SCO Loses
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 10, 2007 04:47 PM
from the finish-him dept.
from the finish-him dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The one summary judgement that puts a stick into SCO's spokes has just come down. The judge in the epic SCO case has ruled that SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights. With that one decision, a whole bunch of other decisions will fall like dominoes. As PJ says, 'That's Aaaaall, Folks! ... All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end. But we must say thank you to Novell and especially to its legal team for the incredible work they have done. I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, but they won what matters most, and it's been a plum pleasin' pleasure watching you work. The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work and thanks go to Novell for being willing to see this through."
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SCO Fiasco Over For Linux, Starting For Solaris? 264 comments
kripkenstein writes "We have just heard that the SCO fiasco is finally going to end for Linux. But Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at DesktopLinux.com points out that the favorable result for Linux may cause unpleasant consequences for rival open-source operating system OpenSolaris: 'At one time, Sun was an SCO supporter ... Sun's Jonathan Schwartz — then Sun VP of software and today Sun's president and CEO — said in 2003 that Sun had bought "rights equivalent to ownership" to Unix. SCO agreed. In 2005, SCO CEO Darl McBride said that SCO had no problem with Sun open-sourcing Unix code in what would become OpenSolaris. "We have seen what Sun plans to do with OpenSolaris and we have no problem with it," McBride said. "What they're doing protects our Unix intellectual property rights." Sun now has a little problem, which might become a giant one: SCO never had any Unix IP to sell. Therefore, it seems likely that Solaris and OpenSolaris contains Novell's Unix IP.'"
[+]
Investors Bailing On SCO Stock, SCOX Plummets 368 comments
HailDorothy writes "SCO's stock price is plummeting in the aftermath of Judge Kimball's ruling that Novell owns the UNIX copyrights, as we discussed earlier. '[W]e will continue to explore our options with respect to how we move forward from here,' SCO said in a public statement issued in a futile attempt to calm investors. SCO's stock price has fallen 70 percent during trading today, reaching a 52-week low. It looks like the end is near for SCO, which still owes Novell 95 percent of the SVRX UNIX royalties it collected from Microsoft and Sun through the SCOsource program. As Judge Kimbell noted in his ruling, it's unlikely that Novell will ever be able to collect on those royalties."
[+]
Increased Linux Use With SCO's Defeat Predicted 280 comments
twitter writes "The defeat of SCO's infamous copyright attack has Forbes wondering if a GNU/Linux boom is upon us. They discuss how this will benefit Novel, IBM, Chrysler, AutoZone and Red Hat. 'The SCO Group frightened potential business users away from Linux with lawsuits demanding billions in royalties. But the litigious company's claims were shot down in a ruling that will likely boost uptake of the operating system.'"
[+]
Your Rights Online: Novell to SCO - Pay Up 151 comments
gosherm writes with word that, now that the dust is beginning to settle on the long-running SCO case, Novell wants to get paid. Now. They're requesting that the customary stay on SCO's finances (as a result of their bankruptcy) be lifted so that Novell can begin recouping some of its losses from the protracted legal battle. "'We need to adjudicate if this is money owed to Novell or if it is Novell's property,' said Bruce Lowry, spokesman for Novell. That could determine how quickly Novell can recover those funds. And time is of the essence since there's a possibility SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize,' Novell said in court documents filed Thursday. Novell is also trying to protect royalties SCO collects from Unix and Unixware software licensees and remits annually to the software developer. SCO is required to continue to remit between $500,000 and $800,000 annually to Novell -- the next payment is due Nov. 14. SCO remitted $696,413 to Novell between the third quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year."
[+]
Linux Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat/Novell 473 comments
walterbyrd writes "Just months after the last nail in SCO's case, and on the same day as Red Hat's brave words about patent intimidation, a company filed the first patent suit against the Linux operating system. IP Innovation LLC filed the claim against Red Hat and Novell over U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412. PJ points out there is prior art here: 'You might recall the patent was used in litigation against Apple in April 2007, and Beta News reported at the time that it's a 1991 Xerox PARC patent. But Ars Technica provided the detail that it references earlier patents going back to 1984.'"
