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SCO v. Novell Goes to Trial Today In Utah

Posted by timothy on Tue Apr 29, 2008 07:41 AM
from the smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning dept.
Caldera Government The Courts The Almighty Buck Novell Operating Systems Software Unix News Linux
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The day many have been waiting for has finally arrived, the day SCO gets torn apart in court by Novell. Each side gets 10 hours, and Novell managed to get them to agree to a stipulation (PDF) that should make things go a lot faster. With any luck, we will soon have an official ruling that SCO does not own much of anything and then we just have to wait for SCO to exhaust its appeals. This would've been over a long time ago, but SCO filed for bankruptcy on the eve of trial, stopping the clock. One can only wonder what trick they will try to pull this time."
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Submission: SCO Case Goes to Trial by Anonymous Coward
[+] Linux: SCO's McBride Testifies "Linux Is a copy of UNIX" 446 comments
eldavojohn writes "Here's a short update on the Novell Vs. SCO case we've been following. Our good friend Darl McBride made some interesting comments in court yesterday. He stated (under oath): 'Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers... We have evidence System V is in Linux... When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on "How to Program UNIX" but when you go to the Linux section and look for "How to Program Linux" you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist. Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them]." This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and contradicts what SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag had just finished testifying earlier that day (testimony that McBride did not hear)."
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  • Great Day (Score:3)

    by ozamosi (615254) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @07:44AM (#23236742) Homepage
    SCO dies, Microsoft's revenue is down, and even the weather is nice.
  • Why? After having seen one decision after another AGAINST SCO, how anything resembling investment money still flowing to SCO? Are these investors so over-powered with greed that they are failing to use common sense? Why? Why? Why? Somebody with no common sense needs to explain this to me.
    • but George H. W. Bush is on a speaking engagement today. Try back tomorrow.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jason Levine (196982)
      Maybe it's like those folks who fall for the Nigerian schemes. Once you're in you can either admit that you've been scammed and have lost thousands of dollars or you can ignore all of the blaring warning signs, press on, and construct an elaborate fantasy world to live in where friendly Nigerian e-mailers will be shipping you your pile of cash any day now. The investors, instead of cutting their losses and moving on, are just hoping against hope that some magical evidence fairy will visit SCO overnight, l
      • Okay, so it is like Scientology. Got it.
      • Maybe. But I still think something fishy is going on here. Investors (good and bad ones) lose money on what turn out to be bad investments all the time - they don't sulk like the amateurs who fall for spam schemes. And really, at the initial onset I could see it making sense to buy some SCO stock. Most major corporations pay money to make lawsuits like this just go away. Even if there's only a 10% shot at it, the rise on stock afterwards may be worth it. Now it's just weird. I hate bashing Microsoft just fo
        • Because quite often hedge fund managers don't care whether each individual investment will make money. If I loan money to SCO I can tell my investors the funds is now grown by the inflated value on paper that SCO agreed to and the bigger numbers brings more investors and hopefully by the time SCO tanks I'll have made the money back elsewhere.

          Short sighted? Yep. Evil conspiracy? Not so much.

    • Re:Why do people continue to give them money? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by qortra (591818) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @08:09AM (#23236944) Homepage

      how anything resembling investment money still flowing
      If it doesn't look like investment money, then perhaps it isn't. There are a lot of non-investment related reasons that one might want to give money to SCO. Pro-lawyer, pro-Microsoft, pro-time-wasting, and pro-evil groups are probably all interested in seeing SCO continue its lawsuits. I'm not necessarily saying that this is the case here, but it couldn't hurt to check out Stephen Norris Capital Partners: maybe they are infusing SCO with money on behalf of some [evil] third party.

    • Re:Why do people continue to give them money? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by johannesg (664142) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @08:18AM (#23237010)
      Your confusion is easily explained by stepping back and inspecting your premise. That premise is that people pour money into SCO with the expectation of profit through sales and licensing. In that context there is no sense in pouring more money into them.

      Assuming that those investors are not total nitwits, we must therefore look for another premise. I propose this one: "people pour money into SCO with the expectation of profit through delay of Linux take up". You see, that makes sense: SCO casts a shadow of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt over all things Linux (and by extension, over all things Open Source). That shadow is highly beneficial to some parties, since Linux represents a serious threat to their business model.

    • After having seen one decision after another AGAINST SCO, how anything resembling investment money still flowing to SCO

      What a lot of people don't understand is the amount of wealth the wealthy now have. Seriously, it is sickening how rich the rich have become.

      $10 million, $100 million, is nothing to some of the people with a vested interest in eliminating Linux.

      There is no ROI from SCO's software, but the on-going court battle drains money from Novell, BM, and still creates fear.

      While no one seriously think
    • No one has invested in them in years. They have floated several "rescue" schemes since they filed fo Ch. 11 bankruptcy last year but all have fallen through at the last minute.

      • Ahem, what [yahoo.com] money [yahoo.com]? All the trades this year seem to be $50,000 and they're going both directions.

        Maybe it is something as simple as assets being sold off, generating income for the defunct company? I don't know anything about trading in bankrupt companies, but this was the first idea that I thought of. The other possibility that crossed my mind is shady stock market tricks being played.

        Maybe it's a slightly more sophisticated pump-and-dump?

        If I buy at .10 and sell at .13 (which someone did a few days ago) I make 30% in three hours.... Not a bad return, and someone has been doing that every since the first of the year....

        • Yeah but the volumes are tiiiiiiny and you just as easily risk buying at .10 and selling at .08, losing 20% in 3 hours. You can play the penny stock game, but I wouldn't bet more than a few thousand at a time. You'd probably have similar returns playing red or black streaks at the roulette tables in Vegas.

