SCO Postpones Lawsuit, Now Threatening Two 532
zzxc writes "In a surprise turn of events, SCO says that they need more time to prepare an announcement of who they are going to sue. According to SCO, the lawsuits will be announced tomorrow morning shortly before a phone-in conference in which will be outlining their financial report. You can call 1-800-818-5264 code 141144 Wednesday at 9:00am MST to join in with your questions, or listen to the webcast. They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses. (EV1.net servers or Lindows?)"
I know I need to suspend logic with SCO... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not exactly case of biting the hand that feeds you, but it certainly be a case of alienating an ally that probably doesn't need to be alienated.
News? (Score:4, Interesting)
Prediction: (Score:2, Interesting)
slashdot the telecon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, I hope the company that is hosting the telecon has a lot of lines reserved.
Basically (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile PJ at Groklaw [groklaw.net] is busy tearing them a new one over mentioning her in one of their propaganda blasts. Good reading. Hate to have her as one of my enemies.
I was afraid we wouldn't have more SCO Stories (Score:3, Interesting)
Haha! (Score:5, Interesting)
Lars Ulrich is working for SCO now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, sounds like they're taking a page out of Metallica's book for this one.
How the lawsuits are going to go in court (Score:0, Interesting)
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html [fsf.org]
The SCO Group has failed to put forward ANY substantial legal theory why the SCO Group should not be obligated to abide by the terms of the GPL.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/sco/sco-without-fear
The SCO Group obligations under the GPL has been reiterated and reinforced in the legal positions of IBM, Redhat and Novell in their respective cases against the SCO Group.
It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.
The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.
The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.
The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.
So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html [harvard.edu] [harvard.edu]
The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733 [groklaw.net]
Re:irresponsible (Score:5, Interesting)
I would LOVE to see the Slashdot effect at work on this conference call. I don't suppose we're so lucky as for SCO to have set this up on a system where they pay per user connected, are we?
That and it would be great having 10,000 slashdotters heckling them
Mechanik
Re:Wha? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think they'll sue EV1... yet, but they'll definitely go after current or former TSG customers (for running the compatibility layer on linux)
So this isn't actually directed directly at linux, it's more about SCO following through on their slogan:
"Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with" -- http://e-businessadvisor.com/doc/12514
They'll just hope the press will go with them and focus on the Linux part not the "SCO Unix(R)" part.
Re:.. the aftermath.. (Score:3, Interesting)
No, but I do wonder what
(I'm not saying that it's likely to happen, but it would be amusing to watch the bleating.)
Pixar? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, I don't know if SCO had a unix contract with them which I believe was one of the things Darl said they would use against the company/companies.
Re:irresponsible (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Suing SCO licensees? (Score:2, Interesting)
What I mean by that is that SCO will claim that the defendant is breaching its UNIX license by NOT paying the Unix per-server fee for Linux servers. Said another way, if the defendant has agreed to pay SCO $X per UNIX server under its SCO Unix license, and has been calculating the license fees assuming that Linux servers didn't count, then SCO would claim that -- because Linux is UNIX (don't ya know) -- the licensee/defendant has been underpaying SCO.
SCO is likely to get more bang for its litigation buck by suing customers under this theory (however wack that is) then suing companies who have no contractual relationship to it.
But then again, I am not an IP lawyer.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole thing that SCO is trying to "sell" is a binary runtime license(WTF-TM). Yet SCO will not distribute the binary to you, nor will it supply any support for the "product". Notwithstanding that there is no legal grounds to support SCO's ownership of said intellectual property (yet).
Is this a new business model or a non existant one?
SCO Unix != SCO IP (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like they are saying they are going to sue someone who has already licensed Unixware or some other SCO-sold Unix OS, and *not* someone who has already licensed their "SCO IP," like EV1.
I bet they go after someone who has used SCO's OS in the past, but has been migrating to Linux. Nothing like a little retribution.
Of course, it's hard to tell with these bastards. They don't seem to be too.... stable. Mentally. Financially. Whatever.
SCO's Amended Complaint... (Score:3, Interesting)
BSD users might find paragraph 84 interesting, since SCO basically claims it was impossible for Linux to achieve "complex multi-processor functionality" without SCO's UNIX code.
Re:My bet. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Pixar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Darl's an ass (Score:5, Interesting)
And the reason why Darl is the way he is?
"I am absolutely driven by people saying I can't do something."
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/business
Suprise??? Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope this is a joke, I mean a suprise??? The announcement did exactly what SCO et al intended, it turned around their falling stock price just prior to a quarterly finantial announcment. Just more FUD.
Re:Ummm.... SGI (Score:5, Interesting)
Then again when you assume you make an ass out of u and me, and assuming that Sco is smart is risky.
Slashdot the 800 number? (Score:5, Interesting)
The slashdot-effect on an 800 number?
Good Management (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Suing SCO licensees? (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal guess is SGI and HP. Sun already bought a license and SCO is already suing Novell and IBM. I doubt they would go after a university, they want a quick settlement to fuel their pump and dump scheme and a university might fight longer.
Anyone got odds?
Re:No Surprise (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:EV1.net or Lindows? (Score:2, Interesting)
We could only be so lucky!
Michael Roberts would have a field day with this. As much as I think the guys is sort of a goof, I'd love to see this happen. The potential comedy factor alone would be well worth it.
Won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
No sense in upsetting the investors with those questions they don't want to answer...
Jay (=
SCO sues two more of their own customers (Score:5, Interesting)
At the same time, they're claiming that the best way to avoid litigation with them is to sign a contract that acknowledges that they have more power over you (and Linux code) than most people believe they have any hope of proving in court.
I have visions of a lottery. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to guess McDonalds (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, I think I'm confused (Score:2, Interesting)
They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses
I'm confused So are they saying that they are going to start by prosecuting their own customers? How, in any form, is that smart??? Am I not understanding this remark??
Seems to me if I was a SCO Unix customer, this would be evidence that I need to take my business somewhere else and fast.
Re:Interesting Darl interview video on news.com (Score:4, Interesting)
Darl actually suggested that if Drug companies come up with a new formula for a drug on a linux machine they would have to license the formula under the GPL.
This guy clearly wins the "No Clue" award when it comes to licenses. Now at least we know that he most likely has misintepreted the Unix contracts
dvnull
Did I read this right? (Score:3, Interesting)
So if I read this correctly, if you purchased a SCO license then SCO can sue you? huh? Pardon my ignorance but wasn't the whole reason these guys purchased licenses was to be protected from lawsuit?
Signed... really confused SCO hater.
Not unheard off (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted this was using two different products at the same time but close enough.
I agree, but the other one... (Score:3, Interesting)
The other company has to be something approved by Microsoft, and presumably serving Microsoft's plan for world domination. It would also have to be another knock against Open Source, and a SCO contract/license holder.
Maybe this is all a big orchestrated move by EV1 & SCO to "sue" EV1 over linux usage, and then EV1 moves all linux servers over to SCO-approved binaries and SCO drops the lawsuits. (Why the hell else would EV1 be the first company to come out of the closet publicly regarding giving SCO extortion $$)
Re:No Surprise (Score:1, Interesting)
This and related personal swords of Damocles are probably why they are persisting in the suits now that they are past the point of no return.
IANAL