SCO isn't getting anywhere with geeks in basements and isn't trying to.
I don't believe I suggested they were. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was you suggesting that they were taking Groklaw seriously. Personally, I think that the only way they take it seriously is as a threat to their FUD.
The problem is that both those media outlets and stupid investors come to Slashdot, see all the hysteria being kicked up every day (remember, they don't realize that all those screeching posters are 14 year old Windows users, not Linux insiders) and figure that there must be something plausible underlying all that fuss.
I don't believe those people come to Slashdot and read the comments. They'd have to be as retarded as we are. Seriously, they just don't have the time. If they do read Slashdot, then they'd come read the top stories as a pointer to breaking news from the other media, but I really don't believe serious journalists/analysts/investors spend time wading through tripe about Natalie Portman and Hot grits in an attempt to get at the few insightful nuggets that you get here. It's a very poor use of their valuable time.
I guarantee Slashdot is increasing SCO's credibility in the rest of the media, not diminishing it.
And you guarantee this based upon what? As someone who spent a few years working as a freelance journalist, and who still has friends working in the media, I can guarantee that no journalist that I've ever met would even bother to read more than the first half dozen comments that you get here, before then dismissing it as meaningless tripe and a waste of their time.
If you were a specialist IT reporter and were researching the story and you read the Slashdot comments for anything, it would be in the hopes of identifying someone who wasn't an Anonymous Coward who has insightful views and expertise in a related area and so might give you a quote (though you'd have to have a lot of time on your hands because there are far, far easier ways of doing that), or possibly to get some sense of what the unwashed Linux-using masses were saying/thinking about the issue. Although it doesn't seem that way sometimes, most people who are intelligent enough to sustain a career in the media - a highly competitive field -- tend to be pretty good at evaluating evidence and I can't think of anything that would come lower on their agenda than a bunch of Anonymous Coward posts to Slashdot.
At any rate, you don't see other CEOs publically slugging it out with unknown web sites, do you? McBride issues those statements for one reason: to yank the Linux crowd's chain and generate more publicity and FUD.
OK, I see what you're saying, but I believe that he's less interested in yanking the Linux crowd's chain, than he is in generating the publicity, because it's the publicity that results in the rise in the stock price -- which is his real goal. I think the chain yanking is an accidental spin-off that I'm sure he finds entertaining, because he's clearly an aggressive, competitive guy who is waging a war for public opinion.
But if Linux advocates were to simply ignore these statements, he'd be turning around to the media saying 'Look, I'm right. That lot haven't got any arguments to counter our claims.' As it is though, his claims are widely reported in the Linux press in order to allow people to make some contribution to contesting the FUD.
I do take your point about the way Slashdot tends to be something of a rumour mill though, reporting vague opinion and speculation. I much prefer to read Groklaw for my SCO news, partly because the coverage there is much more detailed and substantive, but mostly because the quality of discussion there is so much higher.
Finally, I accept that you weren't trolling, but I still think you're dead wrong about this.
But it seems to me that if SCO really has IP in Linux, then they're doing the right thing by billing users before the trial.
I'm not so sure that they are. It seems to me that if they really were a legitimate company with genuine IP rights in Linux, they'd be saying to end users 'You have no right to use this software. Please remove it from your servers. Similar functionality can be found in SCO ShitServer and we suggest that you migrate to that.'
They could also bring an action against all of the people who actually sold them the software -- like RedHat, SuSE, Caldera, etc.
I don't remember the people who owned the patents to LZW compression in gifs sending out bills to end users, telling them that if they continued to use Photoshop 5 (or whatever), they'd see them in court.
Anyone know of any precedents for invoicing end users like this?
But I definitely think the fuss from the Linux media fuels SCO's stock inflation by giving them credibility and attention, and I'd be surprised if that weren't part of their calculation from the begining.
I don't know how someone can *be* more wrong. (Though the moderators have managed it yet again.)
SCO's FUD is aimed at investors, and CEO's, not geeks living in their mother's basement.
