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."

Comments

And yet...

[LinuxGeek]

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..

Re:And yet...

[bmo]

That's because the ruling came out *after* trading hours.

--
BMO

Re:And yet...

[number11]

Will the source code of SCOX's UnixWare be released to the public because of the GPL violation/copyrights owning violation?

Ultimately, that will probably be up to Novell. The judge has ruled that Novell, not SCO, still owns all the copyrights they held before they got involved with SCO. There may be parts that are still owned by other parties prior to Novell.

My guess is, no, it won't be released, because ownership is too unclear and it's too expensive to make clear (all we know is, it's not SCO). The GPL people can sue SCO for damages, I expect, and have their pick of anything left over after Novell and IBM get through picking the bones. And prevent SCO (or anybody else) from distributing any more copies in violation of the GPL. Of course, by that point, the principals of SCO may be residing in a federal facility, from which they are not allowed to distribute anything.

More

[Phroggy]

I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, When will it be technically over, and when will there be no more to slog through?

Re:More

[vthokie69]

When SCO files for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.

Re:More

[Pendersempai]

In my experience working at big law firms as a summer associate for two summers now (I am a law student), big litigation only truly ends when the parties settle. Shy of that, it has a half life; the amount of activity asymptotically approaches zero but never quite seems to get there. There always seems to be another series of issues that spring out of every issue that is decided.

Of course, nearly all parties will settle when it gets to that point. Eventually, fighting what's left is no longer worth the cost of the lawyers.

Re:More

[sconeu]

RTFA. Judge Kimball specifically notified SCO and IBM (though I suppose SCO was just a formality), and told them to let him know how this would affect their case.

And all of a sudden....

[Anonymous Coward]

A million Redmond developers cried out in pain!

Re:And all of a sudden....

[coupland]

Huh? What's this got to do with Microsoft? And why on earth would a developer -- by definition a geek -- be upset that SCO's little sleaze-fest is nearing its end? I work for Microsoft and I was pumping my fist in the air when I read this. So chill out with the vitriol and the constant "ZOMGOMGOMG everything's a microsoft conspiracy!"

Re:And all of a sudden....

[jenkin sear]

This is a pretty good summary of microsoft's involvement in funding this underhanded attempt to shut down linux:

Paying the license fees could indicate that Microsoft simply believes SCO's Unix ownership claims have merit. But doesn't arranging the BayStar investment reveal Microsoft's ulterior motive? After all, why would you want to help prop up a company that is demanding millions in royalty fees from you?
That may not be far off the mark, according to a key BayStar executive.

"Microsoft obviously has an interest in this, and their interest is obviously in keeping their operating system on top," says Larry Goldfarb, managing partner of BayStar.

Without naming names, Goldfarb explained that BayStar received a call from a "senior" Microsoft employee, but not Chairman Bill Gates or Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. "When they started telling me what it was, I wasn't shocked (that) this was something they'd like to see prevail."

Google "Michael Anderer SCO" for more.

Re:And all of a sudden....

[coupland]

No, you're a moron. Microsoft bought one of the first SCO "Linux licenses" and may or may not have invested some money in the company. After all, it's run by a bunch of psycho nutballs, so why not bet a couple bucks that they might get lucky? But to suggest that this was funded by Microsoft is utter bullshit, and to suggest that Microsoft DEVELOPERS wanted SCO to win is a joke. Somewhere in the upper echelons of Microsoft there is probably an executive whose job it is to ask "okay, so ignoring all rules of etiquette, what are some of the ways we can beat this whole Linux thing?" But I can promise you, of the 75,000 employees at Microsoft, 74,900 of them just want to win by making a better OS... Disagree with us if you like, but that doesn't make us evil.

Re:And all of a sudden....

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

I know one of your former Microsoft colleagues (who was far from the bottom of the MS food chain and is a very clever programmer); he is finishing his Math PhD. I think he would agree that most MS employees were/are good people who wanted to produce a good product BUT ... I get the impression that there were LOTS of problems at MS, including really smart, stubborn people with really big egos.

I think VISTA is a wonderful product which will help speed the adoption of Linux throughout the world. I think MS should increase the level of DRM in each succeeding product.

