SCO Names 1st Lawsuit Target: AutoZone [Updated]

An anonymous reader writes "News.com reports that SCO has filed the first (of two) soon to be infamous lawsuits. This one is aimed against car part retailer AutoZone, a multi-billion, Fortune 500 company according to the site. Who's next?" Another reader excerpts from SCO's posted claim: 'AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights.' Update: 03/03 16:28 GMT by T : njan writes with the news that SCO just announced during their ongoing conference call another lawsuit, this one "to be filed against Daimler-Chrysler, alleging that they are infringing SCO's copyright by using code relating to 'core operating system functionality' of SCO System 5."

not just a Linux user

According to Netcraft, Autozone.com runs on Solaris, using an IBM-modified version of Apache. I wonder if their "disloyalty" to SCO's Unix (in addition to using Linux) factored into their choice of which customer to sue.

Or perhaps SCO hopes to take on Sun as well?

Re:not just a Linux user

Let's hope AutoZone countersues the living daylights out of SCO.

Would this qualify as extortion or racketeering? =)

Re:not just a Linux user

The most likely course of action, I would think, is that AutoZone will get both the injunction and the rest of the lawsuit put on hold pending the outcome of the IBM/SCO wrangle. In the meantime, it will merely act as a potential financial risk of minimal severity.

It's not like this is a company using Linux to derive their core revenue (like a hosting company, for example) - they are using it more as an operational tool. For them, this is an annoyance, not a critical business threat...

Re:not just a Linux user

The AutoZone case, at least from what we've seen so far, doesn't have anything to do with the IBM case. They aren't claiming the use of Linux infringes, they're claiming that AutoZone (with the help of IBM) ported it's inventory/kiosk applications from OpenServer (or was it UnixWare?) to Linux, and that they did so in part by using SCO shared libraries that AutoZone didn't have the rights to move off of the OpenServer systems.

Re:not just a Linux user

Of course the unfortunate thing is if this case is as you suggest, it may just have merit. And if SCO wins in court or AutoZone settles, does anyone think the press will note the distinction? I can see a headline of "SCO wins suit against company for using Linux."

Re:not just a Linux user

And if SCO wins in court or AutoZone settles, does anyone think the press will note the distinction?

The press probably will not note the distinction. However, a court of law would. The future ruling/settlement would have nothing to do with the IBM, Novell or Red Hat cases.

Re:not just a Linux user

The press probably will not note the distinction. However, a court of law would. The future ruling/settlement would have nothing to do with the IBM, Novell or Red Hat cases.

Not to state the obvious but the court of public opinion here is just as important (if not more so?) then the courts of law. If SCO wins with their FUD then we are all screwed.

I can imagine a future where anybody using Linux is automatically labeled a "hacker" or some other such label by ignorant congresscritters/others in power who have bought into the SCO FUD -- "What? Your using Linux? Why? Do you share movies or something?"

The best thing that could happen here is for SCO to lose and be exposed as the money grubbing litigious bastards that they are. Microsoft's (alleged) involvement being exposed wouldn't hurt either -- shitty software/security aside it'd be nice to expose their ruthless backstabbing business practices to John Q. Public.

However if SCO wins this (or any other lawsuit for that matter) -- and I'm sure they picked something with at least a little bit of merit (they aren't stupid) we could be in serious trouble. You think the FUD and the public perception (DoS attacks against SCO's website don't help us here any) is bad now? Just wait and see how bad it gets if they win one of these...

Re:"The court of public opinion" is a non-issue

"The court of public opinion" does not ware a black robe with "Judge" embroidered on it.

No, the "court of public opinion" instead wears a green robe with dollar signs embroidered on it.

The Judge, if he / she is worth 10 cents of what it cost to go to law school, will consider the facts, not "the court of public opinion."

Absolutely true, but the damage to be done by public opinion is not in the courts, but rather in the IT spending budgets. A shutdown of spending on Linux due to misperception of the facts is nearly as deadly as SCO winning their suit against IBM.

Re:"The court of public opinion" is a non-issue

In either case, SCO will lose, and bad.

Sorry, but I don't really give a rats ass if SCO wins or loses any of these lawsuits. It's not like I'm going to be losing my money over it -- I don't have any stock in Autozone, SCO, or IBM.

What I do care about (and what you obviously didn't pay attention to) is what the rest of the public thinks about Linux. If the rest of the public sees us as a bunch of file-sharing, website DoSing, ignorant hippies who think everything should be free then it doesn't matter if SCO wins or loses any of these lawsuits. If they destroy the public perception of free-software and Linux (not that the over-zealot members of the free-software community doesn't do their own fair share of damage to our cause) then they and Microsoft and have won. Are you too ignorant to see that or do you just not care?

The Judge, if he / she is worth 10 cents of what it cost to go to law school, will consider the facts, not "the court of public opinion."

You've obviously never lived somewhere where judges are elected to fixed terms and need to run for reelection have you?

Re:"The court of public opinion" is a non-issue

No, the "court of public opinion" instead wears a green robe with dollar signs embroidered on it.

Actually, that would be Rod Roddy. former announcer for The Price Is Right. He was always a little flamboyant with his clothes [buzzgrinder.com].

Re:"The court of public opinion" is a non-issue

What you say maybe true, but if it is, then there are some judges out there that are not worth 10 cents.

My sister was an expert witness on an embezzlement case. The Judge prot em acting as binding arbiter admitted that he did not Know how to turn on a computer

The judge could not understand how she could retrieve data from a computer when the files were "deleted". My sister explained that information was kept in multiple files, and the just "deleting a file is like taking the tabs off the folder, but the files are still there".

The judge said "How do I know you're not just making that up?" and decided for the embezzler.

Re:Prime Time Judges rule America?

O.J.Simpson lost the "court of public opinion" and he is still walking around a free man.

Yeh, he's free, but remeber how O.J. Simpson used to be do lots of television commercials for major corporations at one time? Now he's basically shunned by everyone. I don't think that's the future free software supporters are hoping for for Linux.

Calm down and stop frothing. Think it through.

Sorry, but I don't really give a rats ass if SCO wins or loses any of these lawsuits.

Well you should, if as you say you care "what the rest of the public thinks about Linux". If SCO wins, neither you nor very many people at all will be using Linux for awhile. Pull your head out of your ass and stop blathering. If SCO wins, they will, as you say, "destroy the public perception of free-software and Linux." Therefor, you should care if SCO wins or loses.

Re:"The court of public opinion" is a non-issue

Absolutely true, but the damage to be done by public opinion is not in the courts, but rather in the IT spending budgets.

Fortunately for some of us, we have management that will actually listen to us. My boss trusts me that we have nothing to fear. Of course, we are a public school district, so we wouldn't exactly be first on their list. Companies suing school districts leaves a bad taste in the public's mouth. Microsoft is big enough to do it. SCO is not.

Hey SCO! I use Linux at work! Sue me! Children are exposed to Linux here! Sue me!

Re:Calm down and stop frothing. Think it through.

Actually I do give a rats ass -- I was trying to empathize my primary point -- whatever SCO's goals are (did they really think IBM would roll over?) there are larger forces at work here. Do you think the boys at MS care one way or another about the outcome of the SCO case? They probably do -- bet I'd bet a million bucks they are following the FUD war much more closely.

Every bit of FUD, everytime a corporate PHB refuses to let the IT group use Linux (what's the other option? Windows), everytime the SCO site gets DDoS'ed and the Linux community is blamed (right or wrong) is a small victory for Microsoft.

The whole point being that the FUD wars (the so-called "Court of Public opinion" that you spit on) is just as important then the legal case. If they win the FUD wars then Linux will be set back just as badly (if not more so) then it would have been if we lost the legal case.

Blowing off this latest lawsuit is also dangerous. There is probably just enough truth in what they are saying to actually allow it to go to trial (if it was completely bogus then it would likely be dismissed -- Autozone's lawyers aren't going to be idiots either). A public trial will give SCO a nice forum to spew more FUD -- win or lose.

Re:not just a Linux user

And if SCO wins in court or AutoZone settles, does anyone think the press will note the distinction? I can see a headline of "SCO wins suit against company for using Linux."

Unlikely. A settlement will most likely include a confidentiality clause.

Re:not just a Linux user

Um, a confidentiality clause will not prevent clueless media organizations from headlining the story however they would like, and as has been seen in the past, the more inflammatory the headline the better.

Re:not just a Linux user

Yeah but a confidentiality clause won't keep everything quiet. The headline will still read "AutoZone settles lawsuit with SCO for an undisclosed amount." The fact that they settled will be public information.

So why doesn't SCO offer to settle for 1$ - they get what they want out of it.

It's hard to see what they're (SCO) thinking: these new lawsuits mean that they will be fighting three - THREE - fortune 500 companies at the same time. Forget right or wrong, that's just nuts - each of these companies probably has a legal department bigger than all of SCO... /t

Re:not just a Linux user

if this case is as you suggest, it may just have merit

To have merit, SCO's "belief" that AutoZone copied their shared libs to Linux would need to be proven true.

But it is indeed not true [groklaw.net]. AutoZone did not use SCO's shared libraries. So not only is the case not really about companies simply using Linux being at risk, but the wrongdoing AutoZone is accused of is merely speculation on SCO's part.

But this case should be a wake-up call for anyone who has actually copied SCO's shared libs.... to either replace them with the GPL's alternative, or do a true port and make a clean break away from anything remoting having to do with compatibility with OpenServer and UnixWare.

Groklaw is down right now, here's the text

[Posted anonymously to avoid karma whoring]

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer

Great info on AutoZone

This [groklaw.net] comment on GrokLaw speaks for itself:

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer

Re:Great info on AutoZone

SCO Reponse: Damn... now they're using free speech against us! What shall we do?

Re:Great info on AutoZone

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity.

If there's a God in Heaven, and he's listening...please let Jim Greer find his documentation for this!

C'mon Slashdot - let's spend real karma for this! Bow your head and join me in a quick silent prayer to the Deity of your choice....

