More Criticism of SCO's Claims To UNIX 400
inc_x writes "GROKLAW has a
compelling analysis that shows that SCO's claims that it owns the UNIX operating system are not very truthful. The Open Group confirms this position: "Statements that SCO "owns the UNIX operating system" or has "licensed UNIX to XYZ", are clearly inaccurate and misleading." It seems that SCO finds it increasingly difficult to distinguish facts from fiction. Last week SCO claimed 'This IP battle is only one part of SCO's business and is an add-on component. The core of SCO's business is profitable,' not bothered by the fact that they had claimed the opposite in their SEC filing: 'If we do not receive SCOsource licensing revenue in future quarters and our revenue from the sale of our operating system platform products and services continues to decline, we will need to further reduce operating expenses in order to maintain profitability or generate positive cash flow.'"
Rebranding Image??? (Score:2, Funny)
Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:5, Funny)
We must encourage the grass-roots developers to add to the global intellectual property by releasing great variants of UNIX-based operating systems so that we can topple the dichotomy that Microsoft presents to computer science progress.
Only when we liberate the high memory block in the Expanded memory pool can we launch the necessary TSRs for MSCDEX support.
Which is nice.
Re:Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong answer McFly!
Haven't you seen SCO's new television commercials to be aired soon?
Well, the commercial has this kid in a large white room....
Well, you'll just have to wait and see it. But the commercial is awesome. It ends with the words...
and then fades to the word...
Re:Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:2)
>>>>>>>>>>
That would be something like MS's"shared source."
Re:Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:2)
Re:Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:3, Informative)
Really? [google.com]
Re:Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO most certainly does not own Linux. At most they may have ownership of inappropriately included code. The vast majority of the Linux codebase is owned by individual and corporate contributes who have and had full rights to do so. Those copyright holders have every right to nail them for infringment. This is why they're spewing this "GPL is public domain." nonsense. They are even more guilty of copyright infringment than anyone who contributed inappropriate code to Linux. They're practicing "a good offense is better than a good defense".
Sooner or later, SCO will have to reveal their so-called evidence. The provenance of the code will be established and anything that doesn't belong will be removed. At that point they can go after the hapless idiots who contributed the 80 lines or so but that is it.
They can be said to own the Caldera variant but it was always a niche distro at best.
While we're on the subject, Linus Torvalds owns the Linux trademark. They won't be claiming that for their own either.
Re:Make UNIX Open SCOurce! (Score:3, Funny)
Well, as Henry Spencer put it: "those who fail to understand Unix are destined to reimplement it -- poorly."
Which probably also explains why Microsoft is doing such a lousy job of it.
SCO in invoice fight - With SCO Australia (Score:5, Informative)
SCO Australia says the invoicing plan doesn't "ring true" [zdnet.com.au] and contradicts very recent strategy discussions. Unfortunately, SCO USA's Blake Stowell, doesn't seem to have yet responded to SCO Australia's request for clarification. SCO Australia also says [theage.com.au] that they're unsure about the question of invoices being sent in the US even though there are reports on the web [examples: here [vnunet.com], here [newsfactor.com] and here [computerworld.com]] about just such a thing being planned.
SCO "invoices" a threat - not a reality (Score:4, Interesting)
NO ONE has actually been sent an actual invoice; SCO has merely made threats in the press to do so.
I do not think they have any intention to actually send any real "invoices"; that would be fraud. They just want to make headlines and grab fast cash.
With the The Open Group, who even Darth McBribe ackowledges hold the trademrak to "UNIX", I do not know what wild claim is left for SCO to make. They will probably claim next that their IP claims to Unix trumps the Open Group's Unix trademark. Because of course, SCO claims always trump all other claims.
I am a former Microsoft guy who is in the process of converting to Open Source, and I will enjoy watching SCO die a horrible death at the hands of the Open Source/Free Software community.
Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who buys the stocks that SCO "dump"? Anyone in their right mind would back off from this company. I for one, wouldn't have bought a sinking ship.
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I feel that this won't last for too long but, it will likely last for as long as they can keep their name in the news. Once it finally goes to court, probably in 2004, it will all be over. But, for the next three to six months, SCOX is still a good buy.
