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Groklaw's PJ Says SCO's Demise Greatly Exaggerated
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Dec 01, 2008 02:48 PM
from the still-looking-for-a-fat-lady dept.
from the still-looking-for-a-fat-lady dept.
blackbearnh writes "Last week, the net was all abuzz with speculation that SCO was finally gone and done for. With the final judgment in SCO v. Novell in, and SCO millions of dollars in the hole to Novell, it seemed like the fat lady had finally sung. But like most things in the legal system, it isn't nearly that simple. O'Reilly Media sought out Groklaw's Pamela Jones, and got a rundown of what's still alive, and why a final end to the madness may be many years away. 'Summing up, it looks bleak for SCO at the moment, but let's enter the alternate realm of SCO's best-case scenario in its dreams: in that realm, SCO wins on appeal, which one of SCO's lawyers indicated might take a year and a half or five years, and the case is sent back to Utah for trial by jury, which is what SCO wanted (as opposed to trial by judge, which is what it got), then everything listed above (except for the IPO class action) comes alive again, presumably, depending on what the appellate court decides. Then SCO is in position once again to go after Linux end users, as well as IBM, et al.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Grokking SCO's Demise 242 comments
An anonymous reader writes "You have already heard the news that the SCO Group's US$5 billion threat against Linux is effectively finished. It was the Web site Groklaw.net that broke the news and posted the complete 102-page ruling; after that, it was picked up by mainstream media and trade press.
In fact, it's Groklaw that has covered every aspect of SCO's legal fights with Linux vendors IBM , Novell and Red Hat and Linux users Daimler Chrysler and AutoZone ever since paralegal Pamela Jones started the site as a hobby in 2003. This feature does a great job of chronicling Groklaws' hand in the demise of SCO's case."
[+]
News: Groklaw Summarizes the Lori Drew Verdict 457 comments
Bootsy Collins writes "Last Wednesday, the Lori Drew 'cyberbullying' case ended in three misdemeanor convictions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 US Federal law intended to address illegally accessing computer systems. The interpretation of the act by the Court to cover violations of website terms of service, a circumstance obviously not considered in the law's formulation and passage, may have profound effects on the intersection of the Internet and US law. Referring to an amicus curiae brief filed by online rights organizations and law professors, PJ at Groklaw breaks down the implications of the decision to support her assertion that 'unless this case is overturned, it is time to get off the Internet completely, because it will have become too risky to use a computer.'"
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Please (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Please (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. They can only keep this going with money. They don't have any, so it's not going to be five more years of crapola.
SCO is dead.
Re:Please (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. They can only keep this going with money. They don't have any, so it's not going to be five more years of crapola.
SCO is dead.
SCO have become what was suggested to them, a company that only does legal action. The employees and directors are getting paid well during this time.
Other companies who like the idea of Linux in a quagmire have provided money for 'licences', and will continue to do so.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you should try to understand the difference between a creditor and a shareholder? A little hint to you: does SCO owe you any money?
Re:Please (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Were these folks lawyers?
I believe that shareholders are entitled to documents resulting from the bankruptcy proceedings -- you did not have to file as a creditor to get them. As I suggested above, I don't think SCO owed or owes you any money, so I suspect (but IANAL) you are not a creditor. If the company or its assets are eventually sold, you may be entitled to some money, but as you noted ab
Re:Please (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If I read him right, he IS a creditor. He paid $15 for the stock certificate, but they tanked and didn't send him one. So he is entitled to his $15 back.
By Uncle bought two CD Burners for $500/piece (should give you the time frame on this) and the company tanked before shipping the drives. The whole thing wound through the bankruptcy process to get him some money back. They couldn't just ship the drives, because the "assets" of the company had to be sold and the creditors paid in order. So they took hi
Re:Please (Score:4, Funny)
...frame it and put it in my bathroom, along with the rest of the toilet paper.
I don't think that's how you're supposed to use toilet paper.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
saw the type of deleting
the most interesting thing about it is that you can't always see it. The software Groklaw uses will still show your comment to your own IP address. I actually commented a few times about things I thought PJ might delete (criticism of her ban on "politics", where she doesn't really define what that means) and then checked if this was true. Sure enough; I had stepped over the line. From my own IP address I could see the comment. From all other IP addresses I tried it was invisible. Kind of cool really.
In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
In other words, SCO is a zombie. It can't be killed by normal litigation. Argh, kill it with fire! Do it now!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A bullet through the head should kill it. I saw it on TV once, I think it was a documentary.