And so SCO's target audience is in magazines like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal and the various financial wire services. All of those media outlets have been reporting the SCO story largely uncritically, without any real investigation into the detail of the story.
Sites like Slashdot and Groklaw have been providing the story behind the story, and as such, they've been doing a good job of countering the SCO FUD. If investors *had* been reading those sites, there would be very little chance that they'd be having a bet on the longshot that SCO can win their case, because they'd have more insight into the nature of SCO's case.
As it is, they read the analysts and reporters who have been say 'SCO has showed us the evidence and there appears to be a huge payday a little way down the line.' Deutche Bank have a target price on SCO of something like $45 dollars a share, and it's only the Linux press that is saying precisely why that price target is unlikely to be realized.
Eventually, someone in the mainstream financial press will get the whole picture and confidence in SCO will take a tumble. The Linux media is playing an essential part in that process by doing the analysis and amassing the evidence that the non-tech press seems to be incapable of doing.
Why do you think McBride responds with an open letter to every attack? Do you see other CEOs who feel compelled to treat Groklaw like it's the Wall Street Journal?
McBride's comments *are* aimed at the WSJ, not Groklaw. I can't find any comments from McBride or any SCO executive to PJ. If anything, PJ's assiduous coverage and analysis of this story puts the mainstream media to shame and shows the way that Blogging as a form of collaborative open journalism actually *can* cover specialist stories in more depth and with greater critical analysis than the rest of the media have been capable of so far.
What is that man, Darl McBride, doing to his anus???
This is a job for Crime Scene Investigation. Somebody send for Gil Grissom.
"If you study the ass-lips in the photograph closely, you can see that he's not just posing for holiday snaps. That's a surveillance camera aimed at that ruined sphincter. We had it installed around at Michael Jackson's place looking for kiddy stuff and then one day this guy shows up.
If you look carefully, you can see that the asshole is actually talking. I've recently completed an advanced course in ass-lip reading, to try and compensate for my congenital deafness, so I might be able to make this out for myself..."
"OK, here goes" (He turns on tape and starts speaking)
"This is Gil Grissom speaking, examining an image found on a SCO-owned website, concealed by an off-shore server and hosted at http:// goatse.cx. The image is reported as being a key clue into the conspiracy to extort several billion dollars from major US IT interests.
According to my interpretation, this talking asshole is saying the following words.
'Linux contains our intellectual property. Pbrrrrphthhhssp. IBM owes us three billion dollars. Brrrrrrrrrrraasssp. Pass me the crack pipe, Boies, and then you can fist me once again. Brrirrrirrripppppth.'
Shaking her head in disbelief at this vile a conspiracy, suddenly Grissom's co-investigator, Sara Sidle spots something her chief had missed...
"It isn't just your hearing that's going, Grissom, it's your eyesight as well. Look closely. Right above the perinium. Can you see it? I believe that's the distinct mark of a nose-print. We'll have to wait until Greg gets the analysis back from Quantico to be absolutely certain, but I'd be happy to lay you twenty dollars that that pert little shit-streaked button belongs to Yankee Group 'anal-yst' Laura Dildo.
Grissom: "Well, it could be Didio, but on the other hand, it could be the nose of Rob 'Bell' Enderle. Have Greg break out the Mikrosil and take an impression of that ass-print so that we can match it up against a range of analysts noses. And tell him that while he's at it, bring out the Electronic Polymer Sensor Proboscis. I want him to run that against the noses of the various market analysts to make sure that the shit on the nose matches that of McBride's ass."
Sara Sidel: "And then bingo! We'll have nailed the bloodsucking bastards..."
Grissom: "Well, after looking at that gaping ringpiece, I'd say that he's been nailed once too often in the past. But you know what I always say about such matters..."
At least Slashdot and Linux World gave them the idea to do it now.
Oh, absolutely. There's no way that SCO's lawyers would have ever thought of doing that by themselves.