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And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
--
BMO
Re:HA! (Score:5, Informative)
However, the short sellers certainly got in on SCO when they could -- it has the highest short ratio of any stock on the exchange.
Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining shorts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling [wikipedia.org]
Re:They're effectively bankrupt (Score:5, Interesting)
Novell's success in the lawsuit against SCO buys them some credit in the open source community and respect from potential clients, such as me, that they badly need in the wake of their ill-managed decision to broker the weird patent protectons with Microsoft. They lost a huge, huge amount of support and credibility in the open source world. This will help them recoer some of it.
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately, that will probably be up to Novell. The judge has ruled that Novell, not SCO, still owns all the copyrights they held before they got involved with SCO. There may be parts that are still owned by other parties prior to Novell.
My guess is, no, it won't be released, because ownership is too unclear and it's too expensive to make clear (all we know is, it's not SCO). The GPL people can sue SCO for damages, I expect, and have their pick of anything left over after Novell and IBM get through picking the bones. And prevent SCO (or anybody else) from distributing any more copies in violation of the GPL. Of course, by that point, the principals of SCO may be residing in a federal facility, from which they are not allowed to distribute anything.
More (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, nearly all parties will settle when it gets to that point. Eventually, fighting what's left is no longer worth the cost of the lawyers.
Re:SCOX: death throes begin - spasms of appeals (Score:5, Interesting)
More accurately, SCO made an agreement with Boies Schiller to cap the fees for this case at $31M, with some additional stock and 'cut of the winnings' language thrown in. Boies Schiller agreed to represent SCO all the way through appeals, but the general assumption is that they won't start any new cases for SCO unless SCO dumps some cash on the barrel-head.
So right now, Boies Schiller is looking at a family of cases where they're basically screwed.. they've lost the Novell slander-of-title case outright, and the best they can hope to do there is prove that the $30M technology license Microsoft bought wasn't entirely based on code Novell now officially owns. To the extent that Novell owns the code, Novell also owns 95% of the money, and money Novell owns won't pay SCO's legal fees. In the IBM case, they've been forced to limit their complaint to literal infringement of code that SCO owns -- and there's pathetically little of that which the judge will allow to be used as the basis of a complaint -- and now SCO doesn't even seem to own the code that IBM has allegedly infringed. To make matters worse, Novell has the explicit right to grant IBM permission to do anything it wants with the code, and Novell did exactly that at the outset of this whole long farce.
The whole family of cases as they stand right now are a train wreck for SCO and Boies Schiller, and the only way they could hope to win would be to go back and reformulate their bitch against IBM in a completely new way. But that's exactly what Boise Schiller isn't likely to do without getting a fresh mound of cash from SCO, and SCO doesn't have any cash to throw around right now. Right now, they're shitting bricks trying to find a way to keep Novell from taking away the $30M that's been propping them up since this whole thing started.
Meanwhile, SCO is still in the crosshairs of all the counterclaims Novell and IBM have filed, most of which Novell and IBM are likely to win, and win big. The damages from those will cost far more than SCO has ever been worth. The end result of that game will basically guarantee that any potential 'successor in interest' to SCO would rather strip naked, stick his feet in a hill of fire ants, and shove his arms into a tree-chipper than even think about trying to pick up the case where SCO left off.
Then we'll have to see whether Darl MacBride and the rest of the SCO management team can escape criminal charges, based on what they actually knew or should have known, what they said to the press and government agencies like the SEC, and whether this whole thing can be written off as the longest and most obnoxious pump-and-dump scheme in history.
So basically, this will all end when SCO's crops have been burned, their fields have been tilled with salt, and their flayed carcasses have been poisoned so thoroughly that even the buzzards won't dare to eat what's left.
