SCO Says It Has No Plan To Sue Linux Companies 478
cadfael writes "SCO is reported in the Age as saying they 'Have no plans to sue Linux companies...' This seems to contradict the earlier statements of Chris Sontag. This story also points out how Canopy owns stakes in several other Linux companies, including Linux Networx wheich supplied the supercomputer for Lawrence Livermore Nat Lab. One begins to wonder if the reality of their situation has become clear to them?" Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of the end of this mess.
Timeline of events? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Caldera goes bankrupt
Now they're trying to change it to this:
1. Caldera goes bankrupt.
a. Sells out, changes name to SCO
b. Threatens IBM
c. Threatens Linux Users
d.
But in the end, they're done for.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Interesting)
e. Profit
which Darl and other SCO executives made by inflating share value through FUD. I wonder if they'll be left alone to enjoy $$$ after this saga is over.
No, no, no... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, you gotta invest money, don't you? You can't just have it sitting there... you have a right to make money, don't you? Isn't that what America is all about?
I'd say
Re:No, no, no... (Score:4, Funny)
SCO would fit in pretty well over there.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:3, Funny)
Ebbers is not being indicted by the federal govt. it is the state govt. that made the indictments.
Martha Stewart made the mistake of paying off the wrong lot. Herr Ashcroft does not take campaign donations to Democrats into account as a mitigating factor. To count a contribution has to be made to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
I don't think it is very likely we will see an
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Profit based on betting (Score:3, Insightful)
Suppose SCO is demanding $100 per Linux server, and you have 10 such servers. Then if they win you will need to find $1000. If SCO's stock price currently reflects a 5% chance of them winning, then any stock you do buy will increase 19-fold in value if they win. Therefore you need to buy $1000/19 worth of SCO stock to hedge against the risk. Of course you'd do this only if you think the 5% estimation by the market is about right, or too low -
Re:Profit based on betting (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I understand where you are getting your numnbers from. You are taking the $3b settlement / their market cap (rounded to $189m). That would be about a 16-fold increase of value. I think that this is how you got your 19-fold number, just using older numbers.
Except you forgot to take in to account laywer fees. I have no idea what that would run in a case like this, but I'd be suprised if it was less then 40%.
Then you have to remember who you are dealing with. When
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Funny)
"SCO claims to know what was copied, so make them post it already."
Yes! Here on Slashdot. And make them read all 1378 responses. Except the -1's. We're not *that* evil. Though, Lord knows, they deserve it.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Informative)
aka http://welovethescoinformationminister.org [welovethes...nister.org]
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry... did he just imply that ESR "Doesn't Get It"??
Re:Good Quote - better quote... :-) (Score:3, Insightful)
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing cirucmstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor coroprations have any righ to come into court and ask that the clock of histo
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Informative)
SCO must die. (Score:2, Interesting)
If there is any justice in the world, they will be held accountable for all the crap they've said since the beginning.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Informative)
the United States District Court, For the
District of Utah. The dossier [uscourts.gov]
is online.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Funny)
From the minutes of a SCO conference with counsel, 8/29/03, participants Darl McBride, Chris Sontag, Blake Stowell, David Boies, and Mark Heise:
Darl: We sued IBM!?!?! How'd that happen?
Chris: (looks down at conference table) Ummm...
(glances over to...)
Mark: Well... David said -
Blake: Shut up, Scheisse.
Mark: It's *Heise*, not scheisse.
Blake: (snorts) Yeah, right.
David: Cut it out, guys.
Look. OK, my bad. Chris and I were having drinks at the bar, and talking
about the Microsoft settlement. Anyway, Chris starts going on about how
we should sue Microsoft again. You know, maybe there's some System V code
in Windows and they misappropriated it. That led into a talk about how we
might use it to show how SCO's business has been hurt by Microsoft, and,
well, from there we started talking about how Linux was hurting the
business. And, you know, we started talking about how all the other
companies, like IBM, were helping Linux. And from there, well, somehow
we ended up filing a suit against IBM.