Just as all of the most insightful financial analysts come to Slashdot for their investment advice ("Short SCO now!"), so the most expensive lawyers come here to identify a strategy for their multi-million dollar cases.
And doesn't it give you a warm glow to think that all these expensive experts are out there, clinging to your every word, no matter how idiotic or banal?
Hey, perhaps if we tell SCO to stop the lawsuits, they'll do that as well
(OK, OK. I know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but *somebody* modded this insightful. That's a hell of a lot lower...)
Actually, I prefer magic tricks when I know how they're done. Because then I watch for the illusion and I'm even more impressed when the practioneer's skill still fools my eyes.
And look at the phenomenal success of geek magicians, Penn and Teller. Part of their whole raison d'etre is that they explain to you *how* the trick was done. Does that diminish their entertainment value? Quite the opposite, in my view.
Please, I consider the project here: http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/ as more priority to getting Linux functionality to winblows
But that functionality already exists for Windows anyway. It might not be Open Source, but I hardly think that's a priority for Windows users anyway.
Incidentally, I could have swore that I read several hundred posts from Linux desktop users here just two or three weeks ago telling us that Linux didn't want or need such frivolous eye candy, and that it wasn't a significant advance in UI design.
I'm glad that someone disagrees and that you now have a (presumably somewhat inferior) version to play with.
I'm not that rebellious compared to the average person my age, and I also believe in God, which helps.
OK. I'm an atheist myself, but my wife and my daughters are all practicing Roman Catholics. For me, this is one of the reasons why I may not feel the need to be as restrictive as other fathers of teenage girls might.
Two months ago, my porn-writing teenage daughter was spending her summertime pushing old ladies and disabled people around Lourdes. In some senses, that makes me feel like a bit of a fraud, because it's a lot easier to cut your kids slack when you have a great deal of faith in their ability to determine what's right and what's wrong and do the right thing 99% of the time.
The idea that you could somehow avoid the consequences of a prior settlement by selling a copyright claim to another party who would then be free to ignore the settlement is somewhat wierd.
You're looking at it from a logical point of view, rather than a legal point of view.
Legally, the position would be this:
1.) By buying the rights to AT & T's code, SCO acquires a proprietary interest in that code.
2.) Wherever they see somebody infringing on those rights, they have an absolute right to seek remedy for that infringement in the courts.
Now, because of the amount of the BSD-lite code that's in the public domain, even if SCO could prove infringement, the courts may very well say 'OK, we find for SCO and award them 10 cents in damages'.
However, to get to that point, Open/Net/FreeBSD have to find the money to defend the action. That isn't going to be easy for them given how much these sorts of trials cost.
The statements in question were not made by Boies, they were made by the idiot CEO. So your argument based on the alleged expertise and honesty of Boies is irrelevant
I'm not alleging honesty at all. Simply a basic grounding in the rules of civil procedure. Although the statements *were* made by the idiot CEO, it seems unlikely to me that, having given Boies his seat at the board, this issue hasn't been discussed extensively beforehand.
I would expect a swift summary judgement and sanctions against Boies if he was foolish enough to try.
You're assuming that they'd be simply going for a basic rehash of the old case. This is hugely unlikely. While these people may be immoral, they may even be dishonest, but they aren't bone stupid. Look at their case against IBM. Although they allege all manner of stuff, they've brought the action against IBM on the basis of a breach of contract. If they are going to go after BSD (and I have no knowledge at all of whether they'll actually try that, or if it's simply more bluster and media manipulation) I think you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll be doing so via some sort of angle that you haven't anticipated. It won't be simply an attempt to argue that the BSD-lite code that ATT ceded to BSDi and that they subsequently released under some sort of Open Source license shouldn't be used without payment to them.
I do not expect him to try
You wouldn't have expected him to try and go after IBM for their contributions to Linux either though. His ingenuity at finding legal loopholes and exploitable arguments are why he bills at millions a year, while you and I are wasting our time and energies posting on Slashdot.