Of course, that's only what I can come up with. They don't call IBM's lawyers The Nazgul for nothing.
And all of a sudden.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And all of a sudden.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Employees need to evaluate how the company they serve wields the power they generate; if it's less than ethical, they should find a more ethical employer. Talented software developers have the luxury of taking the high road with negligible material risk. Those who just take the money and ignore what they are supporting are, in fact, evil.
(Hey, Google's hiring!)
Summary is Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, the reason they lost is because they picked a fight with players who had billions of dollars, and a very well-established team of expensive lawyers, ready to fight.
They were Germany picking a fight with Russia.
Most people who get sued unfairly don't have that luxury.
Re:Summary is Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
No. They lost because they were _wrong_.
They had funding from Microsoft and Sun to go through with this (the "licenses" SCO sold them in 2003).
What we're all waiting for now is when Yarro, Anderer and McBride go to jail.
--
BMO
Re:Summary is Flamebait (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Summary is Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
Except they didn't lose to IBM. They lost to Novell. The IBM case is still in court, although it will now be a lot easier for IBM to win. It's unclear how SCO can even keep that case going, as the entire premise of it is now blown away. When you don't own the copyright to something, it's pretty pointless to sue somebody for copyright infringement. (Or any of their other claims.)
I actually hope the IBM case does get settled one way or another, because it's a real test of the GPL. The Novell case was a simple question of who "owned" Unix. It looks like the IBM case might fade away now, though, which means still no major test of the GPL in US court.
But the point is they didn't lose because they didn't have financial parity. This was basically MS and Sun vs. Novell, by proxy. If anything, SCO had the financial advantage.
Re:Summary is Flamebait (Score:5, Informative)
MMMmmmhhhh! (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Fair??? Language, please... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many BILLIONS of dollars in lawyers fees, thousands of hours of (taxpayer-funded) court costs, and millions of manpower hours has this farce wasted all to come up with the "right" outcome, that SCO has absolutely no basis for this fiaSCO?
Sorry, I can't call this "sort[ed] out in the end" unless Glen gets to personally pull the trigger with Darl standing against the wall. And every stockholder in SCO, IBM, Novell, Redhat, and every open source developer, and several others, get to piss on the corpse.
Re:Fair??? Language, please... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fair??? Language, please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude have some perspective please. Darl didn't rape or murder anyone. Heck he might have actually believed that Linux was ripping off SCO's IP. I am glad they lost maybe even overjoyed. Wishing that level of physical harm over what is just a business deal is just wrong.
Re:Fair??? Language, please... (Score:5, Insightful)
I figure he probably did believe that.
And by the time the discovery rammed home to him that his yes-men should have said no and he didn't have a leg to stand on, it was too late for him to back out. To say "oops" and throw in the towel would have collapsed what was left of SCO - and brought the investors down on him for "breach of fiduciary duty".
This way he can say "I tried!".
Darl knew perfectly well SCO has no copyrights (Score:5, Informative)
On January 4, 2003, McBride received an email from Michael Anderer, a consultant for SCO retained to examine its intellectual property. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 12. Anderer stated that the APA "transferred substantially less" of Novell's intellectual property than Novell owned. Anderer noted that Santa Cruz's "asset purchase" from Novell "excludes all patents, copyrights, and just about everything else." Id. Anderer cautioned that "[w]e really need to be clear on what we can license. It may be a lot less than we think."
On February 4, 2003, McBride contacted Christopher Stone, Vice Chairman of Novell, and stated that he wanted Novell to "amend" the APA to give SCO "the copyrights to UNIX." Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17; id. Ex. 18 ("Stone Dep." at 108-09). Then, on February 25, 2003, McBride twice called a Novell employee in business development, David Wright, and said, "SCO needs the copyrights." Wright passed on McBride's request to Novell's in-house legal department. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 13. McBride's request was memorialized in an email written that day by a Novell in-house attorney, Greg Jones. Id.
