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SCO Loses
An anonymous reader writes "The one summary judgement that puts a stick into SCO's spokes has just come down. The judge in the epic SCO case has ruled that SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights. With that one decision, a whole bunch of other decisions will fall like dominoes. As PJ says, 'That's Aaaaall, Folks! ... All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end. But we must say thank you to Novell and especially to its legal team for the incredible work they have done. I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, but they won what matters most, and it's been a plum pleasin' pleasure watching you work. The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work and thanks go to Novell for being willing to see this through."
What more be said?
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
SCOX is up 6 cents at the end of the trading day. I t boggles the mind how their stock has performed during all this bad news..
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I'll bet all the companies that forked over money for unix licenses are kicking themselves in the ass right about now.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
A million Redmond developers cried out in pain!
Wow that definitely puts the Microsoft Novell deal in a MUCH clearer light... ok who is whos biatch now?
All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end.
Uhm, the reason they lost is because they picked a fight with players who had billions of dollars, and a very well-established team of expensive lawyers, ready to fight.
They were Germany picking a fight with Russia.
Most people who get sued unfairly don't have that luxury.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
...furniture stores report chair shortages all over Washington State.
blow your mind already
When this is not an occasion for celebration - I don't know. What about an SCO party? You can use facebook, upcoming.org and all the web 2.0 platforms to plan a party near you. Lots of people will be eager to join. Try it now.
Something positive came out of a lawsuit? Not just mutual losses? Seriously though, as with all things legal, it is anything but set in stone. Still, cautious optimism is deserved.
import system.cool.Sig;
I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end.
How many BILLIONS of dollars in lawyers fees, thousands of hours of (taxpayer-funded) court costs, and millions of manpower hours has this farce wasted all to come up with the "right" outcome, that SCO has absolutely no basis for this fiaSCO?
Sorry, I can't call this "sort[ed] out in the end" unless Glen gets to personally pull the trigger with Darl standing against the wall. And every stockholder in SCO, IBM, Novell, Redhat, and every open source developer, and several others, get to piss on the corpse.
Can we finally get the criminal case against Darl McBride and the rest of the execs rolling?
Otherwise, they'll just move on to another company, to do mostly the same.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
You forgot to thank the academy, and your mom.
From the article summary is sounds like the software equivalent of winning world war one.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
Turns out that SCO owns the copyright on the "Duke Nukem Forever" code.
The case is expected to be settled just before the universe dies a heat-death.
Cue Novell-MS FUD in 3... 2... 1...
FATALITY!
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Since this was backed by MS and SUN (who has since sold the stocks that they got for their 20 million investment; the 1 million dollar investment was for the USB work; and now, SUN disavows this), it was never really intended to be won. I think that it was meant to slow down linux and to see what paths were possible for MS. Now MS has a path and they are on it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Novell... you have redeemed yourselves... maybe.
Ha ha HA HAH!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Somebody run to fark and grab a HaHa! guy to post here.
"Free at last" may be an overstatement, but it is a breath of fresh air.
Who do I make this check for $699 out to now?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Even so, your frustration is with the suit having been brought in the first place. The system works, SCO just decided to engage in some blatant abuse.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
You forgot the billions of hours slashdot posters used to create countless amout of SCO rants and flames.
Since SCO doesn't own UNIX there is still some fun to come as IBM tears them to pieces. What would be really interesting is if IBM could somehow drag MS into this mess but we all know that isn't likely.
Still, a good day!
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Dodged that bullet.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
Now the entire house of cards will come down like a stack of dominoes! Checkmate...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"Sorry, I can't call this "sort[ed] out in the end" unless Glen gets to personally pull the trigger with Darl standing against the wall. And every stockholder in SCO, IBM, Novell, Redhat, and every open source developer, and several others, get to piss on the corpse."
Dude have some perspective please. Darl didn't rape or murder anyone. Heck he might have actually believed that Linux was ripping off SCO's IP. I am glad they lost maybe even overjoyed. Wishing that level of physical harm over what is just a business deal is just wrong.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Six cents must have doubled their stock value.
EPIC FAIL!!!
as a legitimate reason to go out and get falling down drunk! It's party time!!
~ In Trust, We Trust ~
I'm not completely following all of this so correct me if I'm wrong.
It sounds like the courts said that Novell owns the Unix copyrights.
If so, could (would?) Novell release the code so no one ever has to
question whether Linux contains parts of Unix.
Ah, well. It's probably a pipe dream.
What about the SCO Unix fee troll on Slashdot? He's out of a job now. We should have a whip round for him or something.
Quick! Somebody measure the temperature in hell!
Don't F*** with the PENGUIN!
Heck [Darl] might have actually believed that Linux was ripping off SCO's IP.
I figure he probably did believe that.
And by the time the discovery rammed home to him that his yes-men should have said no and he didn't have a leg to stand on, it was too late for him to back out. To say "oops" and throw in the towel would have collapsed what was left of SCO - and brought the investors down on him for "breach of fiduciary duty".
This way he can say "I tried!".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
SCO sued IBM in Mar 2003. It hoped to win $5 Billion and then charge Linux users $699 per cpu.
What this decision in this SCO vs. Novell case does is show that SCO does not own Unix copyrights. Therefore, SCO does not have standing to sue.
Standing?
Example: Jane cannot sue Bill for sealing John's tires. Jane does not have standing. (although John has standing to sue Bill for stealing his tires.)
Likewise, SCO does not have standing to sue IBM re: Linux. Novell may have standing. But in any event, Novell waived SCO's right for this suit against IBM.
I'm sure IBM wants to win on the merits. Not just a technicality that SCO does not have standing to sue. But the standing issue is enough to dismiss the SCO vs. IBM (and the world) suit.
On the other hand, IBM has counterclaims against SCO. Including Lanham Act claims. These have teeth. I hope to see SCO get their asses handed to them soon.
Once this fiaSCO is over, I don't know what I'll do. I now read Groklaw as much as I once used to read Slashdot. I hope it is over soon.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
With great interest I quickly visited their site to see what they had to say about this.
Their pressroom:
http://www.sco.com/company/news/
The latest story is from October 2006, entitled "What I Like About SCO". I guess the last 10 months have been pretty quiet. That, or they canned the poor schmuck who was updating the page to try and pay for their failing legal maneuvers.
. . . and not everthing was decided in the summary judgments, so there's still more that SCO can do to drag this out, if they don't run out of money first
Does this mean PJ goes back to being a law clerk, and we get the word 'grok' back as what Heinlein meant it to be used for?
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
A half-joke in investor circles that even a dead cat will bounce if you drop it far enough. "eh, this stock is only a nickel and it was worth five dollars last quarter, I'll buy twenty shares and see if anything comes of my dollar..."
"The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work"
No it doesn't. Some of us thought this whole thing was hilarious, and are dissapointed that this could mean the end of a lot of good laughs.
I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end.
I'll take the dare: They take forever, they're incredibly expensive, but they sometimes deliver the right result? You wouldn't accept that from anyone else.
And as we all know, it ain't over until... then.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
There were rumors (facts? can't remember) about M$ and SCO being in bed with one another, one way or another. M$ has already proven their marketing division pretty much supercedes everything in their thought processes. So, one wonders: SCO has locked several companies (and their judicial advisors) in a long load of crap for quite some time. Who stands to gain from this? What other resources did their actions lock down? Could M$ be looking to pull a quickie somehow - for example, keep IBM or Novell busy while they quietly slip through a patent, product theft, social engineering sollicitation? I'm just brainstorming here, but these are the backlines that company deals operate on. It's also likely that there will be multiple plans within plans influencing each other so as to maximise effect irrespective of any outcome, short or long, right or wrong. Too bad for them that such plans tend to leave obvious logical trails. Brainstormers, unite! Let's uncover the truth!