Amusingly, it usually isn't even what the customer wants to hear, since they've only called in a consultant to "justify" some stupid large capital expenditure they've decided on some insane whim to undertake, they _say_ they want the consultant to give advice, they _want_ the consultant to give rationalisations.
Of course they do. The whole point of using consultants/analysts is to cover your ass. If you come up with a bright idea to migrate all of your SCO servers to Linux tomorrow (for example), and SCO prevails and you end up having to stump up $1400 per CPU, it's your ass on the line for having made the decision.
Pay a consultant to make the recommendation, and your hands are clean. When the axe comes, you simply point out that you were just following the experts advice.
I thought that the courts DID issue a ruling which was then appealed and that both parties settled out of court before going through with the appeal.
I'm not a lawyer, nor am I an expert in the BSD/ATT litigation, but I'm pretty sure that what we're talking about here is a judge's directive. As such, it would only apply to that particular case.
Because the case was then settled out of court, that stuff is then expunged from the record and has no impact on any subsequent litigation.
I would not expect anyone to be idiotic enough to try litigating it.
You're shifting your ground. This wasn't what you were arguing. You were arguing that they *couldn't*, and that doing so would put them at risk of legal penalties.
I believe that you're wrong.
Settling a case out of court would make the argument much stronger since it is a contractual agreement
What do you mean, make the argument much stronger? I assume you mean that it would be a defence and I'm happy to concede, quite conceivably a winning defence, depending on the nature of the claim. But as we've no idea what the actual nature of the claim is, it's rather pointless to speculate.
It doesn't detract from my original point.
Under what circumstances do you believe that AT&T could enter into a contract that would invalidate rights that AT&T had already granted under an earlier contract?
Your question is moot, because you're assuming that that's the basis upon which SCO would be bringing the action -- a fact not currently in evidence. Given how much they're paying Boies, I'd be very surprised if he didn't have more up his sleeve than that, although if his conduct of this case so far is anything to go by, anything is possible.
Nonetheless, all that matters here is:
a.) That SCO has some proprietory rights to the code in question. Now they may not have, but I don't believe that that's an issue that's been determined by the courts yet, and SCO certainly don't.
b.) They can show that somebody is infringing those rights.
If they've got those two elements, they've got themselves a court case.
There is no legal claim imaginable that is not 'actionable' in the sense that it is possible to commence an action by issuing a writ.
I'm glad you finally agree and are now seeing sense.
The only way that a claim could not be actionable was if SCO were declared to be a vexatious litigant and barred from access to the court in question.
Your original argument was that the courts would not allow SCO to litigate this case and that Boies would be struck off for trying to bring it. If they can get it before a court, *and* provide pertinent evidence that their rights have been breached, then there's absolutely nothing to stop them litigating such a case to its conclusion. The history of previous actions against previous parties is completely irrelevant unless it can show that SCO has no rights at all to the code being discussed.
I don't like that fact any more than you do, but it still happens to be true.
Slashdot Mirror
"Schepticism"? What the fuck does "schepticism" mean
I believe he meant to write 'Schlepticism' -- which would be the philosophy or world-view of a Schleptic.
and furthermore, what the fuck is a "scheptic"?
A schleptic is a gofer who suffers from Tourette's Syndrome.
I anticipate you will need to hire me for 3 days.
.sig....
Your pitch for this contract was very compelling, and my company strongly favoured your tender for this lucrative and none-too-challenging work.
Then we saw your
SCO isn't getting anywhere with geeks in basements and isn't trying to.
I don't believe I suggested they were. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was you suggesting that they were taking Groklaw seriously. Personally, I think that the only way they take it seriously is as a threat to their FUD.
The problem is that both those media outlets and stupid investors come to Slashdot, see all the hysteria being kicked up every day (remember, they don't realize that all those screeching posters are 14 year old Windows users, not Linux insiders) and figure that there must be something plausible underlying all that fuss.
