SCO Claims Ownership of ELF To Court

l2718 writes "In the most recent punch-counterpunch of the SCO v. IBM case, IBM is claiming that SCO is trying to vastly expand their claims beyond what they alleged in their list of material allegedly misused by IBM filed last December, using their expert reports. For example, two years ago we covered SCO's claim to own ELF, the main executable format of Linux. Apparently they are have finally made the same claim to a court of law, after the deadline for making such claims. From IBM's memorandum: 'The final disclosures identify 19 Linux files relating to the ELF specification, as well as excerpts from several specification documents. Dr. Cargill far exceeds this claims ... asserting infringement of the entire ELF format ... also ... for the first time, claims to the ELF magic number.'"

Play By Play

[eldavojohn]

The day had started off normally with SCO making blatant claims--this time about ownership of ELF.

The SCO team was cut-off in mid sentence by a surprise defendent, Will Farrell. He appeared and rushed into the courtroom declaring that his legal team for the motion picture "ELF" had already secured rights to anything with that name.

The court room erupted into commotion as a second prosecutor entered the room. The legal team representing the Earth Liberation Front entered the room demanding all three parties to pay royalties for using their registered trademark name and threatened to bomb the livestock holdings of all parties involved should E.L.F. lose the case.

At this point, a hushed silence befelled the room as Christopher Tolkien (representing The Tolkien Estate) entered the room. He swore that "before the dawning of the next day", all mis-uses of his father's invention would force him to use his "+5 lawyers of speech twisting" to rectify the situation and bring unto him large sums of moneys.

SCO then revealed that they had purchased the rights to use & create ELF from a group of folklorists based in Europe. The judge then dismissed Will Farrell, E.L.F. & Mr. Tolkien. The SCO lawyer cleared his throat and resumed his sentence, "...as I was saying, having invented ones and zeros, we own the rights to all software ever developed..."

Seriously, when will this SCO shit end?

Earth Liberation Front

[ndansmith]

So the SCO are terrorists too, eh? I always had a feeling . . .

Do elves play darts?

[soren42]

So... wait... SCO owns the elves and their magic? I knew they were smoking something, but it must be good!

Seriously, is the whole SCO strategy just sensationalism at this point? I mean, do they just put the kernel source on a dartboard, throw, and what gets hit - they own it! I can find any other rhyme or reason to this... Could be a good business plan for a whole company of attorneys.

Oh come on!

[zBoD]

Admit it already! You thieves have blatantly stolen the number 0x0E7F which *obviously* belonged to SCO! ... Pffff kids nowadays!

BoD

Is this a typical legal strategy?

[w33t]

When losing a court case in a particular scope to greatly expand that scope? It seems preposterious to me - if I attempt to claim ownership of B, D, and F, but begin to lose how could it possibly make sense to now claim that I own A thorough G?

Perhaps this is just the first scope-creep in a long overarching strategy which can only lead to one inevitable outcome! [villanova.edu]

Re:This is tiresome

[khendron]

No no. That's Microsoft. SCO is more slimy than bratty.

Quoting a certain SciFi flick (was:Play By Play)

[Lead Butthead]

"(SCO) can't be bargained with.(SCO) can't be reasoned with. (SCO) doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And (SCO) absolutely will not stop, ever, until (it is) dead."

Can't wait to see the licensing fees

[Reverend528]

So are we all going to owe $699 per ELF binary on our computers?

Re:The Tolkein bit needs sharpening up.

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, the S in SCO stands for Sauruman. (It can't be Sauron, as he won't allow his proper name to be written, according to Aragorn in "Two Towers".

My God, you've wrote "Sauron" right there! Oh no! Now I've written Sauron ... ahhhh, I did it again!

It has all been worth it

[mccalli]

All of it. Every last claim, counterclaim, ludicrous bit of nonsense, deeply insightful meditations...everything. Everything has lead to this one, perfect moment in court:

"... asserting infringement of the entire ELF format ... also ... for the first time, claims to the ELF magic number.'"

Read it again. Then again. Then think quietly to yourself "did a highly paid legal expert really have to stand up in court and claim he owned the magic number of the elves?". Then start to giggle. Then laugh. Then just collapse in fits of hysterics, which is exactly what I'm doing right now.

What about the leprecauns' gold? That's what I want to know. And where's the last unicorn? Centaurs too, I've always wanted to know what happened to them...

Cheers,
Ian

Wrong Santa!

[Dareth]

Back off SCO... Santa Claus got the market on them ELF slaves not you!

He has them cranking out IPODS and hopefully PS3 right now for all us boys and girls who have good credit!

