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SCO's claims Against Daimler-Chrysler Thrown Out 483

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sucks-to-be-them dept.
Zak3056 writes "According to eyewittness reports published on Groklaw, SCO has been all but thrown out of court in their suit against Daimler-Chrysler. In a hearing that lasted 18 minutes with the judge ruling from the bench, all of SCO's claims, save that DCC failed to file their required certification with 30 days, were dismissed."
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SCO's claims Against Daimler-Chrysler Thrown Out More

SCO's claims Against Daimler-Chrysler Thrown Out

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  • I hear SCO secretly settled (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:14PM (#9761838)
    For a free car. It was all they really wanted anyway.

  • And the cards begin to come crashing down... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vengeance ( 46019 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:15PM (#9761850)
    I was waiting for this to start. Meritless lawsuits have taken the SCOmbags way further than they ever should have gotten.

    • OUCH! Stock price plunges.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @03:02PM (#9762344) Homepage
      And take a look at their stock price [yahoo.com]. My guess it the precipitous drop starts at about the time the judge walked out of the room.
      • My guess it the precipitous drop starts at about the time the judge walked out of the room.

        You think it started when the judge walked out of the room? I'd say that some quick-thinkers decided to sell when the judge walked INTO the room, seeing as how SCO would actually have to prove a point.
        • Strangely it is back up. Wonder who is buying large numbers of shares to prop it up (looks like a few major orders given the sudden change).

  • 18 minutes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SIGALRM ( 784769 ) * on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:15PM (#9761853) Journal
    Why'd it take so long?

  • And there was Much Rejoycing (Score:5, Funny)

    by GoClick ( 775762 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:15PM (#9761856)
    And there was Much Rejoycing, Now lets all go out and buy a hemi.

  • ahahahahahahaha... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joeldg ( 518249 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:15PM (#9761857) Homepage
    serves them right.

    glad to see "justice" is being done.

    would like to see them thrown out of the entire country myself (not just court)..

    Good precendent to set though..

    • Man, I was having an _ok_ day until now. This just warms my heart! From the witnesses' accounts, DC had some brief, powerful arguments, which pleased the judge, and SCO has some flacid babblings about "methods and concepts", which the judge did NOT appreciate.

      This is the beginning of the end.

    • Re:ahahahahahahaha... (Score:3, Informative)

      by zurab ( 188064 )

      Good precendent to set though..

      IANAL, but I don't think it's necessarily a precedent. Remember, that all SCO's cases so far are contract-related. SCO did not claim anywhere any copyright violations. Since all contracts are different and have their specific clauses that SCO can argue were violated, they may have their case heard.

      The annoying thing is how mainstream press translates this into - "Linux allegedly violating Unix copyrights" sensationalistic reporting. I bet they are generating more hits that w

      • SCO winning in mainstream press (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @03:09PM (#9762435) Journal
        The annoying thing is how mainstream press translates this into - "Linux allegedly violating Unix copyrights" sensationalistic reporting. I bet they are generating more hits that way. What you would hope for is that press gets its facts straight and cut down on "OMG -- you HAVE TO read this!!!" type articles.

        As I pointed out yesterday in another SCO discussion:

        The mainstream press is buying into SCO's claims just (AFAICT) based on the weight of how often they repeat them and the fact that they have an easy contact point, whereas there is no general "Linux" contact person.

        Take a look at one of CNN.com's front page articles [cnn.com] from yesterday. They sport lovely quotes like the following:

        "The communal aspects of open source can lead to thorny legal questions, particularly when a company claims its proprietary code has seeped into a project. Because developers typically don't offer warranties, end users could be held liable for infringements."

        Wow. It's like saying that all code under the GPL is held to a legal standard that's as harsh as ... well, to give an equivalent example, if an author of a book included some infringing content, it's like holding every person that read the book liable. Eben Moglen's shot this down, it's been raked through the coals on Slashdot and Groklaw ... but because SCO does a better job of managing the press than the "Linux community, as a whole", nasty disinformation about open source is rapidly spreading around the world and seeping into end users' heads.

        Sad. And probably not fixable.

        • The mainstream press is buying into SCO's claims just (AFAICT) based on the weight of how often they repeat them and the fact that they have an easy contact point, whereas there is no general "Linux" contact person.

          Not to mention the fact that the other parties in the various lawsuits, being grownups, don't make comments about ongoing court cases. After spending almost 25 years inside giant corporations, I did learn that the two rules are (1) no one but the lawyers is allowed to talk about the case a

  • Money? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Klar ( 522420 ) <curchin@gmail . c om> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:15PM (#9761858) Homepage Journal
    Have the SCO made any money from all the legal actions they have taken? How do they still have the money to do all this?
    • They've got the money from the liscenses they sold. Plus there was a story a while ago about how Microsoft was funding the whole deal.