I don't believe those people come to Slashdot and read the comments. They'd have to be as retarded as we are. Seriously, they just don't have the time. If they do read Slashdot, then they'd come read the top stories as a pointer to breaking news from the other media, but I really don't believe serious journalists/analysts/investors spend time wading through tripe about Natalie Portman and Hot grits in an attempt to get at the few insightful nuggets that you get here. It's a very poor use of their valuable time.
I guarantee Slashdot is increasing SCO's credibility in the rest of the media, not diminishing it.
And you guarantee this based upon what? As someone who spent a few years working as a freelance journalist, and who still has friends working in the media, I can guarantee that no journalist that I've ever met would even bother to read more than the first half dozen comments that you get here, before then dismissing it as meaningless tripe and a waste of their time.
If you were a specialist IT reporter and were researching the story and you read the Slashdot comments for anything, it would be in the hopes of identifying someone who wasn't an Anonymous Coward who has insightful views and expertise in a related area and so might give you a quote (though you'd have to have a lot of time on your hands because there are far, far easier ways of doing that), or possibly to get some sense of what the unwashed Linux-using masses were saying/thinking about the issue. Although it doesn't seem that way sometimes, most people who are intelligent enough to sustain a career in the media - a highly competitive field -- tend to be pretty good at evaluating evidence and I can't think of anything that would come lower on their agenda than a bunch of Anonymous Coward posts to Slashdot.
At any rate, you don't see other CEOs publically slugging it out with unknown web sites, do you? McBride issues those statements for one reason: to yank the Linux crowd's chain and generate more publicity and FUD.
OK, I see what you're saying, but I believe that he's less interested in yanking the Linux crowd's chain, than he is in generating the publicity, because it's the publicity that results in the rise in the stock price -- which is his real goal. I think the chain yanking is an accidental spin-off that I'm sure he finds entertaining, because he's clearly an aggressive, competitive guy who is waging a war for public opinion.
But if Linux advocates were to simply ignore these statements, he'd be turning around to the media saying 'Look, I'm right. That lot haven't got any arguments to counter our claims.' As it is though, his claims are widely reported in the Linux press in order to allow people to make some contribution to contesting the FUD.
I do take your point about the way Slashdot tends to be something of a rumour mill though, reporting vague opinion and speculation. I much prefer to read Groklaw for my SCO news, partly because the coverage there is much more detailed and substantive, but mostly because the quality of discussion there is so much higher.
Finally, I accept that you weren't trolling, but I still think you're dead wrong about this.
But it seems to me that if SCO really has IP in Linux, then they're doing the right thing by billing users before the trial.
I'm not so sure that they are. It seems to me that if they really were a legitimate company with genuine IP rights in Linux, they'd be saying to end users 'You have no right to use this software. Please remove it from your servers. Similar functionality can be found in SCO ShitServer and we suggest that you migrate to that.'
They could also bring an action against all of the people who actually sold them the software -- like RedHat, SuSE, Caldera, etc.
I don't remember the people who owned the patents to LZW compression in gifs sending out bills to end users, telling them that if they continued to use Photoshop 5 (or whatever), they'd see them in court.
Anyone know of any precedents for invoicing end users like this?
sarcasm is not witty
Particularly when you're the butt of it...
But I definitely think the fuss from the Linux media fuels SCO's stock inflation by giving them credibility and attention, and I'd be surprised if that weren't part of their calculation from the begining.
I don't know how someone can *be* more wrong. (Though the moderators have managed it yet again.)
SCO's FUD is aimed at investors, and CEO's, not geeks living in their mother's basement.
And so SCO's target audience is in magazines like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal and the various financial wire services. All of those media outlets have been reporting the SCO story largely uncritically, without any real investigation into the detail of the story.
Sites like Slashdot and Groklaw have been providing the story behind the story, and as such, they've been doing a good job of countering the SCO FUD. If investors *had* been reading those sites, there would be very little chance that they'd be having a bet on the longshot that SCO can win their case, because they'd have more insight into the nature of SCO's case.