;)
Yeah, me too. Truth is utterly subjective and, indeed, fat chance. But it's fun to rant once in a while
- Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
They warned in their SEC filings that a loss in this litigation would harm their ability to operate as a "going concern."
The judge ruled that
- both the Microsoft and Sun licenses were covered by the APA (That's 16 million)
- that SCO was supposed to pass on 100% of the revenues, and receive a fee back of 5%
- that SCO has breeched its fudiciary duty to Novell
SCO doesn't have $16 million on hand, doesn't have equity worth $16 million (with this judgment, their net worth is negative), and there is no way that the PIPE Fairy will be paying another call.They were big talkers, but now they're just dickheads.
Get ready to see SCO trying to trade as SCO.bk
Kevin Smith on Prince
Time to pick up some really cheap SCO stock!
"To our utter destruction," remember that one? That was how far dear Ralphie Yarro was ready to go, to "take on" Linux. So nice to see his plan working out just right.
I still remember the morning I looked on slashdot and saw the original announcement that SCO was filing copyright claims against Linux. It's amazing how long how this has been going on, and how much has changed since then (and not just what's changed in SCO's ever-shifting claims!-- that first morning I seem to remember most of the discussion was speculation on what exactly it was that SCO claimed was stolen from them. Years later and I still don't think we ever really found out). The start of this case was so long ago it was like an entirely different world. This case has been going on longer than the Iraq war. This started so long ago that at the time Slashdot was still known for hating Microsoft rather than salivating over the XBox.
This in mind, while it's wonderful that the system showed SCO wrong in the end, I have trouble seeing this really as a loss for SCO. They managed to continue their claims for a good five years-- a significant fraction of the lifetime of Linux itself-- without ever showing a whit of substance to those claims. SCO will die now that their case is lost, but they might have died years sooner and possibly poorer if not for this lawsuit gambit keeping them on life support. Microsoft managed to fund this through weird proxies without one single bit of consequences for themselves, and unlike SCO they will live on.
Linux has now weathered its first major court challenge, but the media coverage of Linux's successes in this case has never quite matched up in amount to the withering and credulous coverage of the baseless PR accusations of Darl McBride's heyday-- though we won in the end, the case may well be a net PR loss. Meanwhile, I don't think Linux is as viable as a movement as it was at the beginning of this case. This for all I know has nothing to do with the SCO case itself, but it seems like five years ago people still thought Linux on the desktop had a future, now I don't hear anyone talking about that anymore. Five years ago linux seemed to be going places, whereas now Linux's situation seems largely static, little progressed from where it was five years ago. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't really feel good right now thinking about how this entire debacle has gone.
I guess my main response is kudos to PJ of Groklaw for her amazing and tireless journalism throughout this case. I'd be curious to ask PJ what her plans are as to what she's going to do next. In the short term maybe she should write a book about this entire thing.
Judge Kimball writes...
So, when Microsoft and Sun gave SCO millions of dollars for a "unix license" back in 2003, according to SCO's APA agreement with Novell, SCO was supposed to pass 100% of that money to Novell, who would then pass back 5% of it as SCO's administrative fee. SCO kept it all. Just as Microsoft and Sun intended. After all, that money was intended to finance SCO's litigation. SCO now owes Novell more than SCO is worth.
Aside: Sun did not need a Unix license from SCO. It already had a license from AT&T. Microsoft surely did not need a Unix license from SCO back in 2003. For what? Oh, yeah, to help finance a baseless lawsuit against a potential competitor (IBM and Linux).
I love the smell of SCO bankruptcy on a Monday morning.
The judge used the word "conversion". Does this mean that it may become a criminal matter?
Still reading the 102 page decision by Judge Kimball.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
Somebody go to the air port and make sure the officers of SCOX doesn't skip town to escape criminal prosecution that is sure to follow...
I'm thinking "Knew or should have known"; in other words he is the CEO and is therefore responsible.
I think we owe PJ and the groklaw community a round of applause.
/. shares some of its audience with groklaw, and I'll be happy to raise a glass to the folks who applied the open source philosophy to legal research and came up trumps. They've done us a huge favour and done us proud.
:)
;)
I'm sure
I don't know how much IBM got from PJ and the groklaw community, but I'm sure they added perspectives the IBM team wouldn't have had time to research themselves.
Thanks guys and girls
Griblik (Groklaw lurker
I have this mental picture of a bleak rocky plain. Darl McBride lies sprawled on his back, dead eyes frozen in unspeakable horror. In his chest is a smoking hole. Looming over him, coiled in black mist, the terrible shadowy black robed figure of a Nazgul. In one skeletal hand the Nazgul holds Darl's still-beating heart and in the other a black Valextra briefcase.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
SCO can't petition Alberto Gonzales to render IBM to Syria for a tortured confession?
And you won't bankrupt them so easily.
informative? oh gee
All your UNIX are belong to us!
Phroggy asked: "When will it be technically over..."
IANAL - When ALL appeals are over.
You can bet that SCO will chase every appeal that they can afford. SCO will most likely ask for a 'stay' (don't know the legal term) until it appeals. There is a BIG gap between what SCO owes Novell and what SCO has in cash.
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=scox&hl=en
It's good to know we still have proponents of kangaroo courts hanging around. Stupid in-depth inquiry into the matter to arrive at a well-reasoned decision!
Now PJ will gave to find a new source of legalbabble techie pr0n to mine. Or get a real job.
Sun bought the right to release the code which (it thought) SCO owned as part of OpenSolaris
"Acta est fabula, plaudite!"
(the play is over, applaud!)
Circumcision is child abuse.
That's what I was thinking, maybe after the second bounce. Then, if you got controlling interest, rush in there with private detectives and lawyers and grab all the paperwork/data/records you can find. There has *got* to be some juicy stuff in there that can sink some MS assholes, at least there is a high probability of it. That would be incredibly valuable and would help to end their dominance of the software industry and then we could get some real constructive innovation. And you know the goons at SCO won't destroy that data, knowing that it is their last (sub rosa) bargaining chip to avoid becoming penniless and in serious debt. They may try to hide it, but won't destroy it.
Wishing harm is generally wrong, but.. we used to hang thieves, and some places still chop bits off. Thats another perspective.
For the reasons stated above, the court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights.
Need I say more? MS and SUSE couldn't be in any better possible position. Red Hat and Ubuntu and the other small players are going to have quite a fight on their hands.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm gettin' a pro bono just thinkin' about it!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now.
Easy: How many years has this taken? What ever happened to our Constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial?
If it just comes down to who owns the copyrights, why the hell wasn't that discovered during the preliminaries? Why did this case ever come to trial? Why wasn't it dismissed out of hand right at the start?
In fact, one can argue that, as has happened before, Microsoft/SCO won in a very real sense: They demonstrated that they can take you to court on bogus claims, never present any evidence against you, and make you pay millions of dollars over several years. The main reason they "lost" was that they took on a group that included IBM, who has very deep pockets. If it had been most of us fighting them alone, we would have been bankrupt long ago, and thus unable to continue the court battle.
This was a successful demonstration of how people with money can use the court system to drag their opponents down and impose huge expenses on them. Many managers in many companies understand this, and have learned the intended lesson: If you want to avoid such court proceedings that drag on for years, you should just buy the stuff sold by the big guys. Stay away from the stuff sold by the little guys, and you'll be safe from the flocks of lawyers.
It's a lesson that needs reinforcing every few years.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
SCOX - The SCO Group, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:SCOX) +0.06 (4.00%) Aug 10 - Close After Hours: 1.55 -0.01 (-0.48%) Why didn't the stock plunge towards zero after this ruling?
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
This brings me back to the days where there were at least 4 or 5 SCO Stories a day on Slashdot! Oh...those were the day!!! I almost miss those days....NOT!
Hey, at least there were good for the In Soviet Russia jokes!
You guys know it's bad karma to dance on someone's grave, even if it's SCO.
