MS Word File Reveals Changes to SCO's Plans

jfruhlinger writes "Ah, the joys of 'track changes' in MS Word: metadata in a document obtained by Cnet reveals some earlier plans by SCO's legal team. Among them: to sue in February (their original target date), to sue Bank of America, to 'impound ... all Linux software products in the custody or control of Defendant through the pendency of these proceedings', and to accuse in court 'Linus Torvalds and/or others' of 'inclusion into one or more distributions of Linux with the copyright management information intentionally removed.' Good stuff." Also, SCO has announced a few new licensees including Computer Associates.

lawyers

[panxerox]

If all Sco's operating officers are put in jail whos going to write all the checks for the lawsuits? Also at what point does the Bar association of Utah step in and say if you sco lawyers do this anymore kiss your licenses goodby?

SCO's strategy...

[WebCowboy]

I think they are hoping to tie up the courts to the point where they are too busy to throw the book at the SCO executives while at the same time counting on their legal carpet-bombing strategy nets them some settlement profits.

They have a few more tricks up their sleeve...from another news(.com)^2 article [com.com]:

Linux, which runs well on inexpensive Intel processor-based servers, has become increasingly popular despite SCO's actions. Linux has even spread to the Web site of the U.S. District Court in Nevada, where SCO filed its suit against AutoZone, according to site monitoring firm NetCraft.

Soooo...if the courts threaten to dismiss SCOs case and/or charge them with fraud, they can just sue the court system itself!

Re:lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

CA Says It Didn't Pay SCO No Stinking Linux Tax...details at http://blogs.cocoondev.org/dims/ [cocoondev.org]

Re:lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly the point.

I *am* one and I *am* from Utah.

The business climate here is corrupt and out of control. Probably because of the overwhelming one-type of demographic here.

Good grief, just read the local newspapers and you won't wonder why the people at Caldera think they can get away with it.

It's really insane actually. Alot of Mormons are just "Mormons" for the business relations.

A little-bity place inhabited by nuts. Sad really.

Statue of Joseph Smith in SLC

[spun]

The big statue of Joseph Smith in the center of Salt Lake City has his back to the Temple and his arms outstretched towards the Bank across the street. This observation isn't meant as a slight against Mormons in general, but it is strangely symbolic of the attitude of some Mormons.

Re:Statue of Joseph Smith in SLC

[spun]

Might be. Whatever statue is right in front of the temple, it does have it's back to the Temple and hands out to the bank. Not that that's an unusual pose for a statue. Pretty much any statue in front of a building has its back to the building. Just a fun fact to throw into discussions of Mormon business practices. ;-)

Re:lawyers

[thefinite]

What is sad is that an AC gets modded "Interesting" for calling all Utah Mormon business people "nuts", even if he claims to be one. Is bigotry really all that interesting? Why don't you guys throw me some mod points for this one: "All Slashdot moderators are freakin' morons."

The point is that I know a lot of Utah Mormon business people that are just *normal* business people, faults and all.

Re:lawyers

[xs650]

You may know a lot of Morman business people who are just "normal" business people, but that isn't relevant. Most Mormans I know are ethical hard working people, but that isn't relevant either. What is relevant is that Utah is well known for the various scams and con artists that operate from Utah. It doesn't take "most" of a group to make conditions where they live unsavory, just a few percent more than normal amount of con artists. Conditions in Utah are right for nurturing the development of con artists. http://www.watchman.org/lds/scamlds.htm

Re:lawyers

[thefinite]

You know its interesting that Utah Mormons may be more gullible than the general population (a point your linked website makes). It would probably be a good idea for Mormon leaders to try to prevent this. This doesn't prove the grandparent's post, though. For example, did proportion of Mormon scam artists mirror the proportion of Mormons in the general population? Basically I agree that gullible people attract dishonest people. I don't think that the grandparent's post was making that point, though.

By the way, what's with that website? Do they really consider Mormons a cult?

Re:lawyers

[Reziac]

I'll probably have to call the fire dept. for saying this, but:

I haven't lived in Utah, but I have lived and travelled in other "Mormon country" parts of the western U.S. -- and the original poster is, sadly, correct. Among the Idaho and Montana Mormon communities, there is an unspoken but active philosophy that it's *okay* to exploit "gentiles" (non-Mormons) in any way they can. "Gentiles" soon learn to spot the attitude, and commonly experience snubs from Mormon businesses. Yeah, there are plenty of "normal" Mormon business folks, but the "us only" skew is definitely there, sortof like an extended Old Boy network.

Conversely, I've not noticed these issues in SoCal, where Mormons blend in and don't act significantly different from anyone else.

