SCO Adds Copyright Claim to IBM Suit 444
An anonymous reader writes "News.com.com reports that the SCO Group has significantly widened its Unix and Linux lawsuit against IBM,
adding a copyright infringement claim to the already complicated case." There's also another story discussing the copyright claims.
Bluff bluff bluff (Score:4, Insightful)
SCO's lawyers are practicing the tried & true method of Throw Enough Shit Against the Wall and Some of It Will Stick.
They know it's a poor case they have so they keep adding more and more claims to their position along with the necessary bravado stupid investors have come to love.
Re:Old News (Score:5, Insightful)
If we apply that standard to /., wouldn't 99.9% of the stories go away? How many of them start with "NYTimes is reporting... According to CNN.com..."
Re:Just a thought. (Score:5, Insightful)
No the only way to put an end to this is to make sure that SCO goes down in a ball of fire that can be seen around the world.
Comply with judge first? (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't they be bitch-slapped by the judge for expanding their lawsuit before they can even manage to comply with the judge's original order to "put up or shut up" re: evidence?
Then again I'd noticed that SCOX was about to slip below $13/share yesterday. I guess Yet Another Lawsuit/Press Release was due in order to meet the SCO business cycle.
Retroactive Copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
So now they want to claim extra damages for an infringement of "registered" copyright when the registration was filed after the lawsuit? IANAL but this really seems like grasping at straws, otherwise this would always happen in a copyright dispute to get the extra damages.
Plus, doesn't this now potentially get them in trouble with Novell who claims that the copyrights are still theirs? Criminal plagiarism, anybody?
Stalling (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is they'll go to court and say "Your honour, you asked us to provide these documents to IBM before the case could continue, however since that ruling we've ammended our suite and would ask that we can push back that date as a result."
Oh, who cares anymore? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop giving them the free publicity of paying attention to them. Let's just agree not to talk about it till IBM destroys them in court, at which point we can gloat, and be happy.
Re:Just a thought. (Score:3, Insightful)
It *is* worth standing up for what is right, no matter the cost.
Be real (Score:5, Insightful)
Buying out the SCO would encourage more bad behaviour. Better to stick this through, no matter what the cost. It may be messy in the short term, but in the long term it will dissuade this sor tof behaviour.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
Re:Just a thought. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's hope Microsoft doesn't clue into this. Their best strategy right now might be to buy out SCO (along with their IP claims) and just throw an insane amuont of money and lawyers into these lawsuits. If a tiny flea like SCO can create this much FUD, imagine what MS could do.
Re:Old News (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just a thought. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just a thought. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just a thought. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. There was a good reason that MS wanted this kept at arms length. If they wanted closer ties, they could have had them cheaply a year ago. (All they needed to do is offer to guarantee 4 profitable quarters and Darl would have done nearly anything.)
Copyright claim is not against Linux! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, the new copyright claim is that IBM continued to distribute AIX even after SCO "terminated" their license.
In other words, the copyright claim doesn't have anything to do with the alleged copying of code from SysV to Linux.
Additionally, SCO responded to IBMs interrogatory (asking which Linux files SCO claims any rights to) by listing only 17 files (and not identifying specific lines in those files) and indicating that none of these 17 files contain code from SysV.
I really expected them to do much better. I don't see how IBM can be ordered to proceed with discovery given existing case law. (Although it seems like IBM might voluntarily produce information so they can limit SCOs avenues of appeal.
Re:[OT] The court hearing today (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the SCO lawyers "...went on to claim that they have identified 400 million lines of Unix code and 300 million lines of Linux code affected, but also admitted that SCO has not submitted everything required by the court order."
Where did they find 300 million lines of Linux code to begin with, much less 300 million infringing lines?
Re:Just a thought. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cut off their air supply...
Re:Comply with judge first? (Score:2, Insightful)
This technically makes much of IBM's interogatories legally moot, although the fact of the matter is that the same code is in question.
It appears that SCO may be pulling, in the technical jargon of the law, "a fast one" to escape having failed to comply with the court's order.
KFG
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who'd buy it from them?
In a nutshell... (Score:5, Insightful)
Report on SCO's Compliance With the Court's order sums up the whole fiasco pretty well I think. It's a line from Paragraph 5:
Duh! And Darl wants $5 Billion for this?!?! For what exactly? I can't wait for the stomping to commence.
You are right and you are wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what everyone is missing is that SCO is trying to say that SCO owns UNIX, UNIX=AIX, AIX=LINUX, therefore UNIX=LINUX and SCO owns LINUX.
And the way they are trying to state this is by saying that IBM signed a contract with SCO that says "we will let you look at our SCO code and in return any code you develop from then on belongs to us as a derivitive work".
They have stated this over and over in many different ways, however, I suspect that they haven't come right out and stated it in a simple way because anyone who saw the simple truth of their arguement would be astonished at the absurdity.