Weaselmancer

Re:Great info on AutoZone

Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I know this is off-topic, but I've seen this quite a bit. Now that Redhat have discontinued their end-user distribution, how many large contracts will they miss out on because the department head is familiar with some other distribution instead?

Re:Great info on AutoZone

I'm so lost. How is it possible that someone from Caldera -- which is now The Sco Group, came out to pitch his Linux products, and then after they go with someone else, sues them. But they didn't sue them for something illegitimate in the bidding or choosing of RedHat, but that the product (the same one they tried to sell to you) is "illegal".

I think crack dealers should use this strategy... "If you buy from someone other than me, I'll turn you into the cops for buying drugs".

Re:not just a Linux user

So does that mean SCO wouldn't be suing AutoZone if they'd never used proprietry software in the first place? Sounds like an excellent argument for staying clear of software with restricted licenses to me.

Re:SCO's final gift to Linux

SCO has no proof that any of its libraries were used. In fact, it is pure speculation on their part. In their suplemental response to interogatory #8 in SCO vs IBM they say:

Upon information and belief, Autozone's new Linux based software implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries which had been stripped out of SCO's UNIX based OpenServer by IBM and embedded inside Autozone's Linux implementation in order to continue to allow the continued operation of Autozone's legacy applications. The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux.

SCO's lawsuit is based upon the belief that AutoZone's conversion to Linux could not have occurred without using SCO's libraries. They have no facts to support this belief and plainly state that it is speculation using the phrase "which suggests". As if SCO doesn't have enough weak ass lawsuits already. I expect AutoZone to go for a quick dismissal of the case provided they are not using the libraries. They only have to prove they are not using SCO's libraries, which could be done quite easily.

Summary of SCO call Q&A (w/ AZ/DC suit stuff)

BWAHHH! The call was freakin' BRUTAL on SCO. Let me see if I can recap the Q&A

Q1: So, what's the basis for the AutoZone suit? I read the guy who did the conversion says IBM wasn't involved, nor did they use any of your code. [This was on Groklaw]
A: Third party sites are really just shills for IBM. But sorry, Wells [judge in the IBM case] told us not to get into specifics. This is about our IP though blah blah protectrightscakes. We'll leave it for the courtroom.

Q2 [Skiba]: Is the $3.4 mil you spent on legal expenses expected to cover the new suits too?
A: Yes

Q3 [Boston Globe]: So what does the Daimler suit have to do with Linux?
A: It's actually about them not answering the letter we sent them ordering them to state they're not illegally running any of our stuff, as they should of done, since we had a contract.
Follow Up Q: So, this doesn't have anything to do with Linux per se?
A: Well, we don't have any proof, but they haven't said that they're NOT infringing, so we'll sue and see what happens.

Q4: Why AutoZone and Daimler?
A: AZ's using our IP and DC hasn't answered our letter.

Q5 [E-Week]: Clarify on AutoZone... is it about the conversion libraries?
A: It's an issue, but it's not the core of the copyright claim.

Q6 [Computerworld]: So what happens if companies continue to not pay?
A: We'll sue them too.
FUQ: Will you return the money if you lose the relevant cases, and it's found that you have no IP rights in Linux?
A: We revealed some code last summer and Linux people admitted our code was erroneously in Linux. We're very confident that infringement is occuring. [Totally ducks the question]

Q7: So you're not actually claiming any infringement on Daimler?
A: No.

Q8: Don't these two new suits hinge on you winning vs. Novell to show who actually owns the IP?
A: No, because we own the IP. We have a filed copyright for it.

Q9: Are you planning to take this litigation strategy abroad?
A: Yes, we're looking into Asia and Europe right now.

Q10 [Investors Business Daily]: Aren't you afraid of sending the message you're going after your own customers first? When are you going to sue Linux users who AREN'T your customers?
A: AutoZone and Daimler aren't CURRENT SCO customers, they haven't paid us for a while. But they're still bound by our licenses and contracts, so we're suing them.

Q11: How's this timeline for the new cases going to be affected by the IBM and Novell cases?
A: It's impossible to predict the future, neither of these are relevant to the IBM case, and the Daimler suit is s astate case, so it will proceed more quickly.

Q12: Any upcoming suits in the UK, say in the next few months?
A: Not going to discuss that today. We're working on IP enforcement in Europe and Japan, but they're a bit behind.
FUQ: Can you comment on the Australian case? [A group called CyberKnights have filed complaints with the Australian CCC (like the FTC in the US) that's similar to the RedHat v. SCO suit].
A: Nobody's suing us in Australia.
FUQ: You're not familiar with CyberKnights?
A: No.

Q13: So we've seen SCOsource have one customer [EV1]. How do you count that revenue?
A: As we receive the money. Some are one time, some are over time. EV1 is paying over time, but we can't go into specifics.

Q14: You said before the Novell suit has no bearing on these cases, but it seems like it has a lot of bearing on any copyright suit.
A: Well, they said they had it, then backed off, then came back. We've always said the copyright is ours.
FUQ: But both of you have registered the copyright. Don't you have to prove you own it?
A: That's for the court to decide.
FUQ: Why's you file in Nevada for AutoZone?
A: That's where they are.
FUQ: Back to the bit about suing ex-/customers, don't you think that'll scare off potential customers?
A: Our current customers love us, they're cheering us on for protecting their rights.
FUQ: I mean FUTURE customers.
A:

Re:not just a Linux user

Would this qualify as extortion or racketeering?

Neither. Being that it's part of SCO's pump and dump scam I'd call it fraud.

Re:not just a Linux user

I think that to be fair to Lawyers in general we should recall that many of them took up law studies because of an aptitude and interest in the interpretation and application of Law. Much as a nuclear scientist is motivated by an interest in physics and then may go on to work on weapons or medical fields.

If we choose to employ lawyers in dubious disputes it is their paymasters we should be criticising and not automatically the lawyers themselves.

At the end of the day it is the politicians job to create the framework under which the law operates and we should remind ourselves that through the operation of democracy we can change the politicians.

Of course you can argue that an individual can choose to work for different causes and that greed often motivates the choice but you can vote for social engineering through the tax system or other mechanisms.

I dont have any particular political alliegance but I have a strong suspicion that there is undue influence on the political process by pressure groups with a lot of money. Removing undue influence by money applies as much to politics as it does to lawyers.

Soviet style systems are a dead duck but I see serious cracks in the US too, however there doesnt seem to be a candidate guiding principal to improve the situation at the momment. Maybe society is so complicated now that a single guiding principal isnt enough, we could sure do with something to rally round and believe in these days. Penguin power perhaps is one of them :=)

How to litigate...

...for fun and profit. I hope those of you considering startups are paying very close attention to SCO's revolutionary example. One day all business will be like this!

Re:not just a Linux user

Yes, but we have no idea what they are running behind the firewall or webserver.

Re:not just a Linux user

If their web site doesn't run Linux, I wonder how SCO determined that Autozone is a Linux user. (I imagine that SCO will have to show that specific machines are running Linux.) Did SCO port-probe Autozone's IP space? Is Darl a skript-kiddie?

Re:not just a Linux user

If their web site doesn't run Linux, I wonder how SCO determined that Autozone is a Linux user

That is very easy. It is not about their internet site, but rather their intranet. Check this [redhat.com] redhat announcement.

(i got this link from www.groklaw.net)

Re:not just a Linux user

This is why the Fortune 500 company for whom I work has adopted a new Linux strategy:

We don't talk about Linux to the press.

Re:not just a Linux user

Thanks for the information. Our lawyers will be contacting your company by Friday.

Sincerly,
Darl

Re:not just a Linux user

Never did the name "anonymous coward" seem more appropriate.

Fight Club...

The first rule of Linux is... you do not talk about Linux.

The second rule of Linux is... you DO NOT talk about Linux!!!

Third rule of Linux: when SCO yells "stop", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.

Re:Fight Club...

Third rule of Linux: when SCO yells "stop", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.

Screw that, if it's SCO then you better keep choking them, hitting the, or at least get a stake through the heart. They deserve no mercy.

no, that's not it either...

when the SCO body's has no pulse, videotape the dismemberment and ship the body parts to be incinerated. If you have the money, ship the ashes into space; barring that, place them in a lead-lined container and drop them in the deep Pacific.

SCO should looked at like Carthage; not only should they be annhilated, but the ground out of which they sprung should be salted over so that nothing else will ever come from it again. The more companies that think that SCO's business plan is a good idea, the less legitimate companies with legitimate claims will be able to seek relief, while more companies will be inhibited from doing useful saleable work. Nuke 'em till they glow, and then nuke 'em again, just to be sure.

Re:not just a Linux user

You have just fullfilled Microsoft's goal in this suit. If they can obscure the growing use of Linux, they may yet survive...

Re:not just a Linux user

You have just fullfilled Microsoft's goal in this suit. If they can obscure the growing use of Linux, they may yet survive...

Maybe.

But consider the analogy of growing stealth Linux deployments in the enterprise, gnawing away at Microsoft's empire.

It bears an eerie similarity to the stealth PC deployments on the enterprise desktop back in the early 1980s, gnawing away at the mainframe's empire.

In that sense, Linux could succeed using the very same pattern that Microsoft used to succeeded 20 years ago.

p

Re:not just a Linux user

As others have said, keeping quiet about Linux may not be a good thing, as it helps Microsoft.

However, if every Linux-using company publically says that they're using it, SCO will have 20 zillion lawsuits to file.

Re:not just a Linux user

Of course.

Take out RedHat allies at the knees. A long-time buyer of RedHat (Enterprise?) technologies coming down hard might scare away other buyers, for fear of the same thing happening to them. Just like a fascist regime.

'Fear will keep the local systems in line - fear of this battlestation!'

Re:not just a Linux user

I wonder how SCO determined that Autozone is a Linux user.

It's mentioned in the IBM lawsuit:

Autozone switched from SCO to Linux [groklaw.net]. Is well known. The core of this issue is that SCO claims that they were using SCO shared libraries even after switching to Linux.

They had to do something to keep their stock from tanking on the financial results, I guess. Now IBM and RedHat lawyers will have more to work on.