I think the original point was that when you get a Mormon businessman who IS a bad one, *and* is in an area where church and community support are as one, they tend to behave as if any gentile they're screwing over is somehow subhuman, therefore not worth playing fair with, to a degree you don't normally see even in ordinary cutthroat business.

Move the LDS origins forward a century for purposes of comparison, and consider what other cul^H^H^H^H church they much resemble, and much may become clear ;)

EV1

[daperdan]

I'm sure that EV1 is very happy now about their investment and partnership with SCO. Maybe next time they'll partner with a more popular group like the KKK.

Re:EV1

[Megaslow]

I dont think the KKK [slashdot.org] wants anything to do with them!

Re:EV1

[HaloZero]

Definately not. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=kkk.com [netcraft.com]

Almost all of their machines are *nix, and in violation of SCOs 'intellectual property'.

Re:EV1

[LWATCDR]

I feel EV1 is getting to much heat. I mean if a thug leans on some little guy and extorts money from him do you blame the little fellow or the thug?
No CA paying is another matter. They are not some litte ISP.

Re:EV1

[the_mad_poster]

Except, this is more like a 90 year old man with a walker and oxygen claiming he has a shotgun in his pocket and demanding that you owe him money.... little guy or not.. I'm not afraid of a half-dead 90 year old man with no pockets.

Correction

[BiggerIsBetter]

A half-dead 90 year old man with no pockets, and an 800lb gorilla standing behind him.

Re:Correction

[pclminion]

And then the gorilla kicks the 90 year old square in the groin, then mumbles "Aw shit, sorry about that mate."

Re:EV1

[scottj]

In the legal system, one who has $60 million set aside for lawsuits is not anywhere near equivalent to a 90 year old man. More like a 25 year old hotshot with something to prove.

Re:EV1

[hackstraw]

Thugs doing extortion on a "little guy" does not make the news. The EV1 deal is only the tip of the iceburg, and we know little about it. Did Microsoft back EV1? Dunno. Did SCO make the whole thing up for more pump and dump? Dunno.

I believe that people are starting to catch on. Look at this 3month trend [yahoo.com]. And look at what the people in the know are doing with their stock. [yahoo.com]

Microsoft HAS worked with EV1

[michael path]

Since you brought up Microsoft and EV1...

There is a Case Study on Microsoft's web site here [microsoft.com]. This discusses the addition of several Windows-based servers to their Linux environment.

So, are they bed buddies? You bet.

-m.

Re:EV1

[nathanh]

The EV1 deal is interesting.

SCO is claiming the deal with EV1 was worth more than a million dollars [eweek.com]. EV1 is disputing the 7 figures [thewhir.com] and the confusion seems to be the weasel word "worth" [netcraft.com].

In other words, SCO is claiming that $1million+ "worth" of licenses were sold. So that's $1mill/$699 = 1400+ licenses, or $1mill/$1399 = 700+ licenses. SCO's own quarterly says only $20k [sco.com] income from licensing this quarter. It's possible the EV1 payments are in stages, or won't appear on SCO's financials until next quarter, but it's also possible that EV1 only paid $20k for their licenses.

But SCO is spinning this to sound much more impressive. EV1 was the patsy here; they thought they were getting a great deal, but they were just another pawn in SCO's (Microsoft's?) smear campaign against Linux.

Re:EV1

[LostCluster]

The question that's really in dispute is not whether the code SCO is bringing forward looks like a duplicate of the code in Linux, but where the code that SCO is bringing forward has come from... is it in fact code SCO really owns, or is it code that SCO hacked up after looking at the GPL-available Linux code.

And I wouldn't recommend anybody study the Win2K code that was leaked... Microsoft has threatened to sue anybody who so much as downloads it. Why bring that headache on to yourself when FreeBSD is there?

SCO case coming into focus finally

[Anonymous Coward]

While many may see this latest round as another spasm in the twitching SCo corpse. I see it finally making some sense.

these latest cases in SCO is suing their former clients make sense and bring clarity to SCOs assertions.

Imagine it from SCOs point of view. They see a flood of customers running from Unixware to the free linux. They want to stop that. They think, Linux came up to speed so quickly to an enterprise level something smells fishy. There would be tonnes and tonnes of kernel, network and library issues to have ironed out. Yet people are making seemless conversions.

Ergo they realize people are copyying the code to speed the results. Now who to sue. You could sue your clients who are copying the libraries for comaptibility. or you could sue linux because they are not your customer.

So you decide to sue linux, assuming linux copied stuff just like your clients did. Your corporate culture despises Open Source so its not hard to get the blinders on, make rash accusations.

You find some smoking guns and start down that road. Then you decide to draw in IBM since they were selling the migration as a bussiness model and they just stiffed you on your last best hope for a collborative bussniess.

but then suddenly you realize you made some mistakes, maybe there was not as much copying as you thought. And what ther eis will vanish the moment its revealed. So if there is a case here its against IBM for assiting the copies and porting for clients to linux. And since linux is a disperse target, go for the end users without licences indemnities.