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:3, Insightful)
I was under the impression that it was April 2005. So we should have at least another year of this commedy routine.
One +1 Insightful observation I'll make: Slashdot SHOULD CREATE AN SCO SECTION. This nonsense is going to go on for long enough that those of us who wait on the edge of our seats constantly checking slashdot for each new commedic bit of PR from SCO could check a special subsection like sco.slashdot.org.
Why, oh why, oh why hasn't SCO g
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:2)
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:2)
Now some hypothetical company could file the necessary forms to buy more than 5%...
SEC, our intent in buying up SCO stock is to artificially inflate the market price for the purpose of enriching the principals of SCO in exchange for them helping us to cause restraint of trade in the Linux market.
But if you can get each of some companies that you indirectly control to each stay un
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the Friday August 29th page of Groklaw. There's a company called Integral Capital Management V that's bought enough recently that they had to file a 13G with the SEC. Curiously, shortly after they bought a big interest in Drugstore.com no long ago, a person by the name of Melinda French Gates was appointed to a seat on that company's board or directors. Hmmmm....
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:4, Interesting)
Going on that, you'd think that a man with an MBA from Dartmouth would have at least some kind of clue of what makes a good director. Hell, Stanger, the other director with MS ties got his MBA from Berkeley.
Aside from the fact that she happens to be married to the man most people on slashdot liken to the anti-christ, Ms. Gates [shareholder.com] has got cred of her own.
BA from Duke and an MBA from Duke, plus she sits on the board of Trustees at Duke.
Just because she married Bill doesn't immediately make this a freakin' conspiracy.
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. The world of high-tech is small and I'm willing to accept this as coincidence.
However, the fact that Microsoft wrote a check to SCO for $6 million does make this look like a conspiracy.
And the fact that Sun wrote a check to SCO, and Sun received an equity position in SCO, and Sun now loudly proclaims their products as legally compliant with SCO due to their 10-year old license -- but Sun does NOT talk about the l
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:3, Funny)
Just because she married Bill doesn't immediately make this a freakin' conspiracy.
Ha ha ha. Was she invited onto Duke's board of Trustees before or after marrying billg?
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:4, Funny)
Melinda French Gates
Dontcha mean Melinda Freedom Gates?
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not many sensible investors looking for long-term profit would invest in SCO. But they aren't the only ones who buy stock. As an example, say some company or person wanted to reward the SCO execs for their litigious nonsense. This company could do so legally and largely unnoticeably by buying SCO stock. With the execs dumping stock which is really worthless, money is just going from the purchasers to the officers' pockets.
After all, SCO is being sued by IBM for patent infringement, and they will almost certainly lose. They are going down. It is merely a question of when.
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:2)
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:4, Interesting)
If, hypothetically, there were some large American monopolistic company, and let's further suppose that such a hypothetical company were willing to buy SCO stock at outrageously high prices to reward the investors, then I would observe two things. (1) they cannot buy more than 5% of SCO before having to file with the SEC as to their intentions. (2) they would lose the money they spent on the stock when it crashes.
If there were such a hypothetical company doing such a thing, then they would have to file with the SEC as to their intentions. I can just see the filing: Our intent is to make the SCO principals rich in exchange for restraining trade in the Linux market.
As for item 2, there are some American companies with enough money in the bank that they wouldn't even notice some few millions of dollars.
Maybe multiple companies in collusion could each buy under 5 % of the stock? Or maybe the SCO principals don't own more than 5 %? But then the other 95% holders would be yelling Sell! Sell! Sell! And someone must be buying at those prices, because that's what determines the prices.
(being that this is slashdot, I should have said "loose the money" instead of "lose the money".)
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides >45% of the stock is held by insiders, and probably another 20%-30% is held by funds. its a VERY illiquid stock with small public holdings. Practically you could call it a private company.
And for those that think SCOX stock is or was a good buy because the price is so high need look no further than the liquidity of the stock. Todays price may be $16 but sell 100,000 shares on the market and the price will drop instantly $2. So if your tossing around 100-10,000 shares, you can probably make a little change. any more than that, and you wouldn't be able to effectively cash out reliably.