So you see, the reason SCO wants all the AIX code is not because there is SCO code in linux but because they believe that IBM copied IBM AIX code into linux. That is the copyright violation. And SCO is hopeful that everyone will ignore the fact that its IBM code developed and paid for by IBM and somehow fall for their asinine logic of "all your code belong to us".
Anyhow, its sure fun to watch IBM trash SCO's lawyers in court and show no sign of giving quarter.
burnin
Enough is enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:2, Insightful)
I know that IBM has become something of a Linux poster boy in recent years, but let's face it: IBM is in this business for the money, not the karma. They would only release code under an OS license if they thought the idea held substantial value for the company.
On the other hand, we can be relatively certain that IBM would not be behaving as SCO is now. They would stand too much to lose, especially in customer confidence terms.
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:4, Insightful)
David v. Goliath (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:David v. Goliath (Score:3, Insightful)
Being educated does not mean you will not fall for myths. Education sometimes makes people more apt to fall for myths. For example, it really could be the that large portions of Linux were willfully copied from SCO, and all the highly educated people on slashdot fell for it. We all believe in the myth of Linus Torvolds. He is too pure to allow the copying of another's code into Linux without consent. Very few linux users have read and or verified the source of all the code in the program.
Look at the number of educated people who fell for the myth that if enough people were copying music via P2P that the courts would roll over and nullify the copyright laws.
As for the image of the common man fighting against corporate interests and the liberal elite of the East. Utah's #2 hero is Philo Farnsworth who stood against RCA. And currently the Utah Legislature is passing legislation to withdraw from the United Nations.
If SCO can position this to the jurers as a fight between a small company and IBM...then it is a completely different beast than if it is positioned as a company buying up property rights then suing on shaky ground.
It would be possible to pick a jury in Salt Lake who have never heard of Santa Cruz Operations, but have heard of IBM.
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:3, Insightful)
Like the Star Wars fans quote... "There are always two: a master and an apprentice." Microsoft learned how to do business from IBM. Then perfected the technique.
What will be interesting is watching Microsoft follow IBM's history in its own way. Commoditization of hardware transformed IBM. What will commiditization of the OS do?
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this is going to be hard to win since it requires them to prove:
a) the license with IBM actually gives them control of derivatives
b) IBM's code is a derivative of SysV
Frankly, I thought they had a much better chance with the Trade Secret stuff since there may have been some Monterey issues non of us knew about. The "derivative" argument seems like one hell of a stretch considering copyright and contract law along with the *BSD settlement.
Basically, though, the new copyright stuff seems pretty damn empty. I'll be surprised if it goes anywhere.
Re:You're all missing SCO's trick (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what you've been reading but IBM has been crucifying SCO's legal team with SCO's rhetoric. If anything, this case is proving to be an textbook example of why you never comment about pending and on-going litigation. Every word SCO utters to the media is going to come back to haunt them in the courtroom. What? Do you really believe that if Darl takes the stand that questions like "Where is that team of MIT rocket scientists?" or "You orignally said millions of lines but after discovery your company could only produce a fraction of that. yes or no?" won't come up?
And who are most people? It became obvious fairly quickly that this case would go on for a long time. Neither side can simply drop it.
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:4, Insightful)
Start [ibm.com] imagining. [ibm.com] IBM wouldn't be in this mess if it hadn't started giving away (well, GPLing at least) some of it's assets.
Some of the entries on those lists are a lot more advanced than SCO's code (compare IBM's NUMA contributions to the malloc version SCO was whining about under NDA, for example), too. At least a few prominent divisions of IBM see that open source isn't necessarily "IBM giving away an asset", but can often be "IBM adding value to their services and hardware". In the case of giving away Unix, it would be "IBM removing a perceived risk of their services and hardware".
You're right that this isn't the way IBM used to behave, and it's probably not the way every IBM executive would like to behave now. But is a way that they've started to behave, and it isn't implausible to hope that they'll continue. If you want implausible, you could consider that IBM's changes today give us hope for a changed Microsoft sometime in the future.
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:3, Insightful)
This has become now really too much. They don't have a case. Their contradictory press releases and various public announcements should be enough to win the lawsuit, even if they had a case.
So why worry?
The insiders are dumping their stock (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You're all missing SCO's trick (Score:3, Insightful)
*and* Heise stated in the courtroom to the judge some blather about 300 million or 400 million lines of code...
I somehow doubt the judge is all that amused. I'm sure she has evidence in front of her exactly how many lines of code there are, total, in Linux, AIX, and Dynix combined.
SB
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:5, Insightful)
Bigger news is that IBM did not file to dismiss. I certainly don't think they are going to fold, quite the opposite. I think they have deliberately not filed the routine motion because they think that they might soon be in a position to get it granted for real, they don't want the judge getting used to batting them away.