Finally you bite the bullet and realize your after the wrong smelly fish. Its not linux or IBM since they have the manpower to and skill to make honest clean versions. its your clients who would not have had the manpower to do the conversions without cheating. Some lazy programmer copied code to speed the library conversions. Sue the clients!!!

While I'm doubtful of copying in the kernel, since its a hotly scrutinzed area, I would not be surpise to find copying in underfunded corporate backwaters such as migration libraries, in which core, boring compatibility issues in uixware had to be translated to Linux and some programmer got lazy or pressed for time.

Maybe SCo is finally going to create a winable case.

Where you assertion falls apart

[tkrotchko]

I doubt what you say is true for two primary reasons:

1) The interfaces to any modern OS are virtually the same. And particularly amongst Unix-like variants, there are certainly fundamental differences in system code, but experienced programmers will use standard c/c++ libraries that are implemented on pretty much every unix-like OS. So if you're trying to do a port of a simple text-based application, the user interface code is a piece of cake because you're writing VT100 level stuff. And the back-end is generic "C" code that will probably compile on any machine with little tweaking.

2) More importantly, without the source code to SCO, how could customers do all this code stealing? Unless SCO distributes source with their OS, but I never heard that before. So how can you steal what you don't have access to?

NO, DO NOT DO THAT

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in a company that uses a mix of code as well as we write our own. Some of it is under BSD, others LGPL, and of course, GPL. I myself encourage this, but I always push that we need to obey the licenses. What I have found funny is that 2 people here are weak coders and basically like to steal GPL based code and say that putting it in a product we will give us a leg up. I have been fighting a huge battle on it and have finally won. But it was a close battle. In fact, the management wanted to go with the others, but it was myself and a lawyer who convince them to simply change the model.

I suspect that This goes on more than most realize. I would suspect that a number of small companies are "getting a leg up" in this fashion. So no, do not mod down.

Re:NO, DO NOT DO THAT

[pclminion]

So, you have employees in your company who verifiably enjoy ripping off GPL code against the license, and you actually trust them when they say "Okay, okay, we won't do that anymore?"

The people in question need to be fired immediately. They will bring ruin on your company.

Re:EV1

[Rorgg]

>I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

Well, of course.

1. You're Darl.
2. You make no sense.

But I'm being redundant....

Re:EV1

[orthogonal]

(B) You are lying and you don't want anyone to check out your credentials.

He's lying, but with such an obvious red-herring that it's certain he's trolling:

"I'd recommend you study the recently released win2k source or the FreeBSD source, whose legality is more established."

He's suggesting that people avoid legal liability by avoiding linux source, but encouraging those same people to study the clearly proprietary Windows source. Its looking at the Windows source, not the linux source, that could put them in the position of being accused of violating copyright, in this case Microsoft's.

The busines about being a Harvard grad student is just window dressing.

Re:EV1

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were a Linux developer and made a comment like:
/* This is a horrible kludge for backwards compatibility */

Would I be sued by Microsoft for copyright infringment? :o)

SCO lawyers

[Sassan Sanei]

Here in Canada, it's so cold outside that I swear I saw a SCO lawyer with his hand in his own pocket. Sassan

someone forgot to preview

[Stone316]

Now I have to cut and paste!! Oh the humanity.. (yeah, i'm lazy....)

Re:someone forgot to preview

[tcopeland]

This link's for you [infoworld.com].

Re:someone forgot to preview

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn moderators.. Even they don't read articles anymore..

Re:someone forgot to preview

[Moeses]

You keep using this word anymore. I do not think it means what you think it means.

University of California at Berkeley

[andy666]

Ironically, UC Berkeley is also going to be a licensee!!

Re:University of California at Berkeley

[frenetic3]

When quoted for comment, the Berkeley representative cryptically responded "She bang! She bang!" and proceeded to gyrate hysterically [berkeley.edu], adding "I gave my best and I have no regrets at all."

-fren

Re:University of California at Berkeley

[hackstraw]

Ironically, UC Berkeley is also going to be a licensee!!

Why? I thought edu's were exempt. I called SCO numerous times telling them I owed them about $1mil for them to send me a bill, and they never did. I too am from an educational institution and will not pay them 1 cent until they can 1) give me something to license 2) support said product. Plus, RH will back me for legal issues if they sent me a bill.

I have paid for linux in the past and will do it again. I would even pay SCO if they had something to sell.

Re:University of California at Berkeley

[k_head]

RH does not offer indemnifaction. They offer to defend you if you get sued.

A what now?