It's not like we planned on it, you know.
It just sort of... (sighs) happened.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Funny)
Partygoer: Dude, Daryl, you were so drunk, you will never believe what you did.
Daryl: Ok, did I dance around with a lampshade on my head?
Partygoer: (Chuckle) Nope.
Daryl: Did I upchuck on the new rug?
Partygoer: Nope
Daryl: Okay, who did I fuck with?
Partygoer bursts out laughing, uncontrollably...
Timeline of events (Score:5, Informative)
Xix.
Re:Timeline of events? (Score:5, Funny)
They have a list of Deathless Quotes, dated, with references.
Have fun!
For all those who didn't read the article (Score:5, Insightful)
in other words they expected everyone would just pay them given the threat of legal action.
"concrete plans"
In other words they don't currently have the financial resources to take on more then one court case.
They did not say anywhere "will not" or "has no intention of".
AKA (Score:5, Funny)
Sue Linux companies? No! (Score:4, Insightful)
Threatening to sue other companies pumps up the stock price, allows Canopy to use the inflated stock price for asset shuffling (skimming big profits), allows senior management to sell shares at a big profit, builds up our press clippings book which is very impressive to PHBs.
Actually suing involves bothersome discovery procedures where you have to actually show some sort of cause for you action. Where's the fun in that?
Re:AKA (Score:5, Informative)
They were answering in Australia and there is an anticompetitive complaint there filed against them.
They have provided the same answer in Germany where they have an injunction filed against them.
They have not provided such answers and have stated exactly the opposite in every other country where they are not under anticompetive practices investigation (or injunction).
I think that it is absolutely bleeding obvious what takes them to make the statement they have done in Australia.
SCO always tells the truth! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SCO always tells the truth! (Score:5, Funny)
They don't have plans to sue anyone. Their plan is for everyone to spontaniously acquiesce and begin showering them with money. And then they plan to romp through the magical faerie garden on their "red-gold and diamond" Segways where the monkeys poop french vanilla ice cream and Bronson Pinchot gives everyone cocaine boosted hummers.
And while it's only slightly less likely than the proverbial monkeys flying out of my butt, it's not *exactly* a complete fabrication.
Re:SCO always tells the truth! (Score:2)
Re:SCO always tells the truth! (Score:3, Interesting)
They're telling the truth! (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh (Score:3, Funny)
Fucking tea bagging fag fucks
Re:Heh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't let our guards down just yet..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wouldn't let our guards down just yet..... (Score:5, Informative)
Nah, it's probably legit. Sontag is talking to someone in Australia, and he probably means they have no plans, and never had any plans, to sue anyone in Oz.
Oz's legal system isn't as bang-up gridlocked as the US's. Which means that if they sued anyone down there, it would go through the courts much faster and leave less time to make money by pumping up the FUD.
Loser pays (Score:4, Insightful)
of COURSE they're not suing companies... (Score:5, Interesting)
They sue the users who can't afford legal costs and will settle just for the sake of avoiding legal hell, and SCO gets a nice precedent running and their stock improves yet further.
Maybe I'm too cynical?
Re:of COURSE they're not suing companies... (Score:4, Funny)
tell me about it... i'm being sued for downloading linux over kazaa.
damn.
Re:of COURSE they're not suing companies... (Score:2)
Just make damn sure your distro doesn't include DeCSS code.
Re:of COURSE they're not suing companies... (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO? Plans? (Score:2, Funny)
In future news, SCO sues Red Hat, Mandrake, others.
Re: SCO Says It Has No Plan To Sue Linux Companies (Score:5, Funny)
Australia only? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who will own the SysV code base? (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, if IBM prevails (as most of the OSS community predicts) and is awarded huge damages, IBM may wind up owning the SysV code base after liquidation of SCO.