Re:And all of a sudden....

[roca]

The intentions of rank-and-file Microsoft employees are mostly irrelevant, because Microsoft's course is determined by executives.

Employees need to evaluate how the company they serve wields the power they generate; if it's less than ethical, they should find a more ethical employer. Talented software developers have the luxury of taking the high road with negligible material risk. Those who just take the money and ignore what they are supporting are, in fact, evil.

(Hey, Google's hiring!)

Re:And all of a sudden....

[killjoe]

1) There is no doubt that MS funded SCO to sue IBM.
2) In addition to giving SCO money directly they arrainged baystar to give them money (basically MS fucked baystar by lying to them and telling them SCO had a case)
3) If any MS developers disagreed with any of this they never spoke up so it's safe to presume they were on board.

>But I can promise you, of the 75,000 employees at Microsoft, 74,900 of them just want to win by making a better OS... Disagree with us if you like, but that doesn't make us evil.

I just don't believe you. I never heard any of those 75,000 programmers at MS ever critisize their company about anything. It's obvious you all have are either in 100% agreement with what your company is doing just don't give a flying fuck how unethical and yes evil your company acts.

Basically that tells me you guys just don't have a conscience.

Re:And all of a sudden....

[Ant P.]

If you wanna complain about Microsoft then talk to me about things like Desqview, or FoxBase, or Magellan or New Wave. How about the Halloween Documents?

Summary is Flamebait

[jez9999]

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.

Re:Summary is Flamebait

[bmo]

"Uhm, the reason they lost is because they picked a fight with players who had billions of dollars"

No. They lost because they were _wrong_.

They had funding from Microsoft and Sun to go through with this (the "licenses" SCO sold them in 2003).

What we're all waiting for now is when Yarro, Anderer and McBride go to jail.

--
BMO

Re:Summary is Flamebait

[LinuxGeek]

The reason SCO lost is that SCO was wrong. SCO has a pretty good legal team too and that is why they were able to stay in the game this long, even though they had a very weak case with no real evidence presented. Well, that and some very tolerant judges.

Re:Summary is Flamebait

[EvanED]

No. They lost because they were _wrong_.

While this is true, I think it's also fair to say that a big reason that IBM got to show that SCO was wrong was because IBM has truckloads of money.

If SCO had sued me instead, SCO wouldn't have lost because they were wrong, because I wouldn't have had the money to show that they were wrong. I would have had to find a lawyer willing to work pro bono.

Re:Summary is Flamebait

[Nick Barnes]

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.

Re:Summary is Flamebait

[badasscat]

While this is true, I think it's also fair to say that a big reason that IBM got to show that SCO was wrong was because IBM has truckloads of money.

Except they didn't lose to IBM. They lost to Novell. The IBM case is still in court, although it will now be a lot easier for IBM to win. It's unclear how SCO can even keep that case going, as the entire premise of it is now blown away. When you don't own the copyright to something, it's pretty pointless to sue somebody for copyright infringement. (Or any of their other claims.)

I actually hope the IBM case does get settled one way or another, because it's a real test of the GPL. The Novell case was a simple question of who "owned" Unix. It looks like the IBM case might fade away now, though, which means still no major test of the GPL in US court.

But the point is they didn't lose because they didn't have financial parity. This was basically MS and Sun vs. Novell, by proxy. If anything, SCO had the financial advantage.

Re:Summary is Flamebait

[conlaw]

But the SCO v. IBM case has also been decided here. From the court's conclusion:

Therefore, Novell is entitled to a declaration of rights under its Fourth Claim for Relief that it was and is entitled, at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive its claims against IBM and Sequent, and SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent.

In other news...

[Denial93]

...furniture stores report chair shortages all over Washington State.

Fair??? Language, please...

[pla]

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.

That's just the company

[KiloByte]

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.

Re:That's just the company

[Penguinisto]

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.

...with a resume' that basically reads: "I wasted a metric ton of shareholder money, industry goodwill, and still my company fell down and went 'splat' "?