[NicolaiBSD]

Also, SCO has A HREF

What's a href and why are you yelling?

Re:A what now?

[TopShelf]

is that like a hrumph???

Fill in the blank?

[kwandar]

If there was a question as to whether this is just an SCO fishing expedition, I think the question has now been answered

I'm surprised SCRO don't just take the list of Fortune 100 companys they sent the notificiation to, and using mailmerge.

MS Word

[sport_160]

Not often you see 'joy' and 'MS Word' in the same sentence.

Re:MS Word

[stand]

Leaving aside the authenticity of this story or the stupidity of SCO, doesn't this case illustrate why it is stupid to build a track changes feature into your word processor? Especially one that where a document file carries all of its revisions with it.

There ain't no joy in MS Word.

Freeware document metadata remover

[frenetic3]

FYI... here's a free app that removes MS Word metadata (useful for sensitive docs for distribution)

http://www.docscrubber.com/download.html

-fren

Re:Freeware document metadata remover

[Anonymous Coward]

"FYI... here's a free app that removes MS Word metadata (useful for sensitive docs for distribution)"

Here's another:

#!/bin/sh
mv $1 /dev/null

Re:Freeware document metadata remover

[tomhudson]

OpenOffice also removes it. That's why borked word docs opened in oo and resaved are so much smaller :-)

Re:Freeware document metadata remover

[Florian Weimer]

There's also a tool from Microsoft [microsoft.com].

There are some issues with that tool, though. A safe option is plain ASCII export.

Currently, PDF export is also a possibility, but this might change in the future, as PDF evolves. Just keep in mind that when redacting a PDF document, it's not sufficient to paint black rectangles over the critical parts.

Re:Freeware document metadata remover

[KoopaTroopa]

Eh, it's good enough for government work ;)

Re: Freeware document metadata remover

[Black Parrot]

> FYI... here's a free app that removes MS Word metadata

Yeah, but what we wanted was an app that removes crooked corporate executives.

Way to proofread, editors!

[TrollBridge]

"Also, SCO has A HREF="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/04/HN cascolicensee_1.html">announced a few new licensees including Computer Associates."

Are they even trying anymore?

Re:Way to proofread, editors!

[pclminion]

Supposedly there's a horde of paying Slashdot readers who get to see the article early in order to "proofread" it, in order to prevent these sorts of mishaps...

Clearly, those people are either stupid, or were denied their coffee fix this morning...

Re:Way to proofread, editors!

[mchappee]

This particular story was not offered up for pre-release viewing.

__________________
Supposedly there's a horde of paying Slashdot readers who get to see the article early in order to "proofread" it, in order to prevent these sorts of mishaps...

Clearly, those people are either stupid, or were denied their coffee fix this morning...

Re:Way to proofread, editors!

[jmays]

"This particular story was not offered up for pre-release viewing."

Yes, there was. And I DID e-mail the editors.

Re:Way to proofread, editors!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they even trying anymore?

they'd have to start first

Using MS Word

[davidmcn]

With SCO being all about their Unix IP, you would think they would prefer to use their own product when writing legal proceedings, instead they use Microsofts....

Re:Using MS Word

[DreadSpoon]

SCO has a product?

Re:Using MS Word

[Mysticalfruit]

Well, if someone was paying you 86 million dollars... you'd use their software too!

As a side note, having been forced to work with SCO's operating system, it actually makes windows look like a viable choice...

Re:Using MS Word

[zurab]

With SCO being all about their Unix IP, you would think they would prefer to use their own product when writing legal proceedings, instead they use Microsofts....

I thought that was the plan the whole time. The BofA thing was "accidental." Also, look at these quotes from the article:

In an interview on Wednesday, SCO's CFO confirmed that the three companies were licensees, and claimed that his company had now signed up somewhere between 10 and 50 IP License for Linux customers. ...
"Our usage of (Linux) is so small and isolated that's why we went ahead and signed the contract.," said Chad Jones a spokesman with the Salt Lake City company. "This was small enough that we made a business decision based on the modest cost of SCO's claim that it was in our interest to settle rather than litigate this thing," he said.

Add to that CA, EV1, and that SCO doesn't have to produce any proof of anything in the near future, looks like Microsoft's grand plan against Linux is heating up. SCO doesn't have to prove anything to anybody, it just has to make enough "sense" for these businesses to sign up.

Non-Unix licensee major Linux contributors (i.e. not IBM or HP) need to sue SCO for copyright violations sooner rather than later.

Thanks MS :)

[grendel_x86]

Thats funny, SCO screwed by their biggest contrib.

I know this feature of word has let me find out some interesting things before. You would not believe some of the things people write in their resumes.

Re:Thanks MS :)

[a_timid_mouse]

It's not just FUNNY, it's IRONIC! Yes folks, that's what irony is.