Well....
Ah, what the hell? tipptity-tippity-tippity-tap-tap-tap Maybe just this once. tipptity-tappity-tippity-tappity-tap-tap-tap
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
SCO: Ow, My everything!
"BILLIONS of dollars in lawyers fees, thousands of hours of (taxpayer-funded) court costs, and millions of manpower hours"
You're off by *at least* by at least one order of magnitude in any of that. In manhours, I can't even imagine. At least three, just to get it into millions of manhours. Do you have a resume on file with Fox News, yet? Though being off by a factor a thousand may be a bit much, even for them.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
break out the champagne, however, you literally never know with these things . . . other than that reserved optimism, I say: HOOORRAAAYYYY
SARAVA!
Dude have some perspective please. Darl didn't rape or murder anyone.
Neither did the Enron folks.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
You just need the budget of a small transnational to use it properly.
The former CEO of the now defunct "The SCO Group", Darl McBride, has recently invested heavily in Soap On A Rope stocks.
...that SuSE has distributed and still distributes Linux under the GPL...
...that if this really does spell the end of SCO that two versions of Unix, OpenServer and UnixWare may effectively disappear (though one could argue that has already happened).
Don't get me wrong, I applaud the decision and hope all those jerks get their comeuppance, but there was a time when SCO and Unixware were the answers to Unix on the x86 platform and I would sort of miss them in a nostalgia sort of way.
...has there been a peep out of O'Gara or Enderle yet?
After years of being told SCO had no chance, this is basically just a "okay" moment.
I mean, basically after the first year or so, it was obvious this was going nowhere. I'd follow some of the case on Groklaw, but the last few months it's been just motion and counter-motion - nothing really interesting going on.
The only thing that will mildly interest me now is SCO's bankruptcy report when Novell socks them for all the money they owe them.
And then IBM will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
It will be fun to see where the SCO stock is by end of next week. De-listed maybe?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I could do without the "I told you so" tone of this post.
I hate sigs.
For IBM's landsharks are otherwise known as Nazgûl; for their relentless pursue of their master's agenda.
It is also my understanding that Sun's payment to SCO was to have 'clear title' to the code in Solaris. I'm guessing that the intent was more so Sun wouldn't have to cut a check to SCO for every copy of Solaris shipped rather than opening the code.
However, what I would really like though is some kind of "summary judgment" on the fact that Linux is clean, i.e., it doesn't include any UNIX code.
The Raven
What's going on here, and why isn't the FTC involved?
> Heck he might have actually believed that Linux was ripping off SCO's IP. No, really he didn't. Don't fall into that trap: having an open mind does NOT mean you never hold people accountable. Not everybody in the world is good, and in this case it is clear that Darl (and others) were trying to game the system for their own benefit. That said, shooting Darl is clearly not right. But he definitely needs to pay a significant personal penalty for this.
Scox was a very small part of msft's ongoing mis-information campaign. The entire scam cost msft well under $50 million. Probably less than it costs to product one msft commercial. Not bad for nearly 5 years of FUD.
Msft's efforts are now directed at thoroughly defeating the ODF efforts, and establishing OOXML as the world's only standard. Msft is winning there also.
Hurry!
"You're buffynated!"
Could somebody please update the Wiki article? English is not my first language, so I don't think I should touch it ;-)
:-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
And they havn't been put up against a wall and shot either. Nor should they be.
Of course... you got rich off of this didn't you?
What is the cost of half a decade of fear, uncertainty and doubt that overshadowed Linux until this day? How long will an image of uncertainty persist?
And it won't be resolved quickly.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" --Salvor Hardin
If so, he'd have to be REALLY good at lying to himself. During discovery, an email to Darl from one of his advisors (Anderer, I think) said something to the effect of: we have to be careful here, because it looks like our rights aren't nearly as broad as we think they are.
The email in question was sent BEFORE sco filed suit against IBM.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
If they were running a pump and dump scheme, which they were, their affiliates buy stock, they make the Unix claim, their affiliates sell the stock through laundering techniques right before it becomes obvious the suit is going nowhere and the scheme works---they win. In previous postings on slashdot, this was recognized as what was obviously going on. It certainly seemed early on, Darl DoucheBag knew the claim wasn't going to fly, but he didn't care. People's short collective memory has only helped him get away with it, thus keeping this thing in court for as long as it takes to dissociate it from his real purpose for doing this. Microsoft bankrolls the suit because it's good FUD against Linux. There's nothing to celebrate here. This cost the freeware distributors time and money, generated concerns about the liability of freeware users, and profited SCO's investor affiliates. The emperor's butt-nekked...
Heck he might have actually believed that Linux was ripping off SCO's IP
No, he didn't. Read the decision. McBride knew he didn't own the Unix copyright and had been asking Novell to give it to him for most of 2003. He hired IP consultants to figure out what SCO had and they came back with "not a lot."
nobody with any sense at all deals with penny stocks.
It's called hyperbole - I very much doubt that the OP was actually suggesting that physical harm and murder was an appropriate response.
To all the /. 'ers...
I know many of you have criticized us over the years for suing everyone. We knew we were right but...
Oops, our bad... sorry.
Can someone tag this article "finally"? Because the soap opera called SCO vs Linux has finally come to an end.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
"Dude have some perspective please. Darl didn't rape or murder anyone."
Yeah good point. What Darl did was WORSE than rape or murder.
Thakns for keeping our heads focused on reality and out of the clouds.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Just imagine how long this case would have taken if SCO actually had a leg to stand on.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
It's basically the tort equivalent of "theft" in criminal law (but it has a slightly broader definition than theft -- conversion is an offense against someone's right of possession, not necessarily ownership).
that Novell wins after entering into an agreement with Microsoft?
;)
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Could you just give me your mother's maiden name along with the acount number?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
http://www.caldera.com/images/execs/McBride34.jpg
Where's the license fee troll?
I could almost forgive them for their deal with microshaft.....
sic transit gloria mundi
Ballmer (kneeling before Gates): What is thy bidding, my master?
Gates: There is a great disturbance in the Force.
Ballmer: I have felt it.
Gates: We have a new enemy: Linux.
Ballmer: Yes, my master.
Gates: It could destroy us. Or at least bring our stock price down to a realistic value.
Ballmer: It's just a toy. IBM can no longer help them.
For the life of me, I have no idea how to end this without getting even cornier. But wait, there's more...
Linus Torvalds is seated at a table with a bunch of lawyers. One of them happens to be Darl McBride, who is nonchalantly thumbing through Linus' file.
McBride: As you can see, we've had our eye on you for ... some time now, Mr. Torvalds. It seems you've been living TWO lives.
In one life, you're Linus Benedict Torvalds, program writer for a respectable software company... You have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and you (*winces*) help your old lady carry out her garbage.
The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Benevolent Dictator" and are guilty of misappropriating the intellectual property of SCO.
One of these lives has a future. The other does not.
Linus: You're on crack.
The SCO case would have been under everyone's radar if not for the amazing work of PJ and contributors to groklaw, who no doubt also encouraged the defense team. The outcome was obvious from the beginning, though. SCO knew that, and that's what's worrisome. The end result of this pitiful case is that a lot of anti-FOSS attorneys have learned how to assess "the cost of doing business," a la Microsoft and its antitrust skirmishes, so the victory is not what it seems. The really serious minds like PJ and the fab folks at groklaw know that already, too, so this victory counts more as a call to action--an example of how action works--than a legal victory.
The SCO case launched in 2003. In Moore's-law-years, that's three generations of CPUs. It's a Google IPO, an Apple shift to Intel, assorted consolidations of telcos and other big-board-game inscrutability. What's happened with Open Source? Firefox numbers increasing. Software patents getting a re-examination. (Cory Doctorow announcing a switch to Ubuntu? Uhsowhat.) But what's really changed?
br? I hope that the programmers who write code know that they are doing all the work. They're the heroes. With the attention going to big-name brouhahas and guys with easy money, it's gotta be said that the lonesome hacker is the real world-changer.