Re:not just a Linux user

I've got yet another question. If AutoZone WAS using SCO, then presumably they have or had a SCO license, right? They "bought" the software to run on their machines. As long as that license didn't expire, didn't they have the right to take portions of that software and keep it running on those machines, under another OS? Why is it automatically assumed that using shared libraries which AutoZone had the right to would be infringement? What exactly were the terms of SCO's license, anyway?

Re:not just a Linux user

The short answer: No. The terms of the SCO license expressly forbid porting libraries and other such adaptation. You need copyright permission to adapt software for other platforms.

This is one of the problems the GPL was designed to deal with, BTW. The GPL gives you porting permission. :)

Re:not just a Linux user

I imagine that SCO will have to show that specific machines are running Linux

Screw that, they have to first prove what parts of linux are allegedly "stolen"

Re:not just a Linux user

Dude, they're not claiming parts of LINUX were stolen from them. They're claiming that the shared libraries that come with SCO's UNIX weren copied onto LINUX machines contrary to the license in order to provide a binary environment for their third party applications to continue running. Imagine if the Wine folks were distributing Microsoft copyrighted DLLS from the Windows distribution. That's the kind of situation we have here.

Re:not just a Linux user

Actually, think more like this way:

Assume Windows licenses are under a subscription model. You decide to switch to Linux, but need to run your Windows apps. So, you copy .DLLs from your Windows install to your Wine install on Linux - without renewing the Windows license.

THIS IS WHAT SCO IS CLAIMING, not necessarily what happened. If it did, it's the first time SCO has a strong case. However, one of the people behind the conversion has spoken on Groklaw, and said that they did not copy SCO libs.

Re:not just a Linux user

Dude, they're not claiming parts of LINUX were stolen from them.

They claimed exactly that.

They're claiming that the shared libraries that come with SCO's UNIX weren copied onto LINUX machines contrary to the license in order to provide a binary environment for their third party applications to continue running.

That would be a moderately plausible thing to claim, but it's not what SCO is saying. Quote:

1. "AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code"

That very clearly alleges that Linux itself contains SCO code, not that SCO code is running hosted by or on top of Linux, as within an application.

However, that quote just comes from the press release, not the court filing. Maybe they claimed one thing to the media, and another in court. That could be a sleight-of-hand, so that winning a lawsuit on a different issue might be publicly interpreted as winning against Linux itself. Yet another way to hold off admitting that've got no claim to Linux itself.

Lets hope they didn't use Nmap

I can just see it in the courtroom:

AutoZone: How do you know what we are running?
SCO: Ummmm
AutoZone: Shall I repeat?
SCO: Umm....Magic?

-Charlie

(Note: I know that isn't exactly what Nmap is for, but I thought it was funny and topical)
(Note2: Isn't is sad that disclaimers like this must exist on Slashdot for the sarcasm impared?)

Re:not just a Linux user

Uh, hello - they use unix terminals to look up part numbers, etc in every store. How it works is you walk into auto zone and say "hey i need an oil filter for my car" and they ask what kind, year, number of doors, etc, and pull up the part number for you to go find it on the shelf. There's usually 3-5 of them in every store. Companies use computers for things other than web servers....

Re:not just a Linux user

Companies use computers for things other than web servers....

Not in Slashdotland they don't!

Re:not just a Linux user

In spite of the main focus of a lot of online denizens, there is more to the world than The Internet. The 'market share' of Web Servers, for instance, is not defined by the number of them that Netcraft can access. Some of the most important web servers are on intranets and totally inaccessable to the public. Some of the most important servers are internal to businesses and unreachable on the Internet.

Really, except for companies that do most of their business in ecommerce (still a real minority) it's only the throw-away boxes that are facing outward.

A friend of mine works at an autozone

Their terminals are Linux terminals...

Well, either that or true dumb terminals dumping into a linux server. Whatever the setup, they use alot of linux at autozone.

It's always interesting to see someone roll out a linux box. Incidently, does anyone know what Lowe's is using? (Its IBM hardware... and I can't tell if thats CDE or something goofy)

Re:A friend of mine works at an autozone

Lowe's runs CDE on their terminals. They have them locked down pretty tight too - my wife works in their main corporate office, and we got to play with one at one of their retail stores recently.

In fact, the funny thing is that the CEO of my company is an E&Y alumni - he said that he knows a lot of the people over at Lowes and we'll just say they aren't the brightest of the bunch. From what I have seen of a lot of their internal ops, I would have to agree.

And I think I'll just check this post anonymously button...

Re:not just a Linux user

I used to work for AZ, and they've got a LOT more technology than just a webserver. They spent a number of years on the Top 400 list of supercomputers because of their data warehouse (running on AIX), they had SCO servers in the retail stores (I believe these have switched to linux, but that happened well after my departure), etc. They used to spend a LOT of money on sco licenses, so they will have damages to show, even if the rest of their case is fragile.

Re:SCO Success?

Bigger? Auto zone is the largest auto parts retailer in the nation. They're in the fortune 500, and they posted 5.5 billion in sales last year. I don't know how much bigger you want?

Autozone Success?

I am wondering whether Autozone's business will now grow quickly. If they use the current publicity well enough it might work out:

1. Switch from SCO Unix to Linux
2. Get sued by SCO
3. Make a press release "We are proud to defend free software in court!"
4. Get more customers amoung Linux users
5. Pick a nice animal as Autozone maskot and start to sell merchandizing for supporters and fans
6. Win the court case
7. Well deserved profit

Re:Autozone Success?

You'd need a thousand times the current number of Linux zealots to make even the most miniscule impact on a large company like AutoZone's business.

Re:Autozone Success?

While I'm sure auto zone has many geek customers, (I'm one of them) I doubt their primary customer demographic even knows what linux is, much less cares about it. They sell car parts. Linux is simply a cheap and effective backend operating system. They'd run CP/M if someone could offer it cheap enough and make it scale.

Jesse James

Isn't Jesse James pimping for them now?

Can you imagine him in this new ad campaign?

"I use RedHat Enterprise Linux 3 at West Coast Choppers... because it's just wrong."

Followed by him driving away in his jet powered Toyota Supra, dragging a server behind him.

Re:Jesse James

According to Netcraft, Jessie James' company, West Coast Choppers [westcoastchoppers.com], does, in fact, use Linux.

Re:Support Autozone and go and buy something!

I doubt the typical cash register jockey gives a shit; you're probably better office contacting the home office. Their investor relations contacts [corporate-ir.net] seem like a good choice.

Re:Does SCO has an evidence?

This is clearly a harrasment suit - whether or not the new system uses SCO shared libraries is trivially provable - just get a shell prompt on any of the workstations. On the other hand, proving it in court is likely to be a massive cost involving all sorts of documentation and chain of evidence and technical briefings.

I'm assuming here that AutoZone is in fact not using SCOs shared libraries, based on the Groklaw post referenced in several other places. If they ARE, then thats also trivially provable, and AutoZone will either settle or claim that they're entitled to use the libraries this way. Either way, this case will not be about what SCO is pretending it's about.

Support Autozone.

Well, I hope we can all give them their support anyway.

Why this is more FUD

The crux of this SCO case seems to not be "Autozone are using linux, and linux contains SCO code (millions of lines or just a few .h files) therefore they're infringing IP" as their press release propaganda infer, but that:

1. Autozone used to use SCO products, and their whole system relied on them
2. Autozone converted to Linux, and IBM made them do so
3. Autozone's custom software which used to run under SCO products now run under Linux
4. They still run well and changed over efficiently, therefore they MUST still be running SCO code/shared libraries/etc with linux to do so, which is a breach of their original contract with SCO.

SCO seem to be insinuating that this is about copyright SCO code in ALL of linux, and autozone are just one of millions of linux users who are infringing, but the details of the case show this is NOT true at all. That makes it FUD. The press have been told for MONTHS that SCO are taking issue with code in linux in general, but now legal action is underway, it's in a case that takes issue with existing SCO code used in linux by a client. No damage to linux in general despite the press releases.

As SCO say...
Upon information and belief, Autozone's new Linux based software implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries which had been stripped out of SCO's UNIX based OpenServer by IBM and embedded inside Autozone's Linux implementation in order to continue to allow the continued operation of Autozone's legacy applications. The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.

They claim IBM made moves to shift Autozone away from Linux, when SCO originally attempted to move autozone to linux themselves

They also claim that SCO shared libraries MUST be being used, because of the efficiency with which this changeover occurred. They don't get it, that they're not indispensible, and Autozone's systems did not rely largely on SCO specific features according to the guy who converted autozone's systems, who posted as such on groklaw here [groklaw.net]. The relevant parts of his post are:

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

I bet SCO keep insisting this is a generic copyright/linux issue, as they infer by claiming "AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights." and don't stress that it's a unique situation with regards to claims an existing customer switched to linux all too easily so must have both used linux and used SCO code in ways they weren't allowed to under their old contract

SCO is appearing like a jealous partner who just can't bear the thought that they're not the entire world to their clients, and are playing the stalking game, and running around town spreading rumours about infidelity. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:I think you should get your facts straight

I think you misunderstood the original poster, who I thought was addressing those numbered points as the claims that SCO are making in the case as it'll go through court, as opposed to their propaganda machine press releases.

Someone should get their facts straight, and it's SCO, who were the ones who are making those claims.

Re:Why this is more FUD

The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux.

So? They paid for the original licenses, they can do anything the want with the libraries except re-sell them or reverse engineer them with an intent to reveal the information for profit. SCO would only have a case if AZ was paying a maintenance license, and let it expire.

You gotta be kidding me! This isn't an intellectual property issue, it's a EULA-violation issue. I'd be laughing my ass off if it wasn't for the fact that I'm seriously pissed off about Auto Zone (long time customer).

Bush and crew, if you want re-election, look here: Barratry is bad for business! Tell Ashcroft to stop worrying about abortion doctors and start protecting American jobs and investors!

Re:Uh, shut your mouth!

I wouldn't want Bush to be re-elected even if he agreed to send me his twin daughters, a Guinness truck, Natalie Portman and a truckload of grits!