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:2)
Re:Who buys the stocks anyways? (Score:2)
SCO Group=EXXon OIL Spills (Score:2)
Potential Revenue Source (Score:5, Funny)
Start by offering low-bandwidth real media clips of goings on, move up to high-bandwidth, premium, see-it-before-anyone-else scubscriptions. Maybe for extra cash, even be able to influence the plot or participate in being threatened interactively!
Re:Potential Revenue Source (Score:5, Funny)
Unlike a mime, however, SCO just won't shut the fuck up.
Ob. quote (Score:5, Funny)
[ McClane [imdb.com] and Zeus [imdb.com] are speeding through Central Park]
Zeus: Are you aiming for these people?
John McClane: No.
[Pauses]
John McClane: Well, maybe that mime.
Reducing operating expenses (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if I read this right, if no one pays any license extortion money to SCO then they will have to cut costs to remain in the black. One might suggest they start by dismissing their over-priced lawyers, dismissing their frivolous lawsuits, and trying to kick the collective crack habit they seem to have developed.
Then again, they are well on their way to becoming the poster child to show that taking drugs leads to criminal behaviour. I wonder if they could claim royalties on all the eventual "Don't do drugs or you'll turn into SCO" posters in schools and police stations... ;)
Re:Reducing operating expenses (Score:4, Insightful)
They've made all kinds of random threats and press releases but only for the purpose of driving up the stock price. They don't intend to actually go to court.
Heck, they don't intend to even win their one lawsuit against IBM.
Re:Reducing operating expenses (Score:4, Insightful)
C//
New exciting business investment! (Score:4, Funny)
I am Mr. Darl McBride currently serving as the president and chief executive officer of the SCO group, formerly known as caldera systems international, in Lindon, Utah, united states of America. I know this letter might surprise your because we have had no previous communications or business dealings before now. My associates have recently made claim to computer software worth an estimated $1 billion U.S. dollars.
I am writing to you in confidence because we urgently require your assistance to obtain these funds. In the early 1970s the American telephone and telegraph corporation developed at great expense the computer operating system software known as Unix. Unfortunately the laws of my country prohibited them from selling these softwares and so their valuable source codes remained privately held. Under a special arrangement some programmers from the California university of Berkeley did add more codes to this operating system, increasing its value, but not in any way to dilute or disparage our full and rightful ownership of these codes, despite any agreement between American telephone and telegraph and the California university of Berkeley, which agreement we deny and disavow. In the year 1984 a change of regime in my country allowed the American telephone and telegraph corporation to make profits from these softwares. In the year 1990 ownership of these softwares was transferred to the corporation Unix system laboratories. In the year 1993 this corporation was sold to the corporation Novell. In the year 1994 some employees of Novell formed the corporation caldera systems international, which began to distribute an upstart operating system known as Linux. In the year 1995 Novell sold the Unix software codes to SCO. In the year 2001 occurred a separation of SCO, and the SCO brand name and Unix codes were acquired by the caldera systems international, and in the following year the caldera systems international was renamed SCO group, of which i currently serve as chief executive officer. My associates and I of the SCO group are therefore the full and rightful owners of the operating system softwares known as Unix. Our engineers have discovered that no fewer than seventy (70) lines of our valuable and proprietary source codes have appeared in the upstart operating system Linux. As you can plainly see, this gives us a claim on the millions of lines of valuable software codes which comprise this Linux and which has been sold at great profit to very many business enterprises. Our legal experts have advised us that our contribution to these codes is worth an estimated one (1) billion u.s. dollars. Unfortunately we are having difficulty extracting our funds from these computer softwares. To this effect i have been given the mandate by my colleagues to contact you and ask for your assistance. We are prepared to sell you a share in this enterprise, which will soon be very profitable, that will grant you the rights to use these valuable softwares in your business enterprise. Unfortunately we are not able at this time to set a price on these rights. Therefore it is our respectful suggestion, that you may be immediately a party to this enterprise, before others accept these lucrative terms, that you send us the number of a banking account where we can withdraw funds of a suitable amount to guarantee your participation in this enterprise. As an alternative you may send us the number and expiration date of your major credit card, or you may send to us a signed check from your banking account payable to "SCO group" and with the amount left blank for us to conveniently supply. Kindly treat this request as very important and strictly confidential. I honestly assure you that this transaction is 100% legal and risk-free. SCO CEO McBride
Re:New exciting business investment!-even better (Score:5, Funny)
SCO GROUP INC
355 South 520 West, Suite 100
Lindon, UT 84042
My Dear Friend,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. This is the letter of the Unix past. It will bring you great fortune. All you have to do is pay the party mentioned above, a small sum ff $699. Then immediately send this letter to six other friends. If you do so, you will have great luck.