Re: (Score:2)
Not if they were las plagas (which aren't technically zombies...).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just remember that cutting off the head won't kill it. Its arms and legs will be gone but the head will still be around biting and yelling at people, like Jack Thompson.
Re: (Score:2)
Then the title of the documentary is obviously:
The Incredibly Strange Company Who Stopped Living and Became a Mixed-Up Zombie
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'll be sticking with my default tag for all SCO stories: "sadonecrobestiality".
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, SCO is a zombie. It can't be killed by normal litigation. Argh, kill it with fire! Do it now!
Nuke it from orbit! It's the only way to be sure...
Re:In other words... worse than zombies... (Score:2, Insightful)
they are worse than Cylons. They seem to be "killable", but keep replicating. Hell, they don't even improve models. You need to find the Resurrection Ship and put a nuke in its colon.... preferably making it a HUGE swollen colon, that no deep space Ben-Gay nor Preparation H can favorabley re-sequence...
SCO should be SCO^3, which could stand for: "Self-Contained Organism, Secreting Copies Over Secret Channel Outputs"
Or, SCO could be a tag/jingle for: "Semi-Conjugative Ogres: Screwing Companies Over"
OT but I don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF is up with the userpage! It was bad I get slapped with the dumbass firehose-with-Idle's-stylesheet, but now I don't even have a tab for my comments.
If I want Firehose, I'll go to to Firehose. (I don't, and wont)
If I want Idle, I'll go to Idle. (I don't, and wont)
If I want my userpage to be a clean, simple and informative interface, I'll click on my username in the upper right. Oh wait, I can't!
If you want to dick around with the userpage, fine. Just give me a checkbox that says "opt out of this crapfest" like you did with the index and comments.
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
When idle got jacked it didn't bother me because I almost never go there... but user pages? really?
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, do what you will with Idle/Firehose, no one really reads those anyway, but leave the user page alone, it's genuinely useful... or at least it was till you fucked with it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed
I want mine back as it was. This is a pretty pointless post in itself
but really the only way to get noticed is if enough of us bitch about it.
Me too (Score:3, Insightful)
'Nuff said. Except it's not enough because this sorry excuse for a redesign is still there. Oh, god, it's like a 15 year old with no concept of color got let loose with FrontPage and wanted to do a MySpace lookalike but without the same professionalism and restraint.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Bookmark: http://yro.slashdot.org/~jcsorocks/comments [slashdot.org]
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:5, Informative)
It's broken on Konqueror and OS X/Safari and Firefox. We didn't want you to feel left out.
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Same here. I happened to like the old userpage, now all I've got is this pseudo-idle mess with the actual posts crammed into a little corner. I didn't ask for idle, I didn't ask for the firehose, I asked for a user page!
I think this is a sign that Slashdot has well and truly fallen for Incessant Redesign Disease, where they just have to change the design of everything every now and then to 'keep it fresh'. Nevermind if no one complained about the old design, or if you can't actually think of any way to improve on the old design, you've got to keep it fresh!
Note to the Slashdot staff: You know all those +5 modded rants about Vista? You're doing the SAME FUCKING THING. If the site design needs changing, we'll let you know.
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:OT but I don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
I just hope they can save it, unlike the last website I frequented that this happened to. thespark.com was originally run by some college kids with a sense of humor and some tech skills. It was awesome for years. Then some corporate overlords flashed lots of money at them and like any sane young group of people, they sold. Then it started going downhill. Then the original people got tired of it going downhill and quit. Then it went downhill really, really fast.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
+1. I was happy that I could undo all the JavaScript bullshit on the Slashdot front page and the story pages by logging in and setting my prefs but the user page looks like the database was trying to swallow Digg and threw up.
It's like Yahoo mail. Overall pretty good but when I log in to email I want to see my fucking INBOX, not this crappy summary+news+other crap I never look at. ESPECIALLY sucky since their most recent redesign REMOVED keyboard shortcuts (like shift-control-C to check for new mail, i.e. l
Just noticed something else... (Score:4, Insightful)
HOLY FUCK! As if the new user page weren't bad enough, it mixes the classic green color scheme with whatever the theme is for the current subdomain, if you happen to be on one. You thought http://slashdot.org/~CleverNickName [slashdot.org] looked bad? Check out http://yro.slashdot.org/~CleverNickName [slashdot.org] or http://games.slashdot.org/~CleverNickName [slashdot.org] or http://it.slashdot.org/~CleverNickName [slashdot.org]!!!!!
Orange links on green? My eyes! Ze googles, zey do nossing!