Gee, hmmm, I don't know. That's a tough bargain to beat, all for just a single vote. Would that truck be fully stocked, or are we talking about just the truck?

Another way to see this isn't about Linux

Imagine Autozone converted to away from SCO UNIX and over to MacOSX or BeOS or OS/2 or Windows instead of Linux

It would be exactly the same case - an SCO ex client moving from UNIX to must have used SCO shared libraries as part of the solution because it went so smoothly.

So really this case has nothing to do with Linux at all, looked at in that manner.

Re:Ask Jim Geer: SCO's Autozone claims FALSE

I'm beginning to wonder in all this... does SCO own part of Groklaw? Why else would they be feeding them such juicy stories all the time?! ;-)

Re:Ask Jim Geer: SCO's Autozone claims FALSE

You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone... I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux

I see. Mr. Greer, meet Mr. Subpoena. Mr. Subpoena, Mr. Greer.

It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

Yeah, yeah...tell it to the judge, Jim. :-P

Mr. Subpoena

Yeah, it's inevitable he'll have to be deposed or testify if the case goes to trial, but his testimony (and/or Autozone's paper trail for the process) will kill the case dead, so it may well be worth the inconvenience (that's easy for ME to say...).

Of course, unless SCO can provide evidence with their complaint that their libraries WERE used, it may well not get to trial (remember that plaintiffs have to already have evidence of wrongdoing to sue, they cannot simply go discovery-fishing for it). For example, a sworn deposition and paper trail showing no improper use of SCO libraries could well result in a summary dismissal, if SCO does not show any reasonable prospect of prevailing on the merits. I think that is likely in this case.

Re:Ask Jim Geer: SCO's Autozone claims FALSE

It....was....a.....joke.

Uh Oh

Man o Man...

They are going to get flamed to death for not using "GNU/Linux"....

Poor litigious bastards!

Re:Why this is more FUD

More proof this is just FUD!

Take a look at the headlines in the news articles about this case on google news [google.com.au]

All along the lines of "SCO Sues AutoZone Over Use of Linux"

The case IS NOT ABOUT LINUX. It is about using SCO claiming that autozone are using SCO SHARED LIBRARIES IN A WAY THEY'RE NOT LICENSED TO.

As has already been shown by Jim Geer's comments, they aren't doing so, but even if they were... it wouldn't matter WHICH os they were now using SCO shared libraries under. It could be using them on a Commodore 64 and it would be an identical case!

But, the press being what they are have soaked up the meme of "SCO is against linux" and repeated it back in the essence of their headlines, making the world at a casual glimpse think this case is about SCO code in Linux in general.

That makes me sad.

Re:Why this is more FUD

Can we all email our local reporters and carriers of this story and inform them that SCO isn't suing over linux, but is suing over a small separate licensing matter that just happens to include linux?

Maybe the reason they all get away with such loose journalism is that nobody challenges it. I've already emailed four. Their stories seem basically correct but still carry the SCO party line as an undertone, and especially in headlines :(

Remember, it's like this everywhere

This seems a great time to remind you that it's like this everywhere. When reading news articles in fields you aren't intimately familiar with, make sure to take them all with the same grain of salt you're reading SCO stories with. Because they are all of roughly similar accuracy.

Nice testimonial!

As SCO says:

The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, ...

What a sweet testimonial to the ease of migration to Linux! I hope all the Linux companies will make use of SCO's public opinion in their marketing materials.

Thanks, SCO!

Re:Why this is more FUD

I've known 3 women who've been stalked by obsessive morons,

I see a pattern here.

*rim-shot*

Gonna go buy

A case of oil, some new tools, anything else it looks like I might need in the forseable future.

Usually I hate paying for this stuff, but it will be a little sweeter knowing that at least some of it will go towards fighting off SCO.

Legal Defense Fund

Anyone out there setting up a legal defense fund so we can chip in to help these guys fight the good fight? If we don't help out SCO targets today, any of us could be next.
--G

Re:Legal Defense Fund

Autozone is one of the few companies doing well right now... They do not need our assistance... YET...

Your best assistance would be to go to http://finance.yahoo.com under the stock symbol AZO. Go to the messageboards and reassure the stock holders reading the messageboard there that this is just part of SCO's continuing practice and the lawsuit should be taken lightly.

Re:Legal Defense Fund

Anyone out there setting up a legal defense fund so we can chip in to help these guys fight the good fight? If we don't help out SCO targets today, any of us could be next.

Correction: Any of us who used to use SCO Unix and is migrating to Linux could be next. If you don't have a contract with SCO and aren't a distributor of Unix or Linux, i.e., if you are normal end user, there is nothing they could possibly get you for.

Besides, if the allegations aren't true, and no SCO libraries are being used, it should be easy to prove and this case will be dropped very quickly (at least quick for the judicial system).

Re:Legal Defense Fund

Autozone already has this covered. Over the last few years, they've been setting up Legal Defense Fund establishments all over the country. You can actually go into one of these LDF drop-off points, and give the nice people there some money. They will even give you one or more prizes in return! And if you really want, you can choose the actual prize, instead of just hoping for something good. These LDF dropoff points are in most major cities, and some small ones. Easily identified with the word AutoZone in large letters on the front of the building, usually in red neon.

They even have a website [autozone.com] where you can do the same thing. Send in some money, help Autozone defeat the evil SCO, get a free prize to boot!

Donate your $$ today!

Re:Legal Defense Fund

"Anyone out there setting up a legal defense fund so we can chip in to help these guys fight the good fight? If we don't help out SCO targets today, any of us could be next.
--G"

Well, the easiest way to help AutoZone would be to actively purchase your auto parts needs there. Photocopy your receipt and write a letter to their CEO stating that you are in support of them against the SCO and you exercise your dollars based upon your beliefs (and I don't mean religious). If everyone did that, and people signed that they gave permission to the CEO to use the letters as how he or she felt fit to, that would help them out. Or, someone could create an AutoZone share purchasing club online...bring media attention to the whole debate.

I wonder...

Is there a way to DDoS Darl's car? Hmmm...

Autozone???? Not quite expected

Autozone? This is way out of the typical "tech sphere"; I would have expected suits against other tech companies.

Now SCO is going to provoke the wrath of the automotive industry and enthusiasts; an entire new group of people to learn to hate SCO.

Re:Autozone???? Not quite expected

Autozone? This is way out of the typical "tech sphere"; I would have expected suits against other tech companies.

Now SCO is going to provoke the wrath of the automotive industry and enthusiasts; an entire new group of people to learn to hate SCO.

I'm just waiting for "F*** SCO" to appear on the body of a NASCAR racing machine.

Re:Autozone???? Not quite expected

"Now SCO is going to provoke the wrath of the automotive industry and enthusiasts; an entire new group of people to learn to hate SCO."

This is a strategic campaign to install fear in the hearts and minds of corporate CEO's who lack IT skills. Google could laugh the SCO case off and continue with their Linux tinkerings, but if SCO continues to sue companies lacking IT at their core, then this will create FUD amongst other corporations and perhaps SCO thinks they'll actually increase their customer base. Probably the exact opposite will happen, but it will be a bumpy ride for the meantime.

Newwire

LAS VEGAS, Mar 3, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (SCOX, Trade), the owner of the UNIX(R) operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today announced it has filed suit against AutoZone, Inc., for its alleged violations of SCO's UNIX copyrights through its use of Linux.

SCO's lawsuit alleges the following:
* AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada, requests injunctive relief against AutoZone's further use or copying of any part of SCO's copyrighted materials and also requests damages as a result of AutoZone's infringement in an amount to be proven at trial.

The company will discuss this announcement as part of its regularly scheduled conference call related to first quarter earnings, scheduled for Wednesday, March 3 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. To participate on the call, individuals may dial 1-800-818-5264 or 1-913-981-4910 and use the confirmation code: 141144. Alternatively, a listen-only live web cast is available at http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm. Call participants are encouraged to dial in 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

Re:Darl is evil, just plain evil...

I have to admit, choosing AutoZone was a good move on his part in order to spread his FUD about Linux...

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada, requests injunctive relief against AutoZone's further use or copying of ...

AutoZone uses Linux in their stores, if they were to get this injuction they would effectively shut AutoZone down, a huge chain of stores that effects millions of both geeks and computer illiterate alike. And they (M$ and SCO) would obviously spin it as "See, look what using Linux gets you...."

Don't forget today's phone conference

SCO is having a phone conference today at 9:00am MST (11:00am EST), remember [slashdot.org]?

Further info

Here [groklaw.net] is an interesting GrokLaw post from the man at AutoZone who helped them transition from UnixWare to Linux, blowing apart most of these claims.

Bearing in mind that this post is over 2 weeks old, you'd think someone at SCO would have noticed that their claims are basically debunked.

PS : SCO quarterly losses up to $2.25 million for fiscal Q1. Ouch.

Re:Further info

Here is an interesting GrokLaw post from the man at AutoZone who helped them transition from UnixWare to Linux

not likely UnixWare, more likely OpenServer. But I don't really know, I'm just guessing based on the fact that lots of people use/used OpenServer for POS/inventory, whereas UnixWare is used for, uh, well, what is UnixWare used for anyway?

Go Buy Fuzzy Dice

And hang them on your Linux box!

SCO Quote of the Day

Linux Kernel Personality [thescogroup.com]

The Linux(R) Kernel Personality (LKP) for UnixWare 7.1.3 provides Linux environment hosted on the UnixWare kernel. This environment does not contain a Linux kernel, but does contain the RPMs needed to run most Linux applications. By invoking the UnixWare kernel to run the Linux application, the application gets all of the performance and scalability advantages that UnixWare delivers. Linux applications that are disk or database intensive, or require support for a large number of users, typically perform with greater stability, reliability, and scalability when deployed on the UnixWare LKP environment.

Access to the Linux and UNIX environments is provided for both applications and the user. Common system files, such as password files, are automatically updated between environments.

SCO understands that customers are looking for alternatives to Linux. But making changes always introduces risk. LKP is an easy and low risk tool to help the migration from Linux to UnixWare. The benefits of LKP are:

...<snip>

Yeah SCO... you /really/ understand alright!