Mr. Scott McNealy of Santa Clara, CA immediately paid the above mentioned money and sent the letter to his friends. Great luck came to him. The sun will always shine in his little kingdom
William Gates of Redmond, WA paid the sum immediately. All his legal troubles melted away. He became extremely rich and powerful.
Samuel Palmisano of Armonk, NY ignored this letter. Great ill luck be fell him. His rights were aixed. The great plague of Boise swooped down on him. He lost everything.
So please don't ignore this letter. Immediately do as directed and have the Lady Luck of Unix smile upon you.
You know what I would pay SCO for? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, you just can't make this stuff up.
Well, unless you are SCO, I mean.
Re:You know what I would pay SCO for? (Score:3, Redundant)
Evidently, as SCO have amply demonstrated, you can.
Schwab
Bart^H^H^H^HSCO gets an F (Score:2)
The karma gods will kill me for this one. (Score:5, Funny)
Darl here, and I'm afraid this is one shortcoming we've got to own up to. The explanation for our warped perception is pretty straightforward, however -- You see, we here at SCO have started reading Slashdot.
SEC filing (Score:5, Informative)
"Due to a lack of historical experience and the uncertainties related to SCOsource licensing revenue, we are unable to estimate the amount and timing of future licensing revenue, if any. If we do receive revenue from this source, it may be sporadic and fluctuate from quarter to quarter. SCOsource licensing revenue is unlikely to produce stable, predictable revenue for the foreseeable future. "
SCO BLAST FROM THE PAST !!! (Score:4, Interesting)
SCO news a MUST read (or do you really care?) (Score:5, Insightful)
K, so you just don't care about Linux. Do you care about Open Source in general? It's not just a Linux problem, it's an open source problem. Sure, Linux is the blame stick here, but Linux is just the tip of the iceberg. Linux is just a proxy for the whole Open Source way of doing things. Where do you think the next 'lines of code' will be found? Who owns the copyrights for main()? Old Bell labs? K&R? SCO?
Yeah, you think that's silly question.
What this whole SCO thing is about is modern day robber barons. CEO-theives who think they can create a high level of fear and uncertainty from suits; enough that they will listen, enough that they will wonder, enough that they will pay.
Unfortunately, this is not the scary thing; the scary thing, sad though it sounds, is that they are doing this with legal means. We can bitch and moan about how wrong they are, but you don't see them in 'cuffs do you? This is the exact same sort of tactic (RIAA, Microsoft, and a cast of thousands) that is used to circumvent freedoms of ideas, ideals, and individuality.
Care or not care, but understand what you are doing, understand the implications, and understand that you or someone/something you care about may be next.
Re:SCO news a MUST read (or do you really care?) (Score:2)
Exactly. It's not just Linux, IBM, Open Source, or IT. It's everything from ball-bearings to matchsticks. It's about what the 21st century should be as opposed to what the 19th century was.
Re:SCO news a MUST read (or do you really care?) (Score:2)
A good, ongoing analysis of the conflict (Score:5, Informative)
Can be found here:
Lamlaw.com [lamlaw.com]
The guy keeps an ongoing watch for the news articles and makes legal commentary wrt what's happening. He tends to be very insightful and makes good points.
