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SCO vs. IBM Trial Back On Again
D___Breath writes "The lawsuit SCO started years ago against IBM (but really against Linux) is back on again. SCO first filed this clue-challenged lawsuit in March 2003. SCO claimed Linux was contaminated with code IBM stole from UNIX and that it was impossible to remove the infringement. Therefore, said SCO, all Linux users owe SCO a license fee of $1399 per cpu — but since SCO are such great guys, for a limited time, you can pay only $699 per CPU for your dirty, infringing copy of Linux. Of course, Novell claimed and later proved in court that SCO doesn't even own the copyrights on UNIX that it is suing over. IBM claims there is no infringing code in Linux. SCO never provided evidence of the massive infringement it claimed existed. The court ordered SCO three times to produce its evidence, twice extending the deadline, until it set a 'final' deadline of Dec 22, 2005 — which came and went — with SCO producing nothing but a lot of hand waving. In the meantime, SCO filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2007 because it was being beaten up in court so badly with the court going against SCO."
They want it to proceed (which I believe was frozen after SCO went into bankruptcy) so that IBM can pound the shit out of SCO in court again.
I believe SCO worked out a deal with Boies in the middle of the case. The trial fees were capped at $25M but Boies was paid upfront. So Boies has to represent SCO; however, with the money gone, no one says they have to represent with their best attorneys.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So who the F@#K would represent them for free?
Boies, Schiller & Flexner. At one point SCO got BS&F to agree to represent them through appeals for what BS&F had already received plus a percentage of the proceeds. Score one for SCO.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
They can claim the value of the pending legal action against IBM is $1 trillion dollars if they want to resist a buy-out. Unlike other people who replied here, I don't think SCO wants a buy-out, I don't think they're in this for the money. I mean, they're in it for the money, but they're in it for the massive cash M$ already paid them, and in exchange for that, they are providing FUD. If they let IBM buy them, they will have no FUD left to sell.
Incidentally, the rumor mill says this sort of thing has happened before - a supposedly infringing company that would rather just buy the company who's IP they're infringing, but can not afford to buy that company for the sole reason that the perceived value of the lawsuit against them makes the company unaffordable. A higher offer simply provides evidence that the lawsuit is worth that much more. Supposedly Steve Jobs tried to just buy Apple Corps, and offered more than anyone thought the perpetual rights to the Beatles catalog is worth, but that wasn't enough because they wanted the value of the Beatles catalog plus the value of the lawsuit against Apple... and the lawsuit against Apple was worth at least any offer Jobs would make for Apple Corps...
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Many MANY companies are a Delaware corporation, even if they do no business at all in Delaware: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-delaware-corporation.htm
The original poster is right: http://www.sco.com/worldwide/us.html
HTH.
It's a fact that Microsoft funded SCO's lawsuits against Linux under the table.
In October 2003, BayStar Capital and Royal Bank of Canada invested US$50 million in The SCO Group to support the legal cost of SCO's Linux campaign. Later it was shown that BayStar was referred to SCO by Microsoft, whose proprietary Windows operating system competes with Linux. In 2003, BayStar looked at SCO on the recommendation of Microsoft, according to Lawrence R. Goldfarb, managing partner of BayStar Capital: "It was evident that Microsoft had an agenda".
On March 4, 2004, a leaked SCO internal e-mail detailed how Microsoft had raised up to $106 million via the BayStar referral and other means. Blake Stowell of SCO confirmed the memo was real. BayStar claimed the deal was suggested by Microsoft, but that no money for it came directly from them. In addition to the Baystar involvement, Microsoft paid SCO $6M (USD) in May 2003 for a license to "Unix and Unix-related patents", despite the lack of Unix-related patents owned by SCO.
(Wikipedia)
What is the obsession with nuking from orbit? If you're in orbit, a kinetic projectile of sufficient mass will get the job done. No nuclear materials, or any sort of intelligence on the projectile is needed. A sufficiently massive chunk of iron at sufficient velocity will get the job done.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Your question seems sincere, so I'll give you a straight answer.
It's a quote from a famous movie.
Because using a kinetic projectile is meming Heinlein not Alien. Or more to the point quoting a book instead of a movie, and who has time to actually read these days?
Have you read Brooks? Set a zombie on fire, and now you're facing a flaming zombie, lurching around, trying to eat your brains, and, incidentally, setting everything around it on fire--possibly including you.
Before you try fire as an anti-zombie measure, you need to find out whether you're dealing with a Pratchett zombie or a Brooks/Romero type zombie. One key difference is that Pratchett zombies are smart. SCO? Not so much. :)
Nice theory. But we don't have any evidence of collusion between SCO and Apple at all. What we DO have is evidence of ~$85 million payed by MS to SCO through third parties.