I posted this over on Groklaw...

From the response to interrogatory 8:

In the second quarter of 2001, despite the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement with SCO, upon information and belief, IBM finally successfully induced Autozone to cease using the SCO software and to use Linux with IBM's version of UNIX. Autozone ultimately decided not to pay SCO the annual fee to continue to maintain the SCO products and, upon information and belief, with the encouragement of IBM, began the efforts required for conversion to Linux.

Sounds like SCO is whining because someone dropped their old, obsolescent Unix. So if I trade in a Chevy for a Ford, GM can sue me if I still have payments left on my loan?

And this:

The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux.

In other words, we at SCO are too dumb to make Linux work, so IBM had to steal our stuff to make their solution work.

Autozone? Seriously, that's odd

Why would SCO not take on a more easily defeatable company, i.e. a software company? Autozone has thousands if not millions of loyal blue-collar customers that could care less what o/s Autozone is running. If SCO wanted to make a point by suing someone, it should be RedHat or some such company that is distributing the systems. You can't blame Autozone for buying a product, but you can blame the company that sold it to them.

Autozone shareholders

So now SCO's sleazy game extends to Autozone shareholders.
The symbol is AZO. As of this writing they're down $4.40, to 84.00, in pre-market trading.

proof

SCO: you stole our stuff!
Autozone: what stuff?
SCO: you know ... like, our stuff.
Autozone: ...er? we need more info than that.
SCO: I could tell you but then i would have to kill you!

/. readers predict the future ;-)

After just reading this thread [slashdot.org] and Groklaw afterwards... I think that SCO should give /. more credit, especially after the "the ranting and dribble that takes place on Slashdot" comment...

Now then Ye Prophets of SlashDot, what more predictions can we get from our 'crystal balls' (LCD screens will do) today :)

I predict ...

... that I will continue to talk out of my ass [slashdot.org] about things which I have no real knowledge of, and I will certainly not RTFA. This, however, will not affect any moderation.

IP case for the investors, not the real meat

The meat of SCO's case will not be the IP Infringment. They are also trying to catch AutoZone for a contract violation in the contract they signed when they bought SCO Unix. They might be able to win a breach of contract suit. The problem is that they will do their best to spin it to the press as a Linux IP infringement suit. Just another pump and dump scheme.

SCOX 1Q statement

LINDON, Utah, Mar 3, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (SCOX [slashdot.org], Trade [slashdot.org]), owner of the UNIX operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today reported revenue of $11,392,000 for the quarter ended January 31, 2004. In the comparable quarter of the prior year, the Company generated revenue of $13,540,000. Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2004 was in line with the Company's expectations, and was comprised of $11,372,000 from UNIX products and services and $20,000 from SCOsource initiatives.

For the first quarter of fiscal year 2004, the Company reported a net loss applicable to common stockholders of $2,253,000, or $0.16 per diluted common share. The Company reported a net loss applicable to common stockholders of $724,000, or $0.06 per diluted common share, in the comparable quarter of the prior year. The net loss applicable to common stockholders for the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 was reduced by $3,624,000 of income resulting from the change in fair value of the derivative associated with the Company's previously issued Series A Convertible Preferred Stock. The loss from operations for the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 was $5,169,000 compared to a loss of $738,000 for the comparable quarter in the prior year. The loss from operations for the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 includes costs of $3,440,000 related to the Company's SCOsource licensing initiatives. These initiatives had not yet commenced in the comparable quarter of the prior year.

"Our revenue and results of operations for the first quarter were consistent with our expectations," said Darl McBride, President and CEO. "In coming quarters, we will continue to expand our SCOsource initiatives, with an ongoing campaign to defend and protect SCO's intellectual property assets, which will include continued end-user lawsuits and negotiations regarding intellectual property licenses. At the same time, we are committed to supporting our extensive UNIX customer base and leveraging our UNIX business for future growth opportunities. Over time, these two efforts are expected to yield positive long-term results for our stockholders."

Financial Outlook

The following financial outlook reflects expected contributions from the Company's two business lines, SCOsource and UNIX products and services. These statements are forward looking and actual results may differ materially. See the discussion of certain risks and uncertainties related to this financial outlook at the end of this release under "Forward-Looking Statements."

For its second fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2004, the Company currently expects total revenue to be in the range of $10,000,000 to $14,000,000. Revenue from the Company's SCOsource initiatives remains difficult to predict in the short-term due to the nature of these licensing transactions and the variability of the timing of revenue recognition. However, the Company anticipates revenue from its SCOsource initiatives will increase in future periods.

Operating expenses relating to the Company's UNIX business for the next three quarters are anticipated to decrease from the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 and comparable quarters of the prior year as the Company's worldwide operations continue to become more efficient. Expenses associated with SCOsource initiatives for the next three quarters are expected to remain consistent with expenses incurred in the first quarter of fiscal year 2004 as the Company continues its legal strategy to enforce and protect its UNIX intellectual property.

Conference Call

As previously announced, the Company will host a conference call at 11:00 a.m. EST today, March 3, 2004, to discuss its first quarter 2004 results. To participate in the teleconference, please call [phone] or [phone], confirmation code 141144, approximately five minutes prior to the time stated abo

Re:SCOX 1Q statement

Keep in mind that PRNewswire will "publish" a press release from anyone that pays them. Think of them as a printer device on SCO's LAN. (I wonder what OS SCO uses in house? :)

SCO, y'all suck!

Being from Memphis, I am well aware how supportive AutoZone folks are of Linux, as many AutoZone techs are members of GOLUM [golum.org].

I hope AutoZone countersues them into the ground in a most genteel, southernly manner.

Now off for my morning bowl of hot grits.

Re:SCO, y'all suck!

... as many AutoZone techs are members of GOLUM.

Tricksy little McBridessss. They sued our precioussss!</obGollum>

Just my luck..

The day after I get a job offer from AutoZone, they get sued by SCO. Great. Just fuckin' great.

Interesting choice

They must believe that these guys will fold without taking this all the way to trial.

Even though the claims are crap, this has to hurt Autozone in the stock market, where perception is more important than reality.

Is there not some kind of law against frivolous lawsuits soley for the purpose of slander?

It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of backdoor dealing going on to get a settelment out of this or another case that SCO can waive around to continue the FUD. It would be illegal, but since when has that stopped anyone. Ken Lay got away with it, why not Darl?

This is a distraction

From their press release, it seems like the AutoZone suit is not particularly related to "SCO IP in Linux," but to some SCO libraries that AutoZone may or may not have used it improperly.

But it does not matter. Could we discuss AutoZone tomorrow, please?

This is only a distraction from a bleak quarterly report. A rather blantantly obvious diversion. And Timothy, you should know better than this. This story should have been titled "SCO losses double for Q1 2004," or something like that. You should not be helping SCO manipulate the press.

Revenge

As soon as I seen they were filing suit against a former customer who had dumped their OS for linux I knew SCO's going down. They just want to slap a couple people on their way out of the building. I mean might as well it's not like it's their money in the stocks.

Instead of a golden parachute the CEOs of SCO have opted for a semi-bronze boxing glove.

I'm buying something tonight from Autozone ... just not sure what yet ..

info on Autozone's Linux uses

For those of you that have been in an autozone, you notice they have the dumb terminals at the parts counter. If you notice this dumb terminal runs a text based interface where you pu tin the year, car make, model, engine size, etc to look up parts. I was in an Autozone once and the server for the dumb terminals happened to lock up. This was 2 or 3 years ago when it happened. I watched the dumb terminal display as it rebooted and came up with some version of redhat (or another distro, I don't really remember too well) and had kernel 2.3 on it.

Responding to the other replies of this article, just because a company doesn't run Linux on their web server to the world, doesn't mean they don't use Linux for other things.

AutoZone not using SCO's shared libs

SCO, yet again, is being very deceptive. They say the case is about a switch to linux and in the press make noise about how AutoZone is liable because of their use of Linux. But in the actual court filing, the copyright complaint is actually centered around the "belief" that AutoZone copied SCO's sharded libs to their new Linux system. So they're really suing over use of their copyrighted shared libs on a different platform, when their license presumably specifies that those shared libs are only to be used on SCO's OpenServer.

Yet again, the facts aren't in SCO's favor. Read this comment from the former Sr Technical Advisor at AutoZone [groklaw.net], who directed the migration and personally ported much of the code.

SCO's only arguement that AutoZone has copied their shared libs to linux is:

The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.

Once more, SCO's making a lot of noise, but the facts are clearly against them.

Re:AutoZone not using SCO's shared libs

The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.

So essentially what they're saying is, "We think they violated our license and are using our code because they did TOO GOOD A JOB OF PORTING THE SOFTWARE." What utter bullshit.

This is so much like their argument against Linux when they said "Linux MUST be using our code, because without it, Linux wouldn't be as good as it is." (Their bicycle/luxury car argument.) Seems to me they have some overinflated opinion of their capabilities, and believe that nobody else anywhere on Earth could possibly be better than them.

Fantastic.

well

Get in the Zone, AutoZone.

You can email autozone's investor relations here:
[e-mail]

I get to vote with my wallet ...

In a positive way for a change. I'm going to go out and buy a new set of plugs, a filter and a case of oil right now.

It's nice to be able to add someone to the "support them" list instead of the Boycott list, like EV1.

Hang Tight, AZ. You've just gained a mess of geek support.

an old groklaw comment

Apparently their strategy is to sue their own former and defecting customers. This is a worst-case scenario for SCO customers. Autozone was cited in the complaint against IBM as an example of a licensed Openserver client whom had been lured away to the Linux dark side by IBM, If you know of anyone who is considering signing their company into any SCO contract of any sort, especially an "intellectual property license", THIS SHOULD SERVE AS A WARNING OF WHAT TO EXPECT. All SCO appears to be offering is a license to be sued, and here's the proof.

Jim Greer had a good comment on groklaw [groklaw.net] a few weeks ago about Autozone and the details of their linux transition.

All right guys this isn't funny anymore.