Shit, Darl & co. would be lucky to get jobs as janitors in the Tech Industry, let alone anything of any consequence or responsibility. They're pretty much as attractive as a 600lb woman suffering from Tourettes' Syndrome and downing Mezcal by the case.

(well, Maybe Microsoft's hiring or something, but...)

/P

WW1

[Starteck81]

From the article summary is sounds like the software equivalent of winning world war one.

Re:WW1

[Nossie]

humour aside, I think WWII with Microsoft is just round the corner :-\

Now SCO can focus on it's other lawsuit

[realmolo]

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.

Re:Hurrah!

[Filter]

Not heck of lot.

Novell FTW

[nuzak]

FATALITY!

Round 1 over; Now for round 2

[WindBourne]

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.

Re:Round 1 over; Now for round 2

[Dadoo]

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.

Re:Round 1 over; Now for round 2

[Dhalka226]

There's a reason the legal system was supposed to guarantee a quick and speedy trial.

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.

HA!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Ha ha HA HAH!

Re:HA!

[gerrysteele]

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.

Re:HA!

[nuzak]

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

Re:HA!

[pthisis]

It's called selling short. You borrow shares from a broker, sell them, and then later on the broker can come back at any time and you have to buy shares at the current price and return them to him.

So if you borrow 100 shares at $20 and sell them, you have $2000 in pocket. If the shares decline to $5, you can cover the short (buy 100 shares for $500 and return to the broker) and make $1500.

Unlike long positions, though, there's unlimited downside. If you hold $2000 in stock normally, the worst case is the company vanishes and you're out $2000. If you short Google at $10 a share for 200 shares when they IPO ($2000), and then they spike to $200 and your broker calls in the cover, you have to come up with $40000. You lose $38000 on what was originally $2000 worth of stock.

Re:HA!

[feepness]

Unlike long positions, though, there's unlimited downside. You can however, hedge your position with a far out of the money call. So you short at $20, but purchase a "call" (the "right to buy") at $30. This would be cheap if the stock was at $30, but limits your downside to the stock going to $30.

You can also buy a "put" (the "right to sell") at a specific price (say $20). They are more volatile though.

Re:HA!

[terrymr]

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.

Re:HA!

[urbanski]

No, you can surely use stock options to profit from a stock declining in value - it's called buying a "PUT". Do some research. However, only if the stock has listed options and SCOX does not so the only way one could profit on SCOX is indeed selling short.

$699

[GillBates0]

Who do I make this check for $699 out to now?

Re:$699

[Big Nothing]

That would be me. Email me, and I'll send you an account number.

Re:Fair??? Language, please...

[tmk]

You forgot the billions of hours slashdot posters used to create countless amout of SCO rants and flames.

IBM counterclaims

[GreatDrok]

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!

Re:Hurrah!

[Amiga Lover]

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.

Haha, oopsie!

[Greyfox]

Now the entire house of cards will come down like a stack of dominoes! Checkmate...

Re:Haha, oopsie!

[hibiki_r]

At least get the quote right:

If we hit the bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards..... checkmate.

Re:Fair??? Language, please...

[LWATCDR]

"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.

That IS performance

[vthokie69]

Six cents must have doubled their stock value.

Re:For once..

[Rydia]

Wha? Lots of things are set in stone. Nearly nothing is overturned, ever, so trial court decisions and findings are nearly always set in stone, when they deal with facts.

This dealt with facts. SCO did not own UNIX. A review court would have to find the trial court abused its discretion in doing this. I don't think anyone believes that court actually would.

Re:Kicking their own asses...

[Reverend528]

I paid $699 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Let me be the first to say...

[Seismologist]

That I am totally surprised by this turn of events! I was completely convinced that SCO had the legitimate claim to the Linux IP. Wow, what do I do with my SCO server coupons now? Oh, wait maybe Novell can still honor them somehow...

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Eggplant62]

How about toilet paper??

Re:Ah ok Novell owns teh UNIX (c)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that definitely puts the Microsoft Novell deal in a MUCH clearer light... ok who is whos biatch now?

Regardless Novel has redistributed the Linux kernel and the GNU tools so many times that the GPL pretty much means it is now a non-issue. I guess they could have some fun with Microsoft over it but it's not as if it will have any implications for stuff that matters ; )

That'll teach 'em...