Some SCO speak: "With respect to the overriding issue, that SCO failed to identify line-for-line code copying", Heise claimed "that has not and is not what the case is about". (Again, very surprised looks in the audience).
The judge did not buy that. SCO is still on the hook. The judge raised the issue of strict compliance which means more games from sco and the case goes out.
Re:this is interesting (Utah and scamming) (Score:3, Insightful)
The combo (clueless greedies + naive ninnies) makes for robust traffic in multilevel skin products and vitamins-that-promise-to-cure-cancer scams.
So Utah is not really more corrupt than other places, but it's different. I believe, for example, that the Olympic scam was typical of other Olympic venues when it happened at Utah, but the notable difference was that the whistle was blown and the (naive) local public reacted with admirable shock.
Darl seems to have emerged from this subculture of manipulators-among-the-naive, but with additional drive from his apparent megalomaniacal personality disorder: why peddle antioxidant vitamins when you can go for three, no five BILLION (with pinky-to-mouth).
No more planning going on here than with the pyramid scheme moguls. He knows he's a scammer (or else his answers at, say Harvard, would be less evasive.) I think that he simply hopes enough people are gullible or naive or complacent enough for him to get away with some fraction of the loot.
You fell in. (Score:2, Insightful)
They signed the consent decree, then *abided* by it, and learned from it.
I didnt track all that as it happened, but I did read about it.
I also worked for a company that used a lot of IBM equipment. I started as a MS lover and looked down on IBM. In working with IBM ( and in watching MS through the years ), I have reversed on each of those positions. I grew to respect IBM's business sense and ethics ( at least what I could see of it ), and I learned to appreciate what IBM had to offer in the way of hardware ( I started thinking speed was all, I came away impressed with the business utility, business-minded-ness, and robustness of thier stuff ).
Now, if only MS would have such a change of "heart" as I perceive IBM had, the world would be a much better place. And they could stop being paranoid megalomanics.
As to giving away, in a sense, no, but putting Unix in the public domain *would* make sense, as it would forstall any future successor in interest from making similiar calculations, and would reduce IBM's risks. ( see also, the other posts about IBM's contributions to Linux )
Re:David v. Goliath (Score:2, Insightful)
A friend of his, in turn, works at SCO. Poor guy. He says the customers (yeah, I guess they still have a few) really beat him up on the phone over SCO's actions.
SCO's enemies (that's almost everyone) hate them, their own customers seem to hate them (that's hardly anyone), and I bet most of their own staff probably hate them, too. Does anyone like them? Oh yeah, I guess their lawyers like them. Their names will be mud when this is over, but it will be rich mud, b/c they make money win or lose and have already been paid millions of dollars.
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, that is the big news, someone please mod that Insightful. IBM, in not filing for summary judgement against SCO, seems to be saying that they want case law on this one. A dismissal means anyone, even SCO (unless it is dismissed with prejudice) if they are sufficiently imbalanced (and I believe they may well be) can come along and try the same thing again in the future, either with Linux or some other piece of FOSS to which IBM has contributed.
If IBM goes to trial and wins a crushing victory over SCO in court, then countersues for damages and bankrupts SCO (although simply losing this case will probably do that on its own) and then buys them up for pennies on the dollar out of bankruptcy and fires all of senior management, no one will dare try something like this again, even if they think they might have a case. The price to be paid for failure will scare them off. Put more simply, IBM will probably seek not only case law, but to make an example of Darl and friends.
And how would you like to be Darl, looking for your next job when this is all over, with the most prominent entry on your resume being something like "Embarked on frivolous and ill-fated lawsuit against IBM, sent my then-employer into bankruptcy as a result, seeking challenging position at tech company." He'd be lucky to get a challenging position emptying the wastebaskets. Of course, he's made millions selling SCO stock since this fiasco began, he'll never need to work again. These executive types seem addicted to work, so he'll probably try, but I bet that will be one long, hard job search.
I think IBM recognizes this situation exactly as the shakedown that it is, and sees perfectly well that if they give in it in any way, even taking a summary judgement and getting no case law, that anyone else thinking about shaking down IBM would be tempted to try it. They also know, as the oldest practioner of FUD in the computer business (heck, they invented it; every old mainframer like me knows the saying "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"), that they dare not give quarter. As with any shakedown, giving in or giving quarter will only incite others to go after you. If you bust up the one who's trying to shake you down and make an example of him, nobody will dare. That, I think, is what IBM has in mind for SCO.
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL but I beleive the main reason this may not have been done is a little constitutional guarantee called due process; its a standard tactic for delaying trials and trying to get off on technicalities; you simply hide behind due process, saying you must be given a chance to prove blah blah blah, and no judge can touch you until you stop.
This appears to be largely of that order...
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:4, Insightful)