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.
Maybe this'll speed things up (Score:5, Interesting)
Question (Score:1, Interesting)
Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm no lawyer, but so far as I understand, if this carries through and the verdict is against SCO and the judge feels the case had no merit, IBM should be able to turn around and sue for (very significant!) damanges.
The only asset SCO has that's worth dirt right now is UNIX licensing. Wouldn't it be poetic if the outcome of SCO's market gaming were that IBM sued SCO for all assets, including that, then turned around and freed UNIX once and for all? :)
(Just kidding. This is Darl, and Linux is bad, you smelly hippy.)
dodging the bullet (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think that after hearing a CEO of a company speak...I'd at least give more validity to their claims. But after hearing Darl...it felt like he was struggling to stay afloat.
New Copyright Claim (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM has told the judge that SCO did not comply with her earlier order to specify their claims precisely (in terms of what Linux code was involved). There was apparently a ~30 minute conference with counsel in chambers before the open hearing. It doesn't sound like the judge was too sympathetic to SCO; from one witness's notes:
From other comments the judge made (see the Groklaw write-up), it sounds like SCO may get one more really final order to lay out the specifics of their case. (Ha!)
IBM did not move for dismissal, to the surprise of some observers. My theory is that IBM thinks they have SCO on the run, and want to make sure there is nothing left of them but a glowing crater when this is all done.
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Interesting)
this is interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.lds-mormon.com/6303056a.shtml
Seems that Utah is scam central...
Class action? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:5, Interesting)
But remember, SCO revoked IBM's license due to trade secret violation...
Violations that SCO isn't going to legally persue
Which rhymes with Catch 22
Which sums up SCO's claims now quite nicely.
sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You're all missing SCO's trick (Score:5, Interesting)
>SCO's comments in the media are not SCO's legal case. That's another
>matter entirely, and one that has been considerably more carefully
>orchestrated.
Interestingly, IBM referenced SCO's public statements in their filing today: http://pacer.utd.uscourts.gov/images/203cv00294000 00103.pdf [uscourts.gov]
The document states that "SCO has identified no more than approximately 3,700 lines of code", then quotes Darl McBride comments at Harvard this week saying "[T]here is roughly a million lines of code". IBM concludes that if McBride's statement is true, "then SCO should have identified them in response to the Court's Order."
Bottom line, SCO's public statements are now in play. Their "more carefully orchestrated" media comments are now a major liability.
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrongful termination (yes, I'm abusing the term) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stalling (Score:3, Interesting)
The old addage that "There's no such thing as bad publicity" really is true, especially when dealing with people who don't know exactly what's going on. The big thing is to get the name out there, anything after that won't be retained by 99% of the population.
When the dust finally settles, and assuming it settles in Linux favor (how can it not?) - everyone will see a big brouhaha that happened, and think "If there was such a big stink about this, and Linux won, it must be "really cool!"
So we'll have a big boost in mindshare from this no matter what, and that pretty much translates into a good thing once all is said and done.
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:5, Interesting)
I grew up tracking the IBM antitrust news. IBM was cutthroat enough that I remember how Microsoft's geek-chic stature grew when they out-IBM'ed IBM. IBM was embracing-and-extending long before Microsoft was founded. They were (and are) pit bulls when it comes to marketing, consulting, patent-collecting, acquiring or conquering competitors, etc, etc, etc. In fact, the (delightfully) ruthless motives given in this thread for IBM carefully avoiding dismissal sound like the IBM I've known all my life. Handing the rope out for SCO to hang themselves is a tactic worthy of a Grisham novel, but entirely in-character for IBM.
So, um... which one of us has fallen into another dimension? 'Cuz you sure aren't talking about the IBM I know. IBM giving an asset away isn't poetic. I'd call it heart-stoppingly unimaginable.
Re:Supreme Irony in the Making (Score:2, Interesting)
Doublespeak (Score:5, Interesting)
Good to know you can't completely get away with talking so much BS.
"Unfortunate" press coverage (Score:2, Interesting)
With continued insults being hurled in formal statements and Web site postings, SCO will move forward with its trial preparations as the target of much ire from the Linux community and others, Gardner noted.
"There's a lot of negative sentiment toward the company," he said. "You see it in everything from published remarks to the recent denial-of-service attack. But they're continuing to be resolute.
Almost, but not quite, connecting "the Linux community" with the DoS.
Very slippery.
<grrr>
Re:Just a thought. (Score:3, Interesting)
The bottom line is that SCO is probably worthless. The values of the stock is to a few insiders, and the strategy is to keep the charade going so the stock will continue to be an attractive item to a few high end gamblers. By the time the SCO crashes, they will no longer be a problem because they will not be able to pay the lawyers
Re:Easy to see how SCO could believe they own (c)s (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone at groklaw seemed to conclude that this meant Novell did not sell SCO the UNIX copyrights, even while SCO was "acquiring" UNIX.