Woohoo! That'll show Microsoft and the SCO group! Haha! Finally! :D
If recent history is proof of anything, Darl will end being CEO of some other company, probably a larger one.
Bob Nardelli ran Home Depot into the ground, got more than $260 million dollars for walking out and now runs Chrysler
You see, now he is an experienced CEO
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
SCO was unable to produce any real evidence that Linux infringed the Unix copyrights it didn't own.
Does everyone who paid the $699 get their money back?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Any system that's this susceptible to abuse, by definition, doesn't work.
> > Sorry, I can't call this "sort[ed] out in the end" unless Glen gets to personally pull the trigger with Darl standing against the wall. And every stockholder in SCO, IBM, Novell, Redhat, and every open source developer, and several others, get to piss on the corpse.
What he said. Except for the pissing part. What did the million gallons of piss do to deserve such an undignified fate?
>> Heck [Darl] might have actually believed that Linux was ripping off SCO's IP.
> I figure he probably did believe that.
Actually, there's testimony in the ruling in question that seems to indicate strongly otherwise; that Darl himself repeatedly asked Novell for the Unix copyrights in the spring of 2003!
So back when Darl was swaggering about talking about 'their' Unix IP, he was working behind the scenes to get Novell to give him said IP!
Novell will release the source code of the ironic GNU/Unix
(GNU: GNU is Not Unix!!!)
SCOwned!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.
Kif, fetch my uniform.
The reason scox agreed to be msft's puppet is because scox had nothing to lose. Scox never had a profitable quarter. Scox was clearly heading for delisting and bankruptcy before the scam started.
The scam was planned in Dec 2002. Scox had a market cap around $10 million, at the time. Now, scox's market cap is over $25 million - thanks entirely to msft and sunw money, and msft arranged financing.
So this scam did not hurt scox at all. Just the opposite, if not for this scam, scox would probably have been out of business three years ago.
I wonder IF Caldera Systems will make it to their next quarterly report AND what will they say in the conference call and the legal filings...
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
After 4.5 years, the case is finally nearing an end because scox never even owned the IP that the lawsuit was about. Think about that. It took that long for the courts to simply review the plain language of the contract.
Why didn't the courts ask for proof of ownership 4.5 years ago?
Instead the courts did everything backwards. First the courts allowed scox to game the system with years of obviously irrelevant discovery requests, then *after* all this time, and somewhere around $100 million spent by IBM to provide the insane discovery, the court finally gets around to finding out that scox never owned the IP to begin.
BTW: IBM pointed out to the courts, many years ago, that scox could not prove ownership.
I'm not at all happy about this. Think about it. It has now been ruled that the Unix copyrights are owned by NOVELL. You know, the company that made a deal with the devil last fall? You know ... Novell, aka the Linux division of Microsoft?
Before the ball drops at the end of 2007, we will see Novell (aka Microsoft) start to sue other Linux distributors. Red Hat and Canonical will be hobbled by lawsuits, Novell will become the dominant player, and Novell's corporate masters in Redmond will finally have Linux under their control.
Do you like the sound of that?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Judge sums it up as follows:
On January 4, 2003, McBride received an email from Michael Anderer, a consultant for SCO retained to examine its intellectual property. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 12. Anderer stated that the APA "transferred substantially less" of Novell's intellectual property than Novell owned. Anderer noted that Santa Cruz's "asset purchase" from Novell "excludes all patents, copyrights, and just about everything else." Id. Anderer cautioned that "[w]e really need to be clear on what we can license. It may be a lot less than we think."
On February 4, 2003, McBride contacted Christopher Stone, Vice Chairman of Novell, and stated that he wanted Novell to "amend" the APA to give SCO "the copyrights to UNIX." Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17; id. Ex. 18 ("Stone Dep." at 108-09). Then, on February 25, 2003, McBride twice called a Novell employee in business development, David Wright, and said, "SCO needs the copyrights." Wright passed on McBride's request to Novell's in-house legal department. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 13. McBride's request was memorialized in an email written that day by a Novell in-house attorney, Greg Jones. Id.
Also early in 2003, McBride and Chris Sontag of SCO contacted Greg Jones regarding the UNIX copyrights. Id. Ex. 8 ("Decl. Greg Jones") at 13, 14; Decl. Christopher S. Sontag 6. McBride stated that "the asset purchase agreement excluded copyrights from being transferred" and that it was a "clerical error." Jones Dep. at 182. On February 20, 2003, Chris Sontag also sent a draft letter to Novell that sought to clarify the parties' rights under the APA. Decl. Christopher S. Sontag Ex.
Again in March 2003, McBride called Stone to ask him if Novell would "give him some changes so he could have the copyrights." Christopher Stone Dep. at 248-49. Ralph Yarro, Chairman of SCO, requested an in-person meeting with Stone. In that meeting, on May 14, 2003, Yarro told Stone that he wanted Novell to amend the APA to give SCO the copyrights. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17 at 4; Stone Dep. at 137-8. Stone refused. Id. On May 19, 2003, McBride called Stone and Joe LaSala, Novell's General Counsel, and again requested that Novell convey the copyrights to SCO. McBride said, "we only need you to amend the contract so that we can have the copyrights." Stone Dep. 249-250. Stone made notes in June 2003 memorializing both conversations. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17. E. SCOsource Initiative
In approximately this same time frame, in January 2003, SCO launched its SCOsource initiative, which was an effort to obtain license fees from Linux users based on claims to Unix System V intellectual property. McBride commented that "SCO owns much of the core UNIX intellectual property, and has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights."
The reason this case took so long was that Kimball allowed scox to game the system. Kimball could have put a stop to it years ago, but decided not to. Instead Kimball decided to burden ibm with about $100 million worth of obviously bogus discovery, and delay the cases for years.
Direct quotes from Judge Kimball - February 2005:
"Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the Unix software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities," Kimball wrote.
"Further, SCO, in its briefing, chose to cavalierly ignore IBM's claims that SCO could not create a disputed fact regarding whether it even owned the relevant copyrights," the judge wrote. This refers to the matter that Novell Inc. is claiming that it, and not SCO, actually owns Unix's intellectual property."
"Notwithstanding SCO's puzzling denial in its briefing that it has not alleged a claim against IBM for copyright"
Yet, Kimball decided to dismiss IBM's request for a partial summary judgement, and instead allow scox's laughable discovery requests.
Scox discovery requests were laughable because scox wanted 20 years of AIX revisions. This makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever because scox was claiming that IBM put system V UNIX code into Linux.
Kimball even acknowledged the absurdity of scox's claims asking scox something like: "you have Linux source code, you have system V source code, what else do you think you need?"
But Kimball allowed scox's gaming anyway.
SCO is still a going concern, and if Novell releases the code, SCO could sue (and as an injured party) might win.
The timing will be critical, but what's likely to happen is that SCO's assets will go to Novell. Then Novell can decide what to do.
However, Novell's in bed with the very devil himself, Microsoft, who might just have a trick or two up their sleeves. After all, after Noorda's death, Novell's changed their tune mightily. Microsoft could buy Novell, and the keys to Unix, for chump change-- and Microsoft has it IN CASH. No one else is in a cash position to do so.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I used SCO during the "OpenServer" years, and we called it "SCO Opensewer". Open Desktop got tagged "SCO Opendeathtrap".
* They seemed to have gotten their ideas of OS design from Windows 3.11, with at least four incompatible ways to install drivers and applications.
* They were one of the last companies to really try and ship a linkable kernel with a crippled internal-only C compiler that was nobbled to only compile driver stubs so they could charge more for the compiler.
* System administration was an appalling hash of old incompatible programs, text files, binary files, with no rhyme or reason to it.