  • Spectacular error (Score:5, Funny)

    by Oxy the moron (770724) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @07:47AM (#23236782)

    I doubt I have ever seen the random /. quote ever be more appropriate:
    "If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error."

    Yeah, that about sums it up.

  • McBride and Yarro to do the perp walk? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the saltydog (450856) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @08:00AM (#23236862) Homepage
    That's what *I'm* waiting for.

    They called me a criminal for using Linux.

    I'm calling them criminals for running an extortion/stock pump and dump/fraud scheme.

    They were wrong. I'm not. When will the SEC finally put these all hat, no cattle rustlers behind bars?

    Oh, and by the way, if you had the UNIX copyrights, why did you insist on asking Novell for them - repeatedly?

    Bunch of lying scumbag bastard pricks - every single supporter of this fiaSCO. (Yes, that includes you, too, Rudy de Haas. Fucking asshat.)
    • Just remember one key phrase: litigation risk. This is the risk that you run, given that all the facts are on your side, that you'll lose in court for no predictable reason. Most lawyers like to ballpark this number around 10-20%.

  • The SCO story was much more fun back when we still didn't know how it would end up.
    • And no, "corporate shell gets disassembled by cheated creditors while the criminals in charge of it get away" is not a happy ending. That's an improvement over the ridiculous threats they were making to scare off Linux interest and lure in Microsoft "investment" money, but a real happy ending for the SCO scammers would involve more pitchforks and fire.
  • "Ladies and Gentleman of the supposed court, I know my clients lawsuit has been rendered ashes by you fine people; but you see here this is Chewbacca..."

    • "Ladies and Gentleman of the supposed court, I know my clients lawsuit has been rendered ashes by you fine people; but you see here this is Chewbacca..."
      "Damn, Johnny Cochran is dead. Now what will we do?"
      -- Darl McBride
  • Stipulations happen in every trial. Nothing out of the ordinary there. And if you read it, all it concerns is procedural aspects of the trial.

  • SCO is the Defendent? (Score:3, Informative)

    by qazwart (261667) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @09:16AM (#23237662) Homepage
    Interesting is in this trial SCO is the defendant and Novell is the claimant. I thought it was SCO who is suing everyone.

    It looks like via the stipulation and the way the trial is organized that SCO expects to lose. It appears that Novell simply wants to assert its claim to UnixWare and SCO is ready to close up shop. That's why the stipulation and the short trial and the fact that SCO isn't going to call up witnesses.
    • Thats because SCO have no claims left and are only there to answer Novells counterclaims.
    • All of SCO's claims were eliminated pre-trial via findings of fact and stuff. Therefore, all this trial consists of is Novell's counter-claims.
    • Interesting is in this trial SCO is the defendant and Novell is the claimant. I thought it was SCO who is suing everyone.
      Afaict it is quite normal to countersue when you get sued. Especially when the organisation suing you is a company that likes to lie about you in public.

  • The Judge already ruled (Score:5, Informative)

    by IronClad (114176) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @09:27AM (#23237766) Homepage
    The summary is a little misleading. The judge *already* ruled that SCO Group does not own much of anything, including the UNIX SYSV copyrights, in a summary judgment motion last year.

    The biggest issue remaining to be resolved by this trial is how much of the "license" monies given to SCO Group by Microsoft and SUN were for that which SCO Group had no right to license (SYSV), and how much was for SCO Group's product. Given the non-dizzying speed at which SCO's products have been improved and maintained, Novell argues that the vast majority of those millions was due to Novell.

    In the mean time it has been entertaining to read the SCO Group's arguments for why they should keep the money to which they have no right, or at least how they should not be required to turn the swag over to Novell. As if our opinion of them could have previously been lower.
    • Mod this up, this is exactly what happened (August 2007).

    • The biggest issue remaining to be resolved by this trial is how much of the "license" monies given to SCO Group by Microsoft and SUN were for that which SCO Group had no right to license (SYSV), and how much was for SCO Group's product.

      Actually, SCO has the right to license Unix on behalf of Novell; however, they have to give 100% of all revenue to Novell as per their agreement. Novell remits 5% to SCO for their trouble. SCO does not have the right to create new types of licenses (which it appeared to do

  • Kimball Already Ruled That SCO Doesn't Own SysV (Score:3, Informative)

    by John Hasler (414242) on Tuesday April 29 2008, @10:04AM (#23238238)
    > With any luck, we will soon have an official ruling that SCO does not own much of
    > anything...

    Kimball ruled that SCO does not own the SysV copyrights last year. This trial is about how much of Novell's money SCO pocketed when they sold SysV licenses to Sun and Microsoft without Novell's permission. The case will then go back to the bankruptcy court where Judge Gross will decide what to do about it. Note that this trial is about how much of Novell's money SCO took, not whether or not they did so. The latter has already been decided.

    If Kimball awards more than a small fraction of the $37M maximum (likely) it is hard to see how SCO can avoid Ch. 7 liquidation.
  • Does SCO ask to convert to Chapter 7 next Monday or Not?

    My guess is that they will, because converting to Chapter 7 following the ruling against them shows "good faith" and keeps Darl and Co. out of jail.
    • Is there a "-1, Get a new troll-bot" mod?
    • GOD DAMN IT! Look, mods, when someone posts a link to a fucking virus "offtopic" is NOT sufficiant. The object or moderation isn't just to make the comment invisible and take away karma. It's to let the rest of us know WHY it's a bad post.

      Jesus, as bad as the comment was, the moderation was just as bad.

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