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Caldera Government Software The Courts Linux News

SCO Amends Novell Complaint 286

Posted by Zonk from the new-chapter-old-story dept.
rm69990 writes "According to Groklaw, SCO now seeks to amend their complaint against Novell. SCO says it 'seeks leave to file a Second Amended Complaint in significant part in consideration of the counterclaims that Novell asserted in its Answer and Counterclaims.' SCO now accuses Novell of infringing SCO's copyrights by distributing SUSE Linux, of breaching a non-compete clause between the two companies, and SCO is also asking for specific performance forcing Novell to turn over the Unix copyrights to SCO. So SCO is essentially admitting that Novell owns the copyrights at this point, but is saying that Novell breached the contract (that specifically excluded copyrights) by failing to transfer them to Santa Cruz."
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SCO Amends Novell Complaint More

SCO Amends Novell Complaint

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  • Wha?!? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:51AM (#14399630) Homepage Journal
    The... both... sell... and... support... operating... systems. How can they NOT compete?

    • Re:Wha?!? (Score:5, Funny)

      by archevis ( 634851 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:15AM (#14399779)
      What, you accusing SCO of not making any sense...?!?!?

      You watch your mouth, young man!

      ---
      "I think not!", Descartes said, and promptly dissappeared.

    • A non-competition contract is a trust with a different name.
    • Cases like this show the wisdom of the "Looser pays" philosophy of British common law.

      In essence if you are in a lawsuit and the court rules against you then the other goy can ask the court to make you pay his lawyer. The courts usually accept those requests.

      In the case of the fiasco sco has been carrying on, those rules would immediately double the cost to them. It also reduces the likelihood of someone settling a frivolous lawsuit.

      SCO has also filed suite in contries that require you to support your original claim. Those casses are over. In Ostralia they are under warning to not try it again. (Public mischife is a crime)
      • The problem arises when Joe Shmo tries to sue Microsoft for stealing his idea and driving his company out of business and gets buried under a 100,000 dollar a day legal team, which he then has to pay for.

        I think we definitely should have more protections in place against frivolous and groundless lawsuits, but I don't think that dumping all the legal costs on the loser is the way to go about it.

        • Re:Luser Pays. Support your original claim. Re:Wha (Score:4, Interesting)

          by tdemark ( 512406 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:03AM (#14400114) Homepage
          How about "loser pays", but the amount is limited to the amount the loser spent. If you lose, it will cost only as much as you spent. There would have to be some ground rules for things like self-representation and lawyers who work on contingency. There would also have to be an on-going public record of actual costs.

          It would sorta act as a resource balance in proceedings. If "big company" is sued by "Joe Schmoe" working with a single lawyer, they have every right to use a team of 30 lawyers, but should only expect to be reimbursed for the first one.

          - Tony

      • Re:Luser Pays. Support your original claim. Re:Wha (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:27AM (#14399864)
        Cases like this show the wisdom of the "Looser pays" philosophy of British common law.

        If the Brits really had "looser pays" then the Spice Girls would have to pay for every case in Britain. I think you mean "loser pays."

      • Looser than what? Don't you mean LOSER PAYS?

      • Spelling:

        Looser -> Loser (Unless you actually mean that the person who is less tight pays. I'm not sure how you would determine that.)

        goy -> guy (I am assuming you don't actually mean goy, because sometimes Jewish people go to court too)

        Ostralia -> Australia (While we may pronounce it "Ostralia", we actually spell it Australia)

        mischife -> mischief (I love Olde Englishe too, but we do have a dictionary now)

    • Re:Wha?!? (Score:5, Informative)

      by 'nother poster ( 700681 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:20AM (#14399818)
      Here is the short version. Novell contracted with SCO to manage the UNIX licensing, but did not transfer the ownership of the Copyrights. This is disputed by SCO. Part of that agreement, according to SCO, was that Novell would continue to sell it's existing line of OS products. This is not competing since they are handled by the license agreement and SCO would get a pittance for each copy sold by Novell. SCO says that Linux violates this because they don't get any money from Novell selling Linux because it's not part of the license agreement, therefore competing.