Re:Thanks MS :)

[bmwm3nut]

another often overlooked "feature" is good old ^Z (undo). back many years ago (i think before track changes even existed) i was a t.a. for a professor who wanted all assignments turned in with word. if you got two similar assignments all you needed to do was bang on ^Z for a while and you'd see where they changed the name from the origial author to the current one. kinda fun.

Warning Letters

[crass751]

I'd be interested to know how many companies got the warning letter from SCO and tossed it in the circular file instead of replying to it.

If I'm not mistaken, SCO filed suit against DC because they never received a response to their letter. I wonder how many more they'll file based on lack of replies.

Re:Warning Letters

[Jaywalk]

If I'm not mistaken, SCO filed suit against DC because they never received a response to their letter.

It wasn't the warning letter that they're getting sued for. SCO wrote another letter to people who are using both SCO UNIX and Linux requiring them to certify that they're not using any Linux that impinges on SCO's IP. The letter was worded like the old joke, "Do you still beat your wife?" There was no way to answer the question without incriminating yourself. Half the people who got the letter never answered it.

Note the targets of SCO's lawsuits so far and the reason why they're being sued:

• IBM because they bought a UNIX license from SCO.
• Daimler Chrysler because they use both Linux and SCO UNIX.
• Autozone because they used to use SCO UNIX and changed to Linux.
• Novell because they have a contract with SCO to collect UNIX licensing fees.

Note that in every case the problem has never been that the target used Linux. It's always because they did business with SCO. In no case has SCO tried to prove in court that they have IP in Linux; they reserve those claims for their press releases. The court cases are all about contractual disputes with SCO customers and former customers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The lesson is clear; it's dangerous to even talk to these nut jobs.

Slashdot story source code leaked

[Anonymous Coward]

This is scandalous. There's no official confirmation yet, but apparently CmdrTaco of Slashodt.org fame leaked the source code to the story. The file contained a href and then something.

Will this be the end of Slashdot?

link to the word file?

[mliu]

Anyone able to find a link to the word file? I'd like to see this for myself in its entirety. I did a quick search on Google and didn't turn it up.

jokes found in the Word file

[deathcow]

....we'd appreciate if Chrysler could respond promptly.

Yours Truly,
Darl McBride
FUTURE CEO, CHRYSLER^z^z^z^z^z
OWNER, BIG BLUE^z^z^z^z
KING OF UNIX^z^z^z^z^z
"KING KERNEL"^z^z^z^z^z
CEO, SCO Inc.

Insane or bought? Or is there another option?

[bfree]

From infoworld article:

"What were they thinking?" said Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the Open Source Initiative. "I think this sends a very strange message and I'd like to hear a real explanation out of CA."

And I'd love to hear the real reasons from everyone else aswell! Are they setting up for a counter-suit, dumb or in SCO/MS pockets?

Yet another example.....

[BWJones]

So, this to me seems like another example of security breaches that can get companies, organizations and governments into trouble because of their use of Microsoft products.

So, last time I heard, certain agencies are prohibiting the use of .doc formats for certain information transactions and instead relying on standard ascii text encoded files.

Re:Yet another example.....

[nvrrobx]

Okay I have to bite on this one. Word has the ability to track changes to a document. Exactly how is this a Microsoft security breach?!

In my copy of Microsoft Word 2002, this is turned off by default and you have to turn it on.

Hrm.. Let's see here. Eclipse, the IDE, keeps an internal history repository of my source code. Damn security breach!

Stop karma whoring by bashing Microsoft with stupid crap. If you're going to bash them for security holes, pick a real exploit.

Re:Yet another example.....

[BWJones]

Stop karma whoring by bashing Microsoft with stupid crap. If you're going to bash them for security holes, pick a real exploit.

Hey, I use some Microsoft products (Office for OS X is actually pretty nice in many respects) and I am not bashing them where they do not deserve some feedback. But please tell us why this is not a security exploit? The user who created this document obviously did not intend for that information to get out! Therefore, just like any security issue, there is a component of end user responsibility. However, if I were dealing with sensitive information and was concerned about its inadvertent disclosure, I would not use .doc and I would not let my employees who had access to that information to use .doc for the dissemination of information.

Re:Yet another example.....

[Grishnakh]

Where Microsoft is at fault is not in implementing this feature, because it does have its uses. Their fault is in promoting the .doc file format as a "standard" suitable for publication and dissemination, because they want people to become dependent on their proprietary file formats.

A better model is one in which editable documents are stored in one format, which contains metadata for tracking changes, etc. Then, when someone wishes to publish this document, they export it to a different format (like PDF), which is then sent out.