Re:Play By Play

[HardCase]

Everybody knows that Elfin magic comes from hollow trees. Mmmmmmmm...cookie....

This thread needs more cowbell!

[Nicolas MONNET]

And more boobies. Seriously.

Re:Can't wait to see the licensing fees

[AuMatar]

No, you iss the beauty of this move- they claim to own the elf magic number. So they own all numbers derived from it. SInce via recursive adding or subtracting of 1 all numbers can be derived from it, they know own all numbers. SO prepare to pay $699 for each number on your hard drive, plus $699 for use of knowing the price of $699.

Re:Can't wait to see the licensing fees

[Reverend528]

I've written a useful script to compute how much you owe. Just run this on all of your computers, sum up the total, and mail the check off to SCO.

find / -exec file {} \; | grep ELF | wc | awk "{print \$1 * 699;}"

are have

[blugu64]

"Apparently they are have finally made the same claim to a court of law, after the deadline for making such claims."

Well I am are have hard time understanding what they are have said.

Bill to Darrel: Stall some more, VISTA is late...

[Jerry]

That about sums it up.

I would guess that within a month or two of VISTA's final release this SCO lawsuit will go away.

Hah!

[Otter]

People laughed at me for not bothering to switch from a.out, but who's laughing now? Go enjoy your fancy new 1.0 kernel in prison, losers! And take that newfangled glibc with you!

If you can't compete...

[Jeian]

If you can't compete, litigate!

Re:Hah!

[cecom]

You should be more crafeul with posts like that! You made me spill hot coffee on my lap (ouch) from laughter, so now you have a lawsuit coming up. We'll see who the loser is !!!!

Re:This thread needs more cowbell!

[colinrichardday]

Darl McBride? Oh, wait, you said boobies, sorry.

Re:Can't wait to see the licensing fees

[the real darkskye]

Thats okay I only have 2 numbers on my hard drives, 0 and 1

But I'm still not paying the idiot tax.

Re:Wrong Santa!

[SoftwareJuggler]

In other news SCO announced a new suit against the Santa Claus Operation next for trademark infringement. Lawyers for SCO commented "On one hand a jolly old man that gives stuff away, vs a Darl McBride who says it is all his... of course everybody is going to be confused. This is an open and shut case." Observers note that talks are ongoing and think that this will be settled with Santa Claus Operation signing over all remaining ELF IP in exchange for a much needed coal concession.

Re:Earth Liberation Front

[sharkey]

No, no, it's the Liberation Front of Earth.


Splitters!!

The solution...

[frostilicus2]

...Use GNU Hurd. It runs Mach-O binaries, Not ELF.

and it looks like it's going to be released by the time this one's settled.

Re:Ugh...

[geobeck]

Aren't these guys dead YET?!

They're not quite dead yet.

They think they'll go for a walk.

They feel happy...

Re:Ugh...

[kfg]

Aren't these guys dead YET?!

The Black Software Company: Oh! Had enough, eh? Come back and take what's coming to you, you yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll sue your legs off!

KFG

Re:This thread needs more cowbell!

[kimvette]

Not true. Everybody likes tits. Not everybody likes Darl McBride. Therefore, Darl McBride is not a tit.

SCO Forum

[Xunker]

Who wants to go with me to the SCO Forum [sco.com] this year? Held, appropriately, at The Mirage.

Re:Magic Number?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the magic number is 42. Or something like that. Not sure of its significance, tho.

Re:It has all been worth it

[Dhar]

Actually, I think the highly paid legal expert stood up in court and claimed "They're after me lucky charms!"

-g.

Re:IBM just got served

[erroneus]

Yeah, probably, but you all have to admit that this has GOT to be some record for the duration of "foreplay."

And add another touch of Python

[sconeu]

Nobody is to stone anybody until I say so... even if they do write "Sauron"!

Re:The only conclusion I can reach...

[mmurphy000]

Which means just one thing: IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!

What? That phrase is trademarked by Marvel? Oops...

Wait, you can OWN a number?

[igaborf]

I call 69.

In that case

[phorm]

I think the word you want is batty, as in freakin nuts.

SCO is like some crazy old drunk ranting at a group of kids to get off his lawn... except that he's sitting in the middle of a park... and not wearing any clothes... and the kids are actually a bunch of squirrels in a nearby tree...

SCO is continuously claiming ownership to something they have no right to, they're threatening to attack the wrong people even if they did have ownership (SCO licenses for Linux users), and meanwhile their ass is flapping in the wind for everyone to see how nuts they really are.