      They also claim that parts of UNIX were misappropriated into Linux, therefore they should get ownership of those parts also, but that is a seperate part of the complaint

      • Re:Wha?!? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        To be clear.

        Here is the short version. Novell contracted with Santa Crus Operations to manage the UNIX licensing, but did not transfer the ownership of the Copyrights. Santa Cruz Operations sold its UNIX licensing operation to Caldera. Caldera changed their name to The SCO Group. This (the non-transfer of copyright) is now disputed by The SCO Group .

        I wanted to clarify the difference between 'SCO' and 'SCO'.

      • Okay, so just to be sure (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mcc ( 14761 )
        What I'm hearing here is that SCO's complaint says:
        1. Linux is a violation of SCO's noncompete because it is not UNIX.
        2. Linux is a violation of SCO's copyright because it is UNIX.

        Wow.
        • What I'm hearing is "Wow, our case is absolutely irrelevant and not even Microsoft gives a shit any more. But we're getting all these great legal fees, so let's just keep up the fiction that we have anything at all for as long as possible."
        • FYI strictly speaking Linux is not Unix because it is a clean-room clone of UNIX - it is not derived from the original code.

          From functionality/feature set, performance, and user experience Linux may as well be considered Unix but the semantical distinction is very important for precisely this kind of issue (e.g., SCO trying to get all Linux users to fork $600/processor over to them)

          ALSO as an aside:

          SCO is guilty of not paying the 90%+ of licensing fees that they owe to Novell. I believe the suit against Nov
      • Novell contracted with SCO to manage the UNIX licensing, but did not transfer the ownership of the Copyrights.

        The part of the agreement that said Novell kept the copyrights and other IP said something to the effect that the IP rights were not transferred EXCEPT as necessary for SCO/Caldera/whatever to enforce their rights under the contract. (The actual text was posted on (or linked from) groklaw a while back but I can't find it just now. If anybody knows a URL for it, or has the paragraph in question, pl

    • Re:Wha?!? (Score:3, Informative)

      by IllForgetMyNickSoonA ( 748496 )
      AFAIR there was a "shall not compete in UNIX bussiness" clause in the original SCO/NOVELL UNIX contract.

      • Re:Wha?!? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by C0vardeAn0nim0 ( 232451 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:14AM (#14400197) Journal
        "shall not compete in UNIX bussiness"

        Linux IS NOT Unix, so it doesn't compete.
        • I know, but tell that to Darl... :-)

        • Re:Wha?!? (Score:4, Informative)

          by rm69990 ( 885744 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @02:26PM (#14402778)
          Never mind that the non-compete clause was rendered inneffective when Santa Cruz sold their assets to Caldera. (The TLA offered Novell a full license back of Unix and SCO's modifications, but with some restrictions. The contract stated that those restrictions caese to exist in the event of a change of control of SCO.)

          Read these linked PDFs.

          http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/8_20 _03_n-sco.pdf [novell.com]
          http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_7 _03_n-sco_tla.pdf [novell.com]
          http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_9 _03_sco-n.pdf [novell.com]
          http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/11_1 9_03_n-sco.pdf [novell.com]

          As you can see, SCO brought up the non-compete clause in the press back when Novell first announced the aquisition, but never addressed the issue with Novell. Novell said that claim was baseless.

          Also notice the difference in wording from the two lawyers corresponding back and forth. Lasala (Novell) always mentions specific clauses in the agreement that support his position, and lays it out very clearly, whereas Tibbits (SCO) simply says "We don't agree, fuck off" (paraphrased of course).

          Also, in the SCO complaint you will notice SCO says "Why would Novell need a license if they retained the copyrights?"