The first format can be proprietary or not, but either way is kept within the organization and private. The second format only has the final version and the data that the publisher wants to release, and is in an open format that anyone can read without having to purchase special software. An intelligent organization wishing to preserve their confidential data would adopt this model.

Coming to a Business Law Textbook

[Anonymous Coward]

"Next week we'll be covering one of the more amusing cases in IP. Make sure to read the case study on SCO before coming to class. It's Chapter 11, which isn't altogether lacking in irony."

CA, Questar and Leggett & Platt Inc.

[burgburgburg]

Remember, these are the companies that shareholders should sue for frivolously spending company monies with no legal foundation. And the top executives should get the boot.

Shareholders have already unseated Eisner and Lord Black because of stupidity/criminal self-dealing. Here's three more to add to the list.

I'm confused now

[Goody]

Is bloated, closed source, evil empire produced Word a good or bad thing ?

Oh snap.

[Mr. Darl McBride]

This is the last time I let Bill pay his license fees in Office CDs.

~Darl

Admissible evidence in court???

[Vexler]

IANAL. But suppose a case is brought to court that includes, as part of its collection of evidence, a Word document that tracks changes in much the same way that the Word document in the article apparently did. Could a prosecutor who, for example, sees among the "invisible ink" Neo-Nazi writings by the accused, be able to use that as evidence against him? Could he furthermore deduce "motive" and "intent" from that evidence? On one hand, he is able to glean the evidence simply because something *WAS* there. But that's just the problem: It was in the past, but it has been editted out and substituted by the weekly grocery list of the accused. Would he then be able to point to the "change log", so to speak, and build his case on that?

Best SCO Week Ever?

[Random BedHead Ed]

Their earnings are down. They sued two of their own customers. Laura Dido is no longer brainwashed by them. They have been revealed to be sock puppets of Redmond. And they use Word, which revealed their alternate evil plans. This is by far the funniest SCO week ever.

Re:Best SCO Week Ever?

[whittrash]

You forgot the judge told them in no uncertain terms to explicitly outline exactly what Linux code is theirs and barred them from making some public comments.

Bank of America?!?!

[st0rmshad0w]

I would have loved to have seen them try to impound all that equipment. BOA would have destroyed them outright.

Anyone know who SCO banks with?

idiots!

[nxs212]

This is getting beyond utter stupidity! The only thing Bank of America would have to do is remove any offending code or recompile their apps without using offending libraries. It's not that hard.
So far we haven't seen a single line of proprietary code from SCO - anything and everything they have shown us was and still is available in public domain. Just because they copied it from public domain and put it in their shitty product doesn't make it their invention.
As far as BoA is concerned, I think Darl remembered he had an account with them where he stashed his millions. Talk about sticky situation:
Darl: All your Linux are belong to us!
BoA: OK, *click*, all your assets have been frozen until further notice...

and yet somehow

[focitrixilous P]

somehow this happened.
* SCO Group Inc (The) SCOX 11.66 +0.07 (0.60%)

How? What idiot would buy stock now? Microsoft, in a last ditch attempt to give them a shread of crediability? People willing to take a million to one odds that they win any of these lawsuits?

Re:and yet somehow

[DaveAtFraud]

Actually the $2 loss yesterday is probably why there was a minor uptick today. There are a lot of "mechanical" traders who assume a big, one day downturn overstates how much a company's stock should be punished for a given news item. They pick up the stock the next day on the assumption the cooler heads will prevail and the stock will regain some of its dramatic loss.

A lot of trading is done simply in response to a stock's momentum, average value, deviation from average, etc. It has very little to do with the long term prospects of the company.

SCO on crack

[morcheeba]

In seeking relief from the courts, the original version of the document also said that it sought: "impounding all Linux software products in the custody or control of Defendant through the pendency of these proceedings;"

What kind of drug were they on when they thought that a court would allow them to impound all "linux software products" (impounding the hardware would be easier) before the trial had been decided? Proving irreperable harm to SCO would be very hard, and taking all of these computers from BofA would cause incredible harm. No judge would allow such a thing.

Which makes me wonder... who even suggested this - SCO management or their lawyers? Is the management that clueless/reckless?

MS Software "feature" reveals SCO's evil plans

[JohnnyCannuk]

..Down on the farm, we call that karma.

WTF is going on?

[bogie]

I cannot believe companies are caving in to SCO and paying these bogus licensing fees. Can you believe Questar's logic?

"Our usage of (Linux) is so small and isolated that's why we went ahead and signed the contract.,"

The more companies that pay the more Linux looks like a tainted OS that is no longer Free.

