SCO Says They'll Sue A Linux User Tomorrow 606
Xenographic writes "InfoWorld is reporting that SCO intends to sue a Linux using company. Ordinarily, this would not be newsworthy, as they have not followed through on past threats. However, this time, they have given themselves a concrete deadline--tomorrow. While they claim that it will be one of the "top 1,000" companies, they apparently have yet to decide which company to actually sue. Perhaps they need more practice playing darts?" Reader Fished links to CNET's coverage.
Re:Off by two months (Score:0, Informative)
february march APRIL may...?
Re:Perhaps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh! Oh! I know who it will be ... (Score:1, Informative)
But the results are similar
How the lawsuit is going to go in court ... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html [fsf.org]
The SCO Group has failed to put forward ANY substantial legal theory why the SCO Group should not be obligated to abide by the terms of the GPL.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/sco/sco-without-fear
The SCO Group obligations under the GPL has been reiterated and reinforced in the legal positions of IBM, Redhat and Novell in their respective cases against the SCO Group.
It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.
The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.
The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.
The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.
So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html [harvard.edu]
The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733 [groklaw.net]
Re:A little confusing... (Score:5, Informative)
> And SCO is suing for three billion.
$5 billion [com.com]
CNN Article (Score:2, Informative)
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Go Figure
You're safe tomorrow unless... (Score:5, Informative)
"The first target will be a company that has a Unix license from SCO already, giving SCO some contractual leverage in the case. McBride said. In addition, the suit will involve copyright infringement claims."
Darl continuies to make it obvious that the worse possible decision a company can make is do business with him.
CNET article now sez SCO 1st target is licensee (Score:1, Informative)
"The first target will be a company that has a Unix license from SCO already, giving SCO some contractual leverage in the case. McBride said."
playing darts... (Score:3, Informative)
Seems to me that SCO has been playing lawn darts for some time, and poor Daryl has been struck in the head numerous times because of it!
Re:What the hell do they think they're doing? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, they did the same thing the last quarter also. That's when they sent the threat letters. Just a stunt to draw attention away from scox gushing red ink.
And it works, it works like a charm.
Re:A little confusing... (Score:5, Informative)
The deference argument might not work because of privity. In their mystery world, SCO has a relationship with the particular fortune 500 company, because it is violating SCO's copyright. SCO does not necessarily have a relationship with the distributor. SCO has a right to sue them, too, but Linux distributors are not deep pockets or headline grabbers. A property holder, and similarly in the case of constructive property like copyright, can claim any infringement against any violator, in intent or negligence.
This permits people who copy movies to be as liable as people who possess bootlegs. It is the use (or presumed use) which is violated, and that use often flows from presence. In other words, SCO will say "look, that Acme Co. is violating our property rights by benefitting from their use of Linux." It is possible that it's more likely that you can distribute Linux than you can actually use it, but both are copyright infringements in the absence of permission (as explicitly set out in the GNU GPL), and the "use" of Linux is possibly an ancillary claim of "unjust enrichment" to the user in addition to restitution.
A half-ass analogy would be a movie theatre that rents a DVD at blockbuster and puts it through a projector to make money off of it in public sales, directly contrary to the copyright stipulations on the movie that prohibit redistribution, sale, or profit without prior written authorization. The copyright holder/MPAA isn't going to go after Blockbuster, who legally (or illegally if it's bootlegged) distributed the copyright material, but rather the theatre which also violated the rights. The theatre has (a) potentially deeper pockets, (b) directly, and intentionally or negligently infringed the rights of the property holder, and (c) no means of indemnification through the distributor. The corollary is that there is no onus upon the distributor to validate a use of the purchaser.
In other words, if the use of Linux is part of the claim, not just possession, the Fortune 500 company has no indemnification through the distributor. Unless there was an explicit indemnification clause in the distributor's license (GPL? BSD? etc.) or contract, it is unlikely, or I'd go so far as to say impossible, to pass the buck to them.
The Fortune 500 company is almost certain to be a valid target of SCO's claim. Mind you, being a valid target does not validate the claim itself!
A desperate measure (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Suing oneself (Score:5, Informative)
If a company gets sued they will hire lawyers. If they want to prevail they will hire lawyers with experience in the particular area of law.
A fortune 1000 company would certainly hire a competent law firm to defend it.
BTW it would be lawyers who present arguments not the company itself.
Re:Open source needs to find a hungry DA (Score:3, Informative)
Re: .sig (Score:1, Informative)
Assuming p to be true yields a contradiction (one deduces [not p]), but assuming [not p] yields no contradiction. This is no paradox.
~Morosoph [slashdot.org]
Can you say... (Score:2, Informative)
I knew that you could.
IANAL, but as far as I understand, those 3 little words will bring any lawsuit brought by SCO (regarding Linux)to a screeching halt until the lawsuit with IBM is cleared up.
I could be wrong, of course.
Re:Google (Score:3, Informative)
If you wanted to.
Tomorrow: SCO will sue a linux user today (Score:1, Informative)
Something a very wise man once told me about the 'advertising' business... "It doesn't matter if it's good or bad, as long as they spell your name right."
In this case I don't believe it is fully true as SCO is in hot water so to speak, but we aren't helping ourselves any by overinflating this charade any longer. The merit is in their actions. If they do sue someone they have opened up a whole huge can of worms. If they don't sue someone they will claim that they will 'next week'. Brilliant marketing, albeit from an evil crew of wannabe's that have no clue.