Also early in 2003, McBride and Chris Sontag of SCO contacted Greg Jones regarding the UNIX copyrights. Id. Ex. 8 ("Decl. Greg Jones") at 13, 14; Decl. Christopher S. Sontag 6. McBride stated that "the asset purchase agreement excluded copyrights from being transferred" and that it was a "clerical error." Jones Dep. at 182. On February 20, 2003, Chris Sontag also sent a draft letter to Novell that sought to clarify the parties' rights under the APA. Decl. Christopher S. Sontag Ex.
Again in March 2003, McBride called Stone to ask him if Novell would "give him some changes so he could have the copyrights." Christopher Stone Dep. at 248-49. Ralph Yarro, Chairman of SCO, requested an in-person meeting with Stone. In that meeting, on May 14, 2003, Yarro told Stone that he wanted Novell to amend the APA to give SCO the copyrights. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17 at 4; Stone Dep. at 137-8. Stone refused. Id. On May 19, 2003, McBride called Stone and Joe LaSala, Novell's General Counsel, and again requested that Novell convey the copyrights to SCO. McBride said, "we only need you to amend the contract so that we can have the copyrights." Stone Dep. 249-250. Stone made notes in June 2003 memorializing both conversations. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17. E. SCOsource Initiative
In approximately this same time frame, in January 2003, SCO launched its SCOsource initiative, which was an effort to obtain license fees from Linux users based on claims to Unix System V intellectual property. McBride commented that "SCO owns much of the core UNIX intellectual property, and has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights."
That's just the company (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, they'll just move on to another company, to do mostly the same.
Re:That's just the company (Score:5, Funny)
Otherwise, they'll just move on to another company, to do mostly the same.
Shit, Darl & co. would be lucky to get jobs as janitors in the Tech Industry, let alone anything of any consequence or responsibility. They're pretty much as attractive as a 600lb woman suffering from Tourettes' Syndrome and downing Mezcal by the case.
(well, Maybe Microsoft's hiring or something, but...)
Now SCO can focus on it's other lawsuit (Score:5, Funny)
The case is expected to be settled just before the universe dies a heat-death.
Round 1 over; Now for round 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Round 1 over; Now for round 2 (Score:5, Informative)
I used to work for a VAR, and our customers were allowed to choose between several OSes: Windows, AIX, or Linux. Several of our potential customers refused to buy Linux systems and specifically mentioned the lawsuit as the reason. I'd call that slowing it down, a little.
$699 (Score:5, Funny)
IBM counterclaims (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, a good day!
Haha, oopsie! (Score:5, Funny)
That'll teach 'em... (Score:5, Funny)
Standing to bring suit (Score:5, Informative)
What this decision in this SCO vs. Novell case does is show that SCO does not own Unix copyrights. Therefore, SCO does not have standing to sue.
Standing?
Example: Jane cannot sue Bill for sealing John's tires. Jane does not have standing. (although John has standing to sue Bill for stealing his tires.)
Likewise, SCO does not have standing to sue IBM re: Linux. Novell may have standing. But in any event, Novell waived SCO's right for this suit against IBM.
I'm sure IBM wants to win on the merits. Not just a technicality that SCO does not have standing to sue. But the standing issue is enough to dismiss the SCO vs. IBM (and the world) suit.
On the other hand, IBM has counterclaims against SCO. Including Lanham Act claims. These have teeth. I hope to see SCO get their asses handed to them soon.
Once this fiaSCO is over, I don't know what I'll do. I now read Groklaw as much as I once used to read Slashdot. I hope it is over soon.
Utter destruction (Score:5, Informative)
Conversion (Score:5, Informative)
Judge Kimball writes...