Article's cool, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Article's cool, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Stop the presses, a business is lying! (Score:5, Insightful)
While we are all in a foment over SCO lying about its extent of owning everything, should we even really be surprised?
Can you name one corporation that actually seems like it ALWAYS tells the truth? By truth I mean, through its communications never seeks to misrepresent the reality of a situation.
There are not any out there.
Don't read the stories then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't read them. Some of us want a daily SCO update. It's ok that you don't want daily stories, but you can read the other stories instead of filling up the place with complains.
It's just unnecessary.
It's not that easy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't read the stories then... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the Slash editors have done a great job of spacing these stories so that they aren't even beginning to overwhelm the site, and I hope they keep it up through to the case's conclusion. And if the ongoing high comment count for each SCO story are any indication, I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
Please, Slashdot, keep up the good work. Through everybody's efforts, we can win this, and UnixWare will once more come out on top.
-- Darl
Re:Don't read the stories then... (Score:5, Interesting)
Its not really a simple "SCO v IBM" situation, but a tangled legal mess that includes Open Group, SGI, Sun, OSX, BSD, MS, OSS, the GPL, RMS, and lots of other acronyms. You can't write fiction this good.
I would agree with your evaluation of
SCO Stories have a much wider impact (Score:2)
So, although we all think that SCO is a joke and not worth paying attention to, the issues that are raised in the process are VITAL to the survival of open source software.
MadCow.
Acronym (Score:2, Funny)
Kind of like how SCO execs claim they have taken advantage of the penis upgrade, but wont let anyone see the source unless they sign an NDA.
Submitter needs to learn to read (Score:2, Informative)
This is not an incorrect statement by SCO. They are saying IF they do not receive SCOsource
Re:Submitter needs to learn to read (Score:2)
Re:Parse this :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Began operations in 1994
Year ended 1995-10-31 revenue $0, net income ($1,350,000)
Year ended 1996-10-31 revenue $1,108,000, net income ($2,757,000)
Year ended 1997-10-31 revenue $1,117,000, net income ($8,148,000)
Year ended 1998-10-31 revenue $1,057,000, net income ($7,963,000)
Year ended 1999-10-31 revenue $3,050,000, net income ($9,367,000)
So who exactly is this "we" you
Re:Submitter needs to learn to read (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry if I seem cynical, but democracy only works if more than half the population makes intelligent decisions.
jury trial? (Score:3, Insightful)
"If the case is shit, you must aquit." Dayrl may not go to jail if he manages to get a "jury trial", but Linux and free software are not doomed.
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Which leads me to think, could the Open Source community go on the offensive on this issue? Is there anyone out there familiar enough with the relevant compilers to determine if there is Linux code inappropriately incorporated into software and products claimed to be of SCO origin/acquisition? I know this possibility has been conjectured, but proof would be outstanding. I know decompiling isn't as straightforward as disassembly
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, I don't think it will be that simple. The members of any jury will more than likely be forced to learn far more about backup schedules, verifcation of tapes, source-code control systems and the like than they would ever want to know about. Do really think IBM's lawyers will let SCO get away with the simple "here's two block of similar code - they must have stolen it" trick without raising a single question in cross-examination? SCO will have to provide excruciatingly detailed histories for every line o
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
1) a contract dispute with IBM
2) alledged copying of UNIX code into Linux
When SCO refers a million lines of code they are talking about code that is copyright by IBM and other unix licencees that SCO beleives should not have been added to Linux. SCO does NOT own the copyright to that code, and has admitted it publically. Even in IBM is found guilty of innappropriatly copying the code into Linux, SCO still will not own the copyright to that code.
By repeating there allegation regarding a million lines of code they are trying to strengthen thier argument for users to pay for licences. Nobody outside of SCO knows how much code they are claiming is copied from unix into linux.
So it is unlikley that the copied code issue will even be put before the jury.
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3, Informative)
Get it straight. The lawsuit is a contract dispute. Basically whether IBM is allowed to contribute IBM derived code to the Linux kernel, not Unix System V code.
The SCO PR engine is trying to convince people that Unix System V code has been contributed to the Linux kernel and therefore SCO owns Linux.
