By the statement listed on their own web site, Xinuous are alleging that IBM and Red Hat have committed Copyright Infringement and Antitrust Violations.
Groklaw regulars might remember that the question of copyright was resolved when IBM consulted Novell on the question. Novell were able to show that they had a Board Meeting prior to the approval of the sale of the business to "OldSCO", the minutes of which were kept in (IIRC) something that PJ referenced as something like a "Corporate Box" - i.e. it's a
Part of me would like to agree with you, maybe because that would be the neatest and simplest way to go. Sadly, it's not quite that simple.
You see, part of the problem with the original TSG case against IBM was that TSG never did actually point to any line or lines of code and claim infringement. Instead, they basically pulled out the entirety of the source code and said, "The violations we claim are in there: you find it..."
They did this because they were hoping to keep whatever powder they thought they had dry until they got in a court room in front of a jury. The issue they had with that was IBM's entirely reasonable response, which was [again I paraphrase], "Your Honor, we would be delighted to respond to the plaintiffs claims, when they actually make a claim to which we can respond. They need to tell us the source file they claim we infringed, the line or lines of code they claim we copied, and they need to show where those lines exist in the Linux kernel. Until they do that, it isn't clear to us that they have a case..."
The original trial judge, one Dale A. Kimball, went out of his way to cut TSG as much slack as he reasonably could, but after literally years he had pretty much figured out their entire strategy was a scam. He was sending them a clear message with some of his rulings that things weren't going well for TSG, but at no point did they ever come out and provide the specifics of their claim.
So whilst I'd love to agree with you, it's almost a dangerous step to take, because to this day we don't actually know the specifics of TSG's claims.
This observer concluded that BSF's strategy was to muddle along in motion practice with junior lawyers, but then bring in the man himself - David Boies - for the critical trial days, so he could weave his magic and bamboozle a jury into believing their smoke-and-mirror claims. Fortunately, Judge Kimball saw through the sham, called them on it, set a date for a summary judgement hearing... and on the day TSG folded. They were bidding like they had Aces over Kings but all they had was a busted flush.
Worth noting that if there had been any truth to the claims and if the case was anything like as strong as they claimed, then they would have had the confidence to give IBM a "smackdown". They fact that they didn't - and continued to claim for literally billions in damages - made the outcome inevitable.
For me the worst part was that there were stories PJ (Pamela Jones, Groklaw's Editor) covered about small, non-tech companies that got really nasty cease-and-decist-or-pay-up demands from TSG and were forking out $700 *per server* in "licensing fees", without consulting legal advice. TSG just used that money to fund their litigation. Or how about the creditors listed in their bankruptcy filing - including a local "Mom and Pop" delivery pizza place, which were out a few hundred dollars for an un-paid account. Basically, these folk were true swamp-dwellers.
OK, that makes more sense. I've used Xenix, SCO UNIX, OpenServer, and SCO UnixWare since the early days and I'm very familiar with the heritage of the two operating system lines. But even so I still find this whole affair around SVR4 and UnixWare very puzzling.
That entire layer of smoke screen was blown away when Novell showed that SCO didn't have the copyright to any of the code at all. The return or the son of Dracula^WSCO still doesn't have the copyright to any of that code, so anything they might manage to show there is moot.
The original trial judge, one Dale A. Kimball, went out of his way to cut TSG as much slack as he reasonably could, but after literally years he had pretty much figured out their entire strategy was a scam. He was sending them a clear message with some of his rulings that things weren't going well for TSG, but at no point did they ever come out and provide the specifics of their claim.
So whilst I'd love to agree with you, it's almost a dangerous step to take, because to this day we don't actually know the specifics of TSG's claims.
To which I say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what code or lines of code or files TSG claimed was copied/infringed upon. The reason it doesn't matter is that TSG never owned the copyrights to be able to make the claim, which was proven in a court of law in the SCO Group Inc, v Novell lawsuit(s). Since SCO never received ownership of the copyrights, TSG could not have purchased them when the bought the SCO assets/properties/holdings, and thus Xinuos could not have bought them from any entity that purc
You see, part of the problem with the original TSG case against IBM was that TSG never did actually point to any line or lines of code and claim infringement.
They did organize a press conference at the beginning, showing journalists pieces of code from "their" system and from Linux kernel side-by-side. Formatted in a Windings font.
Of course, somebody took photos of the pieces of code and within 24 hours the community organized at Groklaw converted and identified all the code. Some of it was, if I rememb
No, the real case is since SCO did not own the copyrights they cannot sue IBM IF IBM donated Unix code in the first place. Proving that there was copying was the second hurdle. As far as I know SCO's examples of copied code were laughable at best. For example they tried to claim "include" statements in header files as copied. Generally these statements are not copyrightable as they are used to load libraries. The modern equivalent would be for someone to claim my Python script copied theirs because my first
More like a version of that code was in IBM's version of Unix (AIX); since we own Unix (and they did not), therefore we own everything that anyone develops for Unix.