As it is, they read the analysts and reporters who have been say 'SCO has showed us the evidence and there appears to be a huge payday a little way down the line.' Deutche Bank have a target price on SCO of something like $45 dollars a share, and it's only the Linux press that is saying precisely why that price target is unlikely to be realized.
Eventually, someone in the mainstream financial press will get the whole picture and confidence in SCO will take a tumble. The Linux media is playing an essential part in that process by doing the analysis and amassing the evidence that the non-tech press seems to be incapable of doing.
Why do you think McBride responds with an open letter to every attack? Do you see other CEOs who feel compelled to treat Groklaw like it's the Wall Street Journal?
McBride's comments *are* aimed at the WSJ, not Groklaw. I can't find any comments from McBride or any SCO executive to PJ. If anything, PJ's assiduous coverage and analysis of this story puts the mainstream media to shame and shows the way that Blogging as a form of collaborative open journalism actually *can* cover specialist stories in more depth and with greater critical analysis than the rest of the media have been capable of so far.
Nice troll though. Congratulations.
What is that man, Darl McBride, doing to his anus???
This is a job for Crime Scene Investigation. Somebody send for Gil Grissom.
"If you study the ass-lips in the photograph closely, you can see that he's not just posing for holiday snaps. That's a surveillance camera aimed at that ruined sphincter. We had it installed around at Michael Jackson's place looking for kiddy stuff and then one day this guy shows up.
If you look carefully, you can see that the asshole is actually talking. I've recently completed an advanced course in ass-lip reading, to try and compensate for my congenital deafness, so I might be able to make this out for myself..."
"OK, here goes" (He turns on tape and starts speaking)
"This is Gil Grissom speaking, examining an image found on a SCO-owned website, concealed by an off-shore server and hosted at http:// goatse.cx. The image is reported as being a key clue into the conspiracy to extort several billion dollars from major US IT interests. According to my interpretation, this talking asshole is saying the following words. 'Linux contains our intellectual property. Pbrrrrphthhhssp. IBM owes us three billion dollars. Brrrrrrrrrrraasssp. Pass me the crack pipe, Boies, and then you can fist me once again. Brrirrrirrripppppth.'
Shaking her head in disbelief at this vile a conspiracy, suddenly Grissom's co-investigator, Sara Sidle spots something her chief had missed...
"It isn't just your hearing that's going, Grissom, it's your eyesight as well. Look closely. Right above the perinium. Can you see it? I believe that's the distinct mark of a nose-print. We'll have to wait until Greg gets the analysis back from Quantico to be absolutely certain, but I'd be happy to lay you twenty dollars that that pert little shit-streaked button belongs to Yankee Group 'anal-yst' Laura Dildo.
Grissom: "Well, it could be Didio, but on the other hand, it could be the nose of Rob 'Bell' Enderle. Have Greg break out the Mikrosil and take an impression of that ass-print so that we can match it up against a range of analysts noses. And tell him that while he's at it, bring out the Electronic Polymer Sensor Proboscis. I want him to run that against the noses of the various market analysts to make sure that the shit on the nose matches that of McBride's ass."
Sara Sidel: "And then bingo! We'll have nailed the bloodsucking bastards..."
Grissom: "Well, after looking at that gaping ringpiece, I'd say that he's been nailed once too often in the past. But you know what I always say about such matters..."
Sidel: "Yeah, the evidence speaks for itself..."
At least Slashdot and Linux World gave them the idea to do it now.
Oh, absolutely. There's no way that SCO's lawyers would have ever thought of doing that by themselves.
Just as all of the most insightful financial analysts come to Slashdot for their investment advice ("Short SCO now!"), so the most expensive lawyers come here to identify a strategy for their multi-million dollar cases.
And doesn't it give you a warm glow to think that all these expensive experts are out there, clinging to your every word, no matter how idiotic or banal?
Hey, perhaps if we tell SCO to stop the lawsuits, they'll do that as well
(OK, OK. I know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but *somebody* modded this insightful. That's a hell of a lot lower...)
i don't really see how this is insightful.
Well if you bothered to log in, you might get to meta-moderate it.