But another reading could be that Novell wanted to make it clear they were not transferring any rights to their other products (NetWare, etc), even if those products contained some UNIX code.
But they didn't get it in writing (Score:3, Interesting)
But I could be wrong, and everything is so fuzzed up, it will take years to settle. Not even that $50M will cover their expenses in the meantime.
Re:You are right and you are wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
From today's hearing;
Heise referred to the 1985 Agreement point 2.01, that "modifications
to SysV code must be treated as derivatives", and he claims that AIX
and Dynix are such derivatives. SCO feels that AIX and Dynix code
has been put into Linux, and that IBM admitted it publicly. Heise
made an analogy to "the first 10 rungs of a ladder", but the ladder
goes to step 20 now, and maybe step 16 has some issues with it.
Heise said that IBM "has not proven ownership of *their* code" and
that they must do so to show that it's OK to put it into Linux.
Heise gave a printout to the judge, and described it as showing
line-for-line ("in red") copying, and mentioned Async I/O and Scatter
Gather as two areas in question. Said they want IBM source code.
Judge said it is SCO's requirement to show: "this is about your
response, and compliance to the court order".
At that point, Heise said SCO cannot identify violations. The judge
said "The problem is, unless you identify those codes, then IBM is
not in a position to have a response. We're at an impasse, and the
case cannot continue with an impasse, that's why there was a court
order".
Heise went back to the ladder analogy, saying "maybe rung 15 to 16"
might be involved, but they cannot identify the lines because SCO
doesn't have derivative IBM code. Heise then made comment (which
drew some audible "Huh?" responses from the audience), that
"Arguments of the case aren't appropriate at discovery." 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
Truly laughable. Makes you wonder about the enviroment in SCO that cooked this up.
When does it end? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this going to be one of those court cases that takes years to be settled?
There must be some old-timers out there who have seen this type of thing in the past; how many series of filings -> hearings -> more filings -> more hearings -> ... does it take?
It doesn't seem that complicated to me...
Yes they did. (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't find anything to that effect in the document. I provided the link. If anyone can find something that says they have to ask for additional permission, please point out the section number.
This reading of the document says that they now own the unix source code and that they now also own exactly the minimum set of copyrights necessary to enforce that ownership. No further transfers needed. (The other exclusions seem to be for things like Novell products, rights Novell didn't have in the first place, or rights it already contracted away.)
Which is exactly what SCO is claiming. So what will matter, with respect to the copyright issue, is whether the judge will read it this way.
And (if I, a non-laywer, understand this correctly) with Novell saying they didn't get the copyrights and SCO saying they did, the judge will probably decide it on one of two bases.
1) If the judge decides that the text is clear, she will decide according to the clear meaning.
2) If the judge decides that the text is ambiguous, she will determine WHO WROTE the text, and decide in favor of THE OTHER PARTY.
We need to prepare for the possiblity that the judge decides in favor of SCO on this issue - either because the text seems (to a lawyer) to clearly transfer enough copyright to SCO for them to go after IBM (and other Linux distributors), or because Novell wrote it, so any ambiguities are their fault and must be decided in SCO's favor.
So lets have a plan B available to defend our turf.
There's lots of ammo, and for any particular piece of code you only need ONE shot to defend it.
- Portions of UNIX code released into public domain or under other licenses by SCO or one of its previous owners, or an owner of enough rights to do this. (Let's try to do this without resorting to SCO's distribution of Linux. They might get away with their claim that their ignorance of the inclusion of their code by others exempts it from the GPL, while their continued distribution of the REST of the code, now that they actually shipped some, is actually required for a while longer by the GPL.)
- Stuff freed by the BSD case.
- Stuff tracably separately written.
- Court decisions about recycling interface definitions for interoperability being fair use.
And I'm sure there are others.
However (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM is committed to selling linux. This means what IBM can do is somewhat limited by the constraints of the GPL.
The GPL says that either everyone can distribute this freely to anyone else, and everyone who recieves it has the same right to distribute under the GPL as everyone else, with no restrictions (such as license fees). If not, no one has the right to distribute the file at all unless you get some alternate form of permission from everyone who contributed to writing it. This means one of two things would be the case if IBM owned the UNIX copyrights.
- Linux is not in any way an infringement of the UNIX source code.
- Linux is an infringement of the UNIX source code, and if IBM does not grant a free and open license to everyone under the GPL to use the infringing parts of Linux, IBM (and, technically, everyone else in the world) must cease to distribute Linux until those infringing parts are removed.
SCO has been effectively "untouchable" because they have no need for a long term strategy. They know that once the repercussions for their actions-- the failures of their lawsuits, etc-- finally come to pass, they will have long cashed in their inflated stock and run away. IBM, meanwhile, will still be here in 10 years time. That means no kamikaze attacks and no attacking your own revenue streams.Of course, if what you're saying is that IBM probably won't be GPLing SysV in its entirity, then no, probably not, but who would want it if they did? IBM giving an asset away isn't poetic. I'd call it heart-stoppingly unimaginable. Irony is generally considered to be inherently poetic.
