Held by Insiders: 42.81%
% Held by Institutions: 44.82%
Shares Short (as of 10-Jan-05): 4.39M
Daily Volume (as of 10-Jan-05): N/A
Short Ratio (as of 10-Jan-05): 34
Short % of Float (as of 10-Jan-05): 43.86%
Shares Short (prior month): 4.88M

Basically, it would take 34 days of normal trading volume for the shorts to buy back all of their shares. And if I'm reading that right (insiders are counted as part of the float?) then there are more shorts than there are insiders.

All of this says that the idea of shorting this junk has been considered by far too many people before you and the risks are therefore too high and reward is too low.

SCO on the rocks?

[BasculeTheFule]

Hmmm, that reminds me, time to get the champagne on ice.

SCO = Such Crummy Opposition

[Killer Eye]

So only now there is this worry that SCO is sinking? The act of a small company suing over Linux should long have sent the signal that SCO is having troubles. The suit seemed desperate (and still does), a way to get press and cash while sending markets into a spin. The fact that they have not produced evidence shows that SCO was not only betting the farm on FUD, but really is Such Crummy Opposition: to IBM, and to Linux.

Hope they will last...

[tindur]

...til the judge hammers. I wouldn't like to see somebody else buying the case and starting it all over again.

Re:Hope they will last...

[drinkypoo]

It's not impossible that IBM might sue whatever is left of SCO and pick up all their assets since that's all they have to give. I'm not sure why they'd want to, though.

Re:Hope they will last...

[bhima]

I think one could run a pretty good business with "SCO Linux" and a business plan to provide support for SCO refugees moving to Linux.

Having IBM burn you the CD-ROM that makes up SCO's true Intellectual Property would help (I think).

How much time do you give them?

[birdowner]

Do you think they'll make it through the 30 days easily? How much time do you give SCO before it implodes amidst much celebration? I give it about two months.

Everyone knew it would happen..

[ElScorcho]

..especially the management at SCO. You think they're upset about this? It was obvious from the very beginning that they didn't have the long term benefit of the company in mind when they started all this garbage. The people in charge of SCO, like so many other dead corps of the past, don't care what happens to the company. If you think they haven't gotten fabulously rich while all this has been going on you're deluding yourself.

At this point they're probably running company affairs from their yachts, and when it implodes, so what? Won't hurt them at all, and in a year or two they'll be hired on by some other group of corporate leeches and they'll drain another company dry.

It's just a shame that in this case it impacts more than just the poor slobs working at the company in question (of course, if they're STILL there after all this they deserve it) but something that millions all over the globe care about. But, hey, it was good for business- after all no publicity is bad publicity, right?

Re:Everyone knew it would happen..

[defile]

At this point they're probably running company affairs from their yachts, and when it implodes, so what? Won't hurt them at all, and in a year or two they'll be hired on by some other group of corporate leeches and they'll drain another company dry.

If I were dumb enough to hold SCO stock until the bitter end, I would be pretty embarassed, and litigious.

Don't the execs face severe legal punishment for this?

Re:Everyone knew it would happen..

[jbolden]

Don't the execs face severe legal punishment for this?

If Harry Truman were president yes, with George Bush no.

Re:Everyone knew it would happen..

[Billly Gates]

Corporations were formed squarely to be immune officers from litigation. I do not know if this is still true but it was an early loophole in the 19th century.

Typically only companies and not their executives are responsible for their civil actions. Unless McBride clearly broke the law legaiily with a huge paper trail pointing to him it will be very difficult if not impossible to convict him.

Re:Everyone knew it would happen..

[defile]

This is out-and-out-fraud.

Granted, stockholders want to sue for damages whenever their shareholder value goes down, whatever the reason, but this is not a simple case of the market going sour.

Here's a company with a stable but not so very exciting future ahead.

Along come some executives who decide to sacrifice the stable future on a gamble and steer the company into a legal battle with highly dubious claims (on the order of a million to one that this will go favorably). They know this, their advisors know this, industry insiders know this, but that still doesn't stop them from hiring the most popular law firm possible, and launch an intensive PR campaign blitz to pretend that this is all legit.

The blitz momentarily convinces the market that the claim has merit, and before any of the bullshit can get debunked, the executives and the law firm have all cashed their chips and are left playing house and putting on a face to the remaining shareholders while it all goes flaming down the toilet.

Oh, hey, but David Boies & Family did their due dilligence right? The case had to have merit at some point for them to take it? Otherwise, you know, they could be disbarred!

Well, that might be believable if they didn't stand to gain from this charade too, the bastards took payment in stock.

I expect the pending shareholder suit will name Boies

If this isn't fraud, I'll... just sit here and keep whining on Slashdot.

