"This decision will hopefully manoeuvre SCO into the courtroom (or into shutting up) and finally being forced to tell people what IP has been infringed, if any."
SCO isn't going to shut up. Not until they lose all their suits, get bought, go bankrupt, or the execs get arrested.
SCO isn't being PAID to be quiet. MS and Sun didn't give them that dosh out of the "goodness of their hearts", OR because they feared any lawsuit.
They paid them to yell and scream this shit until the last dollar is burnt.
"Your every-day consumer doesn't give a crap about DRM, crippled software/audio, or anything else, for that matter. Your average consumer doesn't even know about crippled CDs."
They do and will when their CD won't play in the player they want it to. Or when it won't rip to MP3 on their computer.
Not long. People aren't exactly lining up to buy their licenses. Their actions have cost them credibility, and they've flushed the business they DID have down the toilet.
SCaldera has no revenue stream other than lawsuits, and "license fees" (dont' call it extortion or I'll have your legs broken).
They can get by with contingency fee lawyers while on the OFFENSIVE, ie: the IBM suit. On the DEFENSIVE, they have to pay the lawyers.
Once the RedHat suit gets rolling, I expect that there will be several other suits filed. To have any hope of winning any of them, SCaldera will have to pony up MILLIONS in legal fees.
The moral of the story: A company that doesn't have a revenue stream, that isn't a "going concern" shouldn't start fights that it can't win...
But then, looking at the action on SCOX stock (SucksCOX) I don't think they have any illusions about winning. The whole thing is a stock scam.
Too bad the SEC never steps in WHILE this shit is happening. They wait until later, after investors have been ruined by scams to take action.
In the case of SCO, I have no sympathy for anyone who gets burned. RESEARCH... Anyone who buys stock in a company that doesn't have a product, a revenue stream, etc is pissing money away.
Re:SCO is not targetting Linux with a lawsuit
on
SCO Volleys to Red Hat
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
With SCO sending nastygrams to RED HAT CUSTOMERS demanding money when said clients have no business or contractual relations with SCaldera, I'd say that this gives RedHat standing to file this suit.
SCO is tampering with their clients, on the basis of unsubstantiated claims and legal THREATS.
This motion is frivilous and will be tossed. It's a delaying tactic, nothing else.
The US court system rarely tosses even completely BOGUS lawsuits on motions to dismiss. I don't think this one will be.
The only company I can see who would gain anything from buying SCO would be Microsoft.
I think SCO is going to go down the tubes BEFORE this thing ever gets to trial, without serious cash injections, considering it no longer really produces any product (except lawsuits).
SCO has set themselves up to BE SUED, and you don't get defense attorneys on contingency... They will either go bankrupt defending themselves (since they don't have a revenue stream except blackmail), or else lose tons of cases by default.
If SCO's claims were legit, the SMART thing would have been to shut their yappers, GO FORWARD with the IBM suit, and THEN make their other claims as a result of their win there. If they did this, they'd not have opened themselves up to literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of potential lawsuits that could force their hand BEFORE the IBM suit goes to trial...
But SCO's purpose isn't to be quiet, or to win this case...
Their very actions bespeak of this. They have no claims. Certainly not the type they keep making. They will NOT win. They are simply being paid (Microsoft and Sun) to damage the credibility of Linux, and to make as MUCH noise as possible so they can pump and dump their own stock.
So, they will yell as loudly as they can, until they run out of money.
Jury trials are also fairly common in tort cases as well.
It's juries that award astronomical sums to people who spill coffe on themselves, or who continued to smoke 40 years after the surgeon general's warning started appearing on cigarettes...
"SCO Director Blake Stowell said the company is willing to negotiate pricing, especially for site- and volume-licensing users. I'll give you nothing... and that's my final offer."
Pay me $50 per CPU... And I'll consider not filing a complaint with my state Attorney General;)
The problem I see with your scenerio is how far down the road to total IP lockdown the US has gone.
It's virtually impossible to invent ANYTHING that won't infringe on someone's patent or copyright, even if totally unrelated, someone can hunt through the piles of too broad patents and find something vaguely covering some aspect of what you invented.
Blammo! Lawsuit. Sell out for pennies on the dollar (if you get anything at all) because you can't afford to fight frivilous claims.
While I don't believe in conspiracy theroies, per se, It IS worth pointing out that any invention that threatened the oil-based energy nature of our economy WOULD no doubt have oil companies (and companies that make things that run on oil based fuel)would act against you.