Parent
The One (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What sort of Jury? (Score:2)
Or do I have the whole concept wrong?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect this language is really a hangover from English law, where a peer of the realm (ie. someone with a seat in the House of Lords) was entitled to be tried by other peers of the realm, whilst commoners (ie, the rest of the population) were only entitled to be tried by other commoners. I have no idea if this right still exists for peers of the realm.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia says otherwise:
the right to be tried by fellow peers in the Lord High Steward's Court and in the House of Lords, abolished 1948;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peerage [wikipedia.org]
Use at your own risk
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I always thought that in America, a jury was a jury of peers
Flapping was too much of a problem, so now only the jury foreman gets an AS number.
Tiny correction (Score:2)
"Last week, the net was all abuzz with speculation that SCO was finally gone and done for."
s/speculation/hope/
SCO's Future (Score:2, Funny)
If wishes were horses than beggars would ride... (Score:2)
Groklaw is a wonderful resource. That said, PJ is trolling here. She she herself has rather authoritatively explained, there is no legal basis for SCO to attack the clear meaning of the original Agreement (contract) with hearsay evidence - especially from second and third hand sources. This is an insurmountable legal obstacle, unless the 10th Court of Appeals wants to make new case law. (From looking at their record, it looks like they don't).
But hell, if we're thinking implausible nightmare scenarios
On the Internet... (Score:3)
On the Internet nobody knows you're a sock puppet.
Oh, sorry, they do. Never mind. Hi Darl!
Predictable action movie ending (Score:2)
Honest to God, just when you think it's over...out comes the villian who you thought was
finished comes back wheeling a knife/machette/bazooka/half frozen Codfish.
Boggled (Score:3, Insightful)
Generally, appellate courts decide law, not facts (Score:3, Interesting)
Generally, though with some exceptions, a judge decides the law of a case, and a jury will decide the facts. If there is no jury, a judge decides law and facts. The facts are almost always decided at what's called the "court of first instance", and the facts are based upon submissions to the court through affidavits, documentary evidence, and sworn witness testimony ("evidence"). It is the duty of the trier of fact to decide, where conflicting stories exist, the credibility of the evidence. Usually in civil trials a fact is "found" where the trier of fact decides that on a balance of probabilities (i.e. chances greater than 50%) a fact is true.
An appellate court, which one appeals to after a decision at the court of first instance, generally modifies the decisions of the court of first instance in only specific circumstances. Those circumstances typically include a mistake in the interpretation or application of the law, or the creation of new law based upon fundamental principles of justice.
Generally, however, the appellate court is never a trier of fact (as a judge or jury is at the court of first instance). An appellate court is not privy to the assessment of credibility, direct or cross examination of witnesses, etc., it generally cannot call witnesses, parties to the proceeding cannot introduce new evidence (unless it is crucial, and even then in only limited circumstances), etc. As a general rule, appellate courts determine law, but not fact. The facts were already decided at the court of first instance. For that reason, the standard for changing the facts of the court of first instance by an appellate court is exceptionally high, usually with a test being described as something like the facts found in the court of first instance were "patently unreasonable", which is to say politely "absurd".
Generally the policy behind the exclusivity of fact-finding being by a court of first instance is that parties get one shot at the evidence, which is to encourage full disclosure and expedition of the entire court process. It also specializes the Judges of the courts, and creates "higher courts" that may focus their attention on logical and policy questions. With exceptions, it is often, but not universally, thought that higher courts will attract greater academic aptitude.
That being said, if there is either a patently absurd finding at the court of first instance, or alternatively there is a procedural unfairness, sometimes an appellate court will send the proceeding back to a court of first instance for a new trial.
I think it would be rather odd for SCO to get another crack at the facts. It is rather likely that, given adequate funding, they could keep at this for quite some time.
Bologna. (Score:4, Interesting)
PJ, the arch-censor of Groklaw, desperately needs you to believe this
To believe that it's possible, or to believe that it's probable?
It seems like if she was looking for job security she would be arguing that it's probable. Instead she's arguing that it's possible. And we all know what possible means. I have a lottery ticket in my pocket. It's possible I've won. Sure as hell wouldn't call it probable though.
And FWIW, Groklaw does far more than merely keep an eye on SCO. Just the other day there was a good article about the Bilski ruling over on Groklaw. The Groklaw front page also has items about the cyberbullying case, and Harvard having a youtube channel.
If there's one thing PJ has probably learned from following the SCO story from the beginning is that you don't put all your eggs in a single basket.
Parent