Hey! The Republicans probably have a bone to pick with David Boies, what with representing Gore and all in the 2000 election dispute. This SCO thing would be a great way for them to pretend to be punishing Wall Street greed while getting back at an old foe.

I'll write my Congressman.

Re:Everyone knew it would happen..

[defile]

Corporations were formed squarely to be immune officers from litigation. I do not know if this is still true but it was an early loophole in the 19th century.

Judgements against a corporation can only seize assets that are owned by the corporation.

An owner of this corporation is not usually personally liable for the corporation's debts.

This does not immunize any individuals representing or owning the corporation from any crime, civil or criminal. They may claim that they did it in carrying out the will of the corporation, and are not to be held personally liable, but this is for a judge to decide.

Anyway, it's irrelevant. One set of shareholders (McBride and friends) defrauded other SCO shareholders.

Or, put another way, IBM, DC, Autozone get to fight over the tattered remains of SCO, while the shareholders that McBride screwed over get to fight over all of his personal property.

In theory.

Re:Everyone knew it would happen..

[jbolden]

It is fraud. If Harry Truman were president the SEC would go after these people they way they go after any criminal gang. Start getting paralegals to testify about what happened at meetings between lawyers at Boies.

Did they really think the case was legit?

When did they come to believe there was no case?

Ask law level people from SCO

If there were no contract claims but only a contract dispute why did they take money for "Linux licenses"?

etc... Then go after mid level people and then throw these guys in jail for a decade or more.

ahem

[BumpyCarrot]

I'll have my SCO on the rocks shaken, not stirred...

First Post Said It all...

[JawzX]

You were expecting maybe SCO would turn into a profitable, stable company with a viable product? Especialy given the recent past...

I hope they sort things and don't get delisted...

[(H)elix1]

I was waiting for things to get ugly (heading under a buck) before picking up my SCOX stock certificates. Four dollars + additional fees is too much. It cost me more to have paper stock certificates issued than it did to buy the stock when pets.com went tits up, but framed up they rocked as a white elephant gifts. Them screwing around with the SEC get the symbol changed to SCOXE before I though they would. Grrr. Once again, I squarely shoot my foot trying to predict the stock market.

Rule Number One - Customer First

[6800]

SCO, it seems to me, has violated every rule in the book, especially that long forgotten one about the customer being right.

A company cannot possibly stay in business without happy, returning customers.

My dad was in business and his dad before him also operated several small businesses. He once told a salesman who was asking for a job that he did not need one because his customers were his best salesman.

Re:Rule Number One - Customer First

[v1]

SCO does not have any "willing" customers - they are basically extorting people. Paying a company money so they DON'T sue you is not a people-friendly way to conduct business, but at least in the very short-term, it does work because people are paranoid or naive.

Re:Rule Number One - Customer First

[Billly Gates]

" SCO does not have any "willing" customers - they are basically extorting people. Paying a company money so they DON'T sue you is not a people-friendly way to conduct business"

Then explain why there are countless lawyers in every phonebook?

Re:Rule Number One - Customer First

[Darth23]

When Darl heard the phrase it thought they said "The customer is always ripe.

Re:Rule Number One - Customer First

[CaptainZapp]

Well, maybe this provides the ??AA's with a clue that suing your customers is not really a viable business model.

SCO Not only one on the rocks, look here

[Anonymous Coward]

Maureen O'Gara, who hitched her wagon for whatever reason to the SCO star, looks to be in all sorts of trouble too by the look of this feedback thread.

When SCO goes under...

[argent]

Who do you suppose will buy whatever IP assets they have remaining? Oh, to be sure, there's serious questions about what those might be... but they did buy some kind of rights from Novell. Will they go to someone even slimier, or someone who will place them in some open domain?

Maybe it's time to set up a fund to bid on them?

Re:When SCO goes under...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have any IP assets. Novell sold them a cat in a bag years ago and has been laughing about it ever since.

In that _cooler_ reality

[Soat]

I think this would be a different story had SCVs been behind all these lawsuits.

