It's now more then ever important to let this case have a day in a courtroom. And I think that's why IBM is moving so carefully. If IBM really wanted to have this case settled, then it could've moved to get some sort of preliminary injunction, where SCO would have to show something to validate it claims. Yet IBM is moving towards facing SCO in court, and meanwhile RedHat is trying to fasttrack things. For IBM there might be another reason to see it's countersuit proceed: To have the GPL once and for all validated as a legal license. AFAIK until today no company ever dared to fight the GPL, and even SCO is more or less acknowledging the validity of it, although they are trying lamely to say it's unconstitutional. If the ruling is that the GPL is valid, then IBM (and others) can use the GPL'ed software as a proven weapon against Microsoft. As far as SCO's reason for keeping the talk up and the evidence down: I guess by now we can be close to 100% sure that there's no case for them. But by putting out press releases at the speed of light, most press seem to have forgotten what's true and what's not. They just bravely copy each and every word from the pressrelease.
And after that they will sue just about everyone for breathing air - Darl's brain consists for 99% of it, the other 1% allows him to use a conference call as toilet.
Makes me wonder what SCO's next press release will be. Just when I thought the newsfeed ran dry on the SCO vs. IBM case, this comes up. It's such a shame that justice takes it's time. It would make for a nice daily-dose-of-sco when this goes to court
AFAIK RedHat's case was triggered by direct statements from SCO that they were on the 'hitlist', but RedHat tried to defend us all, and also tried to lure SCO into showing the code, as potential proof they had any base for the statements. Sounds a bit orchestrated by IBM, and maybe it is. It would be the perfect way to get any evidence on the table, and would allow the community to fix the code (if needed), and basically bail everyone out of future cases by SCO against any and all Linux-adopting companies, since they (SCO) seem to wait for the IBM vs SCO case before going after the users.
There's a lot of issues surrounding this case, but let's start with the request for a Bruce Perens or Eric Raymond: These guys repeatedly offered they're assistance in looking at the code to identify any possibly infringing snippets, but they require that the NDA is dropped for them. SCO refuses to let them do this, seemingly afraid that the infringing snippets will 'disappear' from the kernel source, hence losing a case against all those commercial users of Linux they want to sue.
And to have all those people claiming it's pump and dump of SCO stock, think of this: Some execs have call options (right to buy at a certain price) that can't be exercised till somewhere in 2004. That means they have to keep the SCO stock price up till they can exercise the options. With a case like this, I wonder if that's possible: sooner or later the 'regular joe' catches on, and the stock will end up in a free-fall, and if printed on paper, making geek toilet paper (But that might make the demand among us geeks so high the price gets back up). Next to that, they sold quite some stock, but so far it's been in 5000 - 10000 chunks, While they own 10 - 20 times that much each. If they really wanted to get rich, they would dump it as fast as they could, and leave the country.
My guess is they started seriously believing they have a case, but now continue in order not to lose their face. I think McBride and his servants have lost a lot of sleep over this case by now, and will have a lot of sleepless nights in he near future.
Just wait and see, somewhere during the trial the 'infringing' code will need to be entered as evidence, and before a verdict is reached, the replacement is likely to be in the kernel. After that it's up to you to install it as fast as possible.
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It's now more then ever important to let this case have a day in a courtroom. And I think that's why IBM is moving so carefully.
If IBM really wanted to have this case settled, then it could've moved to get some sort of preliminary injunction, where SCO would have to show something to validate it claims. Yet IBM is moving towards facing SCO in court, and meanwhile RedHat is trying to fasttrack things.
For IBM there might be another reason to see it's countersuit proceed: To have the GPL once and for all validated as a legal license. AFAIK until today no company ever dared to fight the GPL, and even SCO is more or less acknowledging the validity of it, although they are trying lamely to say it's unconstitutional.
If the ruling is that the GPL is valid, then IBM (and others) can use the GPL'ed software as a proven weapon against Microsoft.
As far as SCO's reason for keeping the talk up and the evidence down: I guess by now we can be close to 100% sure that there's no case for them. But by putting out press releases at the speed of light, most press seem to have forgotten what's true and what's not. They just bravely copy each and every word from the pressrelease.
And after that they will sue just about everyone for breathing air - Darl's brain consists for 99% of it, the other 1% allows him to use a conference call as toilet.
Makes me wonder what SCO's next press release will be.
Just when I thought the newsfeed ran dry on the SCO vs. IBM case, this comes up. It's such a shame that justice takes it's time. It would make for a nice daily-dose-of-sco when this goes to court
AFAIK RedHat's case was triggered by direct statements from SCO that they were on the 'hitlist', but RedHat tried to defend us all, and also tried to lure SCO into showing the code, as potential proof they had any base for the statements.
Sounds a bit orchestrated by IBM, and maybe it is. It would be the perfect way to get any evidence on the table, and would allow the community to fix the code (if needed), and basically bail everyone out of future cases by SCO against any and all Linux-adopting companies, since they (SCO) seem to wait for the IBM vs SCO case before going after the users.
There's a lot of issues surrounding this case, but let's start with the request for a Bruce Perens or Eric Raymond: These guys repeatedly offered they're assistance in looking at the code to identify any possibly infringing snippets, but they require that the NDA is dropped for them. SCO refuses to let them do this, seemingly afraid that the infringing snippets will 'disappear' from the kernel source, hence losing a case against all those commercial users of Linux they want to sue.
And to have all those people claiming it's pump and dump of SCO stock, think of this: Some execs have call options (right to buy at a certain price) that can't be exercised till somewhere in 2004. That means they have to keep the SCO stock price up till they can exercise the options. With a case like this, I wonder if that's possible: sooner or later the 'regular joe' catches on, and the stock will end up in a free-fall, and if printed on paper, making geek toilet paper (But that might make the demand among us geeks so high the price gets back up). Next to that, they sold quite some stock, but so far it's been in 5000 - 10000 chunks, While they own 10 - 20 times that much each. If they really wanted to get rich, they would dump it as fast as they could, and leave the country.
My guess is they started seriously believing they have a case, but now continue in order not to lose their face. I think McBride and his servants have lost a lot of sleep over this case by now, and will have a lot of sleepless nights in he near future.
I guess SCO's lawfirm fell for it, and are now working as hell to see some of the money back...
Just wait and see, somewhere during the trial the 'infringing' code will need to be entered as evidence, and before a verdict is reached, the replacement is likely to be in the kernel. After that it's up to you to install it as fast as possible.