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Not Quite Dead: SCO Linux Suit Against IBM Stirs In Utah
An anonymous reader points to a story in the Salt Lake Tribune which says that
The nearly defunct Utah company SCO Group Inc. and IBM filed a joint report to the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City saying that legal issues remain in the case, which was initiated in 2003 with SCO claiming damages of $5 billion against the technology giant, based in Armonk, N.Y.
That likely means that U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, who now presides over the dispute, will start moving the lawsuit — largely dormant for about four years while a related suit against Novell Inc. was adjudicated — ahead. What kind of issues? In addition to its claims of IBM misappropriation of code, SCO alleges that IBM executives and lawyers directed the company's Linux programmers to destroy source code on their computers after SCO made its allegations.
The company's other remaining claims are that IBM's actions amounted to unfair competition and interference with its contracts and business relations with other companies.
IBM has remaining claims against SCO that allege the Utah company violated contracts, copied and distributed IBM code that had been placed in Linux and that SCO created a campaign of "fear, uncertainty and doubt" about IBM's products and services because of the dispute over Unix code.
Is this "Throwback Tuesday"? I had to re-read it a few times to make sure I wasn't reading a VERY old article...
That would be the only GOOD thing that would come out of this action by SCO and IBM. :)
Judging can be hard work, it's not all bribery and good ol' boyism. Sometimes you have to sit through some real snoozefests.
Why should they reward SCO with any money?
I doubt it would be a good move for IBM. IANAL, but they may have to fend off counter suits against SCO if they take ownership.
If this goes on much longer, this lawsuit will have a longer lifespan than Duke Nukem's development hell.
SCO, taking the idea of vaporware to a whole new level.
We asked a gentleman by us, if he knew what cause was on? He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it? He said, really no he did not, nobody ever did; but as well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he said; over for good.
...
Over for good!
When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the Will had set things right at last, and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas, it was!
Our suspense was short; for a break up soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot, and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all exceedingly amused, and were more like people coming out from a Farce or a Juggler than from a court of Justice. We stood aside, watching for any countenance we knew; and presently great bundles of paper began to be carried outâ"bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst of them, whether the cause was over. "Yes," he said; "it was all up with it at last!" and burst out laughing too.
"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.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This was obviously what SCOXQ.BK wanted to begin with, a nice payout to STFU and go away. Problem is, given IBMs deep pockets, it would encourage all the other trolls to come out of the woodwork looking for a similar deal. IBM is making them the latest Horrible Warning about frivolous lawsuits against them. The other issue, that I honestly think the SCOundrels didn't take into account, was that charging IBM with stealing code, when their consulting arm works with any number of Fortune 100 companies, was a charge they couldn't let stand. Buying them off gives that charge credibility, where reducing them to a greasestain on the Utah sands proves the baseless nature of the case (the millions-for-defense-not-one-cent-in-tribute argument). SCO's lawyers took a flat fee for handling the case through all appeals; at this point they're running up time they can't bill for. IBM can post a couple of interns on the case and wait until what little cash SCOX has left is burned out, then graciously propose a settlement involving the public flogging of all current and former SCOX execs and a full-page ad in the SLC Tribune calling SCOX out as a malicious copyright troll. [ Disclaimer: 12 years at ATT; seeing these vermin trying to troll based on the legacy UNIX source code has pissed me off to no end, and wrapping them in bacon and trolling them through a school of great whites would be less than they deserve. ]
... but my kneejerk reaction is to find the remaining SCO layers, some strong hemp rope and a stout oak tree.
Seriously though, nothing cries out for Tort reform like this nonsense.
This post triggered me and gave me PTSD.
I call bullshit on pretty much everything you just said. That paragraph is very long on ad hominem arguments, imputing all kinds of bad will on systemd naysayers, and completely devoid of technical arguments.
Systemd breaks systems. Period. Sure, it can be made to work after much futzing around, but even distros which have had it for a while still have breakage tied to the replacement of SysV init with systemd. (As one example, OpenSuSE 13.2's "log viewer" still tries to open the no-longer-existant /var/log/messages file.)
Your last sentence is particularly telling. "I believe that many of those who oppose systemd are in fact agents of Microsoft trying to undermine Linux and attack anything that could actually make it better." It reads like the classic technique of a culprit accusing his accusers of exactly the thing that he himself did so as to deflect criticism.
Your arm must be really tired from painting with that broad brush. As for those who oppose systemd being Microsoft ``agents'', the feature usurpation being done by the systemd developers seems to show just the opposite.
But... WTF does any of this have to do with SCO and their ridiculous legal arguments rising from the dead? Again?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Microsoft was behind it all along.
Who do you think arranged all these just-in-time multi-million dollar "loans."
For Microsoft, $100M is nothing. Less than the cost of one commercial.
A successful Linux smear campaign for $100M is a bargain.
Microsoft also a huge part of this. Those $50M "loans" had to be backed by somebody.
Just a MS smear campaign against Linux.
And Microsoft gets to pretend they had nothing to do with it.