So, when Microsoft and Sun gave SCO millions of dollars for a "unix license" back in 2003, according to SCO's APA agreement with Novell, SCO was supposed to pass 100% of that money to Novell, who would then pass back 5% of it as SCO's administrative fee. SCO kept it all. Just as Microsoft and Sun intended. After all, that money was intended to finance SCO's litigation. SCO now owes Novell more than SCO is worth.
Aside: Sun did not need a Unix license from SCO. It already had a license from AT&T. Microsoft surely did not need a Unix license from SCO back in 2003. For what? Oh, yeah, to help finance a baseless lawsuit against a potential competitor (IBM and Linux).
I love the smell of SCO bankruptcy on a Monday morning.
The judge used the word "conversion". Does this mean that it may become a criminal matter?
Still reading the 102 page decision by Judge Kimball.
Re:Conversion (Score:5, Interesting)
But does this open the door to allowing Novell discovery of MS and Sun records should they demand return of the property? I'm still reading the ruling, too, but the judge seemed disgusted that a case with almost no factual basis was brought before the court and took SO much of its time. That SCO Group was unable to bring disputable facts allowed him to gut the case as a matter of law.
The Nazgul of Armonk (Score:5, Funny)
Easy one! (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy: How many years has this taken? What ever happened to our Constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial?
If it just comes down to who owns the copyrights, why the hell wasn't that discovered during the preliminaries? Why did this case ever come to trial? Why wasn't it dismissed out of hand right at the start?
In fact, one can argue that, as has happened before, Microsoft/SCO won in a very real sense: They demonstrated that they can take you to court on bogus claims, never present any evidence against you, and make you pay millions of dollars over several years. The main reason they "lost" was that they took on a group that included IBM, who has very deep pockets. If it had been most of us fighting them alone, we would have been bankrupt long ago, and thus unable to continue the court battle.
This was a successful demonstration of how people with money can use the court system to drag their opponents down and impose huge expenses on them. Many managers in many companies understand this, and have learned the intended lesson: If you want to avoid such court proceedings that drag on for years, you should just buy the stuff sold by the big guys. Stay away from the stuff sold by the little guys, and you'll be safe from the flocks of lawyers.
It's a lesson that needs reinforcing every few years.
PJ (Score:5, Insightful)
The SCO case launched in 2003. In Moore's-law-years, that's three generations of CPUs. It's a Google IPO, an Apple shift to Intel, assorted consolidations of telcos and other big-board-game inscrutability. What's happened with Open Source? Firefox numbers increasing. Software patents getting a re-examination. (Cory Doctorow announcing a switch to Ubuntu? Uhsowhat.) But what's really changed?
br? I hope that the programmers who write code know that they are doing all the work. They're the heroes. With the attention going to big-name brouhahas and guys with easy money, it's gotta be said that the lonesome hacker is the real world-changer.
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Informative)
SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers.
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
You can send them feedback from here [sco.com].
I wrote this:
Subject: You have an error on your website...
Message: It says, "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers."
NO, YOU DON'T! HA! HA!
Now get those lies off your website.
Cheers!
And then I got the message: Thank you for your feedback.
And in smaller print: You will be hearing from us soon.
Do you think that was a threat?
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
Do you think that was a threat?
The way things are going, it looks like just another lie.
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't worry.
Assassins cost money.
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, I don't owe $699 and I get to throw stones at McBride like he said we could if SCO was wrong?
And does anybody remember Seth? A poster here on
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
"needs to"?
How about SLOWPOKES! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kicking their own asses... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kicking their own asses... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Novell to Open Source Unix? (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, and I don't know all the gory details of the contract, but here's a thought: Since this finding now affirms that SCO owes Novell the license fees for the SVRX licenses sold to Microsoft and Sun (whatever that percentage is) I believe it brings SCO very close to bankruptcy. If SCO is unable to come up with these fees then Novell could use that as grounds for termination of the whole contract. Heck, the contract may have an escape clause for Novell if SCO fails to stand up to its side of the agreement, and this decision could be enough for Novell to terminate immediately.