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.

Comments

Throwback?

[bradgoodman]

Is this "Throwback Tuesday"? I had to re-read it a few times to make sure I wasn't reading a VERY old article...

Re:Throwback?

[bradgoodman]

P.S. DIE ALREADY!!!!

Re:Throwback?

[sycodon]

SCO is like some old guy in the mountains with his mule panning for gold. He just knows he'll strike it rich one day.

Re:Throwback?

[number6x]

Why does the summary fail to mention the many outstanding charges that IBM has against SCO, some already decided against SCO, with hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties on hold while SCO works through its bankruptcy?

As soon as SCO pokes its head out of bankruptcy court the Nazgul will be there, waiting for the payment owed. Do those silly bumpkins in Utah think IBM is going to not notice? Darl and his telemarketing scheme buddies are scam artists with a long history of swindling people (check out IKON Office Supplies). SCO is a bunch of petty criminals with no moral integrity, very small pea brains and only the ability to annoy people until paid to go away. If Martha Stewart was sent to a tennis-club prison for her 'crimes', these people should be doing hard time. They should certainly be shunned by the people of Utah, for their long history of immoral criminal activity.

Pining?

[OzPeter]

I didn't realize that there were fjords in Utah.

NUKE IT FROM ORBIT

[Noryungi]

It's the only way to be sure.

OK, that was easy, but, seriously? SCO is still... acting up? Moving? I thought that thing (and the other... er... thing) and the one before that were settled?

Like, drive a wooden stake through its heart? Bury the head and body separately? What is wrong with the world when fsck SCO is still at large?

Come on, IBM, do everyone a favor: crush them like a bug. Please. I don't know, open a Kickstarter or something, I'll send you money and you a send me a Big Blue T-Shirt with little penguins on it. Please, make it stop. Please, I beg you. Pleeeeeeaaaaaaseeeee, I can't take it anymore! It's not the suspense, it's just the sheer idiocy of it all.

Re:Oh, for Pete's sake. Not again!

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

They have had like 4-5 judges in this case already.

The judges has done alot to try and get away from this case.

IBM should put SCO out of misery

[sxpert]

Can't IBM just buy whatever remains of SCO for scrap and shoot it down for good ?

Re:IBM should put SCO out of misery

[Sique]

Why should they reward SCO with any money?

Re:IBM should put SCO out of misery

[The Grim Reefer]

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.

Re:IBM should put SCO out of misery

[rkhalloran]

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. ]

Re:IBM should put SCO out of misery

[drinkypoo]

Take it over by force, find evidence that it was a sock puppet, sue the lawyers

Re:IBM should put SCO out of misery

[Damouze]

The SCO that is currently trolling IBM is not the SCO that you remember as "such a good company". There are two SCO's:

* The Santa Cruz Operation (1979-2001). This is the SCO that you remember. They brought us Xenix (bought from M$), SCO Unix and Unixware. This SCO sold their rights to UNIX to Caldera Systems (then primarily known for Caldera/Open Linux and OpenDOS (bought from Novell, which had in turn bought it from Digital Research earlier). In those years they were mostly famous for filing an antitrust campaign against Microsoft). After selling their UNIX servers and services division to Caldera they renamed themselves as Tarantella Inc., after the product line they retained. Tarantella was subsequently bought by Sun Microsystems in 2005, which in turn was bought by Oracle in 2010.
* The SCO Group (2005-), formerly known as Caldera Systems / Caldera International. As Caldera they bought above SCO's UNIX servers and services division and subsequently renamed themselves to "The SCO Group". Like an evil David they tried to topple Goliath IBM by (falsely) claiming in court that programmers from IBM illegally copied code from SCO's OpenServer sources (supposedly their intellectual property was so secret that their allegations of verbatim copying code by IBM was "proven" by presentational slides which had the SCO code shown in Greek alphabet). Around the same time they started selling subscription based Linux licenses to large IT companies (which were led to believe that The SCO Group owned the rights to Linux). This ridiculous scheme went on for several years, until a judge decided, once and for all, that enough was enough and told them to bugger off, as in the meantime, it had become clear in a separate lawsuit that Novell was in fact the owner of the UNIX copyrights, not the SCO Group.

Does this mean Groklaw will come back?

[satch89450]

That would be the only GOOD thing that would come out of this action by SCO and IBM. :)

Re:Does this mean Groklaw will come back?

[l0ungeb0y]

Who paid her? Who was she shilling for? As far as I ever knew, she was an independent Paralegal who started the site as a personal project to follow the SCO case. Seems you are one of the Microsoft/SCO OSS haters out to continue to slander and bash PJ and anyone who supports Open Source or freedom of Speech.

Re:Oh, for Pete's sake. Not again!

[Austerity Empowers]

Judging can be hard work, it's not all bribery and good ol' boyism. Sometimes you have to sit through some real snoozefests.

Re:Oh, for Pete's sake. Not again!

[jbolden]

They filed they aren't threw the bankruptcy yet. A trustee has been appointed and the trustee decided there still are outstanding legal issues.

They *still* libel Linux

[Just Some Guy]

According to SCO's website:

The UNIX ABIs were never authorized for unrestricted use or distribution under the GPL in Linux®. As the copyright holder, SCO has never granted such permission. Nevertheless, many of the ABIs contained in Linux®, and improperly distributed under the GPL, are direct copies of our UNIX copyrighted software code.

Wasn't it proven that Novell owned any and all copyrights involved here? How long do you get to publicly libel someone (like everyone who uses Linux) before a judge can order you to cease and desist that idiocy?