Can IBM use this power to make life difficult for the other vendors? Could IBM, for instance, drive HP off of HP-UX and SGI off of Irix? If so, where do they go? Do they join IBM in Linux or do they give IBM the finger and release a *BSD variant?
Damage is done... (Score:5, Funny)
Think about it. How many articles have there been and how many comments per article? Boy, when the juicy ones came out the number of responses jumped up into the hundreds even nearing a thousand sometimes. Now, imagine if this never happened and all those people got together to work towards one goal. I think with the hours that have been wasted on this story so far, we could've designed and build a mars mission already
Lawsuit I'd like to see (Score:5, Interesting)
They went after Martha Stewart for a hell of a lot less than this.
Time for some perspective on EVIL (Score:3, Funny)
a)Honey, I think we need to spend $5,000 on a Feng Shui consultant to get the chi flowing in the living room...
b)Honey, it's not stupid. I swear, Martha used sponges just like these to paint her wall and it looked great! It's not like you had anything better to do today.
c)Honey, I think you should pay that Linux IP licensing fee to SCO for that web-server
Re:Time to buy a SCO share (Score:3, Insightful)
Not suing companies (Score:3, Interesting)
Insider selling completed? (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO random press release generator? (Score:5, Funny)
Is SCO actually being run by a Perl script that periodically checks their stock price to see if it needs to emit some random statement?
Re:SCO random press release generator? (Score:3, Funny)
Us Perl scripts have feelings too..
Re:SCO random press release generator? (Score:3, Funny)
So? (Score:5, Funny)
See, if you say one thing then say the other instead of just saying what you mean first, that means you get to release two press releases and boost your stock twice!
SCO the true postmodern company... (Score:3, Funny)
forgot to add (Score:2)
Darl McBallmeride: Press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases, press releases. Yay Gloria Estafan!
Wait.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, (Score:3, Funny)
They worked? (Score:2, Interesting)
More evidence for bait and switch (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be hilarious if... (Score:2, Funny)
Think about it - bunch of hugely greedy execs that are tech-challenged.
Techie sees opportunity and drops a hint that they're getting screwed by the Linux folks and could probably make a ton of money off of it.
Greedy tech-challenged execs manage to convince themselves that techie is right; charge forward with their Swiss-cheese case and make complete fools of themselves -- while techie laughs his friggin' a$$
Back Pedaling or more FUD? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stock Price (Score:2)
Could it be that certain players would more than eager to fund such a company since directly attacking Linux would have severe political ramifications? I can think of several companies that would love to see Linux just go away or at least get bogged down in legal proceedings.
Another question are identities of purchase
One hand does not know what the other is doing? (Score:5, Informative)
Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of the company's SCOsource business, added: "There is no warranty for infringement of intellectual property [in the GPL], so all of the liability ends up with end users."
Mark Heise, of law firm Boies Schiller and Flexner, representing SCO against IBM, believes SCO is entitled to pursue users based on its claims. "End users are improperly using this copyrighted material, and under copyright law SCO is entitled to damages and injunctive relief," he said.
Chris Sontag, senior vice-president and general manager of SCOsource, which is trying to derive more income from the company's intellectual property, said today: "SCO is taking this important step because there are intellectual property issues with Linux.
"When SCO's own UNIX software code is being illegally copied into Linux, we believe we have an obligation to educate commercial users of the potential liability that could rest with them for using such software to run their business. We feel so strongly about this issue that we are suspending sales and distribution of SCO Linux until these issues are resolved."
asked whether SCO would sue the laboratory, the company spokesperson said: "No. SCO has never made concrete plans to sue anyone."
Seems like Linus is right (Score:5, Funny)
If only I had the spare ten hours I could go over the last years' press releases and make some "found poetry." Blank verse in this case, of course.
Could this be because of the redhat lawsuit (Score:2)
Re:Could this be because of the redhat lawsuit (Score:2)
Re:Could this be because of the redhat lawsuit (Score:3, Informative)
Red Hat's case has a few counts. Count I is "Declaratory Judgment of Noninfringement of Copyrights". They can only get this declaratory judgement if they show that "an actual controversy exists" (para. 73)
Count II is similar, but with respect to trade secrets not copyright.