Your confusion is understandable, SCO is trying their best to obfuscate the two issues.
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
If the trial is in a Utah court, SCO will probably win the first round at least. Not even IBM's hoard of lawyers can beat an 8000-pound gorilla on their home turf
It can't imagine how it would be held anywhere other than Utah, but unless SCO can come up with something more substantial than they've revealed to date, they're going to lose. Mormons tend, on average, to be better-educated than most Americans, and this is a trial where the ability of the jurors to understand complex issues will likely be impo
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3, Funny)
If religion did come into this (and I don't think it will), I think it would work against SCO big time. Why? Because the trial will certainly expose the jurors to all of SCO's myriad lies and self contradictions, and the notion that this is an elaborate pump-n-dump scheme will have to come up as well. If the jurors are LDS (keep in mind that if they're drawn from Salt Lake City, only about 30% of the population is LDS, and less than that are "active") and if they find out that McBride and the other SCO exe
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3, Informative)
Angel Investors is, in turn, very closedly associated with LDS.
Closely associated in what way?
Even if the Church itself is invested in Angel Investors (which is unlikely), it's very unlikely that the Church leadership has any knowledge whatsoever of this whole fiasco. And there certainly is no obvious reason why the Church would be interested in killing Linux.
Heck, the Church *uses* Linux. Not widely; until a couple of years ago their I/T department was a totally Microsoft shop, but they've become
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO sued IBM in a Utah state court, carefully writing their lawsuit so that there were no federal issues in it. SCO can do this because both SCO and IBM are both corporate residents of the same state, Delaware.
Or so SCO's lawyers said in their lawsuit. IBM slapped the fuck out of them by pointing out that IBM is incorporated in New York, and here is a certified copy of IBM's Certificate of Incorporation, and here's a bunch of legal precedents which say that a court has to recognize the actual state that a defendant is really in, not the state that the clot-headed plaintiff incorrectly writes in the complaint. Hence, because IBM and SCO are corporate residents of different states, a lawsuit between them for an amount greater than $75,000 must be heard in federal court, not in state court.
It was really a boneheaded move on the part of SCO's lawyers. Boies spent 10 years of his career working for IBM and he doesn't know what state it's incorporated in?! And none of their high-priced paralegals can read the first page of a 10-Q or a 10-K, the part that says:
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
NEW YORK
(State of incorporation)
In fact it's such a stupid move that it makes me wonder about conspiracy theories, like SCO's lawyers filed in the wrong court on purpose in order to add additional delay.
As far as the federal judge assigned to the case, read the excellent Groklaw article on Judge Kimball.
And now for something completely silly (Score:2, Funny)
More food for thought... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://madpenguin.org/modules.php?op=modload&name
These guys really need to get a grip. The whole world is laughing at them, and it's time they come clean with the code they claim they have. Torvalds stated that he would personally REMOVE/REPLACE the offending code IF it was found.... so what's the issue? $$$$$
Y A SCO Headline... (Score:5, Funny)
SCO to Sue God
Darl McBride Caught in Bizarre Love Triangle With Bill Gates, Penguin
Darl McBride to Rename Self Darth McBride, Builds Death Star
SCO Accidentally Sues Self For 10 Billion
Local Man Wonders What Is This SCO Shit
SCO Enters Partnership With Gorzo the Mighty (subtitle: New Corporate Motto: "Seize Him!")
Infinite Number of Monkeys Write UNIX, Sued by SCO
CEO of Novell said it best (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder when SCO will get the BSA involved... (Score:2)
I'm personally betting diamonds to dollars that the BSA will never touch anything SCO related, now or in the future.
Re:I wonder when SCO will get the BSA involved... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder when SCO will get the BSA involved... (Score:2)
Illegal either way? (Score:4, Insightful)
Either way, what they've done is illegal. The question for us - the open-source community - is finding someone with legal standing to make an issue out of it. Find two parties, one who would have been injured by the allegedly incorrect 10K filings, and other who would be injured by price pumping (recent buyers of SCOX). If each party sues for $XX million, someone would win and SCO should loose a big chunk of their relatively small cash assets, either by damage awards, SEC fines, or legal fees. Either way, it puts them out of our collective misery.