    • Re:Money? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by archen ( 447353 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:20PM (#9761918)
      Remember that SCO is still entrenched in many places. Some companies have specalty software that runs on SCO that hasn't been ported (or usually updated) to something else. SCO could easily just recieve money for the next 10 years ( although less than it used to and decreasing) from old customers who can't upgrade.

    • Re:Money? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by nametaken ( 610866 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:23PM (#9761951)

      It's all pump-n-dump as far as I can tell. If you look at their 1 and 2 yr stock charts, you'll see that they were doing better. I think it was due to investors thinking one company had a shot and legally licencing all the linux boxes in the world. Of course, that's ridiculous. So now their company is in the toilet.

      And a it's about damn time.

    • Re:Money? (Score:3, Informative)

      by TopShelf ( 92521 )
      Remember that they got injections of capital funding to pursue this venture, as well as a few million $$$ of "revenue" during the first quarter of their SCOSource program. As far as any can tell, that quarter's revenue came nearly entirely from the sale of licenses to Microsoft and Sun.

      The only ones really making money off this long and terrible saga are the lawyers - but is that any surprise?

  • Good Precedent (Score:2, Interesting)

    by La_Boca ( 201988 )
    This should get the ball rolling nicely on getting their other claims thrown out.

  • Stock price already in a nosedive (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GraZZ ( 9716 ) * <jack @ j a c k m a n i n ov.ca> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:16PM (#9761862) Homepage Journal
    Check out SCOX [google.com]. Down 7.2% for the day already.
  • "SCO's claims Against Daimler-Chrysler Thrown Out"

    "SCO has been all but thrown out"

    Which one is it? :)

    • Re:Misleading? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      Probably neither, I wouldn't come to slashdot looking for facts.
    • all of their claims except one were thrown out, and the one remaining is that DC didnt file one credential in the required 30-day period, so its a minimal fine at most
    • http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=all%20but

      all but
      Function: adverb
      : very nearly : ALMOST

      In this case it actually makes sense, but lots of people misuse "all but" in a confusing way.
  • Many more to go.

  • Its been quiet for a while.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by halo1982 ( 679554 ) * on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:17PM (#9761876) Homepage Journal
    Well this isn't surprising. But whats the status of SCO's other lawsuits, such as the one with IBM? Who else are they suing? I noticed AutoZone was on the list...anyone else?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:17PM (#9761881)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • One question... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nametaken ( 610866 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:18PM (#9761896)
    This is looking a little bit to the future, but if a company goes bust... can't the remaining individuals still sue if they believe their copyrighted code is being misused?

    I guess ultimately my question is, does SCO going belly up mean the end of these lawsuits?
    • A previous poster noted that the copyright holder in this case is the corporation itself, not any individual, so if the company is gone, there is no one left to bring suit.

      Also, even if someone bought the company and resurrected it from the ashes to sue people again, the precedent set by this and other cases to come will probably preclude them from suing anyone else. If the facts in subsequent cases are substantially identical to the facts in these cases (they almost certainly would be), any suit would be

    • Re:One question... (Score:3, Informative)

      by kalidasa ( 577403 ) *
      If you write code for a company, they own the copyright: it's called "work-for-hire" in the copyright claw. The entity that owns the copyrights is the "legal person" which is considered the author of the copyrighted work - if it dies, then in the dissolution of its assets, some creditor gets the copyrights to the copyrighted work as recompense.

  • could this be why (Score:3, Informative)

    by aldousd666 ( 640240 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:19PM (#9761913) Journal
    Their stock price took another dive in the past few hours? $4.20 at the time of this posting. I'm still waiting for it to go below a dollar. I actually expected it sooner, but it's been sticking near 5 for way too long.

  • New suit (Score:4, Funny)

    by glaserud ( 66891 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:22PM (#9761933) Homepage
    SCO thrown out of a Daimler-Chrysler? I see a faulty-door/locks-suit in the near future.

  • SCO: this is a clear victory for SCO! (Score:5, Funny)

    by wardk ( 3037 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:22PM (#9761937) Journal
    Time for SCO to deploy that famous Iraqi spokeperson.


    We have destroyed the Chrysler infidels and their heads now adorn pikes along all interstates leading into Utah.

  • SCO had a tripod of cases... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SirFozzie ( 442268 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:24PM (#9761967)
    IBM, Autozone, and Daimler-Chrysler. SCO's future was shaky, but they claimed with victory in the three cases mentioned, they would be rock solid.

    And lo, the FUD'ed tripod stood firm against the gales of disbelieving laughter, and failed FUD attacks.

    First, AutoZone gets an indefinite stay. (uh oh.. SCO's only got two legs left, it's wobbly, a gust of wind will blow it over)..