Counts III - VII are for libel, unfair trade practices etc. and can run on their own whether SCO plans on suing or not.
Parse the statement... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Parse the statement... (Score:3, Funny)
(Controlling?) Intrest. (Score:5, Interesting)
Something smells very rotten here.
No.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But I'm sure Redhat would lodge like a bone in their throat. I'd love to watch them choke.
Proof. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Maintaining SCO compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
NOTE: This report hereby placed in public domain, use it as you wish, at your own risk!
Additional suggestions, detailed specific recommendations, comments, requested.
Obviously it is a concern to GPL software authors that they maintain compatibility with the SCO platforms, while SCO publicly abuses them, tries to get the GPL declared invalid, and while SCO profits from selling their software and integrating it into future releases of the SCO product line.
Software authors will be aware that breaking SCO compatibility may cause problems for SCO users - (although strictly speaking that is SCO's problem, not the software author(s)', unless the author(s) have some contractual relationship with SCO or SCO customers).
SCO needs support revenue (and new sales revenue) that may depend on GPL products, to fund their PR and litigation. Thus, software authors, who not obligated to support SCO, presumably might want to.
Therefore here is a list of things NOT to do, if you don't want to break SCO compatibility.
1. Don't refactor your code, rearrange files, move functions between files, and rename files more logically in the same release as one which contains accidentally contains one or more SCO incompatible changes.
If you do this, it would make it harder for SCO or their partners to re-introduce any "lost" code that was necessary to support the SCO's platforms. Obviously you wouldn't want that.
2. Don't accidentally remove SCO support in a series of stages, which overlap in time with a bunch of critical security or bug fixes, without making it clear at which stages you accidentally removed SCO support.
3. Don't accidentally remove any special fixes or work rounds for SCO platforms.
4. Don't depend on functions, which are not implemented or perform differently on SCO platforms. Especially don't depend on those functions in lots of different places in your product.
In particular avoid these functions:
(please help with this list - "list 4")
Known bugs in SCO products:
Unixware: accept() does not set the sa_family value correctly for the AF_UNIX family. See http://mail.python.org/pipermail/patches/2001-Augu st/005630.html [python.org]
Unixware: atan2() does returns pi instead of zero for atan2(0, x). See http://mail.python.org/pipermail/patches/2001-Augu st/005630.html [python.org]
5. Don't depend on compiler features that might not be available on SCO platforms. This is especially true if, as has been suggested may occur, new versions of GCC don't support SCO platforms.
In particular don't depend on these compiler features:
(please help with this list if and when GCC loses SCO support)
6. Don't put in messages that display only on SCO's platforms.
Avoid putting in code like (and especially not commenting):
#if defined(_SCO_DS)
#elif defined(__UNIXWARE__)
#elif defined(__USLC__)
#if defined( __STDC_VERSION__ ) && __STDC_VERSION__ == 199409
#else
#endif
#elif defined(M_UNIX)
#else
#endif
7. Don't remove support in your makefile for building the application on SCO's platforms.
8. Don't rename your functions and variables with names that conflict with SCO-spe
Doing my part (Score:5, Informative)
The copy on my own website has been served to about 5000 distinct hosts so far this month. A google search for "Let's Put SCO Behind Bars" [google.com] turns up 2190 matches.
Most of those are links. The article has a Creative Commons license, and I've been encouraging copying. By doing various searches, and checking my logs for referring pages, I've found a few dozen other copies on the web, many of them on message boards where they've had lots of readers.
It turned out to be very helpful when Linux Universe [linux-universe.com] asked me to submit my article there. They use UBB codes instead of HTML. I realized that lots of other message boards use UBB, so I saved a copy on my site in UBB format [goingware.com] for people to copy to other message boards.