[Kazoo the Clown]

Don't F*** with the PENGUIN!

Re:Fair??? Language, please...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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!".

Standing to bring suit

[DickBreath]

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.

Re:Hurrah!

[cp.tar]

You can send them feedback from here.

I wrote this:
Subject: You have an error on your website...
Message: It says, "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."
NO, YOU DON'T! HA! HA!
Now get those lies off your website.
Cheers!

And then I got the message: Thank you for your feedback.
And in smaller print: You will be hearing from us soon.

Do you think that was a threat?

Re:Hurrah!

[Anonymous Coward]

"What more be said?"

Um, I don't owe $699 and I get to throw stones at McBride like he said we could if SCO was wrong?

And does anybody remember Seth? A poster here on /. when all this started that went on and on how SCO was so right? Seth, were are you now? Got anything to say?

Re:Hurrah!

[Anonymous Coward]

What more be said?

"needs to"?

Re:Novell to Open Source Unix?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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.

If I understand this correctly:

While Novell owns the copyrights they are still in that pesky exclusive contract for SCO to administer the licensing, for which SCO gets a big cut and for which SCO paid some big bux once upon a time. That contract is the bulk of SCO's remaining assets.

If IBM finishes demolishing SCO and eats the corpse, they'll end up being the other party in that contract. THEN they can get together with Novell and open the source, PD the source, license it to all comers for $1, or whatever. Or just tear it up and free Novell to do whatever they want with the copyrights.

Woohoo!

[microbee]

Time to pick up some really cheap SCO stock!

Re:Hurrah!

[cp.tar]

Somehow, I'd expected a less matter-of-fact headline.

And much more gloating.

Utter destruction

[Panoramix]

"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.

Goodness

[Silent sound]

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.

Re:Goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of. Microsoft was using this as a stalling tactic, hoping that by now Europe would have accepted software patents and that they could use that as the new FUD hammer to hammer Open Source with. That hasn't worked out the way they wanted, and it looks like the US is the only major market where that FUD will work. An important market, certainly.

But if all the other major markets - Europe, China and the rest of Asia, and the rest of the Americas - don't recognize software patents, then they'll have to compete on other merits in those markets. Against free software. In the long run, under the pressure of globalization, US companies will get tired of being forced to pay the Microsoft tax and will demand the repeal of software patents so that they can have the same cheap alternatives that their global competition has. It may take a decade or two, but the writing is on the wall if Europe and the rest hold firm.

Re:Goodness

[Moflamby-2042]

... 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.

There have been been tremendous advances for Linux and the things mentioned in your message there don't seem to jibe with all of the news that I've been keeping track of over the last 5 years. The beginnings of major party support for the desktop, many more developers have been working for Linux targets, and by some reports Microsoft has lost quite a few. Desktop progress seems significant. Major new things are measured in days now. You've got Beryl, virtualization, better driver support, and that whole Ubuntu thing that's being installed by new people daily, Microsoft is paying out many hundreds of millions to try to control open source software and Linux. Many industry giants are embracing it. There's been phenomenal progress in many of the packages. There's simply no doubt to me that it's moving at an incredible rate, but you seem to claim the opposite. That it's stagnant and the zeal and purpose is gone... My question is why? What have you seen to conclude this? I'd probably agree if all I read were Microsoft press releases, but seriously...

Conversion

[DickBreath]

Conversion is a legal word for Stealing.

Judge Kimball writes...

The court further concludes that because a portion of SCO's 2003 Sun and Microsoft Agreements indisputably licenses SVRX products listed under Item VI of Schedule 1.1(a) to the APA, even if only indidental to a license for UnixWare, SCO is obligated under the APA to account for and pass through to Novell the appropriate portion relating to the license of SVRX products. Because SCO failed to do so, it breached its fiduciary duty to Novell under the APA and is liable for conversion.

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.