Case in point: There really is no reason NOT to switch to hydrogen as an energy source. It's clean, it's abundant (most common element in the universe). Why hasn't this happened?
However, I DO feel that Hydrogen power will be the fuel of the 21st Century. Soon as we get sick and tired of kowtowing to tin horn religious jihader bandit kingdoms in an otherwise worthless desert.. .
"If they're sending via USMail, and you live in the US and receive one, send a copy to the USPS Postal Inspector. That's mail fraud, and the USPS takes a dim view of such things.
I suspect the FTC wouldn't particularly like it either... Your state's Attorney General might be interested in the extortion issue, too."
That's exactly what I intend to do if I get one.
Since I have never been a customer of SCO (or Caldera), but one of RedHat, Mandrake, and most recently, Gentoo (I ordered a copy of their newest release), I don't see where there is any contractual relationship between me and them that would allow them to invoice me for something I never bought from them.
Here's another option: If you get one of these invoices, take them to small claims court, locally, challenging their invoice. If they don't show up (they can't send a lawyer) and personally answer the chargesm you win by default.
Open Office can't clone this format, because the weak "interoperability" clause of the DMCA has basically been stricken from the law by former Time-Warner lawyer Judge Kaplan (of deCSS fame).
But then, WHY would they want to?
Why would I want to send.docs to people who can't read them? Why would I want to rely on MS's legendary security (think ass rape) when it'd be far better to encrypt the disk I store sensitive files on?
I see MS's new office as a boon to government and corporate types who break the law. Now, whistleblowers will have a hard time getting out information about wrongdoing. If they do, they can be tracked, and sued for violating the DMCA!
CGW used to have an excellent RPG columnist named "Scorpia". Scorpia NEVER hesitated to pan something she hated. Or to berate the genre for it's usual "kill the great Foozle" objectives, etc.
She used to drive me nuts for panning games (like "Darklands") that I absolutely loved. But, she always DID make good points.
Around the time of the ZD takeover was when she disappeared.
Read reviews and editorials in ZD rags. See who advertises. Chances are, you will find many matches.
Considering that I doubt SCO has ever advertised in ZD rags, this editorial is doubtless aimed at carring more H2O for Bill Gates.
You know, circulation of computer mags is declining... I (and others) go to the web to read reviews by people who actually BOUGHT the things (can't get more honest than that), or enthusiasts sites. I really don't see any need for ZD mags, unless one has time to kill, no computer, and wants to pick up something to read.
Perhaps if ZD had some editorial integrity, they'd sell more mags.
The Register calles benchmarking "Benchmarketing". I think that is the best term to use;)
As I recall, ZD has panned Linux almost without exception for the past 5 years.
I used to subscribe to computer mags back when they were for people with clue. But now most of them are just glossy rags for the "can barely install AOL by myself" crowd.
PC Magazine is part of Ziff-Davis. And I trust anything they editorialize about as far as I could throw a tank.
ZD is notoriously biased towards advertisers. Microsoft being one of their largest ones.
I was a subscriber to Computer Gaming World for years (it used to be by far the BEST gaming magazine) until ZD took over and they started giving glowing reviews to shit games (who advertised).
Don't use an ISP that is "broken". AOL has little to recommend it.
I use Adelphia PowerLink at home. On the road, I have a dial up account with a local ISP with dial up numbers in the cities I frequently have to visit.
SCaldera seems to be THREATENING to sue a lot. And trying to collect licenses.
But other than the original suit against IBM, I don't see them filing any.
This, despite the fact that they claim ALL Linux users, home, commercial, educational _NEED_ to buy their license, and they are sending out threat letters.
It'd seem to me that given that the world has basically given them the finger, they need to start actually _FILING_ such suits, or else they are guilty of extortion.
But they are afraid of countersuits in all 50 states and 100 countries. Which would be expensive. And they couldn't get contingency fee lawyers to do it for free.
Not to mention, that once they ACTUALLY sue a Linux user, they have opened the door for a class action suit.
Which is why I don't think SCO will actually file any such suit. They will threaten, and spin, and spew FUD, and of course, take the money anyone who falls for it offers them...
" If A is the worst violator and B is small time then a judge might go along, but if a judge sees a company going after the small infringer and avoiding a suit of a clearly much larger violator then he will not be amused."
Except, of course, this is the era of Kaplan. (as in the ex-Time Warner law firm judge who ruled on DeCSS and the DMCA). This is litigious age. And Judges come out of those firms.