    And now the judge rips out every avenue of attack in the Daimler-Chrysler case. The judge also made it pretty much impossible for SCO to extort^W license their technology to all their old customers who now use Linux..

    There's an image for you. SCO's tripod only has one leg left. There's a technical term for that.

    BROKEN.

  • Article Text (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced
    Wednesday, July 21 2004 @ 12:23 PM EDT

    I have just heard from two readers who did attend the DC hearing. The eyewitness accounts are subject to later clarification, simply because neither is a lawyer and that can lead to missing certain details, as they disclaim in the reports. But with that disclaimer, this is what they say happened. I know we all wish to thank them both for attending the hearing, so we can get a fast report.

    What they are telling me is
  • SCO provides much wanted recreation ...to my busy days. These guys are down right funny, when it comes to how they are running their business.
  • The following is the eyewitness account report #1 by eggplant37 from the groklaw article [groklaw.net] but without the stupid commentary.

    SCO v DC was 18th of 22 cases on the motion callsheet for the morning. At 0841, the clerk called the SCO v DC attorneys up for a brief discussion, during which I was able to overhear the clerk tell them that he would "like to get [them] in and out."

    At 0850, the clerk came over to the SCO side of the bench and spoke briefly with them, telling them "five minutes", I think stating the amount of time that each side would be granted for arguments. DC's attorneys came over and confirmed with the SCO attorneys what the clerk had to say.

    SCO v DC was called at 0942. Barry Rosenbaum arguing for SCO and James Feeny arguing for Daimler, and motions were heard to admit Heise and Steven Prout?? pro hac vice for SCO, and also to admit Mark Masuchak from Massachussetts pro hac vice for Daimler, which the Judge granted.

    Mr. Rosenbaum argued Daimler's summary dispo motion, noting from the outset that this was a more technical case, dealing with software and licensing agreements, and that he would frame the case briefly, in about 30 seconds. Chrysler says that the case is about whether or not section 2.05 of the SA requires a certification of compliance with detailed enumeration of extraneous facts outside the agreeement, or whether it simply requires a brief certification that licensee has complied with the terms of the license agreement.

    Mr. Rosenbaum then went on to recite the language of Section 2.05. He stated that the letter requesting the certification from SCO went quite far outside the unambiguous language in section 2.05 when it asked to enumerate information regarding DC's use of Linux. Daimler didn't file the certification until after SCO filed it's lawsuit, which on its face appeared to be about the contract provisions being breached due to DC not giving SCO their compliance certification in a timely fashion.

    Mr. Rosenbaum then went on to recite paragraphs 2 & 3 of DC's response letter, stating that there were no cpu's running SCO's software, that not providing a list of cpu's that weren't in existence and hadn't been used in more than 7 years was more than sufficient to comply with the language of 2.05. Since the language of 2.05 is unambiguous, there is sufficient grounds to grant summary judgement on all assertions in SCO's complaint.

    Mr. Rosenbaum finished by stating that the original letter didn't request a list of CPU's running SCO's software. Since there were no CPU's running SCO's products, DC felt it was immaterial as to whether or not they responded within 30 days.

    At 0951, Mark Heise then argued the SCO side of the case. He felt that DC's SA gave them full access to the source code and that DC had been given the right to use, modify and create derivatives for their own internal use, and that the SA required that they keep the software confidential, that it should not be exported outside the US -- which in this case seems to be a concern since Chrysler's recent merger with Daimler Benz of Germany.

    Heise went on to argue the point that DC's answer to the request for certification was not timely nor was it adequate in that SCO has fears that the source code still lives on disk on some computer somewhere at DC and they are entitled to know where it's stored. He also stated that DC is not alleviated from the terms of the SA once they have decided to take the CD's or tapes or whatever of the source code and toss them in a closet somewhere, and that they needed full certification that the software had been held in confidence by DC.

    He went on to recite the terms of section 6.02 of the SA, stating that Chrysler, upon ceasing use of the software, was bound to either destroy all copies or return the software and to notify SCO that they did same. Again, he expressed his concern that in DC's use of the Linux software they were worried that they may b

  • The trap has been set (Score:5, Insightful)

    by craw ( 6958 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:36PM (#9762089) Homepage
    The judge set up a trap for poor old SCO by not ruling on the issue of not complying within 30 days. By dismissing all the other charges, she essentially cut off any meaningful avenues in discovery that SCO would have likely pursued. This is not going to be a fishing expedition for SCO.

    OTOH, the 30 day compliance issue actually keeps open several key discovery paths that DCC might want to take. For instance, why wasn't DCC contacted after the letter was sent and before the lawsuit was filed? DCC could easy state who the hell is SCO? What happended to AT&T/USL? When did SCO get the rights? Hey, okay, we knew about that Novell deal, but SCO?

