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Caldera Government The Courts News

DaimlerChrysler/SCO Case Winds Down 317

Posted by michael from the running-on-empty dept.
kuwan writes "It was previously reported that SCO moved for and was denied a stay in their case agains DaimlerChrysler. (Remember that all of SCO's claims against DaimlerChrysler were thrown out except for the issue of whether or not DaimlerChrysler made its certification in a timely manner.) The opposition and reply memos for that motion are now available and apparently SCO's motion was so weak that DaimlerChrysler is asking SCO to pay the cost of preparing their opposition memo. A nice summary of the latest maneuvers is available at scofacts.org."
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DaimlerChrysler/SCO Case Winds Down More

DaimlerChrysler/SCO Case Winds Down

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  • Fall of SCO (Score:3, Interesting)

    by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:11AM (#11000862) Homepage Journal
    Any idea when SCO will finally die?

    • Re:Fall of SCO (Score:5, Funny)

      by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) * on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:23AM (#11000888) Homepage
      Well, there's been no confirmation from Netcraft yet...

    • Re:Fall of SCO (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tdvaughan ( 582870 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:35AM (#11000912) Homepage
      They're probably going to end up wholly owned by Boies and Schiller at this rate. It's sad in a way. Then IBM can pick over what's left and GPL Unix once and for all.

      • Re:Fall of SCO (Score:3, Insightful)

        by multipart ( 732754 )
        IBM has no interest in putting UNIX under the GPL. They still have Dynix and AIX, remember? Just because they hopped onto the Linux boat doesn't mean they've abandoned their proprierty software base.
      • > Then IBM can pick over what's left and GPL Unix once and for all.

        Fans of the GPL we may be, but I still think BSD would be more appropriate in this case.

        • Re:Fall of SCO (Score:3, Insightful)

          by HiThere ( 15173 ) *
          But it probably *IS* already BSD licensed. (And most of it is also already GPL licensed.)

          So far there's no evidence of any more bones than a jellyfish.

          • But we're talking about commercial UNIX. Yes BSD itself and Linux are under OSS licenses, but the old UNIX sources -- the sort of stuff Solaris, AIX, and UnixWare are based on -- aren't free.
            • The parent to your comment was talking about the fact that much of the "old UNIX" codebase is already covered by the BSD license if it's not in the Public Domain. There's not much left of the old UNIX that's still covered by a proprietary license.

              • Re:Fall of SCO (Score:3, Interesting)

                by Gherald ( 682277 )
                But there is a non-trivial amount left, and IT is what should be BSDed, to completely eradicate all that remains of Microsoft's, Sun's and most notably SCO's FUD. That is what I took the parent to my comment to be talking about.

    • Re:Fall of SCO (Score:4, Funny)

      by Metteyya ( 790458 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @10:16AM (#11000999)
      How do you define "death" of an undead, ie. zombie?

      If you mean "when they will stop moaning and disturbing the living ones" - well, that's a question for an Exorcist, not a geek.

      • f you mean "when they will stop moaning and disturbing the living ones" - well, that's a question for an Exorcist, not a geek.

        What religion has an exorcism that works on lawyers? I want to join, sit in the front pew, and testify!



    • It is official.
      Netcraft confirms: SCO is dying

      One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered SCO community when IDC confirmed that SCO market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all Linux distribution versions. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that SCO has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SCO is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by falling dead la

  • Nice advert (Score:4, Funny)

    by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:13AM (#11000867) Homepage
    Methinks that the Sybase "one-eyed monster whacking a luser" advert was a perfect fit for this article.

    Dunno if it is luck or the usual Slashdot editor impartial and unbiased reporting :-)

    Hopefully a few more whacks and it will be gone for good.

  • SCO Must Die! (Score:3, Funny)

    by IO ERROR ( 128968 ) <error@ioe[ ]r.us ['rro' in gap]> on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:18AM (#11000880) Homepage Journal
    Way to go! Make SCO pay for everything. Suck up all their blood money and drive them out of business.

  • Would be nice... (Score:2, Troll)

    by doi ( 584455 )
    ...if Slashdot fixed the links to their own stories.
  • Does that mean they actually bought some sort of UNIX license off SCO or does that mean something altogether unrelated?

    • Re:DaimlerChrysler's Certification (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:44AM (#11000933)
      They were an old UNIX licensee from the AT&T days - one of thousands. A while back SCO sent requests to all of those ancient licensees requesting that they certify that they're only using the code in a proper way (and implying that using linux might be in violation; probably an attempt to drum up business for their lawsuit protection racket) Of course the license are for really old versions of UNIX so the question is pretty silly (it'd be like Microsoft suddenly doing a license audit of all Windows 3.0 customers) so almost noone bothered to actually reply.