Of course, IANAL. But it sounds good, doesn't it?
Why hasn't Open Group sued SCO yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why hasn't Open Group sued SCO yet? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't understand these IP lawsuits (Score:5, Funny)
About their XFS claims... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5072061.
In his August presentation, [SCO senior vice president Chris ] Sontag
said XFS in Linux includes 173 files and 119,130 lines of code that
infringe the company's intellectual property.
Oh reaaaaly?
Hm, how many lines are in Linux XFS?
[nobody@penguin xfs-kern-2.6.0]$ find . -name \*.[c,h] | xargs wc --lines
133482 total
Yay! SGI still owns 14,352 lines I guess.
Wait, but they said lines of code... strip comments & blank lines:
[nobody@penguin xfs-kern-2.6.0]$ find . -name \*.[c,h] | xargs stripcmt | grep -v ^$ | wc --lines
92618
So, they claim to own 26,512 more lines of code in Linux XFS than -actually exist- in the codebase.
Linux customer list for invoices? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that Red Hat, SuSE, or any of the other Linux vendors are going to give SCO a list of people who have purchased Linux so that SCO can turn around and send out invoices.
Sure, SCO can assume that some Fortune 500 companies are using Linux in some way and send out invoices to those, but, I don't see how SCO will have any solid proof that any of them is using, say, Red Hat Linux unless someone tells SCO first that such and such company is using Red Hat.
So company X gets an invoice from SCO and ignores it. What is SCO going to do? Send someone out from SCO, unannounced, that just shows up and expects to be able to do a thourough audit of the companie's computer networks to find any trace of Linux? Even though SCO may have said that they'd do audits like this, do you really think that SCO is going to have the manpower and money to audit literally thousands of companies?
If you think SCO can do that, I'll show up at your company Monday morning and demand an on-site audit so that I can do a complete network audit and look for any Linux machines that might be running any code that I have personally written. I expect full cooperation. I'll send my bill to you the day before I get there.
The bottom line is that while SCO may send out invoices to customers for using Linux, SCO doesn't have much of an idea which of those customers are using Linux, unless Linux vendors have shared their customer list with SCO in the first place. That, or SCO is doing some sort of Internet scanning looking for Linux systems. And don't think for a minute that most companies will put up with SCO coming to do a audit of all their computers.
Its time that SCO puts up or shuts up. I'm getting tired of reading the SCO posts on /. and in the media, even for their entertainment value.
Differences between 2.2 & 2.4+ code? (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me if I'm missing something...
From SCO's SEC Filing (Score:5, Interesting)
" We initiated the SCOsource effort to review the status of these licensing and sublicensing agreements and to identify others in the industry that may be currently using our intellectual property without obtaining the necessary licenses. This effort resulted in the execution of two license agreements during the April 30, 2003 quarter. The first of these licenses was with a long-time licensee of the UNIX source code which is a major participant in the UNIX industry and was a "clean-up" license to cover items that were outside the scope of the initial license. The second license was to Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") and covers Microsoft's UNIX compatibility products, subject to certain specified limitations. These license agreements are typical of those we expect to enter into with developers, manufacturers, and distributors of operating systems in that they are non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, paid up licenses to utilize the UNIX source code, including the right to sublicense that code.
The amount that we receive from any such licensee will generally depend on the license rights that the licensee previously held and the amount and level of our intellectual property the licensee desires to license. The two licensing agreements signed by us to date resulted in revenue of $8,250,000 during the quarter ended April 30, 2003, and provide for an aggregate of an additional $5,000,000 to be paid to us over the next three quarters. These contracts do not provide for any payments beyond 2003, except that Microsoft was granted the option to acquire expanded licensing rights, at its election, that would result in additional payments to us if exercised. In connection with the execution of the first license agreement, we granted a warrant to the licensee to purchase up to 210,000 shares of our common stock, for a period of five years, at a price of $1.83 per share. This warrant has been valued, using the Black-Scholes valuation method, at $500,000. Because the warrant was issued for no consideration, $500,000 of the license proceeds have been recorded as warrant outstanding and the license revenue associated with this arrangement has been reduced for the fair value of the warrant. "
'This IP battle is only one part of SCO's busines' (Score:3)