Actually, I prefer magic tricks when I know how they're done. Because then I watch for the illusion and I'm even more impressed when the practioneer's skill still fools my eyes.
And look at the phenomenal success of geek magicians, Penn and Teller. Part of their whole raison d'etre is that they explain to you *how* the trick was done. Does that diminish their entertainment value? Quite the opposite, in my view.
All of our suppliers *must* use OO. No excuses. If they want our business, then they play by our rules.
Here's a clue, dude. That Dominos delivery boy who brings the pizza to your mom's basement?
He's lying to you.
Please, I consider the project here: http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/ as more priority to getting Linux functionality to winblows
But that functionality already exists for Windows anyway. It might not be Open Source, but I hardly think that's a priority for Windows users anyway.
Incidentally, I could have swore that I read several hundred posts from Linux desktop users here just two or three weeks ago telling us that Linux didn't want or need such frivolous eye candy, and that it wasn't a significant advance in UI design.
I'm glad that someone disagrees and that you now have a (presumably somewhat inferior) version to play with.
Are you saying Microsoft could have called it "Big Floppy Donkey Dick", without negative effects?
But I always assumed that Longhorn was a euphemism *for* Big Floppy Donkey Dick.
Looks like this wasn't e-mail, but obnoxious pop-up web ads.
Which he got because he downloaded spyware.
While I am sympathetic to the guy, he was clearly a clueless fuck.
I was thinking of tryingto setup a dual monitor on my new dual G5 mac.
If I recall correctly, Macs support up to three monitors without any additional drivers or software. They have done since about OS 7.5
I'm not that rebellious compared to the average person my age, and I also believe in God, which helps.
OK. I'm an atheist myself, but my wife and my daughters are all practicing Roman Catholics. For me, this is one of the reasons why I may not feel the need to be as restrictive as other fathers of teenage girls might.
Two months ago, my porn-writing teenage daughter was spending her summertime pushing old ladies and disabled people around Lourdes. In some senses, that makes me feel like a bit of a fraud, because it's a lot easier to cut your kids slack when you have a great deal of faith in their ability to determine what's right and what's wrong and do the right thing 99% of the time.
I almost forgot, what's you're daughter's AIM SN? Or how about a link to some of her, uh, writing?
;-)
I'm afraid I haven't a clue. Respecting her privacy means that I don't know what any of that stuff is.
I do know her email address though.
The idea that you could somehow avoid the consequences of a prior settlement by selling a copyright claim to another party who would then be free to ignore the settlement is somewhat wierd.
You're looking at it from a logical point of view, rather than a legal point of view.
Legally, the position would be this:
1.) By buying the rights to AT & T's code, SCO acquires a proprietary interest in that code.
2.) Wherever they see somebody infringing on those rights, they have an absolute right to seek remedy for that infringement in the courts.
Now, because of the amount of the BSD-lite code that's in the public domain, even if SCO could prove infringement, the courts may very well say 'OK, we find for SCO and award them 10 cents in damages'.
However, to get to that point, Open/Net/FreeBSD have to find the money to defend the action. That isn't going to be easy for them given how much these sorts of trials cost.
The statements in question were not made by Boies, they were made by the idiot CEO. So your argument based on the alleged expertise and honesty of Boies is irrelevant
I'm not alleging honesty at all. Simply a basic grounding in the rules of civil procedure. Although the statements *were* made by the idiot CEO, it seems unlikely to me that, having given Boies his seat at the board, this issue hasn't been discussed extensively beforehand.
I would expect a swift summary judgement and sanctions against Boies if he was foolish enough to try.
You're assuming that they'd be simply going for a basic rehash of the old case. This is hugely unlikely. While these people may be immoral, they may even be dishonest, but they aren't bone stupid. Look at their case against IBM. Although they allege all manner of stuff, they've brought the action against IBM on the basis of a breach of contract. If they are going to go after BSD (and I have no knowledge at all of whether they'll actually try that, or if it's simply more bluster and media manipulation) I think you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll be doing so via some sort of angle that you haven't anticipated. It won't be simply an attempt to argue that the BSD-lite code that ATT ceded to BSDi and that they subsequently released under some sort of Open Source license shouldn't be used without payment to them.