      DCC was one of the thousands that didn't reply. For whatever reason SCO decided to sue them as an example or something. DC basically replied with "We haven't used the software we licensed from AT&T for over seven years; there we've certified now go away" A judge ruled that this was a valid certification and threw 99% of the case away. They left SCO the option to continue the case soley on the basis of whether DC certified promptly enough (the contract between AT&T and DC didn't mention a deadline for this certification)

      Amazingly SCO decided to continue the case in that vein -- probably so they don't have to admit defeat quite yet. Of course now they're trying to put the case so far on the back burner that it will never actually go to trial. DC is fighting that and trying to get SCO to go to trial now.

      • Re:DaimlerChrysler's Certification (Score:5, Informative)

        by Eggplant62 ( 120514 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @10:49AM (#11001149)
        Don't forget the fact that SCO's letter to Chrysler was peppered with questions that were unrelated to the contract terms. Those questions involved detailing Chrysler's use of Linux to replace SCO's antiquated software, questions which have no relationship to the terms of the original Software License, and to which SCO had no right to even expect answers.

        Again, this case was mostly about the hare-brained scheme that McBride and his cronies cooked up. Having been a litigious bastard in his own right, McBride thought that as soon as he started throwing the word "lawsuit" around, everyone subject to the threat would simply crumple up and pay SCO rather than fight back, and that other UNIX/Linux users would see this and pile on for the SCOSource licenses, thus leading to the huge pump on the stock price in anticipation of this seeming windfall.

        Personally, I think McBride should turn back to his bag o' blow.
    • DaimlerChrysler certified (as requested by SCO) that they were in compliance with the Licence Agreement under which they had been using some Unix (bought from a SCO predecessor). (They also certified, that they had stopped using SCO-Unix long ago).

      This is unrelated to the "Linux-IP" licence that SCO tries people to threaten into buying.

  • Raise Money for SCO (Score:5, Funny)

    by Phragmen-Lindelof ( 246056 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:30AM (#11000900)
    I can think of one reason SCO deserves some money from us; they are providing us with a lot of entertainment and they are illustrating how not to conduct legal affairs. I believe that we should all contribute to a pool to improve the lives of (former) SCO (related) employees who are (or will be) housed in our wonderful incarceration facilities. This may need to be a large fund since I suspect that some Canapy Group employees might need some free government lodging. I think we should put PJ in charge of distributing the money; imagine Darl asking PJ for just a little money for a snickers bar.
    • Just for clarification of the one reason, I consider their legal campaign to be a part of their entertainment value. One might also include their demand for $699, PR campaign, etc. as additional entertainment value.
    • Was that Canopy Group or Canopic Group [echo-on.net]? A group that keeps dead people's organs in jars seems to fit better. Speaking of entertainment value, if Darl could just fill out this special organ donour card...

      ("We're here for your liver.")

  • From back in June 2003 and Beyond competence (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NZheretic ( 23872 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:31AM (#11000905) Homepage Journal
    In reply to 9th June posting SCO Shows 80 Lines of Evidence [slashdot.org], I posted an outline of the issues the SCO Group had to overcome before even beginning to go after other Linux distributions, developers and users [slashdot.org].

    Every point I made back then has since played out in court as predicted. Even the SCO Group is now relying on the same interpretation of the GPL license in its defence against IBM [groklaw.net].

    As I stated on March 10, 2004 [blogspot.com]:

    The SCO Group has entered into a series of essentially inherently flawed lawsuits and fraudulent license claims against users of the Linux operating system. Since 1994, Caldera International and the Santa Cruz Operation have been accepting, profiting from and distributing software developed by hundreds of independent developers under the terms of the GPL and LGPL license. The SCO Group has failed to put forward any sustainable legal theory why it should not abide by the terms of the GPL license. Detailed investigation into other facts and evidence which regularly conflict with the SCO Group's various legal claims, filing, press and public statements, raises serous questions which can no longer be explained away by a lack of competence in either the SCO Group's CEOs or the SCO Group's legal representation.
  • "Daimler/Chrysler wins SCO Case Hands Down"

    Maybe we'll be so lucky. :-)

    Cheers,
    Richard
    • Trust me, it will. I can predict how it's going to go:

      Chysler attorney: Your honor, they sent the letter to our old corporate headquarters address, which is now a vacant field in Highland Park between I-75 and Highland Avenue. We never received it. In fact, we didn't know if its existence until they filed suit.