* SCO's appalling implementation of soi-disant "C2" security made it a laughingstock... for many years there was a 14 character limit on Usenet group name components because there were enough people still using SCO and SCO's C2 software made some versions of News crash if a group name got over 14 characters.
They were clearly completely out of their depth by then, with no idea how to do anything but apply layers of bad ideas on top of worse ones. When they took on Unixware, I was appalled. I just waited for them to dump the stinking corpse of Openserver on top of it and was sadly not disappointed.
The glory years of SCO were when Xenix ruled, and when Microsoft was in the driving seat. After that it was all downhill... when they finally dumped Xenix emulation there was no more reason to use them.
And how was Linux slowed down?
Dude have some perspective please. Darl didn't rape or murder anyone.
Neither did anyone involved in the Enron fiasco. They just ruined the lives of thousands of people.
Which is what could have happened to the entire Linux/OSS community if SCO had won. Never mind thousands of IBMers who could have lost their livelihoods (Novell is pretty much a shell anyway, but I guess they might have lost a coupla guys).
We still put people in jail for things that are VERY BAD for society. I don't think the OP was actually serious about pissing on a gun-shot corpse.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How are they winning? The couldn't even get a stacked committee to give OOXML the go ahead. I'd say, right now, Microsoft has some pretty damn serious issues with the long-term viability of their monopoly,
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now that Novell officially controls the UNIX trademark, I guess they'll turn around and sue themselves over some Linux code?
Yeah, system "worked" in the end. After someone was able to throw zillions of dolars, and thousands of manhours into fighting SCO.
95% of people who get sued don't have same abilities, so system doesn't work for them.
There was a case brought in India, a civil dispute between two guys.
When the case finally hit the docket, it was dismissed because both the plaintiff and the defendant were dead. Of old age.
It had been 23 years since the filing of the suit. That's a "not speedy" court system.
Besides, we never got to the trial. This was just a bunch of prep work leading up to a trial. This was just a hearing, and a ruling on a motion.
All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
If someone waits until SCO's stock is nearly worthless and then buys a controlling interest, could they then have the pleasure of playing Donald Trump (you know "You're fired!") to all the SCO execs? If you did buy enough SCO stock to do that, would you be financially vulnerable to IBM's counter suit (or any other legal action against SCO?)
That's what Sun paid for. Like it or not, the place to go for a SysV license was SCO. And Sun needed additional rights in order to open Solaris source code, which is based on SysV, and was almost certainly no licensed in any way that would allow Sun to release it to third parties.
So your claim that Sun didn't need additional SysV rights is ignorant at best.
Sun probably didn't even know about the agreement between SCO and Novell. It's not like SCO advertised the part that said that Novell was supposed to get the money.
Don't forget to pay your $699 licensing fee, you cock-smoking teabaggers! :)
bash: rtfm: command not found
Ewoks are dancing and singing, fireworks and x-wing fighters are blasting, and the ghosts of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-wan, and Yoda are smiling approvingly at Luke.
Let's just hope they don't go back and super-impose Christian Haydenson, smiling and knowingly nodding that your precious Star Wars has been raped.
And in other news a lawyer from SCO was quoted with the following information.....
"We are obviously disappointed but confident that after the appeals court reads through our evidence which should be at the courthouse by July of 2008 a new judgment will be entered on our behalf. Accordingly we are requesting an intimidate stay of this decision until such time as we are able to fully and completely present our evidence............we also are requesting the appeals court order........"
[cue joyful uproar]
SCOx is well and truly screwed. Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield. Today, SCO was the bug!
Novel will let you trade them for M$ ones .....
those who actually paid sco for the license fee are going to sue the hell out of them for extortion.
SCO loses everything.
Shareholders are going to jump ship like rats now.
They're using their grammar skills there.
All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now.
Oh, I think I can take a shot at that.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/08/12.html
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
EV1 (home of EV1Servers.net) was one of the foolish companies that actually purchased the Brooklyn Bridge rights that SCO was selling.
(See http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/ev1033004.cfm)
I would imagine they would want a place in line to get their money back, but would it be behind Novell? behind IBM's countersuits? What, if anything, could they realistically get back?
Maybe EV1 would have done better investing in Nigerian money brokering.
Bet a friend that Duke Nukem Forever would be released before this was sorted out. Ah well, can't win them all.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Our system of justice works upon the idea that it is BETTER for a guilty man to walk free than it is for an innocent man to be convicted. That is why we must be vigilant in keeping a careful justice system that does not rush through things.
But they didn't win. It still isn't worthy of such hate. If Linux had been shot down then BSD would have replaced it. I also doubt it as well but then why say it? Why so much venom. It isn't worth it. As much as I like Linux I must say that there are so many things more important than Linux in this world.
SCO failed and Linux will go on. Even the FUD campaign has done no damage. It probably helped in fact. When this Law suit is over odds are very good that Linux's legal standing will be so much stronger than it would have been otherwise.
Yes it is a good thing SCO is dead but as I said it isn't worth hate.
Yes I am sure he the OP didn't mean it but what kind of a world do we have where someone can make such vile and hateful statements and we just write it off?
Like I said I am glad that the beginning of the end is now in sight. I never really thought that would end any other way.
But let us not lend our voices to that which doesn't make the world a better place.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm now lost on one small point. So Novell truly does own all the Unix rather than SCO. Microsoft licensed from SCO. Novell licensed back from Microsoft. If in theory MS needed to license from SCO, (And we can say they did otherwise why did they? And I know it's to fund their lawsuit) then Novell theoretically has IP in Windows. Does this make it slightly more painful for MS if they make any more claims that Novell then disagrees with?
One of the angriest, most bitter people I've ever worked with lost the majority of his retirement, well over a quarter million dollars, when Worldcom had their little "issue". The guy was about 45-50 years old, and it *really* fucked up his plans for retirement.
Now I agree with you, but there are some people who very strongly disagree.
Judge Kimball:
So, SCOG knew when they started the litigation that they did not have the copyrights. They also had no evidence of literal copying even after getting truck loads of source code from IBM in discovery. They could present no evidence of copying after that discovery so they must not have had any evidence before they started litigating.A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
How many BILLIONS of dollars in lawyers fees
Zero. Come on, even a large case like this isn't going to generate anywhere NEAR that amount of attorneys' fees.
It's not over yet. Almost, but not quite.
When it is, I intend to dance around the dead body of SCO and beat it to a pulp with a stick.
Anyone care to join me?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I've looked over the filings for this suit since it began. I simply can't color a situation where someone of average intelligence, with access to the documents, could conclude that SCOX or Calderia had a leg to stand on. This means that this whole situation was began on the premise of facts not in evidence, conveayances not documented as required by law, and assumptions that could never be made given the facts.
In other words, not only is there no "there" there, there never was, and it is completely documented and no other reasonable conclusion could be drawn by any sane individual. This was a smoke screen from beginning to end, it was known that the instant suit was brought for reasons other than equity, and that the plaintif always knew no other reasonable conclusion could be found. Or, if you prefer, this was a "Hail Mary" lawsuit, brough not on the merits, but because it was dimly possible that a favorable jury would find for the plaintif despite the preponderance of facts known to both parties that such would be an unjust finding.
More bluntly still, SCOX hoped to use Jeddi Mind Magic and cause a jury to conclude that "these are not the bots you are looking for". Boise et al went along for the ride and the 34 million dollars in upfront legal fees.
At the least, Boise should lose their fee in this case. If justace were to be served, Kevin McBride (Darl's brother) and Boise should be disbarred. Perverted justice and shyster actions should bring strong retribution to those that engage in them. The law isn't for those that would seek to twist it to perverted ends. It is for honest people, with honest disagreements, honestly brought to the bar for resolution. SCOX, the McBrides, and Boise don't seem to have played honestly in this case, and Boise in particular seems to like to "game" the system.