1. Start a company, without any real production but with bunch of lawyers.
2. Patent whatever you can, most common daily use items recommended.
3. Sue EVERYONE!!!
4. PROFIT!!!
Re:ATTN: Editors (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MOD Parent Up! (Score:5, Funny)
SCO needs a new strategy. Claim that Linux contains child pornography, just like the recent tack of the RIAA WRT P2P. (Wow, sorry for the acronyms...)
They can also claim that it will curve your spine, give you hairy palms, and that its powered by the slaughter of cute puppies and/or baby harp seals.
And also mention that the GPL, played backwards, sounds a lot like Satan. (What exactly does Satan sound like?)
And of course, as always, provide absolutely no proof...
Re:It is SCO (Score:2)
(ok this is obvious karma whoring:)
Re:In tomorrow's /. news... (Score:3, Funny)
Hey now, let's not be so cynical there. This Slashdot article contains some very insightful editorial commentary, such as "It seems that SCO finds it increasingly difficult to distinguish facts from fiction."
Re:Oh for chrissake (Score:5, Funny)
Well, DON'T CLICK IT ON SCO STORIES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THEM!
Thank you.
Re:Oh for chrissake (Score:2)
Re:Oh for chrissake (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh for chrissake (Score:3, Insightful)
In the last few days at work, from what I've heard from visiting execs -- and from some in my department (it's a big department, trust me) -- it became clear to me that some are buying Chris & Darl's party line. In fact, I'm starting to get the impression that a small majority of the decision makers/non-techies in North America is woefully (sp?) ignorant abou
Re:Oh for chrissake (Score:2)
Of course not. You hear those suits talking about it and it doesn't even phase you. "Awww, man, you guys are just completely wrong about this whole thing." or something like that. Only problem there is that it looks like there is a potential for some executive decision makers to shoot themselves in the fo
You misunderstand the article (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the article is that SCO asserts in their media appearances, press releases, and most importantly, their court filings, that (1) UNIX is a single operating system, (2) all based on the AT&T code, (3) SCO own the AT&T code
The artice demonstrates, that (1) and (2) are false, and SCO must know that.
(1) Is demonstrated to be false, by the very definition of UNIX,
(2) Is demonstrated to be false, by the existence of S/390 UNIX, and by the fact that Windows NT could become UNIX in future, etc.
The fact that SCO must know that is demonstrated by SCO's history with trademark licensing and attribution, UNIX certification of SCO products, etc.
Re:You misunderstand the article (Score:2)
(1) Is demonstrated to be false, by the very definition of UNIX,
(2) Is demonstrated to be false, by the existence of S/390 UNIX, and by the fact that Windows NT could become UNIX in future, etc.
The fact that SCO must know that is demonstrated by SCO's history with trademark licensing and attribution, UNIX certification of SCO products, etc.
good point. i had not thought of that in that exact way before your point was made. i w
Re:You misunderstand the article (Score:2)
Re:This is stupid (Score:2)
Legally, yes. But it's one more group chopping away at what SCO does, which makes their claims less credible. Since SCO obviously want this to be a PR fight and not a legal fight, it matters.
Btw, I think your information is a little outdated. SCO has revoked IBMs Unix licence... part of what the suit is all about.
Kjella
Agreed (Score:2)
How many times have we been told this? We know already. This should have been in a Slashback.
I can see (Score:2, Insightful)
If I had
Re:May be over soon (Score:3, Funny)
It's a little bit scary. I saw Al Gore debate GWB in 2000. Even though Gore didn't sound so brilliant, he didn't sound like he had his head up his ass. GWB was clearly giving his speeches from the inner sanctum of his rectum.
I draw a parallel there with the SCO case. No matter how shitty their argument smells, if a small amount of the population and a few judges enjoy the scent, we could all be fucked.