What anyone who is sued by SCaldera needs to do is get a lawyer, get in touch with Red Hat's fund, the EFF, etc, and INSIST ON A JURY TRIAL.
Yes, you can have one even in a civil suit. Even if the judge is a corrupt IP lawfirm bastard, the jury will be swayed by such arguments.
This is the mistake I think the DeCSS case defendants made. They should have insisted on a jury trial.
As in, NO, I'm not going to work until 2AM then show up at 8:30 the next morning.
NO, I'm not going to work 50 hours a week, including Saturday, when you won't give me any vacation time.
So much of that wears you down. This company I work for has continued to pile on contract comittments (meaning lots of routine user crap to do), AND continues to try to find other billable hours, with half the staff of before (two techs when there were four last year).
This means every day my task list is piled with stuff to do that I don't have a prayer of getting done in 10 hours, much less 8, even if I don't take a lunch break. And that's assuming a crisis doesn't arise for me to deal with.
" Barring passing raises for themselves, legislators (who generally will make a lot more money once they get out of public office even with any such raise) "
Because they serve to benefit these interests to both enhance their POWER (level of taxation=level of the government's power), and themselves...
Do you think for one minute that interest groups aren't the ones PROVIDING EX-POLITICOS with the fat payoff after "public service"?
You know, if we are going to give Congressmen perpetual pensions if they serve even only ONE TERM, then I think it's reasonable they be forbidden to lobby Congress in the pay of any org in exchange...
Slashdot Mirror
"This decision will hopefully manoeuvre SCO into the courtroom (or into shutting up) and finally being forced to tell people what IP has been infringed, if any."
SCO isn't going to shut up. Not until they lose all their suits, get bought, go bankrupt, or the execs get arrested.
SCO isn't being PAID to be quiet. MS and Sun didn't give them that dosh out of the "goodness of their hearts", OR because they feared any lawsuit.
They paid them to yell and scream this shit until the last dollar is burnt.
Now I'll have to order that new ProLiant with Redhat, and transfer it over to the old Netserver I use to play with that we still have a warranty on ;)
"Your every-day consumer doesn't give a crap about DRM, crippled software/audio, or anything else, for that matter. Your average consumer doesn't even know about crippled CDs."
They do and will when their CD won't play in the player they want it to. Or when it won't rip to MP3 on their computer.
Adelphia Powerlink has blocked it. Fibernet (work ISP) has not...
Great, now the SPAM blocks on the server that checks DNS are toast...
Not long. People aren't exactly lining up to buy their licenses. Their actions have cost them credibility, and they've flushed the business they DID have down the toilet.
SCaldera has no revenue stream other than lawsuits, and "license fees" (dont' call it extortion or I'll have your legs broken).
They can get by with contingency fee lawyers while on the OFFENSIVE, ie: the IBM suit. On the DEFENSIVE, they have to pay the lawyers.
Once the RedHat suit gets rolling, I expect that there will be several other suits filed. To have any hope of winning any of them, SCaldera will have to pony up MILLIONS in legal fees.
The moral of the story: A company that doesn't have a revenue stream, that isn't a "going concern" shouldn't start fights that it can't win...
But then, looking at the action on SCOX stock (SucksCOX) I don't think they have any illusions about winning. The whole thing is a stock scam.
Too bad the SEC never steps in WHILE this shit is happening. They wait until later, after investors have been ruined by scams to take action.
In the case of SCO, I have no sympathy for anyone who gets burned. RESEARCH... Anyone who buys stock in a company that doesn't have a product, a revenue stream, etc is pissing money away.
With SCO sending nastygrams to RED HAT CUSTOMERS demanding money when said clients have no business or contractual relations with SCaldera, I'd say that this gives RedHat standing to file this suit.
SCO is tampering with their clients, on the basis of unsubstantiated claims and legal THREATS.
This motion is frivilous and will be tossed. It's a delaying tactic, nothing else.
The US court system rarely tosses even completely BOGUS lawsuits on motions to dismiss. I don't think this one will be.
The only company I can see who would gain anything from buying SCO would be Microsoft.
I think SCO is going to go down the tubes BEFORE this thing ever gets to trial, without serious cash injections, considering it no longer really produces any product (except lawsuits).
SCO has set themselves up to BE SUED, and you don't get defense attorneys on contingency... They will either go bankrupt defending themselves (since they don't have a revenue stream except blackmail), or else lose tons of cases by default.