Justice isn't a game. And those that try to twist it should be punished in a way that leaves scars. And a strong aversion to ever trying to do it again.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I would expect that SCO would have to put up some real evidence before
being allowed to drag out discovery over 4 years. In the US it appears
you can say "we really believe something to be true, let us do discovery
to find (i.e. fish for) the evidence" without providing any concrete evidence
to support the belief. In most other countries you actually have to provide
some actual evidence of your allegations before the court will grant you discovery.
In this case, SCO should have had to provide something to substantiate their
claims long before this.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
I assume your going for funny since your comments are so far out there, but nothing you wrote was very funny.
For the love of God, please take a reading comprehension class before you ever post on Slashdot again.
FTFY. Probably Dell or HP. Now that Novell is found to own Unix they're too small to hold it. Look for either a big player to buy them up in a doomed experiment to prove the power of synergy over entropy or a Microsoft puppet to offer it up as a sacrificial lamb again to distract people from their dog named Vista. It was Ransom Love's hubris that killed Unix, and the arrogance of pride will keep the mummified remains of it on tour forever.
But there's opportunity here.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Damned right -- IP on his grave.
The SCO copyrights draw to a close, the MS Patents rise to the forefront. After that, endless Linux vendor squabbling. Big whoop.
A reply to your post seems like a good place to archive SCO's page entitled "Intellectual Property Protection" at http://www.sco.com/scosource/ipprotection.html . This newsworthy information is offered here under the fair use provision of the copyright act.
Oh, and you should be careful:
Maureen O'Gara, Robert Enderle or Daniel Lyons might consider that actionable slander.
The effects this case has had are proof that members of the press, pundits and people with high responsibility in the IT field cannot be bothered to evaluate the available facts and come to an informed conclusion. Of course, that wasn't news.
I think WE need the comprehension classes, cause I don't know WTF GP just said...
Composition, on the other hand...
Bollocks. Our so-called 'justice' system works on the idea that 'whoever can outspend the other on lawyer tricks wins.' And only lawyers come out ahead.
Lunix on the desktop and the server is a dead horse. Flogged beyond belief like Hurd.
Linux however is a monster growing every day and while it will never beat Windows on the desktop for pure number of machines, one day it will beat it on user experience and likability. And on the server it is the as-yet uncrowned king.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Nothing more to say. The Day of Judgment has arrived.
> All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare
> you to complain about the US court system now.
Yeah - it's only taken 4 years to read an asset purchase agreement, and a deed of sale, and a set of minutes from a board meeting to conclude that no copyrights were sold.
That amount of time to produce this sort of decision is, laughable.
I think it is the correct decision, but the amount of time taken is grossly excessive for such a simple matter.
My company (a very big one) has been deploying very happily Linux all these years.
Anybody with a modicum of logic could see that the claims were so outrageous that only a brain dead judge could have possibly ruled in favour of SCO.
Any company with any sense should have not changed their Linux plans since first it was obvious that there was no reason for it, secondly, even if the claims would had some merit (ha,ha,ha) Linux was obviously going nowhere.
FUD? Nope. YOu can spread FUD only on uninformed people, people that learn about a given issue can't be FUDed so to speak.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Novell has been distributing SuSE for some time now.
They have effectively acknowledged the GPL and thus given Linux a clean bill of health as the UNIX copyright owners.
Nobody ever will be able to use UNIX against Linux again.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Linux in all datacentres.
Linux is now a serious corporate player.
Oh yeah, and MS is so worried about it that is trying all kind of dirty tricks in the open against Linux. That is a measure of how important Linux is now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's closer... but isn't it:
;p
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
The Internets/tubes never fail us, I've found it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9qVUUIDhWc
Get it while it's still there
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
people with money do. It's easy money for pocket change to "real" investors. They can bet on a lot of horses. It does a service to keep companies almost under one last shot. If it pays off 1 in 20 times then the stock gets listed again and the investor has bought XX% of the company to sell for profit...even if the company only gains $2 per share, it's a huge return on investment.
There once was a CEO called McBride
Who thought he could take on Linux in stride.
But the creep from Santa Cruz
Was destined to lose
And get fscked in the ass by New York Gay Pride.
Ignore this signature. By order.
TROLL - go get a virus ( or give one to your "significant other")
Thanks Darl, for all of the years of crap and nonsense. Now, don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Sad thing is, those hundreds of thousands spent on a defence. Can you imagine if they had put all that cash into linux. Vista would be a non issue.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
I found it funny even if it's quite normal sarcasm and not one of those really golden pieces that have something really inventive.
GP said:
desktop Lunix can't even manage a user base above the statistical margin of error, so it's quite possible Lunix has less than zero users.If you still after that wonder whether GP was a joke, you may need to update your sense of humour from the beta version to the latest release. An "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" should suffice.
Nah, more like 'fsck /dev/brain'
No, they actually really, really knew there was no such code, period.
L inux+code/2100-7344_3-5789132.html
http://news.com.com/SCO+e-mail+No+smoking+gun+in+
"The e-mail, which was sent to SCO Group CEO Darl McBride by a senior vice president at the company, forwards on an e-mail from a SCO engineer. In the Aug. 13, 2002, e-mail, engineer Michael Davidson said "At the end, we had found absolutely nothing ie (sic) no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever.""
...now some OS competitor with a lot of monies *cough*M$*cough* can just buy Novell and own all the rights and patents to Unix?
So, do you really think that the FUD campaign to bring legal uncertainty upon Linux is now over ? Think about it twice.
...) on the Linux desktop.
Microsoft (which has good lawyers, and was probably able to predict this SCO judgment) just alleged the "235 Microsoft owned patents' Linux infringement" just some month ago ! Coincidence ? Anyway we're still in the same situation as before (but without the SCO "proxy"): Linux (and it's users) are still tainted by muddled intellectual property claims, and is therefore victim of (bogus, but still) legal uncertainty.
Coincidence ? Novell was the one large linux actor to buy Microsoft "virtual 235 infringed patents" licenses: now no one but Novell can claim IP virginity (having Unix property and MS "alleged patents" licenses) without FUD threat when using Linux, and can now, thanks to this judgment and they licenses with Microsoft, racket Linux users. No wonder why they're pushing so hard for MS technologies (Mono/C#, exchange-compatible server,
Even before the lawsuits, at least one consultant paid by SCO told SCO that their claims were in trouble with regards to Novell and copyright. I don't know about you but before I file a $3 billion suit against a company about copyrights and contracts, I would make sure that I absolutely owned the copyrights and the contracts were solid. SCO did not do this. Novell owns the copyrights and their contract with SCO stipulates that they can (and did) waive SCO's claims about IBM.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Everybody assumes that the very name "Unix" has value, but, like autographs collectors specializing in French Existentialist writers, it would have value only to them.
It makes sense to put the ownership up in a trust holding where it can't ever be used in this kind of gambit again and I suspect that a foundation will be set up for that purpose.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
All us cock-smoking teabaggers want our money back!
the new term for delayed litigation!
This BTQ shit is a perfect example of the sort of posts that make me ignore Slashdot most of the time. I risk one visit to read something about SCO and here comes an arrogant BTQ asshole ignoring the topic at hand to make an ESOTERIC POINT about AN ARCHAIC USE of a STUPID PHRASE (and gets a modded to a 5, no less). "Get it right," indeed. Everyone who fights for the "correct" use of "begs the question" should be force-fed old anchovies and tasered multiple times.
</rant>
So what? Evaluating the quality of the information he's being fed is part of his job. And it's not as though this SCO-IBM case was some minor sideline for him. If it was what he was spending most of his time on for several years, couldn't he have devoted just a few days to actually studying the arguments for and against their case? It's not as though they were rocket science.
At some point I find it a little hard to distinguish between someone who's actively cheating and someone who's just showing gross incompetence that happens to be in their favor....
what kind of a world do we have where someone can make such vile and hateful statements and we just write it off?