SCO on IRC

[Anonymous Coward]

Topic in #os: hey guyz, stop pickin on irix.
<SCO> w00t! i bought unix! im gonna b so rich!
<novell> /msg atnt haha. idiot.
<novell> whoops. was that out loud?
<atnt> rotfl
<ibm> lol
<SCO> why r u laffin at me?
<novell> dude, unix is so 10 years ago. linux is in now.
<SCO> wtf?
<SCO> hey guyz, i bought caldera, I have linux now.
<red_hat> haha, your linux sucks.
<novell> lol
<atnt> lol
<ibm> lol
<SCO> no wayz, i will sell more linux than u!
<ibm> your linux sucks, you should look at SuSE
<SuSE> Ja. Wir bilden gutes Linux f&#252;r IBM.
<SCO> can we do linux with you?
<SuSE> Ich bin nicht sicher...
<ibm> *cough*
<SuSE> Gut lassen Sie uns vereinigen.
* SuSE is now SuSE[UL]
* SCO is now caldera[UL]
<turbolinux> can we play?
<conectiva> we're bored... we'll go too.
<ibm> sure!
* turbolinux is now turbolinux[UL]
* conectiva is now conectiva[UL]
<ibm> redhat: you should join!
<SuSE[UL]> Ja! Wir sind vereinigtes Linux. Widerstand ist vergeblich.
<red_hat> haha. no.
<red_hat> lamers.
<ibm> what about you debian?
<debian> we'll discuss it and let you know in 5 years.
<caldera[UL]> no one wants my linux!
<turbolinux[UL]> i got owned.
<caldera[UL]> u all tricked me. linux is lame.
* caldera[UL] is now known as SCO
<SCO> i'm going back to unix.
<SGI> yeah! want to do unix with me?
<SCO> haha. no. lamer.
<novell> lol
<ibm> snap!
<SGI> :~(
<SCO> hey, u shut up. im gonna sue u ibm.
<ibm> wtf?
<SCO> yea, you stole all the good stuff from unix.
<red_hat> lol
<SuSE[UL]> heraus laut lachen
<ibm> lol
<SCO> shutup. i'm gonna email all your friends and tell them you suck.
<ibm> go ahead. baby.
<SCO> andandand... i revoke your unix! how do you like that?
<ibm> oh no, you didn't. AIX is forever.
<novell> actually, we still own unix, you can't do that.
<SCO> wtf? we bought it from u.
<novell> whoops. our bad.
<SCO> i own u. haha
<SCO> ibm: give me all your AIX now!
<ibm> whatever. lamer.
* ibm sets mode +b SCO!*@*
* SCO has been kicked from #os (own this.)

Re:SCO on IRC

[drsmack1]

This is simply brilliant. Good work

Re:SCO on IRC

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid americans. can't speak languages...

They Said This About Martha Stewart Online

[WillAffleckUW]

Just because one has broken the law and betrayed the public trust, lying for personal gain, doesn't mean you can't make a few billion dollars from others ...

So, maybe they lied about Linux owing them money. Since their patron saint Bush will probably pardon them, they'll get another chance to lie about some other thing and make money the old-fashioned way - by stealing it from others.

Perhaps they should investigate the patent process in the EU? I hear it's a buyer's market...

The good guys win one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally...

Oh no!

[klovn]

This means there'll be no future support for Linux!

How I like my SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO on the rocks!?!

Please, you forgot the most important part.

SCO should be shaken, not stirred.

Or stirring for that matter. And goodness knows, we're all doing our best at shaking SCO. ;)

RE: SCO on the rocks...

[rob_squared]

...with a twist, please.

IBM guerilla marketing reloads

[rifftide]

Word is that IBM will attempt to push the envelope with yet another guerrilla Linux PR campaign starting next month, replacing its current campaign, code-named "SCO", which appears to be running out of steam.

The SCO campaign, featuring a struggling UNIX vendor that was taken over by greedy executives claiming IP ownership of the entire GNU/Linux code base, was a stunning success. Major news sites such as those run by the Open Source Technology Group eagerly signed up to perpetrate the tongue-in-cheek hoax, which one editor called "the longest running April Fool's joke in the technology business".

Prior to SCO, IBM's PR experts tried hiring teams of college students to spray-paint logos and slogans on the sidewalks of San Francisco and Chicago. That campaign was acknowledged to be a flop.

What the fuck?

[supmylO]

I just had the worst case of deja vu reading the first three comments in this thread.

I preferred them between a rock and hard place

[Anthony Boyd]

What once looked like a mortal threat to Linux appears to be fading. As a result, the suit has become a nonfactor in corporate buying decisions.

Yeah, but... but... I want them to flame out in a huge court loss. I want SCO's finances and future prospects to be devastated. I want a clear and definitive signal that Linux is safe and SCO was stupid to butt heads with Open Source.

This whole "fading" thing sounds like it just leaves too many doors open for other stupid companies to do bad things, because there is no jarring precedent burned into people's minds.

Thanks to heavy cost-cutting, SCO's core Unix-server-software business is generating an operating profit now and will continue to do so in 2005, he says.

Translation: "We pretty much fired everyone except for the accountant. After all, who needs developers on staff when the OSS guys work for free? Right?"

Re:I preferred them between a rock and hard place

[Sentry21]

Yeah, but... but... I want them to flame out in a huge court loss. I want SCO's finances and future prospects to be devastated. I want a clear and definitive signal that Linux is safe and SCO was stupid to butt heads with Open Source.

This has nothing to do with open-source. SCO was stupid to butt heads with IBM in the first place, and going up against Novell at the same time is a dangerous gambit. SCO doesn't have much of a case in either area, and a loss against Novell would (as I understand the situation) invalidate any claims they might have to the copyright, though I believe the IBM suit is more about contracts than copyright.

This has nothing to do with Linux being open-source and everything to do with an insignificant company trying to take on a behemoth (IBM) and a big player (Novell) at the same time, without having a case in the first place. It's about SCO beefing itself up and trying to bully everyone around, only the first 'victims' it chose were a quarterback and a karate student, and now the bully is telling everyone that it will be kicking their asses, while its targets are just going about their lives ignoring SCO's talk until things come to a head and they have no choice but to give SCO a taste of the harsh reality that SCO apparantly can't accept (or even see).

SCO will die a slow wasting death, consumed by its own greed and insecurity, and convinced that the rest of the world stole from it and they all must pay the price. Its death comes, not from challenging open-source, but from a descent into madness of which their challenge is merely a symptom.

SCO is going to die pathetic, and they are going to rot forgotten.

Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that I should sell my shares of SCO?

oblg. Diamond?

[bhsx]

SCO on the rocks, ain't no big surprise.

Re:oblg. Diamond?

[BoomerSooner]

Sounds like a new alcoholic beverage. Drink it and you'll be fucked.

Forget The Celebration

[Anonymous Coward]

We all knew SCO was nothing more than a walking corpse for a long time now.

The important thing is to not let the scumbags responsible just walk away when the the rotting body of SCO stops twitching. Everyone knows Darl, but there are many others at SCO who are going to have made hundreds of thousands to millions and just walk away.

These people's names should be made public, like sex offenders, so they can't just get away with this sick and sleazy assault on Linux and go on with normal lives.

Yes, yes, we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, round 2 in Microsoft's attack strategy is with Software Patents. That's why they are pushing so astoundingly hard to get them in place in Europe right now.

And the ONLY thing which is holding Microsoft back from attacking in the U.S. is that they don't want to reveal their hand while the Politicians are debating software patents in Europe.

We know Microsoft isn't done here with attacking Linux. We expect them to keep attacking. But we've narrowed their attack front to legal manuvers which are of questionable success.

And we're prepared and fighting. Yes, this battle will go on for some time. But if Microsoft loses the Patent game, then their monopoly is doomed.

SCO On the Rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe so, but Darl and his brother Darl got theirs while the getting was good.

My new boss used to work for them.

[Patheos]

Back when the company was Caldera he was pretty high up there. Now he is my boss and uses scare tactics to try and make me work harder.

Re:My new boss used to work for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get back to work plebian, or I'm gonna come over to your and fart when I leave.

Then, I will report you to HR for smelling like ass. You were scared before, now feel the wrath of a former Caldera manager.

Re:My new boss used to work for them.

[midnight2038]

Ask the BUD guys for the "steaming coffee simulator" and start looking for a new job!

Re:Whom will SCO sue next?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've predicted since june 2003 that SCO will eventually sue Tarentella (formerly known as Santa Cruz Operation) for selling them damaged goods - i.e. Unix assets which turned out to be a pile of crap.

Why is it still in court?

[JPriest]

But considering the length of time this has dragged on, the 900 million lines of code provided to them, and the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence to date, why is this even still in court? How much money do you suppose this has cost IBM and tax payers so far?

Doesn't the court have some basic responsibility to IBM to end this case now that SCO has come up short?

Re:Why is it still in court?

[k98sven]

But considering the length of time this has dragged on, the 900 million lines of code provided to them, and the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence to date, why is this even still in court? How much money do you suppose this has cost IBM and tax payers so far?

Why is this still in court? Well, in part because the US legal system works at this speed. The average copyright case from filing to verdict is 2 years. And this is a larger-than average case.

It looks like this one will be resolved in 3-3.5 years.

SCO has a big pile of claims. IBM has a big pile of counterclaims. It's not just a question of the copyrights. SCO has contract claims too, IBM has licensing, trademark-infringement and patent counterclaims. And then there's the fact there's is a lot of code involved, with a lot of history behind it.

Add to that the fact that SCO has indeed been dragging their feet, and consistently been requesting more discovery.

Doesn't the court have some basic responsibility to IBM to end this case now that SCO has come up short?

That would be true if SCO had come up short. But in reality, the court hasn't determined that SCO has come up short. Yet. IBM filed for summary judgement and it was not granted. The case is still in discovery, and the court obviously felt it was more important to give SCO a long leash to produce anything it can during discovery, than it was to give IBM a quick trial.

