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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."
Like the article states, SCO is related to Microsoft. This is direct attack against Linux.
nuking from orbit IS the only way to be sure...
Clearly, Zombies are *incredibly* hard to kill.
Can't IBM make a statute of limitations claim, otherwise SCO can just keep backing off and then bringing this up again and again
I suppose this was unavoidable once Duke Nukem Forever went gold...
I better go pay my $699 per CPU fee, because clearly Zombie SCO cannot be stopped.
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.
In the article, it says SCO is broke:
"total assets as $0 (yes, that's "zero"), down from $1,326,293 on petition date, and total liabilities of $1,119,238, up from $418,965 on petition date."
So who the F@#K would represent them for free?
Is money coming from "the cloud"?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
You're assuming SCO's worth the pennies.
"Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. "Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" "Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU say?" "I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" "Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" "Probably," said Mr. Vholes.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Since I'm not an attorney, I'm shooting from the hip; but shouldn't IBM just move for a summary judgement and request thr court order SCO to pay it's legal costs as well as the court's costs?
Now that SCO has spent all its money and sold off all its assets for peanuts, now it can proceed with lawsuits where it will be found liable for additional money. All still safely behind the shield of bankruptcy court of course (A court which thinks selling off all assets and giving the finger to creditors is a plausible way to restructure a business)
Total assets: $1,515,129. Total Debt: $10,858,533
Hmm... SCO's in a world of hurt. I'm trying to figure out how they can even get lawyers to work with them at this point, unless they're using a 'We don't get paid unless you get paid!' ambulance chaser-type personal liability attorney.
Hey, IBM. That's a total of $12,373,662. According to your 2010 income report, it looks like you're making a net of about 14 billion dollars a year... literally more than a thousand times that. And I'm thinking that at least some of that $10.9m is owed to you. If you guys negotiate a bit with the other creditors, I'm betting you could simply up and purchase all SCO's assets for about $2-4m.
That's lunch money for a company like IBM. It's less than a certain Kickstart project we've all been reading about.
Think about the good will you could create by taking a dump truck to what's left of SCO and then public-domaining the entire shebang.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Too late for money to matter I fear, SCOX was delisted so you cant get a majority share and tell them to sit down and shut up. What we're left with is some sort of zombie corporation that's still attacking even efter we shotgunned its head.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
... wake me the fu& up?
First Half: Gurgle gurgle gurgle woosh squeek squeek cough... Dude, I just had this great idea!
Second Half: Lets sue IBM again.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
That's why corporations shouldn't be treated as people; at least people (even very dumb ones) are intelligent enough to know when they're dead.
"Cases won in 30 minutes or your pizza is free"
Be gone from my sight or prepare to feel my flaming wraith!
Error 503 Service Unavailable
Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:
XID: 1328143252
See, Slashdot? That happens when you don't pay for your licenses!
Ezekiel 23:20
This is the lawsuit that never ends, it goes on and on my friends. some people started suing just because, making...
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
1) Cockroaches
2) Keith Richards
3) The SCO case.
In fact, as someone pointed out above, anyone stupid enough to buy them is just accepting all their liabilities.
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)
https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/comic/hd/2010/04/real-legal-argument-revealed
OK. Old one, but Chris'll probably have to bite on this.
And that's up 21% from yesterday's close. This looks like a pump and dump so they can afford lunch.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The summary text did a great job of explaining the history I already know far too well, while doing nothing to convey the pretext for the zombie resurrection. Isn't this the kind of teaser you see on the cover of celebrity magazines (stacked as high as carried children can't grab candy) at the grocery store checkout counter?
Originally I came here because the real world pisses me off when I walk into a convenience store and marked prices are MIA, while quantities and ingredients are obfuscated by maximal signage, and loyalty card prices displayed for pallet quantities in 96 point Helvetica (I'm exactly as loyal to my local gas station as their price/quality/service mix is competitive against convenient alternatives).
Bad, Slashdot, bad.
Not really.
One of the advantages of corporations is limited liability.
SCO shareholders won't be on the hook for a penny.
SCO R&D Department = 10 outside legal firms patent trolling
"When will you make an end?"