I do not expect him to try
You wouldn't have expected him to try and go after IBM for their contributions to Linux either though. His ingenuity at finding legal loopholes and exploitable arguments are why he bills at millions a year, while you and I are wasting our time and energies posting on Slashdot.
Amusingly, it usually isn't even what the customer wants to hear, since they've only called in a consultant to "justify" some stupid large capital expenditure they've decided on some insane whim to undertake, they _say_ they want the consultant to give advice, they _want_ the consultant to give rationalisations.
Of course they do. The whole point of using consultants/analysts is to cover your ass. If you come up with a bright idea to migrate all of your SCO servers to Linux tomorrow (for example), and SCO prevails and you end up having to stump up $1400 per CPU, it's your ass on the line for having made the decision.
Pay a consultant to make the recommendation, and your hands are clean. When the axe comes, you simply point out that you were just following the experts advice.
I think that would play a big part in any new cases.
I agree. This would be an extremely strong defence to most of the things that SCO can conceivable allege.
But I think you also have to assume that they're well aware of this fact and so will almost certainly have something more up their sleeve.
I'll grant you though, that on past record there's a strong chance that whatever it is, it will be a stretch.
I thought that the courts DID issue a ruling which was then appealed and that both parties settled out of court before going through with the appeal.
I'm not a lawyer, nor am I an expert in the BSD/ATT litigation, but I'm pretty sure that what we're talking about here is a judge's directive. As such, it would only apply to that particular case.
Because the case was then settled out of court, that stuff is then expunged from the record and has no impact on any subsequent litigation.
I would not expect anyone to be idiotic enough to try litigating it.
You're shifting your ground. This wasn't what you were arguing. You were arguing that they *couldn't*, and that doing so would put them at risk of legal penalties.
I believe that you're wrong.
Settling a case out of court would make the argument much stronger since it is a contractual agreement
What do you mean, make the argument much stronger? I assume you mean that it would be a defence and I'm happy to concede, quite conceivably a winning defence, depending on the nature of the claim. But as we've no idea what the actual nature of the claim is, it's rather pointless to speculate.
It doesn't detract from my original point.
Under what circumstances do you believe that AT&T could enter into a contract that would invalidate rights that AT&T had already granted under an earlier contract?
Your question is moot, because you're assuming that that's the basis upon which SCO would be bringing the action -- a fact not currently in evidence. Given how much they're paying Boies, I'd be very surprised if he didn't have more up his sleeve than that, although if his conduct of this case so far is anything to go by, anything is possible.
Nonetheless, all that matters here is:
a.) That SCO has some proprietory rights to the code in question. Now they may not have, but I don't believe that that's an issue that's been determined by the courts yet, and SCO certainly don't.
b.) They can show that somebody is infringing those rights.
If they've got those two elements, they've got themselves a court case.
There is no legal claim imaginable that is not 'actionable' in the sense that it is possible to commence an action by issuing a writ.
I'm glad you finally agree and are now seeing sense.
The only way that a claim could not be actionable was if SCO were declared to be a vexatious litigant and barred from access to the court in question.
Your original argument was that the courts would not allow SCO to litigate this case and that Boies would be struck off for trying to bring it. If they can get it before a court, *and* provide pertinent evidence that their rights have been breached, then there's absolutely nothing to stop them litigating such a case to its conclusion. The history of previous actions against previous parties is completely irrelevant unless it can show that SCO has no rights at all to the code being discussed.
I don't like that fact any more than you do, but it still happens to be true.
It's like the crack comedian...
What's Darl McBride got to do with this? I haven't heard him explain *any* of his jokes yet.
Strange, I thought I have more rights on Linux than SCO.
So send 'em an invoice for $699 in the next post. Give 'em a taste of their own medicine.