I used to laugh at SCO but now they stopped being funny.

Before they sued that company, they were just a dying corp making a big PR splash with a lot of FUD and horseshit to drive their stock price up and make a lot of money. Unethical, dishonest, but no big deal. Now that they're actually suing Fortune 500 Linux-using companie(s), they could actually hurt the OS. Suits will be much more wary about switching if legal tells them they could get sued for it, no matter how much bullshit the lawsuit actually is. At first I laughed at the verbose arguments, the OSS community's cinglant responses and the Slashdot jokes (okay, maybe I didn't laugh at the /. jokes, but I smiled. A little. At the beginning. ;-)), but now they're just not funny anymore.

They've gone from evil, but ridiculous and harmless, to evil and actually dangerous. The OSS community is a great, grand thing, and now that they're actually starting to get dangerous we should be able to mobilize the power to squash them out of relevance/existence. Couldn't an org like the FSF or a big player like IBM countersue?

The how doesn't matter. What matters is that I've stopped laughing at SCO and I now consider them as a danger.

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false

--From a GrokLaw.net post--

I know Mr. Greer, although not well, as I was hired at the time of his leaving.
Everything he said is verifiably true.
I am still employed by said company, and there is very little truth in SCOs
statement at all. I am one of the ones who helped engineer the method by which
we moved store systems over to Linux, and *I* was almost solely responsible for
it happening as quickly as it did.
We did not, and do not, employ IBM for assisstance with Linux. We do not use a
distribution from IBM, nor have we in the past. The only company who has given
us Linux "services" is RedHat, and that was a support agreement which
did us no good, since they were unable to help us with the migration (they
basically told us that what we wanted to do was impossible). The speed and
efficiency with which Linux was deployed was a direct result of J.Greers work,
followed by the work that myself and a few others did.

By the way, I have patented the method of walking whereby you place one foot in
front of the other.
Anyone walking from now on, is using a derivative work of mine, and you owe me
money by not properly licensing my system of locomotion from me. Also, you
cannot teach anyone else to walk, either by example or description.

Kiss my a$$ SCO.

If you want to help AutoZone out...

As a symbolic gesture, I suggest people go to AutoZone and buy an air freshener.. Symbolically, it'll help clear out the stink that SCO's making. Total cost to you: $1-$3.

Put your money where your mouth is: AutoZone Reigonal Store Locator [autozone.com]

Even if SCO succeeds, AutoZone will be able to pay them off via air freshener sales to thoughtful Linux users.

Cheers,

Re:If you want to help AutoZone out...

As a symbolic gesture... [link]AutoZone Reigonal Store Locator[/link]

...and let the poor guys running AutoZone's webserver decipher the symbolism of being sued by SCO and watching their store locator database server catch on fire in the same morning. Very subtle!

Why its not odd...

They wanted someone: (a) large enough to have $, (b) large enough to get noticed, (c) with a documented relationship with IBM, (d) AND a documented relationship with SCO but (e) non-technical enough so that they are more easily intimidated.

(c) is important so that they can have something concrete to tie it in to IBM. (d) is important so that they can always try the breach of contract claim if the IP dispute is dismissed. Keeping the breach claim around gives them extra time to try to keep the case around.

With (e) I think their effort here is to pick a technologically weak company with shareholders who have less of a technical education. This allows them to file, the AutoZone shareholders see the suit, panic (because they have less of a technical background than, say, RedHat) and hope tha AZ will settle quickly to make the suit go away.

I don't think it will work, but I can see the logic for picking this particular target for their thug-like tactics.

I would expect something to distinguish the second target so that they couldn't consolidate the two cases.

Re:Why its not odd...

With (e) I think their effort here is to pick a technologically weak company with shareholders who have less of a technical education.

I wouldn't consider AutoZone "technologicallly weak." You make the mistake of underestimating AZO possibly because it's not a hard-core tech company. One of AZO's divisions, Alldata, is heavily involved with the the digital distribution of automotive information. Their distribution system is considered an industry model for efficiency and automation. It's my belief that AZO will crush SCOX. AZO isn't likely to simply roll over -- they've invested way too much in their infrastructure.

Please, do some research on AZO. I think you'll discover that AZO shareholders are more technologically adept than you give them credit for.

Huh?

contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization

Is this *really* copyrightable? How can you copyright an organization? Perhaps you can patent a method of organizing something, but copyright? I had thought that copyright applies only to a tangible, set of information, such as lines of code, a written document, a work of art.

The first attempts to scare us centered around "infringing code". Now are they trying to say that "Your Linux looks too much like our Unix?" As far as I'm concerend, Looks like and IS are two different things.

SCOsource licensing revenue

SCOsource licensing revenue-------------$20,000
Cost of SCOsource licensing revenue--$3,440,000
Loss from SCOsource licensing-------($3,420,000)

Enjoyment brought to linux users-----*priceless*

Not entirely on-topic

But here's a link to a yahoo news report filed this morning at 8:21am re: this law suit.

An interesting part is a few paragraphs down;

"Total revenue fell to $11.4 million from $13.5 million, though the most recent period included $20,000 in licensing revenue from Linux users."

Does that settle the argument over how much EV1 paid for their licenses ;)? (Still $20,000 too much if you ask me!).

This is great news!

SCO is going to do a lot to promote linux by
spotlighting companies that use it. My boss will
never again be able to say "no serious company
trusts kiddie software like Linux for anything
critical"

Reasons SCO is suing AutoZone

Hi!

There are a couple of reasons to sue AutoZone. Neither have much to do with AutoZone's tech savvy or their understanding of the different *nix kernels. They're both about business.

Let's talk microeconomics
The cost of any good is measured in currency and utility. Put simply, you'll buy a product if a) it contains what you want, and b) you want it badly enough. That's why people routinely pay $1.09 in a convenience store for bottles of water--they realize that the water is worth pennies (at best), but the convenience of the bottle (and the refrigeration) make the purchase worthwhile. Similarly, utility can be expressed as "reputation," "quality," "resale value," and similar terms. The reason you drive a Honda, rather than a substantially less-expensive Chrysler, is the utility cost of the car. Key point: utility is a significant factor in the price of a good.

The point of this lawsuit isn't to punish AutoZone themselves. It is to raise the utility cost of using Linux in the eyes of other businesses. Probably the single biggest utility cost that managers evaluate is risk. The great marketplace advantage of Linux is that a company can download a copy for free. (They could care less about "free as in speech." They're only interested in "free as in beer.") Microsoft has argued that Linux has a higher TCO [microsoft.com]--which is effectively asserting a utility cost. SCO is now raising another kind of utility cost: the likelihood of being sued.

The impact will be substantial, and immediate: auto parts retailers run thousands of POS systems. Any company using a Unix-based POS system (and there are tens of thousands of them across the U.S.) who has even been contemplating moving to a Linux-based system is having meetings this morning to assure senior management (or just try to assure senior management) that SCO is bluffing. This afternoon those same senior managers will be talking to lawyers, who will likely tell them that while SCO probably is bluffing, SCO can bluff in court for a long time, and who wants to be lawsuit #2? The effect of this lawsuit is to dramatically raise the ultimate cost of any Linux-based solution.

The other reason: making SCO look more attractive to IBM
Remember that SCO is primarily focused on litigation with IBM. SCO claims that IBM is the reason that Unix code "leaked" into Linux--many observers in the financial markets believe that SCO is really angling to get bought by IBM in a new dot-com form of greenmail. IBM was involved in developing AutoZone's new POS system--but evidently did not indemnify AutoZone against claims of infringement (a common practice in licensing these kinds of systems). AutoZone has liability insurance to cover this kind of claim (any company does). But that coverage almost certainly requires that the insurance company have the "free and unfettered right to conduct a defense". Because the suit is based on actions by IBM, the insurance company will instantly seek to force IBM to indemnify AutoZone. If IBM declines, the insurance company will sue IBM on AutoZone's behalf. That instantly creates a bunch of costs (legal costs, outside counsel costs, etc.) for IBM. And, since it's likely that IBM's own insurors will respond to the claim from AutoZone's insurors, sooner or later somebody will say, "hey--it's cheaper to just buy these jerks out." Which is precisely what SCO wants.

This isn't about free software.
Darl and his investors aren't doing this out of a noble belief in the goodness of their cause--or due to a bad case of technomegalomania. They're doing it because they expect an significant return on their investment. They use a legal claim that has enough merit to at least get them into court, and they leverage that claim to make enough of a nuisance that IBM buys them out at a premium. They make a couple of million, and move on. It's about money.

If SCO is bought, the terrorists win

Yes, in the short term, an IBM buyout of SCO would settle all this. However, in the long run this makes "claiming to own a peice of the Linux pie, making outrageos self-contradictory statements, and suing everyone" a VERY attractive business model.

That idea is the reason governments and large companies will not pay a ransom if one of their executives is kidnapped. In the short term you may get the exec back, but in the long term you make them and all your other employees attractive targets for future kidnappings.

The only way for this to really end is for SCO's claims to be defeated in court and have SCO forced into bankruptcy. Any buyout offer opens the door for Sun or HP or Microsoft or someone we've never heard of to claim that they "own Linux" and start issuing lawsuits.

ev1servers - take note - scox sues their customers

So, Mr CEO Marsh, do you feel *more* protected from scox now that you have a contract with scox?

Remember the words of scox's cfo, chriss sontag: "contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with."

What you have bought, for your $1M+, Mr Marsh? Now your company is much more at risk of a lawsuit from scox. Plus, you've alienated the linux community. Last I read, about 28% of your linux users are threatening to take their business elsewhere. What does it take to get a job like yours, Mr Marsh? An IQ below 80?

Who's Next?

Please be Disney...
Please be Disney....
Please be Disney....

Countersuit Charges?

I hope Autozone files a countersuit. I wonder how many charges they could stack up. Racketeering? Extortion? SLAPP (I believe Utah has SLAPP laws)? They could go get the AT&T vs the Regents of the University of California case unsealed, prove that the original UNIX copyrights are all but unenforcable (Didn't Caldera GPL them anyway?) and have SCO owing them the $3 Billion that SCO's trying to get from IBM before that case is even done.

From a competitor...

I work for one of AutoZone's competitors (of sorts...we do more wholesale than retail business).

I'm largely a counterpart to Mr. Greer from AutoZone.

We use an ASP-type approach. All of our software is text-based, with our primary servers running in our datacenter, with a large frame-relay network for connectivity. Each and everyone of our stores has a Linux system sitting in it, handling the terminals, printers, desktop (Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.), and back-office networking.

Our application servers in our datacenter still run on SCO, with Sybase running under W2K (at our vendor's request, at the time).

We're looking at doing the same thing as AutoZone sometime soon--a port to Linux server-side as well, moving to our app servers running Linux, and our database under Linux as well.

Here's one for hoping AutoZone pulls this one off right! The last thing I need is someone here getting into a panic over this crap!

Suit-up for battle.

You cannot test the GPL without someone sueing someone else... it may suck for the defendants, but you can't prove yourself without a challenge.

Excommunicate Darl!

Perhaps, we are taking the wrong angle here. Instead of trying to beat SCO in the press and the courts, maybe we should try beating them in the church.

Here's the scheme:

1. Darl McBride is a Mormon, and this fact has been commented on.
2. He is engaged in clearly fraudulent behavior, and holding Mormonism up for scorn.
3. The LDS has been known to kick people out for giving the church a bad rap (e.g. Alice Cooper was excommunicated.)
4. So... Let's start petitioning to have Darl excommunicated!

Think about it - sending him to hell for eternal damnation is much better than sending him to some Federal love-feast prison for stock fraud. Believe me, Hell is a real pound-you-in-the-&*(*&# kind of place.

(No, I'm not a Mormon, and am not seriously proposing this - but if I were a Mormon, I would consider raising the issue. There are any number of articles out there pointing out the Mormon influence in SCOgroup/Caldera. This kind of fraudulent and misleading nonsense does nothing to promote the Mormons' nice-to-little-old-ladies-and-family-values PR campaigns.)

Re:Excommunicate Darl!

As a devout Mormon, I agree wholeheartedly. It is VERY frustrating to see articles labeling Darl as a "devout Mormon" when he is involved in such shady and fraudulent activities. Fraud and lawbreaking are grounds for disciplinary councils in the Mormon faith, with outcomes from putting Darl's membership in the Church on probation all the way up to excommunication.

There are several important doctrines in Mormonism that make such wielding of "IP" distasteful as well, such as the idea that all truth and knowledge comes from one source: the Savior Jesus Christ. By extension, it is somewhat blasphemous to claim exclusive ownership of ideas. Darl's land-grab for all of Unix is in direct conflict with this doctrine (that alone is not grounds for discipline, but his actions certainly could be).

I'd also like to note that excommunication in the Mormon Church does not condemn a person to hell for all of eternity. Excommunication is a means of 1) helping the excommunicated repent by dealing with the consequences of their misdeeds and 2) making sure the name of the Church of Jesus Christ is not sullied by those misdeeds, especially when carried out under the guise of faith (as I think Darl keeps alluding to in his self-righteous crusade to "save" capitalism from Linux).

What that means is that once Darl gets excommunicated, he could be readmitted back into the Church through baptism, if he repents, which in Mormonism entails changing his ways and abandoning his sins (not just confessing them). So his readmittance might be contingent on making amends to the Linux community, reimbursing those businesses he hurt through his deception and lies, etc.

How to facilitate Darl's Excommunication

When serious charges are brought to the attention of a Mormon's eclesiastical leadership, they are obliged to hear the charges and decide whether a disciplinary council should be held (which could result in probation, disfellowship, or excommunication). During the council, those who bring the charges (whether Mormon or not) may be invited to attend and testify against the individual.

Often, such councils are postponed if a civil or criminal trial is already underway, and the council will then take into consideration the outcomes of such legal trials. Since there are no civil or criminal trials in process against Darl, maybe a good Mormon in Darl's home town can point us to the name of his Bishop or Stake President so that we can start the process ourselves?

Nothing to do with Linux.

So AutoZone broke the EUALA of UnixWare and put some binaray UnixWare .so files into some other OS (that happened to be Linux) without permission from SCO. If they had used a Linux only solution they would have bin fine.

Well, if this is the case, I hate to admit that I really think SCO should be compensated. After all if you have an agrement both parties are supposed to honer it. Just like SCO are supposed to honer GPL for their contributions to Linux.

This just shows that you should not under any circumstances do business with SCO.

Re:Nothing to do with Linux.

From the SCO filing (thank you groklaw):

"The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux."

So their only evidence for suing is that Autozone managed the transition well. Sounds like a fishing expedition to me. Aren't they illegal?

Probably picked the wrong target

Rule number one - if you're going to make an example of a company for your petty little war, don't pick the company that will be selling you brake pads and brake lines next month:

Clerk : Will that be all, sir? Just this replacement brake master cylinder?

Darl : Yes, thank you.

Clerk : May I have your name, sir?

Darl : Darl McBride

Clerk : [typing] Oh... Uh huh... Actually this isn't the right part sir. We do happen to have this special one for you right here, which is EXACTLY what you need.

Darl : Good. Because I really want my brakes to work well.

Clerk : Oh yes sir, this will really do the trick.

On our next episode of "You Picked the Wrong Target", SCO's legal team picks Allied Colonoscope Corporation to make their next example.

And in two weeks on a very special edition of "Wrong Target", Darl suffers a heart attack and discovers and mutters the immortal line "I didn't know defibrillators ran on Linux".

Ideas and Hammers aren't copyrightable

I've been thinking about this whole SCO/Unix crap, and realized that, in all likelihood, SCO is going to lose because of a court case that dealt with a similar cloning incident.

The case was IBM's suit against Compaq for creating a clone of their IBM PC.

IBM lost primarily because the courts were ignorant at the time to the concepts of intellectual property that are commonplace now in the tech world. In my interpretation, the courts said that a "computer was a computer" and made little distinction between the uniqueness of the IBM PC and the ubiquity of the firmware and operating system it needed. In simpler terms, SCO may have an uphill battle because (1) Unix has been genericized by all the compatible versions and clones, and (2) SCO has waited too long to resolve this, and (3) remedies that SCO would desire through the courts would have grave financial and operational ramifications that could very well undermine the country's businesses' ability to conduct business if they had to drop what they are using, just to use an SCO product. (Never mind the monopolistic intent of SCO in this matter.)

Compare the PC clone wars to the Unix argument. If you as a development see (as in read) a piece of copyrighted Unix code, then whip out your computer and write up code that handles the same task as what you read without actually creating a copy of what you read, but only the ideas spawned from it, then you haven't violated a thing.

SCO must show that their code was truly and unmistakably copied (as in plagiarized) from their actual code base.

SCO will likely be unable to provide this proof because look and feel is not the argument, but the code's true origin is. In other words, just because some software looks like SCO's duck and walks like SCO's duck doesn't mean that it was created from any of SCO duck's DNA. The actual code to make a program is copyrightable, but as any book publisher can tell you, the idea of making the code is NOT copyrightable.

Unix design standards are like the design of the hammer. It is genericized enough now that copyright of the OS will be very hard to prove.

(IANAL)

News outlets priorities straight for once

It is quite pleasant to see that at least two major business news services have their headlines right. Both Reuters [yahoo.com] and Dow Jones Business News [yahoo.com] have articles with headlines that mention the doubling of SCO's losses before their lawsuit against AutoZone. The articles are more focused on the massive financial losses SCO has generated and seem to mention the AutoZone suit as more of a side note.

This may not be so random...

Unix is huge in the automotive software industry. Most part store cataloging systems use it not only on the backend servers, but the terminals as well. Autozone, Hi-Lo/O'Reilly's, NAPA, Pep Boys all at one point used this type of a setup. Firestone also used it during the 90's when I worked for them, but I don't know what they are running now.

If SCO filed this suit solely looking for a suitor to buy them out, they picked a good one here. Owning the rights to the system that literally every major parts house uses would give them a huge push over the top in the industry.

Wow

They really ARE against any from of "do it yourself", aren't they?

"Your Honor, these dirty hippies are using software that was designed to subvert and destroy the good capitalist software companies in America to sell parts to other dirty hippies that use them to fix their own cars. This deprives the good capitalist auto repair industry of money they are entitled to"

Finkployd

Next week on Monster Garage...

Next week's monster garage project will feature host (and autozone spokesman) Jesse James building a "Monster Car Crusher."

-Use of a "family owned" New Jersey Junkyard: 500.00
-2003 BMW with strange smell coming from the trunk and "l337SCO" California Plates: Freebee

Monster garage factoid: We swear our new sponsor deal with autozone had nothing to do with the making of this episode. we swear.

SCOX stock down 10%

Apparently investors are none too thrilled about this announcement:

SCOX is down 10% in early trading [yahoo.com]

I love SCOX

What will happen is that they will NOT get an injuction, the judge will find that that would cause undue grievous harm to AutoZone. So what then? Well, SCOX will be locked in another costly long term litigation game with a giant, litigation that will only cost them money and give nothing in return. Oh, they'll try to get good PR, but it'll fail.

I love SCO, they're so fucking clueless.

Big legal loophole being abused by SCO

As has been shown in Germany, where an injunction effectively nipped their entire FUD campaign in the bud and they are forbidden from making statements they cannot prove without showing evidence, there is a big legal loophole in the US. The fact that SCO can make any wild claim that they want, sue anyone they want on the wildest of baseless claims, and get awaya with not having to produce actual evidence in order to go to court is a real problem.

Many companies who are frightened of getting sued by these bastards have little other legal options. Not many, apart from badly researched ZDNet trashmag articles, believe that SCo has the slightest chance of success, but what about the financial damage to companies that are getting sued from loss in stock value, and the fact that there is no way in hell that SCO could really afford to pay for the damages once IBM, RedHat and Novell have finished with them.

What is to stop the next POS crap company that is going down from sueing everybody left right and centre?

Lowe's or Home Depot might be next...

They obviously chose AutoZone because their terminals are clearly visible by customers. I wouldn't be a bit suprised if they go after Lowe's or Home Depot next. Those companies also run linux GUIs and customers can see the X terminals (and 5250 emulators) as they walk around the store.

My prediction

Because SCO has no intention of showing us their complete lack of proof, this case WILL settle out of court. SCO will make AutoZone a nominal settlement offer. AutoZone will take it. The parties will have the file sealed.

Then SCO will claim in the press that it won the lawsuit with the implicit threat that everyone else running Linux had better start paying.

It must have been a delicate decision

choosing a victim with the correct pocket depth...

AutoZone is not to be trifled with.

They're a major chain, with a large number of real world employees. Jessie James does TV spot for them. Think Radio Shack, but for car stuff.

Having every Linux nerd in the world upset with you is one thing, but every car nerd, that's considerably more dangerous.

With luck, the lawyers (on both sides) will have SCO bled dry in short order and we can stop hearing about all this.

/. UID: AuT0Z0Ne

NEWS FLASH: Slashdot user AuT0Z0NE seen posting threatening messages daily including hot topics such as "Darl spanks his monkey" and "Darl, BRING IT ON, Sue me!" has had his identity revealed. Turns out he actually WAS CEO of Autozone. Stay tuned!

SCO FUD Machine Broken At Last?

The upshot of all of this is that SCOX is getting slammed at the moment (9am MST) in heavy trading, 50% over the normal daily volume already, and down 12%.

It climbed the previous two days, no doubt in anticipation of the lawsuit. Perhaps after seeing what SCO are actually suing over, investors are realizing they're the last rats on the ship. And the fire is nearing the ammo hold....

A sign of long-overdue investor sanity?

DaimlerChrysler next target

Just released, DaimlerChrysler is the second target [yahoo.com]. Note to mods: in the event the post is updated, this comment is before that.

DCX? Huh?

I used to work for DaimlerChrysler IS/ITM up until fairly recently.

DISCLAIMER: It's a big company. I couldn't possibly have been aware of everything going on there.

That being said... SCO targeting DCX makes zero sense, as not only was there not much SCO product there, there's not much Linux there either.

I was there for 7 years, and I saw exactly ONE SCO server in that whole time - and it was a legacy deal running some service that was due to go away soon. Maybe there was some more in the plants (plants always seem to have strange things going on) but certainly there wasn't much in the core ops.

DCX, at least the Chrysler half, runs mostly on IBM mainframes. 3270 green-screen stuff. While the amount of UNIX use was growing, THAT was mostly Solaris with a few IBM AIX boxes mixed in to keep things interesting.

There were a few people investigating Linux (and I know we had at least one running instance of Linux-on-a-mainframe) but I'm not aware of any production Linux deployments. If they existed, they were very low-key and not widespread.

I had a Linux box as one of my workstations, but I did that on my own.

If there was any signifigant SCO deployments in the plants, they would probably have been replaced by Solaris or AIX boxes, not Linux. SCO just wasn't taken seriously as a UNIX.

Why SCO picked DCX to target is beyond me.

DG

Lawsuit #2

It looks like their next lawsuit is against DaimlerChrysler. Check out http://ir.sco.com [sco.com].

Who's the real loser

Stock Charts for Companies Du Jour [msn.com]

DaimlerChrysler is the second company

According to cnet, the second company that SCO is going after is DaimlerChrysler. I really think that they have now spread themselves too thin. These are companies with large legal departments that do not generally settle hen frivoulous lawsuits are brought against them.

Let us hope that both of them do not settle, as it would indeed be a bad precedent.

This reminds me of...

the joke news headline:

"Man Sticks Out Tongue between the bars of Wolf Cage at Local Zoo - bloody mess ensues".

Now here's a great new business idea!

Since SCO licenses are reallly expensive, why not create a small--and relatively inexpensive--company that will assist you in your move off of SCO and/or help you install Linux in a way that doesn't violate any of SCO's IP?

Seems like there's a fortune to be made there.

I want to be a lawyer

If SCO wins this one, I can't think of a better profession in this world.

What other job can you make claims like this at this hell hole of an economy and be profitable... while getting global attention from slashdot etc. Only lawyers can do this.

I'll probably get modded down for this.... the richer the lawyer, the bigger the scum bag.

Sweet, sweet closure

...this one "to be filed against Daimler-Chrysler, alleging that they are infringing SCO's copyright by using code relating to 'core operating system functionality' of SCO System 5."...

In other news, Darl McBride, CEO of SCO, was unexpectedly killed yesterday when his vehicle's braking system inexplicably malfunctioned on I-40 yesterday...

Basis for Daimler-Chrysler suit seems odd

According to the press release from SCO, the basis of their suit is that Daimler-Chrysler has refused to "certify" that they're not in violation of the software license agreement, but doesn't seem to actually claim that Daimler-Chrysler has actually *violated* the agreement beyond not certifying that they haven't:

SCO's lawsuit seeks the following relief:

• Enter an order that DaimlerChrysler has violated Section 2.05 of the Software Agreement by refusing to provide the certification of compliance with the "provisions" of that Agreement;
• Enter an order permanently enjoining DaimlerChrysler from further violations of the DC Software Agreement; and
• Issue a mandatory injunction requiring DaimlerChrysler to remedy the effects of its past violations of the DaimlerChrysler Software Agreement; and
• Award damages in an amount to be determined at trial; and
• Enter judgment in favor of Plaintiff together with costs, attorneys' fees and any such other or different relief that the Court may deem to be equitable and just.

Re:Tactical mistake

Will the German ownership (and subsequent court actions in Germany against SCO) of Chrysler play a part stateside?

That's interesting indeed. Since SCO is banned in Germany from saying that they own Linux code (if they can't prove it), and since Daimler-Chrysler's HQ is in Germany, what consequences will this have?

In Germany, courts are unlikely to follow SCO's argumentation, so it is a safe bet that DC will not be bothered by this lawsuit. In the US, it is an entirely different matter!

Daimer-Chrysler is fortunately big enough. Should they be dogged in US courts, they could easily pull out a few factories e.g. to Mexico, putting enormous pressure on Congress and States. In the long run (iff Daimler-Chrysler doesn't cave in to this raquet), this lawsuit could be very beneficial to all of us.

"SCO System 5"?!?

Funny, I thought it was "AT&T Unix System V, as licensed to Novell, as sublicensed to Caldera, which changed it's name to SCO". But I guess just calling it "SCO System 5" is shorter, if not entirely historically accurate.

Quit Linking to Groklaw! Jeezus!

Tired of not being able to read the best resource on this whole fiasco.

If you do link, please also link to their paypal account link.
Maybe if 1 out of 1000 of you slashdotters who hit groklaw and see it got hosed will go back when it is up and donate a couple bucks, they can add a server or two.

TIA,
Dave
(BTW, I've donated already, twice)

Conference Highlights

My favourite parts:

Some guy: "Sooner or later this case will be decided upon by a court, and what will happen if at the end of all this it turns out you are wrong? there will be a lot of angry customers. Will you refund their money?"
Darl: "Well, errrr, we wo... umm, the way I see it is that, errr, well, "

and:

Some person: "Can you comment on the outstanding lawsuit against you"
Darl: "There are currently no lawsuits against SCO..."
Some Person: "One sec.... Australian company.... called CyberNight/Night... I have the information here."
Darl: "uhhh, ermm, ahhh, ermm .... If It happened within the last 12 hours, I wouldn't be aware of it.... next question!"

In Nevada?

Let's see... SCO is headquarterd in Utah and incorporated in Delaware. AutoZone is headquartered in Memphis. I don't know where they're incorporated. So, the obvious location for the lawsuit is... Nevada?

What's up with that? Doesn't the legal system kind of frown on shopping for the friendliest jurisdiction? Isn't the first move going to be to transfer jurisdiction to someplace sane? (Not a comment on Nevada's sanity, just that as a jurisdiction for this trial, Nevada makes no sense).

So, doesn't filing this in Nevada just serve to stall? Is this another SCO "we want the publicity from having done something, but we don't ever want anything to get resolved" move? Or have I missed something, and Nevada actually makes sense for some reason?

Re:In Nevada?

Assuming it's a federal suit, 28 U.S.C. 1391 holds the answer - subsection (a) is for situations on which jurisdiction is based solely diversity (parties are citizens of different states); subection (b) is for "federal question" jurisdiction. Generally, if a defendant has any presence in a judicial district or a large part of the events occurred there, the case can be venued there. If the forum is really inappropriate, a defendant can move for change of venue for a variety of reasons.

Why would they do this? Usually, the venue of the forum state is applied to the dispute. If Nevada's substantive law if favorable for whatever reason, then it makes eminent sense to sue this defendant in this location. I wouldnt be surprised if the defendant was picked at least in part on the Plaintiff's ability to bring the suit in this forum.

If the suit is being brought in state court, then the answer is even easier. If the Defendant conducts business in the jurisdiction, they are subject to suit there.

Autozone used to run Unixware pre 1999

In the late 90's, SCO was promoting the Autozone/SCO relationship publically for a while. I remember this well, because it was one of my introductions to how effective a few Unix servers could be when connected to 2000 dumb terminals.

I remember that Autozone used to run a bunch of Unixware servers with dumb terminals at all of the stores. They had some other Un*xes to run various applications such as the Database, but I remember SCO touting Unixware as the system that integrated a bunch of disparate Unix and NT systems.

Here's an article about Autozone & SCO [informationweek.com] (Actually, it's an article about IBM and SCO cooperating on a new project, but Autozone was going to be one of the first new customers to use the project, or something).

Around 1999, Autozone switched to RedHat. Rumor was that the decision was apparently very contraversial within SCO, as it was a real sign of things to come--- people switching from expensive SCO systems to cheaper Linux.

Burning bridges...

Sheesh...SCO is not just burning their bridges, they are nuking them and spreading radioactive cobalt behind them. Who in their right mind would now EVER contemplate doing ANY business with SCO? I mean, even Microsoft tries to hold on to customers, but SCO is just light years beyond idiocy in their most recent moves of litigating against CUSTOMERS.