"When I am finished."
of being tasty.
actually, I'd think it would benefit Apple more than Microsoft
Steve Jobs pre-death said he "wants to go thermonuclear on Android"
Android runs using Java on Linux
SCO owns some interest in UNIX (apparently) and claims to own Linux and is suing for $699-2798 for a license
an Android phone even starting at $699 is already D.O.A. because you can buy a friggin' iPad for that
Apple has the second largest marketshare for smartphones behind Android, so has the most to win - Microsoft has a measly 2%.
ergo an SCO win is a win for Apple, though it would benefit Microsoft as well... until Apple sues them into the ground for swipe to unlock and other copied features...
Apparently a mid-eastern venture capital firm committed $25MM to SCO to acquire their assets, and committed to funding them for 18 months from April 2011.
The press release is actually kind of ironic... http://www.dubaibeat.com/2011/04/20/middle_east_investors_acquired.php
As a one time DIckens fan, I just wanted to mention that in "Bleak House" the case is referred to as "Jarndyce and Jarndyce", not "vs"
- TWR, Redondo Beach, California
Everyone shout it along with me - But wait! There's more!
No, but any corporation stupid enough to buy them would be. In a buyout, the SCO shareholders would be paid off and out of it to go enjoy the sunshine. Why let them off the hook so easily?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Because that would leave the impression that IBM had done what SCO accued them of, and IBM was just burying the evidence. Not the sort of impression you want to give when your clients include major foreign banks, militaries and governments and they have to trust you with access to information they don't want even your government getting access to. And IBM does a lot of business. If losing customer's trust costs IBM even 1-2% a year of business, fighting SCO in court is still cheaper by an order of magnitude.
I have this picture of a notional exchange between IBM and it's lawyers:
And then I remember that IBM's lawyers have been with them a long time, they're not going to be surprised by this.
SCO wanted to reopen the case, not IBM. But SCO wanted to reopen only their side of it, without allowing IBM to bring up any of their side. That... failed to fly with the judge, and SCO and their lawyers really had no choice. If they hadn't reopened the case, I'm fairly sure the next step would've been for IBM and others to move for the bankruptcy court to convert SCO's case over to Chapter 7 liquidation seeing as according to SCO their only asset left is the litigation and that isn't worth anything if SCO can't or won't pursue it.
"If you do not drop the suit now, or submit the claimed infringing code as evidence in ten days, the suit will be dismissed with prejudice, you will pay all court costs and legal fees for the defendant, and you will be jailed for contempt of court."
"One time"? What happened? Went to the "dark side" with Thackeray? Or... Bulwer-Lytton? :-)
Tried finishing D'Israeli's "Vivian Grey". My god! What a poof!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
SCO vs. IBM et.al. I see as a sort of infinitely recyclable training ground for the legal profession. The suit can be seen as similar to those burnt-out aircraft fuselages you see at some airports - the ones used by firemen to train their staff.
Nobody expects the aircraft to ever get into the air again.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Actually, they already are on the hook. The stock value is penny or two. People holding stock in SCO have lost everything, as they should.
What you're complaining about is that they can't lose more than everything.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I wasn't complaining about anything. I was explaining the same point you did.
They lost it when they bought the stock.
It became worthless some time after.
It's not quite like having your bank account drained. It's more like buying an expensive cheese collection (and spending a shitton of money in the process) and having it mold out and get worthless on you (long after you've spent the money).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...and flick over to the groklaw channel
...to be continued...
[sco army stands at the bottom of a hill with their bows and arrows at the ready. ibm rep rides down from top of hill to meet sco rep]
ibm to sco: "i want you to leave this land and never return"
sco to ibm: "oh yeah, you and what army!?"
[cut to entire ibm behemoth, linux community and other corporations with any vested interest in linux marching over the hill top armed with minguns and bazookas]
God, what the heck do they think they're doing? They lost already. Why the heck are they beating their own dead horse?
http://tinyurl.com/42geekcode
has anyone tried a little sql injection in the unxis contact form? might make for some more /. entertainment if any sign of it succeeding emerges. or better yet, may a ddos attack by Anonymous