Re:Conversion

[toxic666]

Yeah, that comment caught my eye, too. There are two remedies for conversion: damages or return of property. Novell asked for damages and a constructive trust. The judge ruled that Novell must prove how much of the deals involved SVRX (subject to the 95% going to Novell) and how much involved UnixWare (not subject). That is the matter of fact that needs to be decided by a jury; that SCO Group owes Novell money is not a fact in dispute, only how much is owed. Thus he could not grant a constructive trust.

But does this open the door to allowing Novell discovery of MS and Sun records should they demand return of the property? I'm still reading the ruling, too, but the judge seemed disgusted that a case with almost no factual basis was brought before the court and took SO much of its time. That SCO Group was unable to bring disputable facts allowed him to gut the case as a matter of law.

Re:Quick!

[Dogtanian]

Somebody run to fark and grab a HaHa! guy to post here. HA! (^_^) HA!

I'm posting an overused image
macro on a text-only site!

Re:Novell to Open Source Unix?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

While Novell owns the copyrights they are still in that pesky exclusive contract for SCO to administer the licensing

IANAL, and I don't know all the gory details of the contract, but here's a thought: Since this finding now affirms that SCO owes Novell the license fees for the SVRX licenses sold to Microsoft and Sun (whatever that percentage is) I believe it brings SCO very close to bankruptcy. If SCO is unable to come up with these fees then Novell could use that as grounds for termination of the whole contract. Heck, the contract may have an escape clause for Novell if SCO fails to stand up to its side of the agreement, and this decision could be enough for Novell to terminate immediately.

Re:Hurrah!

[TheWanderingHermit]

What more be said? That we can like Novell again?

Or can we?

Do we FOSS people still hate Novell because of their deal with Microsoft or love them for standing up for this?

Re:They're effectively bankrupt

[cp.tar]

So how do you think that applies to RedHat's suit against SCO?

Will RedHat gain anything but satisfaction?

Appreciation

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we owe PJ and the groklaw community a round of applause.

I'm sure /. 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 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 ;)

The Nazgul of Armonk

[onkelonkel]

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.

Re:And Apple Wipes a brow

[KillerBees]

Why? Those dippy SCO folks said something to Apple early on about coming after them...then Apple reminded them that they used BSD code. That lawsuit was settled in the 80s.

NIce try...

Re:Hurrah!

[Farmer Tim]

And in smaller print: You will be hearing from us soon.

Do you think that was a threat?

The way things are going, it looks like just another lie.

Re:Novell to Open Source Unix?

[Constantine XVI]

From TFA:

"[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights."

MMMmmmhhhh!

[crhylove]

I'm gettin' a pro bono just thinkin' about it!!

Easy one!

[jc42]

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.

Re:Easy one!

[Anonymous Coward]

It WAS thrown out "right at the start". These trials are exceedingly complex. There is a process to follow. They involve contracts regarding software worth (at one time) hundreds of millions of dollars, containing hundreds of millions of lines of code, and involving dozens of claims and counter-claims.

How long do you think it "should" take to resolve such cases? An hour? The judge just sits down and makes something up?

The purposes of law and justice could not be served any more quickly. You have to go through the process. That is why we are a nation of laws, and not men. That's what "rule of law" means.

It would have been nice to have it over with sooner. It would also be nice to simple execute all pedophiles on sight. However, either of these "niceties" would result in vast injustice.

Re:Easy one!

[illumin8]

Easy: How many years has this taken? What ever happened to our Constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial?

This got +5 insightful? Your constitutional right to a speedy trial is only guaranteed in criminal cases. This was clearly a civil case, and the constitution provides no guarantees of a speedy trial.

Re:Easy one!

[jc42]

Actually, I'd agree with pretty much everything you wrote. And I'd say that it supports my point: A big corporation (or a little one with backing from a big one) can take anyone to court and bankrupt them with legal expenses, even if there was no merit to their claims.

If Novell hadn't had some big-guy backing, they would be the ones now bankrupt rather than SCO. This fact isn't lost on a lot of managers. It is a good part of what has supported IBM's and Microsoft's dominance in the computer market. "Nobody ever got fired for buying ..." We can also add "Nobody ever got sued for buying ..." Business folks everywhere understand this, and it's a lot of why even the ones who understand that IBM and MS stuff is mostly crap will still buy it, because it's the safest thing for their careers.

