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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."
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 think we need to mass mail to them and let them know this page of theirs is a lie.
SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers.
explain to me how Linux was "slowed down" by this?
I used to work for a VAR, and our customers were allowed to choose between several OSes: Windows, AIX, or Linux. Several of our potential customers refused to buy Linux systems and specifically mentioned the lawsuit as the reason. I'd call that slowing it down, a little.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
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.
"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.
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.
This was SCO v Novell, not SCO v IBM. The IBM case is going to be a doozy now, with SCO's side in tatters.
You can invest in derivatives and futures to cover losses on anything. For instance, many companies whos profits might be affected by bad weather take out weather derivatives so that if their profits are hit by weather, they claw back some of the losses through the weather derivatives. Used to be a big favourite of Enron.
Perhaps DMB has money on SCO stocks delisting and dying. Who the hell knows what was going through their brains.
It's called short selling, but it's incredibly hard to find ANY shares of SCOX stock to trade (their daily volume in dollars is about what a busy drugstore pulls in), and downright impossible to find anyone lending shares for shorts.
However, the short sellers certainly got in on SCO when they could -- it has the highest short ratio of any stock on the exchange.
Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining shorts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
You can also buy a "put" (the "right to sell") at a specific price (say $20). They are more volatile though.
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).
Blarg, you're the second person I've seen say that so far in this discussion.
You are guaranteed the ability to get your trial in a speedy manner. There is no guarantee that the trial itself will be speedy.
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."
Thats part of what options are ... but not all of it.
Options contracts are traded daily on most stocks that are currently listed. The most commonly traded types are Call Options which grant you the right to buy a stock at a given price any time prior to the expiration of the contract this is what you described above. The opposite bet is the Put Option which grants you the right to sell a stock at a given price prior to the expiration of the contract. Put's are what you buy if you think a stock's price is going to fall.
Put Options are generally less risky than short sales because your maximum loss is limited to the purchase price of the contract. Short sales theoretically expose you to infinite risk as the stock price may keep going up.
I'm not sure that options in a non-existant stock exist as you describe - the contract normally must involve an underlying security of some type - Even if its frozen concentrated orange juice.
There was good in Sauron?
Read the Silmarillion.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
For that matter just read The Lord of the Rings itself. At the council in Rivendell Elrond states: "And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world if will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so." (FotR 2nd ed. pg. 281.)
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat