Grokking SCO's Demise

An anonymous reader writes "You have already heard the news that the SCO Group's US$5 billion threat against Linux is effectively finished. It was the Web site Groklaw.net that broke the news and posted the complete 102-page ruling; after that, it was picked up by mainstream media and trade press. In fact, it's Groklaw that has covered every aspect of SCO's legal fights with Linux vendors IBM , Novell and Red Hat and Linux users Daimler Chrysler and AutoZone ever since paralegal Pamela Jones started the site as a hobby in 2003. This feature does a great job of chronicling Groklaws' hand in the demise of SCO's case."

This is a year late

[mapsjanhere]

The way TFA starts about the August 10th ruling, you could think it was a recent event. The author refers to the summary judgment decision of 8/10/2007.
Since then there was a trial, and currently the bankrupt SCO is waiting for the final judgment to be entered to appeal - mainly that year old decision.

Re:Groklaw

[hyperz69]

Second best thing... SCO's demise is the first ;)

Someone has made a huge error here...

[Phase Shifter]

Umm, has anyone else noticed TFA is claiming the judge's ruling from over a year ago was made last week?

Nothing says you love Groklaw

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Like donating to the site. It's a massive amount of work that PJ has put into the site. So if you got a few bucks, donate. Sorry, but it has to be said and PJ won't say it.

Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour

[UnknowingFool]

In fairness to Sun, Sun actually got something from their SCO agreement. They paid SCO for the right to essentially open source Solaris as some parts of Solaris were covered by their Unix agreements. The problem was SCO didn't have the right to grant Sun this ability. Only Novell has this right. MS on the other hand, paid tens of millions of dollars for things they haven't used yet. Maybe future versions of Windows will use parts of legacy Unix and the newer Unixware, but I doubt it.

Re:Groklaw

[UnknowingFool]

It's a well known tactic. When losing a debate on actual arguments, smear the other side. It reminds me of the old Saturday Night skits with Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd where he would start off his counterpoint with "Jane, you ignorant slut." While PJ always had some commentary to the information, it was hard to refute the well-researched and reasoned points in her analysis. So the opposition had to dig dirt on her to make her look bad. Maureen O'Gara tried to post an expose on her and invade her privacy after PJ dismantled O'Gara's arguments and analysis. That move cost O'Gara her jobs as many would argue that breached professional ethics. Both SCO and an MS blogger have tried to allege that she works for IBM directly and indirectly by using a Kevin-Bacon type connection that since IBM belongs to a group that funds the hosting server which Groklaw appears, she worked for IBM.

Re:Nothing says you love Groklaw

[Anonymous Coward]

Like donating to the site. It's a massive amount of work that PJ has put into the site. So if you got a few bucks, donate. Sorry, but it has to be said and PJ won't say it.

Personally I prefer to donate to sites or projects that provide an accounting for my funds. For example, if a very popular project or site has already pulled in far more money than it needs, my money would be better spent on a less popular but worthy project rather than just further enriching the owner of the popular one. But without an accounting I have no way of telling, and the donation pages of PJ's site show none.

Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour

[man_of_mr_e]

SFU is a licensed port os System Vr4 running on Windows. It's not BSD based and never was. Also, remember that Xenix was sold to The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) and Microsoft made agreements with them about what they could and couldn't do. SCO later sold all their Unix intersts to Caldera, and changed their name to Tarantella, and Caldera became the "new" SCO.

Re:A question of infringement

[miffo.swe]

"If SCO's lawsuit failed because Novell rather than SCO owns UNIX, does that mean Linux is now infringing on Novell IP rather than SCO IP?"

I would say give a resounding nope! to that question. First of all the lawsuit failed because SCO couldn't find any evidence that Linux infringes any of their/Novells IP at all. The APA was just the final nail in the coffin. SCO couldn't find anything even remotely tangible in Linux when compared to the AT&T/Novell code base. If they had found anything they wouldn't had their whole case thrown in whole out the window after having gotten years of extensive discovery without finding anything.

Linux is in the clear and Novell isn't much to worry about. Most if not all of the AT&T code base is in the clear because of the agreement with BSD that made any BSD code or derivative in the clear. That makes it very hard for eg. Novell to make claims against Linux or any *nix derivative. That and the fact that UNIX is a standard that Novell doesn't own or control. AT&T isn't UNIX, AT&T is a UNIX variant.

Its actually more likely that Novell infact infringes on the Linux kernel than the other way around. I havent researched but i guess an audit of SUSE or OES would turn out some questions to investigate, like NSS and novfs and how they interact with the kernel etc and if sourcecode is avaliable.

Re:Someone has made a huge error here...

[sconeu]

It's actually understandable confusion.

The August 10, 2007 ruling was that SCOX didn't own the copyrights. On the eve of the trial to determine how much SCOX owed Novell in royalties collected, SCOX filed for bankruptcy, suspending the litigation.

Novell asked the BK court to lift the stay, and the July ruling referenced in the parent post was on how much SCOX owes.

Don't forget about the scumbags that helped SCO

[merc]

Let the names of the "expert testimony" scumbags that aided and abetted the SCO scam; selling themselves for a few dollars at the expense of their good names. Two come to the top of the list: Marc Rochkind and Thomas Cargill.

May their names be soiled with SCO for all time.

Dead Horse - Ultimate Edition

[rampant poodle]

Looks like they are still at it. However, it seems that the are now based in Pakistan, (SCOXQ.PK). I don't see Darryl's name anywhere but it looks like the same managerial skills are being applied. Stock is worth a whopping $0.22. Balance sheet is that of a dead company. Cash flow exists but could be best described as pathetic. On the other hand their web site, (http://www.sco.com/), looks like business as usual. They are even offering free downloads of Samba 3.0.24!

Not Pakistan - PinK sheet

[rewt66]

The ".PK" means that they are "pink sheet" - penny stock, less than one dollar a share. The "Q" means that they are in bankruptcy. So the stock was originally called SCOX, then they declared bankruptcy and fell below $1 (I forget the order), and now they're SCOXQ.PK.

Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour

[sconeu]

SCOX was at 0.66 during the week of 24 Jun 2002. It was at 1.09 the week of 10 Feb 2003.
After the lawsuits were filed, it went up to 20.50 on 15 Oct 2003.

Re:A Self Contradictory Smear.

[geschild]

Worse. He is verifiably 'mistaken'. At one point, SCO entered something on groklaw.net into evidence, which allowed the judge to look at the site. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the relevant entry.