If SCO's claims were legit, the SMART thing would have been to shut their yappers, GO FORWARD with the IBM suit, and THEN make their other claims as a result of their win there. If they did this, they'd not have opened themselves up to literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of potential lawsuits that could force their hand BEFORE the IBM suit goes to trial...
But SCO's purpose isn't to be quiet, or to win this case...
Their very actions bespeak of this. They have no claims. Certainly not the type they keep making. They will NOT win. They are simply being paid (Microsoft and Sun) to damage the credibility of Linux, and to make as MUCH noise as possible so they can pump and dump their own stock.
So, they will yell as loudly as they can, until they run out of money.
Jury trials are also fairly common in tort cases as well.
It's juries that award astronomical sums to people who spill coffe on themselves, or who continued to smoke 40 years after the surgeon general's warning started appearing on cigarettes...
SCO just cares about punping it's stock, which execs continue to sell...
Considering that SCOX was a penny stock before this lawsuit... Well, do the math.
SCO has no care about winning their suit. A weakness of the US legal system is they can make their claims based on the virtue that they HAVE sued.
Unless the trial judge is Lewis Kaplan of DECSS fame, I can't see SCO winning.
"I believe this practice may be illegal.
Any EOE experts to give some clarification?"
EEOC regs prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, age, national origin, disability, etc.
There isn't one that says that you are immune to discrimination based on previous employers.
"SCO Director Blake Stowell said the company is willing to negotiate pricing, especially for site- and volume-licensing users.
;)
I'll give you nothing... and that's my final offer."
Pay me $50 per CPU... And I'll consider not filing a complaint with my state Attorney General
Probably because even Darl doen't expect anyone to be buying...
And staffing phone banks with sales types increases the burn rate of those MS/Sun funds needed to keep the laywers paid up and happy...
The problem I see with your scenerio is how far down the road to total IP lockdown the US has gone.
It's virtually impossible to invent ANYTHING that won't infringe on someone's patent or copyright, even if totally unrelated, someone can hunt through the piles of too broad patents and find something vaguely covering some aspect of what you invented.
Blammo! Lawsuit. Sell out for pennies on the dollar (if you get anything at all) because you can't afford to fight frivilous claims.
While I don't believe in conspiracy theroies, per se, It IS worth pointing out that any invention that threatened the oil-based energy nature of our economy WOULD no doubt have oil companies (and companies that make things that run on oil based fuel)would act against you.
Case in point: There really is no reason NOT to switch to hydrogen as an energy source. It's clean, it's abundant (most common element in the universe). Why hasn't this happened?
However, I DO feel that Hydrogen power will be the fuel of the 21st Century. Soon as we get sick and tired of kowtowing to tin horn religious jihader bandit kingdoms in an otherwise worthless desert..
.
Dell is so far up the ass of Microsoft and Intel it's not funny.
Dell is not a very innovative company. They are very conservative.
They just imitate what IBM or HP is doing and try to sell it cheaper.
Which is why I avoid Dell, and put IBM and HP in my offices. I also personally buy IBM.
I'd never hire, or work with someone who worked at SCO today...
Clearly SCO is pulling a stock scam.
"If they're sending via USMail, and you live in the US and receive one, send a copy to the USPS Postal Inspector. That's mail fraud, and the USPS takes a dim view of such things.
I suspect the FTC wouldn't particularly like it either... Your state's Attorney General might be interested in the extortion issue, too."
That's exactly what I intend to do if I get one.
Since I have never been a customer of SCO (or Caldera), but one of RedHat, Mandrake, and most recently, Gentoo (I ordered a copy of their newest release), I don't see where there is any contractual relationship between me and them that would allow them to invoice me for something I never bought from them.
Here's another option: If you get one of these invoices, take them to small claims court, locally, challenging their invoice. If they don't show up (they can't send a lawyer) and personally answer the chargesm you win by default.
Open Office can't clone this format, because the weak "interoperability" clause of the DMCA has basically been stricken from the law by former Time-Warner lawyer Judge Kaplan (of deCSS fame).
.docs to people who can't read them? Why would I want to rely on MS's legendary security (think ass rape) when it'd be far better to encrypt the disk I store sensitive files on?
But then, WHY would they want to?
Why would I want to send
I see MS's new office as a boon to government and corporate types who break the law. Now, whistleblowers will have a hard time getting out information about wrongdoing. If they do, they can be tracked, and sued for violating the DMCA!