I knew the whole IBM v SCO thing wasn't going to be a quick and dirty affair. I knew SCO would be getting help from Microsoft to fund its legal offensive. I never thought companies would be dumb enough to pay for IP which is contested. For the love of God why are they paying? Say Fuck You to SCO and let them sue you if they want money. No judge will pass judgment against you or even let the case go forward until SCO can prove via the IBM case their IP claims. Who are the lawyers for these companies that are saying its better to pay? Fire their asses and hire someone with a clue.

Breached Privelidge...

[barfy]

IALOS...

I think there are a couple of interesting items.

The first question, is would the deleted material allowed in court? Since it was a draft of a legal plan, it would seem pretty clear that the content should ordinarally be protected by attorney-client privelidge? Especially if accidentally passed.

The next question, is, now that it has been exposed, are there actions that can be taken against, SCO or thier lawform for either releasing confidential information, or the actual content of the confidential information?

I can already hear lawyers screaming around the world, and this has to be good for Adobe...

Lawyers should not be providing editable documents like word files. Final format documents like PDF, or signed PDF would seem to be a lot better thing to be passing around legal documents.

Re:Breached Privelidge...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

In other news, SCO sues their own lawyers for negligence...

Great publicity for Linux

[IceAgeComing]

I've been a linux user for years, and I had no idea that Autozone, Daimler-Chrysler, and BofA all used linux on a widespread basis.

I'll just bet PHB's are thinking more about Linux, thanks to all the SCO press.

I love irony.

Halloween X confirmed real.

[eddy]

"Blake Stowell, SCO's director of communications, acknowledged that the leaked memo is real." -- eweek [eweek.com]

Better story.

[eddy]

Yes, ESR gets the math wrong.

Stowell of course is just trying to spin [com.com] it favourable for SCO. Stowell and McBride are well known liars in my opinion, so why would we trust them?

But forget that, here's another and possibly better SCO story:

"That's what pushed EV1Servers, one of SCO's first Linux licensees, to pay up. At a press conference announcing the deal, reporters asked chief Robert Marsh whether he'll demand a refund should SCO lose its Linux cases.

McBride jumped in: "You don't call up your auto insurance company and say, 'Hey, I didn't get in a car wreck.'" -- Yahoo [yahoo.com]

Note the word 'insurance'. McBride basically is admitting to racketeering!

I'll bet this will come back to haunt him in court filings in the future.

thugs

[drxyzzy]

Man in suit: Hey kid, nice software you have there. What's it called?

Kid: Um, Linux, why?

Man: Because I'm from SCO/Microsoft and I think it looks like my
software now.

Kid: No way, in fact I wrote some of it myself

Man [pushing attorneys in front of him]: Moose! Lefty! Help the kid
find his wallet.

Computer Associates claim is bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

The word within CA is that the SCO claim is a lie. The following article is doing the rounds internally - it claims to have been published but I can't find it on the web, if I did I would provide a link instead...

CA Says It Didn't Pay SCO No Stinking Linux Tax

The Linux faithful have been hammering Computer Associates as a heretic since the British publication Computer Weekly quoting the SCO Group's CFO Bob Bench identified CA Thursday as one of SCO's rare Linux licensees.

CA senior VP of product development Mark Barrenechea says that Bench's claim is nonsense. CA has not paid SCO any Linux taxes, he said.

Drawing up short of calling SCO a liar, Barrenechea claims that SCO has twisted a $40 million breach-of-contract settlement that CA paid last summer to the Canopy Group, SCO's biggest stockholder, and Center 7, another Canopy company, and has turned it into a purported Linux license.

As a 'small part' of that settlement, Barrenechea said, CA got a bunch of UnixWare licenses that it needed to support its UnixWare customers. SCO, he said, had just attached a transparent Linux indemnification to all UnixWare licenses and that is how SCO comes off calling CA a Linux licensee.

But when CA agreed to that settlement, Barrenechea said, 'It was not CA's intention to become a Linux licensee. It has nothing to do with CA's product direction or strategic direction,' he said.

CA has absolutely no sympathy for what SCO is doing, Barrenechea said, and in fact, he said, reading from a formal statement, it stands in 'stark disagreement with SCO's tactics and threats.'

Barrenechea and CA's Linux chief Sam Greenblatt are worried that CA will be tarred with the SCO brush and that CA's considerable Linux ambitions will be damaged by a disaffected, if not hostile, open source community when in reality CA has 'nothing to do with SCO's strategy and tactics,' they said.

CA was the mystery company SCO was thinking of when it announced last August that an unidentified Fortune 500 company had supposedly become a Linux license. SCO privately described the deal as 'significant.'

CA couldn't disassociate itself from the rumors that identified it as that licensee because of an NDA that the Canopy side had insisted on hedging in the $40 million settlement with, Barrenechea and Greenblatt said.

Barrenechea said that SCO now regards that NDA as being off because of the legal discovery that's been going on in SCO's $5 billion suit against IBM.