Open Letter to Darl McBride (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO has done nothing but double talk for the term of this whole debacle.
To get us and the rest of the world to take your claims seriously you need to show the code *without* requiring an aggregious NDA which is overly broad.
In most copyright cases that I am aware of the primary goal of the plantiff seems to be to *cease being damaged*, but by specifically not showing the code in an acceptable forum, you, Sir, have allowed yourself to be *further* damaged.
You have failed to uphold your end of the case at every turn:
1) Refusing to show the code to the community with out requiring an NDA
2) Purposfully giving IBM 1 million pages of paper with a font so small that it is useless
3) Continually upping the damages which you have caused yourself, by not allowing us to remove the alleged code, if there is any.
Your case is the equivanlent of saying "I own something in your house and I'm going to charge you monthly rent for it, but I wont tell you what it is so that I can continue to extract fees from you". This is absolutely preposterous.
It is absolutely transparent to everyone involved in this case that you are out to capitalize on GNU/Linux's success by using this scheme. It is, to many in the community, a betrayal of monumental proportions that SCO/Caldera has done this when they were once one of the many companys involved in *promoting* open source.
I have a few challenges for you:
1) Show your code in plain daylight, my email is associated with my id here so all you need to do to reach me is click your mouse. We've been begging, no *pleading* with you in every way possible to show the code in a way which isn't an obvious sham (the aforementioned NDA).
2) For any files/code that is in common *prove* to us that it is infringment, unlike the trivial examples you showed at Las Vegas which weren't even SCO's, but come from BSD. Again... we've been hoping that you might do *this* to no avail.
3) Prove my assertion that you're only trying to leach off of Linux's success wrong.
I very seriously doubt that you'll be able to rise to all, not to mention even one of these.
GNU/Linux was built by us, and is maintained by us and would have surpassed UNIX sooner or later with or without IBM's input.
Good day,
Re:Just a thought. (Score:3, Interesting)
The SCO Group Exchanges Series A Convertible Preferred Stock
They are refering to the $50 Million infusion they recieved in October 2003. Does this type of transaction play into the theory of pump and dump and lining pockets or is this a normal long term stategy that any company would benefit from?
Don't forget the implications (Score:3, Interesting)
Refunds for those that paid $699?? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Best part of the hearing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Dave Marriott, counsel for IBM at the hearing, replied that HP has, in fact, contributed to Linux. Talk about not having done your homework...
Oh, it was much better than that (I was there). David Marriott didn't just say it -- he whipped out a stack of copies of HP documents describing their contributions to Linux and passed them out to the Judge, the court reporter and the SCO attorneys. Even more impressive, Marriot had a perfectly straight face when he handed the stapled photocopies to Mark Heise.
Which other party? (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is: who is the other party. If I read it correctly, Darl Mc Bride represented Novell when the contract was signed. So would any errors have to be blamed on him or on Novell?
One hint as to the intentions of both parties in the contract could be the price. One might assume that Novell would not intentionally have sold rights worth billions for a mere few millions to Caldera.
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is one corp has been allowed to hold an entire industry in turmoil, manipulate the stock market, threaten the corporate world, and not one segment of the so-called American legal system has put a leash on them.
By dropping prior claims and initiating new ones, SCO is just showing (again) that they have no valid claims. Isn't it time that Darl and his supporting team of lunatics were locked up?
Or is there some perverse American "right" to run around accusing and threatening an entire industry without fear of reprisal, provided you just stop making the accusations before you're forced to prove they're true?
Tired of this crap. I was tired of it almost a year ago. More than anything, I just am stunned that they haven't been yanked short by an order to stop making accusations and laying charges until they prove at least one point!!!
Darl's shrunken head on a pike (Score:4, Interesting)
Xix.
Darl's Millions (Score:3, Interesting)
As luck would have it, Darlin' Darl the Dark, does not have any vested stock options to sell at this time. He draws a realtively small, (about 160K), salary and his stock options are held up pending a string of profitable quarters. Regrettably, IBM appears to have interceded in that endevour and the SCOundrels will not see another quarter. (read that either way: profit, or wrt time.)
The Flatlander
Re:Darl's Millions (Score:3, Interesting)
That is not an obstacle. Turning that type of situation into liquid cash is what private bankers are for. Daryl will have a fancy derivative collar.
Copyright transfer is not automatic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bluff bluff bluff (Score:2, Interesting)
Mind you, I live in Germany. Germany has told SCO to "Put up or Shut up". They couldn't put up, so now they have a court order to shut up. At least around here
On the other hand - doesn't this whole stuff begin to bore you? Isn't it the same, every week, reading about yet another idioticy SCO had done?
I've decided to ignore it. They're beneath me. They'll never change anything in my life. To quote my grandfather: "I have never argued with morons, and I'm not going to start now".