Even though SCO (and their supporter Microsoft) have just had a major legal setback, they have already "won" this one in the sense that matters economically. They've shown that they can haul you and me into court on bogus charges, and make us spend millions of dollars defending ourselves. Whether they actually win the court case isn't important; what's important is that they can drag it out for years without even presenting evidence, and run up the legal bills to more than most small companies' net worth. The legal system strongly supports this situation. You and I have no defense other than to sell ourselves to a company that's big enough to defend us in court.

(That's unless you happen to be a multi-billionaire yourself, in which case forget I said anything. ;-)

And yet the stock -increases-?

[keraneuology]

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?

Re:Hurrah!

[digitig]

Yin and Yang. In all good there is some evil, in all evil there is some good. Now come to me without disturbing the rice paper.

Re:For once..

[toxic666]

I've been following this one since groklaw started. I'm still reading the ruling and it's like four years of groklaw and Novell debunking SCO. This is a potent ruling and he just set up IBM to write the PSJ ruling he intends to issue in that case, too.

I was interested in his use of the term "subject to conversion" with respect to the MS and Sun deals. There are two remedies for conversion: return of the property or damages. Novell claimed damages, but I wonder if Judge K opened the door for Novell to demand return of the property (the SVRX licenses Sun and MS got) as a method of opening the documents behind those deals up to discovery in suits by Novell against Sun and MS.

Whatever, this judge was disgusted by what he saw and ruled about as forcefully as possible.

Re:What Sun bought

[IvyKing]

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.

Re:Fair??? Language, please...

[TFoo]

> 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.

Re:Hurrah!

[Captain Nitpick]

I wouldn't worry.

Assassins cost money.

Re:Kicking their own asses...

[SeekerDarksteel]

Could those companies not argue that SCO engaged in fraud by claiming copyright and selling licenses for something they did not technically own? If I claimed that I owned the copyright to Windows and told people they had to give me $100 per copy of windows they used or I would sue them, and people complied, I can't imagine them NOT getting their money back. Now the SCO Unix situation is probably not nearly as clearcut as that, but if indeed the ruling is that SCO does not own the copyright on materials they sold licenses for then it seems pretty open and shut to me.

Someone update the Wiki pls?

[SplatMan_DK]

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

Re:Hurrah!

[ebunga]

The deal with Microsoft was pure genius. With Microsoft backing out of every part of the deal, they'll eventually be able to sue for breach of contract among other things.

How about SLOWPOKES!

[Timmy D Programmer]

Just imagine how long this case would have taken if SCO actually had a leg to stand on.

Re:How about SLOWPOKES!

[watchingeyes]

if sco actually had a leg to stand on, they would have actually pursued their case and tried to resolve it quickly to win their damages. The entire reason the case took this long is because SCO never had a leg to stand on.

Tort of conversion

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is the kind of conversion the judge was talking about.

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).

PJ

[Darth Cider]

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.

re Business

[jelizondo]

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

Re:Kicking their own asses...

[cyphergirl]

In Soviet Linden, SCO pays YOU!

Darl knew perfectly well SCO has no copyrights

[MikePlacid]

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."

Re:The cure is worse than the disease.

[kimvette]

Not gonna happen - Novell themselves distributed Linux under the GPL.

Judge should be disgusted with himself

[walterbyrd]

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.

Re:Judge should be disgusted with himself

[m.ducharme]

Quite often, especially if a judge can see that the Plaintiff has no chance, the judge will bend over backwards, give amazing amounts of leeway, give them the benefit of every procedural rule, knowing that when the Plaintiff is skewered, there will be no appeal. Without knowing much about the matter as it played out, I'd guess that this is the case here. A successful appeal of this ruling would stretch things out for many more years to come: we may be thankful that Kimball let SCO get away with as much as it did.

Re:Judge should be disgusted with himself

[toxic666]

Two words: avoid appeal.

Kimball knew he was up against BSF, masters at gaming the system. Those statements were in his denial of IBM's initial PSJ motions, which he declined only because discovery was not finished. That discovery was not finished was due to BSF's masterful motion practice.