One where we all respect the concept of "free speech" - not just as a legal construct, but actually not being offended by some trivial bit of text on a computer screen.
Also, I'm pretty sure he intended it to be funny in the first place.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
There is also a case that Red Hat has brought against SCO. It was put on hold pending IBM outcome, but it is still there, SCO has some more answers to produce...
I can tell you from *personal experience* that the current IBM isn't the "OS/2" IBM; heavily dependent on MS for significant amounts of revenue from PCs. Linux is everything IBM wanted from OS/2 in terms of it being a non-MS alternative (i.e., no cash transfer required) to zOS (OS390,ne:MVS), i5OS (OS/400), and AIX 5L (SVR4+ "Linux friendliness"). IBM also has Linux running on all platforms x, p, i, and z. So (a) Linux is important to IBM today, and (b) IBM no longer has to worry about seriously impacting its MS licensing relationship in a legal confrontation, except for System_x Servers; unlike say HP who still sell a huge pile of both personal use PCs/laptops and Servers running Windows.
Note to those that compare the IBM lawyers to the Nazgul - I would beg to differ. There were only "The 9", and while they could command tens of thousands, the Nazgul could not create the weapons needed to fight the battle. I would therefore rather switch to both a different group and different analogy. Having just read Harry Potter #7, I would feel comfortable with comparing the IBM lawyers to the goblins running Gringotts Bank. There are lots of them, and they are very skilled at building fine weapons needed for dealing mayhem on IBM's enemies. They of course also guard a "vault" at least as large as the one at Gringotts.
Finally, goblins appear to have long memories coupled with a sense of what is fair (at least from their perspective). Some of those goblins in Armonk today likely remember the OS/2 days; why would any of you think IBM would not be willing to take on MS at this point, given both their shared history and the importance of Linux to the current IBM company?
"Everybody assumes that the very name "Unix" has value, but, like autographs collectors specializing in French Existentialist writers, it would have value only to them.
It makes sense to put the ownership up in a trust holding where it can't ever be used in this kind of gambit again and I suspect that a foundation will be set up for that purpose."
It does have value, and its not owned by Novell - its owned by The Open Group. More info at unix org.
Here is the defiitive list of UNIXes. As you can see, SCO doesn't have anything past the UNIX 95 spec (Caldera OpenSewer), whereas there have been two major updates - UNIX 98 and UNIX 03.
True, but Linux is winning the server wars. The current model seems to be MS on the workstation and Linux on the server.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
Now that Microsoft is marketing Microsoft branded PCs in the emerging markets of India and China their OEM partners who
May feel the need to reevaluate their commitment. In the history of their business when Microsoft comes to the table they want nothing less than the whole pie.
Dell sells PCs with Linux for individuals and they are expanding their offering to include the European market.
I agree though that IBM is a likely third bidder. Dell would probably love to steal the server thunder of IBM and HP by owning Unix. HP and IBM would not like that. We will have to see if the Novell deal with Microsoft included a poison pill. Lenovo is still too small to play in this game I think.
And of course Novell needs to get their contract with SCO terminated cleanly. Vestigial restrictions could cause issues.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
There is a poster over on groklaw who quite correctly noted that we now have a Novel who:
Has done a deal with the devil MS.
Now owns Unix free and clear.
Is instructing SCO to not proceed with the IBM case so that part of that case (infringing code) will not be tested in court.
Doesn't anyone see that this could be a recipe for more FUD about Linux infringement?
Raise the stock price on false hopes and made up information. Wait for it to hit a peak .... sell for big profit. Hop of the ride before it goes down in flames.
you don't have to do jack to preserve copyright, you don't even need a copyright symbol..
trademarks have to be defended for ever// see red cross vs. johnson & johnson in the news right now...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The only scox exec who dumped was Riamondi. He sold out when scox was in the high teens, just before he resigned.
That is the true bottom line, and msft knows it. Msft will continue to run circles around US justice, laughing up their sleeves the entire time.
And the pro-Linux cheerleaders don't even get it. "Yeah we win!! We win again!! We *always* win!! Yeah!!" While msft casually moves on to their next scam.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
... for code infringement would net much more money than selling SuSe licenses we'll be back to square one with a company that CLEARLY does own UNIX.
Novell has got access to both sources and smart people to build a case. So start worrying about a SCO-like suit against everybody that has any money in Linux (eg RedHat) from a much more credible attacker.
I'm going to be sorry to see it happen.
(Only half kidding here, see if this doesn't occur...)
Ha! Ha!
// Gives SCO Teh Finger(TM) ~:P
** 0WNZ0R3D!!! **
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
The average American consumer paid for the startup capital, they paid for the products, they paid for the upgrades, they pay for the services, they pay for online subscriptions, they continue to invest money in the technology companies... and the only people who made a dime off the whole thing are the couple thousand of new millionaires on the west coast. The rest of the nation has promises of retirement plans, a three ring binder they call a stock portfolio, longer mortgages, lower insurance coverage, higher insurance premiums, and more taxes to pay.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Extortion was exactly the first thing I thought of. I'm sure many people will be losing their jobs over this decision, people who recommended that their company pay the extortion fees to cover their asses over a lie. That money would have been better spent defending the truth.
Microsoft wins. It was just handed to them on a silver platter.
What?
What a load of bullshit. The government had little to do with Microsoft's startup. It was all through the guiding hand of IBM that Microsoft ever survived. Try and learn the basic history before pretending to be an expert on a subject or claiming you know something the public doesn't, that or provide a single citation to support your claim. Both of which you won't ever do.
I have to say, this is one of your worst trolling attempts I've seen in a while. You are losing your touch.
He and the board still passed large salaries and bonuses around.
"It ain't over till it's over" goes the song by Lenny Kravitz, but congratulations ARE in order - thank you for this one Novell! However, this was only PART of the entire game - the real question is DO ALL THE PLAYERS KNOW? As an outsider, I don't know, but I believe so. Now that the dispute is over - Novell owns the UNIX copyright - Novell should become MORE VALUABLE to anyone interested in a possible take over of Novell. Novell managed to dissociate itself from the community by entering into the November 2006 deal with Microsoft, but how ALONE is Novell? Which allies remain? While Microsoft is the most likely candidate for a take over of Novell - and UNIX - someone else migt. An interesting bidder for Novell would be Google.
You never were good at sticking to the original topic; instead preferring to degenerate quickly into personal attacks against me, rants of "conspiracy theory", shouts of "you don't know what you're talking about", disconnected assertions, and relying on mods who are educated in mediocrity or too young to know the difference.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The types of options you describe are "American" style options, "European" style options can only be traded on the day of the final date of the contract. European options are more common on non US markets. And yes, I am aware of SCOX being an American only traded stock.
Well, if you're so intelligent, perhaps you could tell us where billions of dollars came from to build the infrastructure, create the startups, and pay for the advertising which led to the tech boom. It didn't "just happen". There hasn't been a single instance of a business sector event "just happening" since the stock market was created.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Disagree with us if you like, but that doesn't make us evil. You used that word ironically.
What you should have done when you fist read the ancestor post was to think it literally.
You can't take the sky from me...
"One where we all respect the concept of "free speech" - not just as a legal construct, but actually not being offended by some trivial bit of text on a computer screen."
How really whacked that statement is. I didn't mod the parent down. I didn't demand his post be removed. I didn't demand that he be arrested. So his free speech is protected. I did comment on the statement. Free speech means that you will not face legal reprocusions from making a statement it doesn't mean that you will not be judge by what you say. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you can say anything you want in any way that you want and others can not do the same!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Hey, we're just trying to protect the English language from uneducated fucktards like you. It's a noble cause.
http://www.sco.com/images/execs/McBride34 .jpg
He is clearly not human.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/11/novell_get s_unix_from_sco/S CO_Owns_UNIX_Copyrights/1186786426
http://www.betanews.com/article/Judge_Novell_Not_
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
I followed your advice and opinions because you told me the OSS zealots are foaming at the mouth crazy nut jobs with no grasp of reality. You told me you worked for IBM and knew first hand that they are evil reincarnate and time would vindicate SCO because they fight the noble cause much like you. You assured me you had no ax to grind and as a technology pundit you knew your stuff and to disregard industry insiders running counter to your perspective less I invite problems at my own peril.