    Additionally, why wasn't DCC contacted prior to the lawsuit when a simple phone call would be have cleared things up (I know that SCO addresses this issue in their complaint)? The judge could point out that SCO is wasting court resources by filing lawsuits without making any attempt to resolve the dispute outside of the courts, which in itself sends a message about launching surprise lawsuits.

    • More about an unreasonable request (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jgoemat ( 565882 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @05:50PM (#9764292)
      SCOX's requested certification not only didn't request what they were entitled to (a list of processors using UNIX), but requested a whole lot of other stuff instead (training manuals, documentation, certification that DC wasn't using Linux, etc.). Sure they mentioned section 2.05 in their request, but they didn't request the things they were entitled to.

      What would you do if you had a contract to provide a bushell of corn to your neighbor at most once a year. Then a guy that lives a mile down the road sends you a letter saying he bought the contract from your neighbor and that you have to get him a bushell of apples and wants you to certify that you are not growing peaches. How would you respond if you were growing peaches? Would you go ahead and send him a bushell of oranges assuming that his claim to have taken over the contract is valid and that is what he is entitled to?

      I think this should have been thrown out as well. They didn't even request what they were entitled to. I don't think ignoring a request for something they aren't entitled to is out of line. At the very least, SCOX should have made a good faith effort to contact them again. All they did was send a letter in December and then file suit in March. Come on, not even a second letter, a phone call, or a fax to see why they haven't responded yet? Who does business like that?

    • And here's the bait (Score:3, Informative)

      by craw ( 6958 )
      This a letter sent from Daimler Chrysler to SCO (Broderick) on April 6, 2004 after the lawsuit was filed. It is part of DCC's April 15 filings with the court.

      Dear Mr. Broderick:

      -----snip-----

      The SCO Group, Inc. ("SCO") believes that:

      1. SCO "owns" certain rights under the Software Agreement referenced about ("SA") and,
      2. SCO's referenced letter was a proper request for a certified statement under Section 2.05 of the SA.

      SCO is not a party to the SA, and Daimler Chrysler has no knowledge of any assignmen

  • See SCO. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Araneas ( 175181 ) <pgilliland@[ ]ers.com ['rog' in gap]> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:36PM (#9762096)
    See SCO.
    See SCO Tank [yahoo.com]
    Tank, SCO tank!

  • Pronunciation Guide (Score:5, Funny)

    by DavidBrown ( 177261 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:37PM (#9762111) Journal
    In America, Daimler-Chrysler is pronounced "Daym-ler Cry-sler".

    In Germany, however, the Chrysler is silent.

  • I wish... (Score:4, Funny)

    by brufleth ( 534234 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:41PM (#9762139)
    I wish this case was handled by someone like Judge Judy who would entertain all of us with her insulting tirade about how SCO has wasted everyone's time and money and how they should be ashamed of themselves.

  • It gets worse, and soon... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SirFozzie ( 442268 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:44PM (#9762170)
    August 4th, SCO faces a IBM motion for summary judgement that IBM's contributions to Linux are "non-infringing".

    If the judge grants that (and it looks 50/50).. it's game, set and match.

  • Priceless (Score:5, Funny)

    by write_with_numbers ( 779746 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:45PM (#9762188)
    License for 1 processor server Linux from SCO:$699
    License for desktop Linux from SCO: $199
    License for embedded Linux from SCO: $35

    Judgement that will make this ridiculous house of cards begin imploding: Priceless

    There are some things that money can't buy.
    Even Microsoft's money.

  • Honorable Rae Lee Chabot (Score:5, Informative)

    by __aanonl8035 ( 54911 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:46PM (#9762199)
    A website with more information about the judge in this case, along with a picture. http://www.co.oakland.mi.us/circuit/judges/chabot- rae.html [oakland.mi.us]

  • distro marketing opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @03:05PM (#9762381) Homepage
    RH or Novell could step up to the plate with a transition plan for SCO shops about to be orphaned - something like "Are you tired of your software vendor spending more time in court than addressing your issues? It's time to switch. Call for our free migration plan."

  • Oddly Enough (Score:3, Interesting)

    by emtboy9 ( 99534 ) <jeff@@@jefflane...org> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @03:54PM (#9763002) Homepage
    Whenever something even remotely spinnable happens in one of these cases, SCO is there with a prepared press release that is sent out to the media almost immediately.

    Its now 4PM EST so they have had a few hours to come up with SOMETHING, but their website [sco.com] only has two PRs so far today... one about a new release, and another about a partnership with Ericom.

    Maybe even they dont know how to spin this one...
  • And to rub it in SCO's face Chrysler announced today it will be releasing their own Crossfire Linux available for free download at chrysler.com

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