One ruling in February 2005 does not a case make. While it seems apparent he had a decision in mind at that time, he followed procedure to assure his ruling would be safe from appeal.

Don't blame the judge, blame the lawyers (BSF).

Re:Judge should be disgusted with himself

[m.ducharme]

On the grounds that SCO were denied their shot to make their case. On the grounds that parts of the SCO claims in SCO v. IBM relied on claims made in SCO v. Novell, and vice-versa. You would be singing a different tune if it were a "little guy" and not SCO who was the Plaintiff, but SCO gets all the same rights as the fellow who got T-Boned by a drunk, when it comes to Tort law (whether corporations should get the same rights as persons is open for debate, but the fact remains that they do). Justice must not only be served, but be seen to be served. When it comes to throwing out a Plaintiff's claim, judges are notoriously leery of doing so by way of motion, it's much safer legally to let things go to Trial. To get rid of a claim before Trial, you have to be sure. Not mostly, not even 99%. A judge who dismissed a claim before Discovery was even complete would likely be overturned on appeal, for that reason alone.

Re:Hurrah!

[Stormwatch]

Or a spiffy little question like "This begs the question: Will SCO go out of business now?"

This begs the question: is this a correct use of "beg the question"?

Summary is retarded

[X.25]

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.

Damn. Lost my bet...

[Ortega-Starfire]

Bet a friend that Duke Nukem Forever would be released before this was sorted out. Ah well, can't win them all.

ABOUT TIME!

[buss_error]

Is it just me, or does it seem that SCOX (and to a lesser extent, Microsoft) have milked this for all it's worth for the last five years? I have to say, five years of FUD for this result seems a net win for MS and SCOX. What needs to happen is for the major players in this should be made to feel a bit of pain. Like five years in the pokey for constant lies, constant evasions, and stock price manipulation.

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.

What do I expect?

[codegen]

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.

Re:SCOX: death throes begin - spasms of appeals

[mstone]

SCO stopped being able to pay its lawyers around Halloween 2004.

More accurately, SCO made an agreement with Boies Schiller to cap the fees for this case at $31M, with some additional stock and 'cut of the winnings' language thrown in. Boies Schiller agreed to represent SCO all the way through appeals, but the general assumption is that they won't start any new cases for SCO unless SCO dumps some cash on the barrel-head.

So right now, Boies Schiller is looking at a family of cases where they're basically screwed.. they've lost the Novell slander-of-title case outright, and the best they can hope to do there is prove that the $30M technology license Microsoft bought wasn't entirely based on code Novell now officially owns. To the extent that Novell owns the code, Novell also owns 95% of the money, and money Novell owns won't pay SCO's legal fees. In the IBM case, they've been forced to limit their complaint to literal infringement of code that SCO owns -- and there's pathetically little of that which the judge will allow to be used as the basis of a complaint -- and now SCO doesn't even seem to own the code that IBM has allegedly infringed. To make matters worse, Novell has the explicit right to grant IBM permission to do anything it wants with the code, and Novell did exactly that at the outset of this whole long farce.

The whole family of cases as they stand right now are a train wreck for SCO and Boies Schiller, and the only way they could hope to win would be to go back and reformulate their bitch against IBM in a completely new way. But that's exactly what Boise Schiller isn't likely to do without getting a fresh mound of cash from SCO, and SCO doesn't have any cash to throw around right now. Right now, they're shitting bricks trying to find a way to keep Novell from taking away the $30M that's been propping them up since this whole thing started.

Meanwhile, SCO is still in the crosshairs of all the counterclaims Novell and IBM have filed, most of which Novell and IBM are likely to win, and win big. The damages from those will cost far more than SCO has ever been worth. The end result of that game will basically guarantee that any potential 'successor in interest' to SCO would rather strip naked, stick his feet in a hill of fire ants, and shove his arms into a tree-chipper than even think about trying to pick up the case where SCO left off.

Then we'll have to see whether Darl MacBride and the rest of the SCO management team can escape criminal charges, based on what they actually knew or should have known, what they said to the press and government agencies like the SEC, and whether this whole thing can be written off as the longest and most obnoxious pump-and-dump scheme in history.