See, SCO lawyer Mark Heisse in a letter dated February 4 to IBM lawyer David Marriott at Cravath Swain identified CA, Questar and Leggett & Platt as Linux taxpayers.

According to that letter, which is up on the Groklaw site, Heisse owed IBM a copy of the CA agreement on CD.

Barrenechea said that SCO was dropping CA's name to associate itself with the 'third-largest software company in the world' and build support for its 'lost cause.'

But according to Barrenechea, not only are SCO's IP ambitions doomed, but its Unix interests are a 'trailing negative' on the road to dropping from 10% of the market to 3%-5% in a few years and then 'SCO will be irrelevant,' he said.

By the way, CA doesn't have enough UnixWare licenses to cover all its Linux servers, Greenblatt said.

In answer to CA's contentions, SCO said its lawyers think that CA has a Linux license.

Meanwhile, Bench also told Computer Weekly, whose story was picked up by sister paper InfoWorld and maybe other properties in the IDG stable, that SCO had signed between 10 and 50 Linux licenses.

Re: Ironic

[SirSlud]

More that its ironic that MS is bankrolling SCO to try and torpedo Linux, but their own technology is making it easier for the other side to obtain shreds of information we probably shouldnt be privy to.

Re:This is so cute

[ktulu1115]

...like two smitten children fumbling and tumbling over themselves.

I think they're like two monkeys banging away on a keyboard instead... Hey maybe they'll create the next Longhorn source by the time the courts settle.

Re:Bank of America?

[LMCBoy]

Headline: "Computers Purported To Be Used For Something Besides Serving Webpages"!

Film at 11.

Re:Bank of America?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry for the anonymous post... none of this is confidential but I'd still like to keep my name separate from it...)

1. We use AIX. Heavily. Like most banks do.
2. We're rolling out Linux right now. I'm personally involved in this deployment, and we have made a big deal out of it, going as far as making a presentation at the last LWE about our Linux plans.

Re:IBM should buy SCO and fire McBriBe

[brain1]

Yet, but it wouldn't make SCO suffer a fitting fate.

I think public humiliation, stock delisting, and bankruptcy would be a more fitting end.

Re:I'd love to see the actual contracts.

[whittrash]

I tried to buy a license. They refused to sell me one because I wasn't incorporated yet. I told them I was starting a small enterprise with a Linux web server that did not as yet exist, but was in the works. They even refused to give me information on what their product was and if it would protect me from a lawsuit. The only thing I got was this form letter.

Dear Mr. [name witheld to protect me from getting sued],

Thank you for your inquiry to obtain an SCO IP license. At this time, we have announced the license availability for commercial users only. If you wish to pursue a commercial IP license, please enclose the following information.

Corporate Name, Corporate Phone and Address, Corporate officers names and titles, distribution of Linux and release/rev information. Once we have received your updated information, we will contact you with the purchase requirements.

Thank you for your interest in SCO.

SCO

That was what they sent me in answer to a request about what their product was. I followed up but they did not respond to any correspondance I sent.

I am not an expert in this kind of thing, but if I were a large company thinking about buying a license, I would think twice. Buying a license is more likely to get you involved in a lawsuit and it might violate the GPL, opening you up to a lawsuit from any developer who ever contributed to Linux and void your ability to use Linux and barring you from using Linux. You are better off paying a one time penalty than being bound by a SCO license. Buying a SCO license will not make your problems go away, it will only make them worse. Basically what they are doing is going around saying that WE WILL SUE YOU over copyright violations. But the license (which I later read because they finally released copy of it) only sells a useless/unnamed product called 'IP' and does not give any assurances and only restricts rights of Linux users. Read the fine print, you get NOTHING. It does not indemnify you. They are entirely geared towards going after and exploiting existing Linux users based on fear of a lawsuit, they are not geared at providing a service to potential users or a useful product that does something. Their license does not make a single hard claim to any specific Linux product and does nothing but restrict your rights.

Only an idiot would buy this license. It is completely asinine. DO NOT BUY A LICENSE. It is an open ended legal liability.

Re:The quick way to end all of this

[Graymalkin]

The issue is about whether or not the code in Linux is SCO's code or not. SCO is claiming IBM put some of its code into Linux in order to make Linux "Eterprise Ready". IBM says they didn't do any such thing. A patch removing all of the code SCO claims were put in illegally would be a tacit admission that the code is SCO's. Removing any code SCO claims is theirs would be the worst thing any kernel maintainer could do right now.

Re:Amazing timing!

[Ohreally_factor]

Don't look know, but SCO has confirmed that ESR's leaked memo linking MS to the Baystar deal is real, although they claim that the memo's meaning is being misinterpreted and that the author of the memo didn't understand the situation. Right.