Now, normally you would think SCO would put everything they had on the table in order to defeat the motion for summary judgement. They probably did, too, but the court decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and told IBM they could re-file their motion after the discovery phase is over. (When the court is certain it has all evidence in front of it)

Re:Why is it still in court?

[Equinox]

Maybe IBM's lawyers are bored?

Remember when...

[kiwidefunkt]

...some people thought SCO stood a chance? Yeah, you guys were wrong. Sorry. Go Linux.

FUD in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

While short on business, SCO held some potentially powerful copyrights.
The author treats SCO's ownership claims as gospel, but that has not been established in court. Novell has contested SCO's copyright ownership, a matter which is still in court. IBM has counter-sued SCO for copyright infringement and patent infringement. BSDi settled a suit against former Unix(r) owner USL which established that BSDi owned the major part of the unix(generic) copyrights, while USL held copyright on but a tiny historical remnant of the code base. SCO has a long way to go before they can be said to "hold" valid copyrights to any code that's still in use.

Re:FUD in the article

[Kaenneth]

SCO would probably sue them for $2 billion in Slander/Libel damages if they printed that SCO dosn't own jack squat.

Re:OMG LINUX ROX)RS

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, title "OMG LINUX ROX)RS" and text "Open source blows. Microsoft forever!"

Care to explain that one?

Nothing to fall back on, either

[theonetruekeebler]

Here we see what happens to companies with nasty and unsustainable business models:

Instead of building a good product, they tried to steal an existing one. Instead of getting ahead in the market with innovation, they sued their competitors and many potential allies. Instead of building a loyal client base, they sued their own customers.

They sued their own customers! And they sued their ex-customers. Who would do business with a company like that? Their customers are fleeing in droves. Their vendors and resellers are dropping them for what they are. Nobody trusts them. And since nobody has to do business with them, nobody will.

And at the risk of saying what's already been said: Good riddance.

Re:Nothing to fall back on, either

[VoidWraith]

I think you should scratch the "Instead of building a good product, they tried to steal an existing one," bit. After all, our favorite multibillionaire was pretty successful "stealing" existing products.

Re:Nothing to fall back on, either

[theonetruekeebler]

For what it's worth, Mr. Gates bought most of those products fair and square. Buying out one's competition is not stealing---not from the sellers, anyway. Nor is expanding into a new market by buying into an existing player.

At least put a link to the original of this

[iONiUM]

It's a bash quote in case you didn't already know.

With apologies to Neil Diamond...

['Aikanaka]

As sung by Darl McBride...

SCO on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
Pour me a drink
And I'll tell you some lies
Got nothin' to lose
So you just sing the blues all the time

Gave you my heart
Gave you my soul
You left me alone here
With nothing to hold
Yesterday's gone
Now all I want is a smile

First, they say they want you
How they really need you
Suddenly you find you're out there
Walking in a storm
When they know they have you
Then they really have you
Nothing you can do or say
You've got to leave, just get away
We all know the song

You need what you need
You can say what you want
Not much you can do
When the feeling is gone
May be blue skies above
But it's cold when your SCO's on the rocks

First, they say they want you
How they really need you
Suddenly you find you're out there
Walking in a storm
When they know they have you
Then they really have you
Nothing you can do or say
You've got to leave, just get away
We all know the song

SCO on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
Pour me a drink
And I'll tell you some lies
Yesterday's gone
And now all I want is a smile

Good thing

[Core-Dump]

To my opinion, let them go down, i'm so sick of SCO, suing whoever-whatever they can... no.. down they should go.
They are only hurting the Open Source world with they stupid claims.
O.S. IS THE FUTURE!!! don't try to stop it!!!

Yea.. Yea mod me down, but i really felt i had to say this..

Whoa

[Hobart]

Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation, scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

Certainly not Patriot Scientific.

Although it looks like they just had AMD buy out a lot of their patents. Interesting.

SCO On the Rocks

[Glowing Fish]

Oh come on, no one has thought of this joke yet?

Yes, we all know that Darl and company has been on the rocks for quite a while. Although once they run out of money, they won't have money to buy rocks, and will have to drink rubbing alcohol or something.

'On the Rocks'?

[Ed Avis]

The main thing that worries me about this article's headline is that it may boost SCO's score on the operating system sucks-rules-o-meter. Ah, I see it's not included in the list. A narrow escape.

Hard won advice from /.'s MichaelCrawford

[MichaelCrawford]

None of the following things guarantee your security, or even your success:

• Shipping a successful product
• Raising venture capital
• A successful IPO

Learn why in The Valley is a Harsh Mistress at GoingWare's Bag of Programming Tricks.