CGW used to have an excellent RPG columnist named "Scorpia". Scorpia NEVER hesitated to pan something she hated. Or to berate the genre for it's usual "kill the great Foozle" objectives, etc.
She used to drive me nuts for panning games (like "Darklands") that I absolutely loved. But, she always DID make good points.
Around the time of the ZD takeover was when she disappeared.
Read reviews and editorials in ZD rags. See who advertises. Chances are, you will find many matches.
Considering that I doubt SCO has ever advertised in ZD rags, this editorial is doubtless aimed at carring more H2O for Bill Gates.
You know, circulation of computer mags is declining... I (and others) go to the web to read reviews by people who actually BOUGHT the things (can't get more honest than that), or enthusiasts sites. I really don't see any need for ZD mags, unless one has time to kill, no computer, and wants to pick up something to read.
Perhaps if ZD had some editorial integrity, they'd sell more mags.
The Register calles benchmarking "Benchmarketing". I think that is the best term to use ;)
As I recall, ZD has panned Linux almost without exception for the past 5 years.
I used to subscribe to computer mags back when they were for people with clue. But now most of them are just glossy rags for the "can barely install AOL by myself" crowd.
RIP:
Compute!
RUN
and others...
PC Magazine is part of Ziff-Davis. And I trust anything they editorialize about as far as I could throw a tank.
ZD is notoriously biased towards advertisers. Microsoft being one of their largest ones.
I was a subscriber to Computer Gaming World for years (it used to be by far the BEST gaming magazine) until ZD took over and they started giving glowing reviews to shit games (who advertised).
The old CGW would rip what deserved ripping.
Don't use an ISP that is "broken". AOL has little to recommend it.
I use Adelphia PowerLink at home. On the road, I have a dial up account with a local ISP with dial up numbers in the cities I frequently have to visit.
SCaldera seems to be THREATENING to sue a lot. And trying to collect licenses.
But other than the original suit against IBM, I don't see them filing any.
This, despite the fact that they claim ALL Linux users, home, commercial, educational _NEED_ to buy their license, and they are sending out threat letters.
It'd seem to me that given that the world has basically given them the finger, they need to start actually _FILING_ such suits, or else they are guilty of extortion.
But they are afraid of countersuits in all 50 states and 100 countries. Which would be expensive. And they couldn't get contingency fee lawyers to do it for free.
Not to mention, that once they ACTUALLY sue a Linux user, they have opened the door for a class action suit.
Which is why I don't think SCO will actually file any such suit. They will threaten, and spin, and spew FUD, and of course, take the money anyone who falls for it offers them...
" If A is the worst violator and B is small time then a judge might go along, but if a judge sees a company going after the small infringer and avoiding a suit of a clearly much larger violator then he will not be amused."
Except, of course, this is the era of Kaplan. (as in the ex-Time Warner law firm judge who ruled on DeCSS and the DMCA). This is litigious age. And Judges come out of those firms.
What anyone who is sued by SCaldera needs to do is get a lawyer, get in touch with Red Hat's fund, the EFF, etc, and INSIST ON A JURY TRIAL.
Yes, you can have one even in a civil suit. Even if the judge is a corrupt IP lawfirm bastard, the jury will be swayed by such arguments.
This is the mistake I think the DeCSS case defendants made. They should have insisted on a jury trial.
I've had to lean to tell the boss "no".
As in, NO, I'm not going to work until 2AM then show up at 8:30 the next morning.
NO, I'm not going to work 50 hours a week, including Saturday, when you won't give me any vacation time.
So much of that wears you down. This company I work for has continued to pile on contract comittments (meaning lots of routine user crap to do), AND continues to try to find other billable hours, with half the staff of before (two techs when there were four last year).
This means every day my task list is piled with stuff to do that I don't have a prayer of getting done in 10 hours, much less 8, even if I don't take a lunch break. And that's assuming a crisis doesn't arise for me to deal with.
" Barring passing raises for themselves, legislators (who generally will make a lot more money once they get out of public office even with any such raise) "
Because they serve to benefit these interests to both enhance their POWER (level of taxation=level of the government's power), and themselves...
Do you think for one minute that interest groups aren't the ones PROVIDING EX-POLITICOS with the fat payoff after "public service"?
You know, if we are going to give Congressmen perpetual pensions if they serve even only ONE TERM, then I think it's reasonable they be forbidden to lobby Congress in the pay of any org in exchange...