I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for
nothing. I gave them nothing for something.
-- Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil
The Xinuos Claims (Score:5, Informative)
Groklaw regulars might remember that the question of copyright was resolved when IBM consulted Novell on the question. Novell were able to show that they had a Board Meeting prior to the approval of the sale of the business to "OldSCO", the minutes of which were kept in (IIRC) something that PJ referenced as something like a "Corporate Box" - i.e. it's a
Re:The Xinuos Claims (Score:3)
So, isn't it the case that the code that IBM donated really was copyrighted, just that the *actual* owner of the copyright was OK with the donation?
Re:The Xinuos Claims (Score:5, Informative)
You see, part of the problem with the original TSG case against IBM was that TSG never did actually point to any line or lines of code and claim infringement. Instead, they basically pulled out the entirety of the source code and said, "The violations we claim are in there: you find it..."
They did this because they were hoping to keep whatever powder they thought they had dry until they got in a court room in front of a jury. The issue they had with that was IBM's entirely reasonable response, which was [again I paraphrase], "Your Honor, we would be delighted to respond to the plaintiffs claims, when they actually make a claim to which we can respond. They need to tell us the source file they claim we infringed, the line or lines of code they claim we copied, and they need to show where those lines exist in the Linux kernel. Until they do that, it isn't clear to us that they have a case..."
The original trial judge, one Dale A. Kimball, went out of his way to cut TSG as much slack as he reasonably could, but after literally years he had pretty much figured out their entire strategy was a scam. He was sending them a clear message with some of his rulings that things weren't going well for TSG, but at no point did they ever come out and provide the specifics of their claim.
So whilst I'd love to agree with you, it's almost a dangerous step to take, because to this day we don't actually know the specifics of TSG's claims.
This observer concluded that BSF's strategy was to muddle along in motion practice with junior lawyers, but then bring in the man himself - David Boies - for the critical trial days, so he could weave his magic and bamboozle a jury into believing their smoke-and-mirror claims. Fortunately, Judge Kimball saw through the sham, called them on it, set a date for a summary judgement hearing... and on the day TSG folded. They were bidding like they had Aces over Kings but all they had was a busted flush.
Worth noting that if there had been any truth to the claims and if the case was anything like as strong as they claimed, then they would have had the confidence to give IBM a "smackdown". They fact that they didn't - and continued to claim for literally billions in damages - made the outcome inevitable.
For me the worst part was that there were stories PJ (Pamela Jones, Groklaw's Editor) covered about small, non-tech companies that got really nasty cease-and-decist-or-pay-up demands from TSG and were forking out $700 *per server* in "licensing fees", without consulting legal advice. TSG just used that money to fund their litigation. Or how about the creditors listed in their bankruptcy filing - including a local "Mom and Pop" delivery pizza place, which were out a few hundred dollars for an un-paid account. Basically, these folk were true swamp-dwellers.
Re: (Score:3)
OK, that makes more sense. I've used Xenix, SCO UNIX, OpenServer, and SCO UnixWare since the early days and I'm very familiar with the heritage of the two operating system lines. But even so I still find this whole affair around SVR4 and UnixWare very puzzling.
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Re: (Score:2)
That entire layer of smoke screen was blown away when Novell showed that SCO didn't have the copyright to any of the code at all. The return or the son of Dracula^WSCO still doesn't have the copyright to any of that code, so anything they might manage to show there is moot.
Re: (Score:2)
The original trial judge, one Dale A. Kimball, went out of his way to cut TSG as much slack as he reasonably could, but after literally years he had pretty much figured out their entire strategy was a scam. He was sending them a clear message with some of his rulings that things weren't going well for TSG, but at no point did they ever come out and provide the specifics of their claim.
So whilst I'd love to agree with you, it's almost a dangerous step to take, because to this day we don't actually know the specifics of TSG's claims.
To which I say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what code or lines of code or files TSG claimed was copied/infringed upon. The reason it doesn't matter is that TSG never owned the copyrights to be able to make the claim, which was proven in a court of law in the SCO Group Inc, v Novell lawsuit(s). Since SCO never received ownership of the copyrights, TSG could not have purchased them when the bought the SCO assets/properties/holdings, and thus Xinuos could not have bought them from any entity that purc
Re: (Score:2)
They did organize a press conference at the beginning, showing journalists pieces of code from "their" system and from Linux kernel side-by-side. Formatted in a Windings font.
Of course, somebody took photos of the pieces of code and within 24 hours the community organized at Groklaw converted and identified all the code. Some of it was, if I rememb
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So, isn't it the case that the code that IBM donated really was copyrighted, just that the *actual* owner of the copyright was OK with the donation?
Yes, IBM was fine with IBM donating the JFS code.
The SCOundrel's theory was "It went into Linux, so we own the code."
Re: (Score:2)