      Judge: Decision in favor of plantiff, case summarily dismissed with prejudice. Next case.

  • guilty condcience? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In a weird sort of way, I kind of feel sorry for SCO.

    I mean geez, they're just another legit company trying to make it in this high tech industry. Won't anyone give them a break?

  • #1 sign your business is in trouble: (Score:5, Funny)

    by physicsphairy ( 720718 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @09:43AM (#11000928)
    It is actually profitable to be sued by you.
    • The problem is that SCO really doesn't have a lot money left. Most of what they have is already promised to Boies et al.

      Eventually novell is going to ask for it's 95% of the money from MS and Sun and the IBM lawyers will start demanding money for having to write so many opposition documents to their silly, stupid delay motions and demands for irrational discovery.

      What shocks me about all this is the lack of any rationality from the judges. More then two years into the case and judge kimball hasn't demande

  • Out smarted more than out gunned (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jav1231 ( 539129 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @10:18AM (#11001013)
    I think DC could have probably played this out to the end just as easily as IBM seems to be able to. DC was smart in that they just didn't have any of SCO's products running in production, as I understand it. It was almost the equivilent of the BSA auditing you for unlicensed M$ products and finding out you're a Linux shop. Oh, and all M$ products sitting on a shelf are in their original boxes and amount to old copies of WFW and MS-DOS 3.2.
    • >>>
      Oh, and all M$ products sitting on a shelf are in their original boxes and amount to old copies of WFW and MS-DOS 3.2.
      >>>

      Did you mean MS-DOS 3.3 or perhaps MS-DOS 6.2?
      3.2 wasn't the disaster that was DOS 4 but it was a pain. Most companies quickly upgraded when 3.3 came out.

  • I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by THESuperShawn ( 764971 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @11:00AM (#11001182)
    When DirecTV did a similar (but more aggressive) blanket (and mostly claim-less) lawsuit against supposed "pirates", asking (demanding?)for a "settlement" to avoid legal action, it only took one "win" for the little guys to basically cease DirecTV's actions.

    I am not a lawyer (but I know a few good jokes about them), but would a "win" against SCO basically kill off their entire case? If DC "wins" (or the case is dismissed), does that mean SCO's claims of licensing fees are over? And if that happens, can the few who actually paid SCO "licensing" fees get a refund?
    • I am not a lawyer (but I know a few good jokes about them), but would a "win" against SCO basically kill off their entire case? If DC "wins" (or the case is dismissed), does that mean SCO's claims of licensing fees are over? And if that happens, can the few who actually paid SCO "licensing" fees get a refund?

      IANAL but I wouldn't think so. In the DC case, SCO didn't go after them directly for infringement or licensing by using Linux. They went after them for not certifying their obsoleted Unix systems.

      As

  • On the day sco dies. (Score:5, Funny)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Sunday December 05, 2004 @11:32AM (#11001311)
    We should register SCO.COM and put a website with Nelson from the Simpsons just pointing and going "Ha HA!"
    • Darl and friends will have drawn those huge salaries as long as possible before SCO gets smacked down. I'm sure some of them will also end up with cushy jobs that don't actually involve work at Microsoft or Sun when this is all over, too.

  • Costs on Motion (Score:3, Informative)

    by eldapo ( 804410 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @11:39AM (#11001333) Homepage
    Requesting attorneys fees and costs from your opponent on a motion is pretty much standard practice. What will be interesting to see is if the defendants (Daimler/Chrysler) later move for sanctions under the local "frivolous claim" rule in their jurisdiction. These kinds of rules exist in the Federal courts (Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) and most states. It looks like Michigan has a similar rule in effect (MCR 2.625(A)(2), MCL 600.2591(2)). Nice thing about these kinds of provisions is that their sanctions can be directed against the attorneys as well as the parties. Sorry for not including links to the citations, but for obvious reasons I don't want to be responsible for the "slashdotting" of a particular Federal or state court website. Just Google it.

  • Nice variety of sources (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Sunday December 05, 2004 @12:44PM (#11001583)
    Kudos to the author for using a variety of source sites. I count Grokkaw [groklaw.net], SCOfacts [scofacts.org], and ip-wars [ip-wars.net] at a minimum. This is an excellent diversity of sources and points to a healthy community of discussion.

    sPh

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