So basically, this will all end when SCO's crops have been burned, their fields have been tilled with salt, and their flayed carcasses have been poisoned so thoroughly that even the buzzards won't dare to eat what's left.

Of course, that's only what I can come up with. They don't call IBM's lawyers The Nazgul for nothing.

Re:Hurrah!

[Don_dumb]

There was good in Sauron? He liked kittens

Re:Hurrah!

[geminidomino]

With ketchup.

Re:They're effectively bankrupt

[Antique Geekmeister]

More than just satisfaction: RedHat protected their own business, and faced a fraudulent litigator head-on. That kind of nerve to protect yourself and your customers is something software purchasers, like me, treasure in a vendor. They told the truth up front, they documented it, and held their own against the worst sort of lying weasel in court. It was very expensive: such lawyers are not cheap. Now they can focus their resources on more useful tasks.

Novell's success in the lawsuit against SCO buys them some credit in the open source community and respect from potential clients, such as me, that they badly need in the wake of their ill-managed decision to broker the weird patent protectons with Microsoft. They lost a huge, huge amount of support and credibility in the open source world. This will help them recoer some of it.

Re:Hurrah!

[mabhatter654]

it's even more confusing because microsoft payed off SCO and Baystar... but also paid off Novell. So did Novell use Microsoft money to win the SCO case Microsoft paid to start???

head exploded!!

Re:Hurrah!

[Knuckles]

There was good in Sauron?

Read the Silmarillion.

Re:Hurrah!

[paving-slab]

It's not so confusing. Microsoft are simply better players than SCO or Novell. Ever heard the phrase "Divide and conquer"?

Now that this debacle is over Microsoft are at it again with their patent deals.

Re:Hurrah!

[Darl MacBride]

Some smartass here discovered my real identity, so I decided that posting under an alias shouldn't be necessary anymore...

Re:Beginning of the end?

[Delkster]

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.

It's *NOT* over : now we have the MS patents FUD

[herodiade42]

So, do you really think that the FUD campaign to bring legal uncertainty upon Linux is now over ? Think about it twice.

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, ...) on the Linux desktop.

Now it's SCOpokes

[Spamalope]

the new term for delayed litigation!

Re:Let me fix that for you...

[asuffield]

Now that Novell is found to own Unix they're too small to hold it

Why? Unix isn't actually worth anything, these days. Even at the height of SCO's FUD machine, they didn't make any real money from it. This just happened to be the easiest and most painless way to flatten their claims, which were already looking to lose on the merits in the IBM case.

Unix itself (commonly referred to as SysV), as an operating system, is dead. It has been replaced by AIX, Solaris, and to some extent Linux (although Linux has mostly created new markets rather than occupying the space where Unix used to live).

Re:Hurrah!

[JesseMcDonald]

There was good in Sauron?

Read the Silmarillion.

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.)

Lawyering on Slashdot

[ancientt]

Couldn't help but think of an excerpt:

"I know it, 'e knows it, th'gentleman knows it, y'knows it yerself, th'dogs in th' alleys knows it, th'babes in th'woods knows it, th'man in th'moon knows it, th'tooth fairy knows it, th'owl an' the pussycat knows it, th'Queen knows it, th'constables knows it, ever'body knows it."

Alas, my mouth had a mind of its own.

"Can't be proved!" I cried. The next moment, I flinched with dismay.

The whole crowd around the table were hissing me down.

"Prove it?" demanded O'Doul. His face was pale with outrage. "Prove it?"

"What's proof got t'do with it?" demanded Flannery. "What d'ye think this is, y' mangy cur, some kind o' court o' law?"

Flannery tottered to his feet, waving his alepot about. "This is not a court o' law, y'little guttersnipe! This 'ere is th'ancient an' venerable Bar 'o Troughly Justice!"

"Verges on outright lawyering," muttered O'Doul, glaring at me balefully.

-- From The Philosophical Strangler

Re:Hurrah! [Begs the Question RANT]

[walstib]

Hey, we're just trying to protect the English language from uneducated fucktards like you. It's a noble cause. Which begs the question: is this a correct use of "fucktards"?