-- Mike

Re:Hard won advice from /.'s MichaelCrawford

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

• Spamming Slashdot
  

Thanks.

This is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the day, SCO stories usually attract tons of posting. Today, it could barly break 100 postings...

Darl & Co. is loosing touch!

Re:This is sad...

[Deinesh]

Actually, the SCO stories that gather tons of postings aren't harbringers of good news. They usually are news of more SCO shenanigans. This one is good news and the Open Source community can sit back and smile at the defeat of the "forces of evil".

How?

[jotaeleemeese]

Once SCO is gone, the few rights they may be will perhaps end in the hands of IBM (because nobody is going to buy them since that would include the poison chalice that are the lawsuits).

Honestly, is your aim in life to spoil the happiness of others or were just having a bad Saturday?

Re:I hope they sort things and don't get delisted.

[twiddlingbits]

NASDAQ added the "E". It means they will be delisted in 30 days for failure to comply with the NASDAQ listing requirements. In SCO's case they did not file an 8-K document as required by the SEC so NASDAQ opts to delist them. They can and have scheduled an appeal hearing. See www.groklaw.net for more !

Re: SCO on the rocks...

[Anonymous Coward]

[ibm] shaken, not stirred...

I wrote a letter to the article's author

[shadow255]

I'd mod you up, but I thought it might be better to share the letter I just wrote to the author/editor instead. I took exception to the entire paragraph you quoted.

To: spencer_ante@businessweek.com
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 12:32:48 -0800
Subject: Article "A Linux Nemesis on the Rocks"

I read with interest your article concerning the legal battle waged by the SCO Group against IBM. While your opening paragraph paints with somewhat of a broader brush than is perhaps warranted for the present-day operating systems software landscape, it is further in that I question your grasp of the facts.

You write, "While short on business, SCO held some potentially powerful copyrights." I think it is either dishonest of you to state this, or you are genuinely unaware that there is substantial doubt over whether the SCO Group actually hold the copyrights they claim to hold. It appears that you are trying to present a balanced report drawing from various sources, so I would encourage you to consider as well the legal actions of SCO with Novell concerning those copyrights.

In the same paragraph you go on to say, "Partly funded by a hefty Microsoft license payment, SCO leveled a multibillion-dollar suit against IBM, charging that Big Blue had fed SCO-copyrighted software into Linux." You probably should have included Sun Microsystems when mentioning hefty license payments to the SCO Group. It is also putting a lot of water under the bridge to simplify the lawsuit against IBM the way you do here. The SCO Group have been trying very hard in court to claim that it is a case about contracts rather than copyrights, while making statements to the press to the contrary. In combination with the earlier "held some potentially powerful copyrights" line, this is simply misleading for readers unfamiliar with the case.

"This triggered fear and loathing in the fast-growing Linux community." I feel it is a mischaracterization of the Linux community to make this statement. While there have been some outspoken individuals who support Linux and have made strong statements in opposition to the claims of the SCO Group, the community as a whole neither fears nor hates the SCO Group per se. It would be more accurate to say that this triggered a vigorous response in the Linux community, with many advocates questioning the basis for the claims of the SCO Group.

"A court win for SCO, Linux fans feared, could bring its growth to a grinding halt." Again, while there have been some who have speculated this, I think it is inappropriate to put it in the context you have chosen. There are, for instance, many Linux advocates who have stated that they want the SCO Group to specify their infringement claims so that the offending code can be removed to end the infringement. The notion that a win for SCO spells the end of Linux is not one that originates within the Linux community, and should certainly not be stated as though it is an accepted fact.

"And so, SCO became one of the most vilified companies in the technology industry." The SCO Group certainly will not win any popularity contests with advocates of open source software, and there have been a lot of criticisms leveled against them, but stating that they are vilified conveys the notion that it is somehow not justified. I find this sentence to be gratuitous and irrelevant to the article in general. It does not do anything to inform your readers, but rather inspires them to consider the SCO Group somewhat of a victim and the open source community somewhat of a bully. I expect better from a column labeled as "News Analysis".

It's really rather unfortunate that you started the article with such a poor footing, because the rest of the piece is very good. If not for the overdramatization in the opening and the paragraph I've referenced above, I would recommend your article to friends and associates wanting to know more about the SCO v. IBM lawsuit.

My parents used to play this in the car.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sing to tune of Neil Diamond's "Love On The Rocks", even though I'm ashamed to post this.