I've been meaning to write a plain-ascii version suitable for email and usenet but haven't gotten to it yet.
Both Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond enjoyed the article. Stallman said that if it weren't against his ethics to write proprietary code, he would have enjoyed working at the SCO of old as I described it.
My first draft I posted at Advogato, followed soon after by InfoAnarchy and then Kuro5hin.
However, I didn't succeed in getting Slashdot to feature it. One can only dream.
I have been hesitant to allow copying of many of my articles before now, but when one's objective is to get a lot of people to read what one has written, and to do so in a short time, it works wonders.
Even this statement is only a partial truth (Score:5, Interesting)
"No. SCO has never planned to sue Linux companies."
It should say "SCO doesn't plan to sue any more Linux companies." They've already sued a Linux company. I'll give you a hint: the company's initials are IBM.
They have no plans, buy they have no rights... (Score:2, Interesting)
And if this a move to be more friendly with angry Linux users. Too late.... No one will wants nothing about SCO.
Notice the poll (Score:3, Funny)
"Is Linux right that SCO is "smoking crack"?
Yes
No
"
So far 97% say yes.
politics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:politics (Score:3, Informative)
Diplomacy
Re:politics (Score:3, Funny)
Tech Support
Distribution is OK now (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey McB, so you are now endorsing distribution of illegal product while you demand money from those who bought it? Give me a fsckin break, would you?
Selling SCOX short (Score:5, Informative)
"SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies ..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors.
SCO press release, January 13, 2003
SCO says it has made no decision on Unix IP [theregister.com]
So I don't believe SCO's statements about their future plans. They are practicing the adage: "diplomacy consists of saying 'nice doggy' while you are looking for a rock".
If they get a settlement from IBM (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got it! SCO is North Korea! (Score:5, Funny)
The only difference is that North Korea might have nukes, and we all know that SCO has squat...
Adobe did the same thing. Remember Sklyarov? (Score:5, Insightful)
So is this really anything new? Probably not.
Article crashes opera? (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO is done, we have lost. (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation (Score:4, Insightful)
They have no intention of letting any of these suits run to conclusion in court, because they will lose, and lose badly, and that will be the end of their stock pumping.
On even numbered days, they're reasonable guys with a great product, so buy their stock.
On odd numbered days, they're stone cold corporate predators who own half the source code on the planet, so buy their stock.
On Sundays, Darl consults his Magic 8 Ball (tm) to decide if it's time to cash in and skip to Brazil for the face change operation, or whether he should pump for another week.
Yep, that's true! (Score:5, Funny)
Track and kill (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait - it may be just more careful wording (Score:3, Insightful)
If you follow scox at all, you know that scox can choose their wording *very* carefully. So, maybe that statement isn't as clear as thought.
For example: "no current plans to take a commercial Linux customer to court." That is not saying that scox is not going to sue linux end users. Scox could still be holding to their "give us protection money or risk a lawsuit" policy.
WTF? (Score:3, Funny)
SCO, is it a "yes" or a "no"? Just choose!
Timing of scox web-server problems interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Scos web-server goes down (scox blames ibm backed linux community).
3) Scox web-server is back up - but changed, lots of scox claims now missing.
4) Archieved claims are missing - can't be found with serch engines.
5) Scox is now saying: "we were never going to sue anybody."
Desperate little scam. Will it work?
Re:10 million ain't that much (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to see is IBM win, then go after SCO's assets (what few will be left) and press for criminal charges against its execs.
Whatever happens, after reading ESR's Haloween 9 yesterday, I don't think anybody should want to keep the OpenServer cruft...win it and then put it out of everyone's misery.
Re:SCO's haiku (Score:3, Insightful)
We sue
Or we don't
Our stocks rise
I thought haiku was 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
Re:SCO's haiku (Score:3, Funny)
Or we don't
Our stocks rise
I thought haiku was 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
And it's a damn good thing he didn't write a haiku:
We are SCO
We own the haiku patent
We will sue your ass