I'm not one to get discouraged easily but it sure would be reassuring for you to shovel more shit opinions regarding this latest news. There is no way I would argue against your industry insight since you have managed to be spot on 100% wrong with every twist and turn of the SCO/IBM/Novell/Red Hat/OSS battle.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
"hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here it is as text. Here is what matters most:
[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.
That's Aaaaall, Folks! The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". That's the ball game. There are a couple of loose ends, but the big picture is, SCO lost. Oh, and it owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses. "
The above quote puts the novell and microsoft cross license and payment to novel in a new light doesn't it ?
It appears MS saw the writing on the wall and was hedging it's bets lol
Bought stock in Caldera when Ransome 'Love' owned it. He was a crook. His pal
was Paul Allen, the other half of microsoft who also owned half of Caldera. In
the dot com bomb Caldera held an IPO that was crooked as a corkscrew and manipulated from the git go. Insiders Allen and Love made it so only the insiders could buy the stock for over three days. They are the ones that bought it at par value for next to nothing when it first came out. By the time it was released for the rest of us to buy, the stock had hit its top ever value, twenty seven dollars per share. Most of the first time buyers ended up getting in at that figure because we were too naive to put in a stop call if the stock went over a certain figure when our buy order was processed. The stock had glowing reports because EVERYBODY was basking in the reflected light from the stellar record of Red Hat Corporation at its IPO. Then came the bad
news, and the bad news never ended. It was found that insiders Allen and Love had buddies. Many buddies! All insiders. Quicken dot com identified them all and exposed the dirty deals that they had inside Caldera. They would buy Caldera stock for a very low value and be allowed to buy large blocks of it. Then they would be allowed to sell it for a high price. This could only happen if the corporation held large blocks of unsold stock that it could issue arbitrarily. I would have thought that these kinds of shady stock swindles died out in the 1800's along with Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall, but was I ever wrong. In this way the crooks could make money yet another way off the misfortunes of small holders. They could sell those large blocks to the company or whoever, but in whatever way these shares would come on the legal market eventually, usually dumped. Just before this was done, some crooks, possibly the same ones with the 'stock options' would sell huge blocks of Caldera stock 'short', then after they dumped their shares the stock would predictably fall like a shot and the crooks would make a bundle..again. In this way ninety eight percent of the value of Caldera stock was looted from the small holders. And yet somehow this ship of crooks found the money in the corporation to buy the Santa Cruz Operation. After THAT purchase they changed the name of the operation from Caldera, the company that never could make a linux distro that could survive a power failure, renamed itself SCO so it could now bring its expertise in making a similar fiasco out of unix. The rest is history. Well I bought that stock and now the company is gonna fry like a mass murderer in jail in Alabama. Just like I bought Enron stock and it tanked, and Worldcom stock and it was cancelled. So like Joe Bfstlk in L'il Abner comix thirty years ago, my little black cloud is raining all over SCO. May your corporate corpse rot in bankruptcy hell SCO!
I'm sick and tired of coming to this web board every day and having to read this account farming cocknocker chase down a legitimate user who has a decent grasp of reality.
Pansy-assed spoonfed anonymous blowhard whose sole purpose in life is to make someone else's life as miserable as their own. Why do the administrators tolerate it?
It hasn't really deserved that name sense version 2.x
It was pretty bullet proof though. Still is from what I hear.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I bet they serve Jello.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
*Ahem* If Novell owns the copyrights to Unix.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
-- From The Philosophical Strangler
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
No, this is not something relevant to "the entire FOSS" community. For instance, if SCO had had more success, and this had adversely affected Linux (e.g. The Kernel), this would have generally led to migrations to the various BSD-based systems.
And adoption is, of course, a two-edged sword for those already in such communities; to some degree, the popularity of Linux draws in "bozos" that the BSD folk would rather not have around. There are remappings of the following that are possible :-).
"Huh? Windows was designed to keep the idiots away from Unix so we
could hack in peace. Let's not break that." -- Tom Christiansen
I'm more involved, these days, with the PostgreSQL community; the SCO lawsuits were fairly much irrelevant to that community, from some standpoints.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
That's OK... If later cours find their claims were fraudulent, the SCO exectuives will be making chairs here.
European style options can be traded at any time - you can sell the contract to somebody else - but you can't exercise the option until the last day of the contract.
The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps. - Benjamin Disraeli
One can also sell short. That's the practice of selling shares you don't own at certain price when you're sure the stock will fall before the deadline on the sales contract. You then buy the stocks at the lower price once it falls, and sell at the agreed price. Some people do this with borrowed money to back the purchase.
It's possible it could be lucrative, but it's also dangerous. If you short a stock and it rises, you have to buy it at the new, higher price and sell it to your buyer at the agreed price. You're out the difference. If you make this mistake with borrowed money, you now have a portion of your loan with no collateral to back it. The loan or that unsecured portion might be called due immediately, depending on loan terms.
The safer bet is still to buy low and sell high. You can only lose the price of the stock, and the gains are theoretically unlimited. When shorting, you can only gain the difference between your short offer price and the price at which you buy. The theoretical loss is the unlimited part.
Picture this: you short before an expected fall on bad earnings data. You short at $10, and the stock falls to $7. You make $3 per share. The next time you do it, the stock rises to $22 per share because you were dead wrong about the earnings. Just imagine they signed a huge contract the day before, and the buyer paid in full the day of the earnings report (not that such a thing would happen). You're now out $12 per share and you've made an instant $12 per share gain for your buyer. Since you hadn't actually owned the shares before, you haven't collected any dividends, and the entire loss is cash and not partly ownership of the shares.
If you waited for the fall to buy and hold for gains in both cases, you could have bought at $7 and made your money slowly as the stock recovered in the first place. In the second, you could have bought at $10.50, $11, or $12 on the way up, and sold at anywhere from $12 to $22 after additional rises. You could have made up to $11.50 per share yourself, which is more than you could ever theoretically have made on shorting the $10 stock. You could only be out a maximum of $10 even if the company ceased operations and also had no salable assets at the end of the trading day.
The advantage of shorting is that if you really are sure the stock will tank, you can make the difference with no investment of your own funds. The disadvantages can be devastating if you're wrong.
I wouldn't worry. Novell are distributing that source code under GPL.
I hope everybody that had invested in SCO stocks has some kind of "sell" option certificate - otherwise his investments will melt like snow in the desert. During a heatwave. With several hot air blow-driers pointed at it.
SCOX is down nearly 25% pre-market, and I can only guess how far it will fall during the trading hours.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
GOOD DAY, SIR!
Actually, SCO had already paid their lawyers so they would work for a fixed fee in the IBM case.
This means that however different each parties funding happened to be, SCO had guaranteed it would not have to concede the case because they ran out of money.
Also, there is a bit of confusion here - SCO and Novell are more fairly matched, and this was a MUCH quicker trial so would have been way cheaper.
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
http://www.sco.com/images/company/SCO_Code_of_Cond uct_and_Ethics_Policy-Final.pdf
Funny thing to read... They even have a paragraph called "We Provide Full, Fair, Accurate, Timely and Understandable Disclosure". The only proviso is that this disclosure is aimed at "shareholders and investors", and nobody else. So they also excluded the judicial system there, I suppose..?
The PDF was created on 15 feb 2005, so this lawsuit could've ended back then. But nooooo....