SCO on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
Pour me a bribe
And I'll tell you some lies
Got nothin' to lose
So you just sue big blue all the time

Gave UNIX my heart
Gave UNIX my soul
UNIX left me alone here
With nothing to hold
UNIX is gone
Now all I want is a file

First, they say they'll crush you
How they'll really smash you
Suddenly they find they're out there
Delisted from the NASDAQ
When they say they have you
They don't really have you
Nothing they can do or say
They've got to leave, just get away
They haven't got long

They need $1 billion US
Money's all they want
But there's naught they can do
When their money is gone
May be lawsuits around
But it's cold when you're SCO on the rocks

First, they say they'll crush you
How they'll really smash you
Suddenly they find they're out there
Delisted from the NASDAQ
When they say they have you
They don't really have you
Nothing they can do or say
They've got to leave, just get away
They haven't got long

SCO on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
Pour me a bribe
And I'll tell you some lies
Employees are gone
And now all they want is your cash

Re:My parents used to play this in the car.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah, just noticed this is already posted.

Mine's better though.

To get a ruling

[teknomage1]

Without a ruling, there is no precedent to stop companies in the future trying this same sort of crap. It has to go to trial and a verdict has to be issued to stop this from happening again and wasting more of the court's time. Besides we might not be lucky enough to find another company stupid enough to sue IBM.

Re:To get a ruling

[carl0ski]

Microsoft has pubicly threatened to sue Linux users and advocates if they infringe on their patents. IBM is one of the largest Linux users and advocates. Hell SCo was sueing them on patent infringement related to linux. If Microsoft Windows Longhorn fails to sell well on release, in 2006, whoops meant 2009, 2010. 2022. I forsee they will issue actions against IBM, Will the largest Linux advocates& providers Novell, Redhat, Google, Intel, Sun provide support to IBM? or keep out of it

Re:To get a ruling

[jhylkema]

Without a ruling, there is no precedent to stop companies in the future trying this same sort of crap. It has to go to trial and a verdict has to be issued to stop this from happening again and wasting more of the court's time.

Even with a finding by a jury, there is still no precedent. And there already is a means to stop this crap: Rule 11.

Re:To get a ruling

[SQLz]

SCO has not made a single patent claim against IBM. They are suing for breach of contract.

Ain't no surprise... A song for Anti-SCOers!

[Chordonblue]

To the tune of
'Love on the rocks' by Neil Diamond

SCO on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
Just give them some cash
And they'll tell ya some lies

Yarro is gone
Now all that they want
Is a stay

Boies gave it his heart
And he gave it his soul
But there's not much of that
When you're evil and cold

Canopy's gone
Now all that they want
Is their cash

CHORUS:

First Caldera wants you
Said how they really need you
Suddenly Linux finds it's out there
Showing all it's code

Then SCO says they'll sue you
"Buy a license or we'll do you"
Nothing you and I can say
We hope IBM will save the day
Groklaw knows the song...

SCO on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
As their scheme is shut down
Darl's on the thin ice

Integrity's gone
Now all lawyer's want
is a stay...

Sorry Neil, it was just too good to pass up...

SCO v. IBM: The Short Version, by toads_for_all

[ravenII]

Some readers complain that the SCO v. IBM litigation is taking too long to be resolved, others that it's too complex, too hard to follow. For them, here is the quick version, which made me laugh. It's by toads_for_all, and was originally posted on the SCOX Yahoo board, Msg: 241992. He was kind enough to let me share it with you here. In his little play, he imagines a conversation between SCO, IBM and Novell, which tells his version of the whole SCO v. IBM saga in less than 350 words. Feel free to build on his work or make one of your own. I bet one of you creative brainiacs could come up with a cute one about the discovery games. Straight from a post By PJ on Groklaw

Don't turn your backs just yet...

[Simkin1]

I'm not sure if anyone else has said this... In movies with bad guys, just when you think the guy is dead, he pops up for one last attempt. I think SCO is in a fight for it's 'life'. I would highly suggest that folks not ignore what SCO is doing, and consider the SCO suit a done deal. With their backs against the proverbial wall, there's no telling what they might pull to win this case, or 'prove' that code has been copied. To the IBM/Linux community, now is not the time to turn your backs on the SCO case!!

Absurd

[PingXao]

It's an indictment of the judicial system when a company like SCO can file a meritless lawsuit like this and then drag it out for years without a SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE to back up their claims. It's a travesty, really.

Go. Hunt. Kill SCOls.

[toriver]

Or this lawsuit has gone to the americans!

(Internal City of Heroes humor, if you don't get it.)

"or you wouldn't be around very long at SCO"

[Anonymous Coward]

do you really think that anyone will be around at SCO for very long?

Mormans on Prosac

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be

A Bloody McBride?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this would be about a new drink! I had visions of opening Darl's veins into a tumbler of ice and vodka.

I figure the alcohol will sterilize whatever bugs live in his system.

Bottoms up!
Mal the Elder

Forgot one

[dbIII]

3.) Pay huge amounts of the companys money to your own brother in the name of legal fees. It looks like IBM and linux was never the real target, it looks like a set up to lose, milk SCO dry and leave with the money and a reputation of trying to take on big blue from a tiny little company with less staff than the average high school.

Re:Forgot one

[connorbd]

I think Mafiosi would refer to it as a "bust-out" scheme.

Re:Another 3 points down...looong story

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the company was crooked long before pretty
boy floyd 'Darl McBride' took it over. Once upon
a time SCO was a good company named 'Santa Cruz Operation' that sold unix distros at a fair price
and ran a civilized marketing program. Then came linux and the bottom fell out of unix. This left the Santa Cruz boys up the creek without a paddle.
Eventually they sold out even though they were in the position to and could have easily reinvented their business as a services operation. Santa Cruz is a few miles south of San Jose near a valley full of majestic redwood groves. A really weird criminal named Kemper used to frequent there picking up female hitchhikers and leaving their heads in various places, but that johnny was eventually caught and put out of the public's misery.
Anyway, Santa Cruz Operation sold out to Ransom
Love and company who was then head of Caldera, a not so successful linux distro vendor whose distros had a nice loader program but a weak configuration. Seems that Caldera distros could not stand a power failure. Any power failure! At the first sign of a power failure or anything that even caused a machine reset, the installation would fail on a 'kernel panic', never to been seen or run again.....along with all the data that you put into it, for there was no provision to retrieve the trapped data as that would have required that the irretrievably broken system actually boot somehow if only to a console. Ransome knew that he did not have a product, but he and his company went through the motions. Just about that time linux got hot in the year before the dot bomb bubble burst. This rescued Ransome and his boys handily. They did not have to have
a product that was good. Their ole distro of 7
CD's that had the working install program was long gone by then. It had been replaced by the two CD program with the LISA loader that looked nice at first but failed as above described....On top whooeey but underneath phoooey! Now they could continue to market this failure to the public while they pushed the major effort to private investors in order to lure fodder for the bubble. It was here that Paul Allen, the fifty percent holder of Micro$$$$ stepped in with a controlling purchase of Caldera stock and he became the largest insider in the company. Allen WAS Caldera. In March of 2002 or so, Caldera went public with a closed stock offering. It opened at 8, and closed sales pushed up the price to 26 before the sales were opened to the public. Those public that had put in buy orders as soon as the stock was offered and hoped to buy in at 8 were cheated by the insiders who got there first. By the time the public got in, the stock was trading at its historical high. It went higher a little more for a few days on momentum. Then it started to fall. Those who hoped for riches from seeing how Red Hat skyrocketed after its IPO were not so easily disappointed and waited too long to sell.
I know. I was one of them. I lost 1200 dollars in this crooked scheme by Ransom Love and Paul Allen and others to defraud investors of millions. You see these 'good fellas' all had 'stock options' which as executives and major controlling stockholders they were able to vote about for themselves. That meant they could buy under option a stock worth, say 20 dollars, for the sum of one dollar. They could then sell this stock for the market price and make a real 'killin. This bunch had a lot of options and created a bear market in this stock. That bear was ravenousely hungry! The stock fell,,,and fell,,,,and fell worse than the crash of 1929-37. Over 98 percent of the valus of the stock was blown to the wind. In the process, all the public holders eventually sold for tremendous losses. At the end there was a small knot stubborn souls, but Ransom and Paul had a plan for them too. It was called a recombination. They did a 4 into one reverse split. This meant that if you held 4 shares, after the split you would hold one share. This redused the public's share even more. And there wer

No thanks bartender...

[QuantumFTL]

A SCO on the rocks? No thanks, I'd like to keep my dinner down :)

Cliche correction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very sorry to do this. Your post was very intelligent and insightful, but I just got distracted in your last sentence when you used the phrase "tote the line".

Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope that this little titbit of information will someday prove useful.

Can't someone just buy SCO?

[Chonine]

SCO can't be worth that much any more, is it? What is stopping some other very big anti-open source company (hrm...), from just buying their remains, as well as the rights to SCO's UNIX? They could continue the court battle with IBM forever (financially), and even if it fails, MS owning the rights to UNIX is a pretty scary thing.

Re:Can't someone just buy SCO?

[colinrichardday]

Whoever buys SCO also buys its liabilities. And IBM intends that SCO have liabilities :-).

Reward failure, business model for a new millenium

[godless dave]

Another candidate being considered for World Bank President is Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz's only claim to fame: being wrong about every aspect of the Iraq situation.

Why are they late submitting their financials?

[Locke2005]

Could it be because whoever signs the document is almost certainly going to jail, and they're scrambling to find somebody stupid enough to take the blame for their lies and misrepresentations?