          The TLA specifies the licensed technology as "any code not owned by Novell as of the date of this agreement". This means that Novell retained the copyrights over Unix (due to copyrights being excluded elsewhere in the agreement), and also a license to any SCO modification or derivative. In the first linked letter, Novell demands all versions of Unixware and Unix under SCO's control. This includes the latest versions containing copyrighted SCO code.

          So, if the copyrights didn't pass to SCO (very likely) Novell is allowed to distribute their own code, and has a license to redistribute SCO's code, without any restrictions (due to the change of control of SCO). If the copyrights did or do transfer, Novell still has a license to all of Unix with no restrictions.

          Novell has killed any hope SCO had of ever holding any Linux users or vendors liable for copyright infringement.

  • How can they keep doing this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IntelliAdmin ( 941633 ) * on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:52AM (#14399639) Homepage
    It is amazing to me that SCO can continue this long without totally running out of lawyer money. I really wonder if some third parties are funding them under the table.

    Tell me this -> How are they making a profit today?

    No. I really want to know.

    • Re:How can they keep doing this? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:55AM (#14399655)
      "Tell me this -> How are they making a profit today?"

      They have a secret ad-revenue sharing agreement with /.
    • Both Sun and MS paid for licenses which pumped them up with tens of millions in cash. Then MS acted as a middlemen to funnel cash in from the canadian banking interest. Those guys got royally shafted on the stock price but they probably had some short interest to try and hedge that. I bet they never listen to MS again though.

      Recently some current bagholders came up with some more money to try and continue the lawsuit.

      Don't worry, there are lots of really rich and powerful people who benefit from the FUD gen
      • Don't worry, there are lots of really rich and powerful people who benefit from the FUD generated by this lawsuit so SCO will not ever run out of money.

        I'll bite. I can think of Microsoft and conceivably Sun -- these folks compete with Linux and can benefit from any bad PR generated. Who else, though, possibly profits from a string of unwinnable lawsuits filed against Linux?

    • Re:How can they keep doing this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by OwlWhacker ( 758974 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:25AM (#14399847) Journal
      It is amazing to me that SCO can continue this long without totally running out of lawyer money.

      It's amazing that SCO would even consider throwing away money on such a lost cause in the first place.

      How are they making a profit today?

      I'm sure everybody knows that they're not making a profit; their goal is to own Linux and Unix, take over the world, and make mountains of cash. Of course, it seems that they're the only ones who believe that this is likely... oh, and Rob Enderle.
      • It's amazing that SCO would even consider throwing away money on such a lost cause in the first place.

        I suspect that SCO now realizes that it can't possibly win, and is merely trying to extend its lawsuit long enough for the public to forget they exist. If they can keep the case tied up in the courts for a few more years, they probably think that everyone will no longer care. I don't think they realize how long Slashdot holds a grudge.

        Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to hack my CueCat. ;-)

    • Re:How can they keep doing this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by confusion ( 14388 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:34AM (#14399918) Homepage
      The answer is that they're not doing well financially at all. They continue to get infusions of cash from private investors to cover ongoing legal costs: http://www.forbes.com/2005/12/22/jetblue-applied-s ignal-cx_dn_1222eyeonstocks.html [forbes.com]

      I suspect they can keep it up for another year or so before they start running out of investors to screw.

      Jerry
      http://www.cyvin.org/ [cyvin.org]

    • Well, another $10,000,000 helps. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jaywalk ( 94910 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:37AM (#14399937) Homepage
      According to this article [yahoo.com], SCO got another ten million from a private placement of stock with existing institutional investors. Since every rational assessment of the stock suggests that the ten million is not going to pay off on the stock market, it's reasonable to assume that these "investors" have some motive other than profiting from the stock directly.

      • More MSFT funding? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by typical ( 886006 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:27AM (#14400320) Journal
        I certainly would love to know if this ten million dollars started, one way or another, at Microsoft. I can't think of any other people with lots of money (with the possible exception of Sun) who would remotely benefit from continuous legal challenges to Linux.

        At first I thought that ESR was a conspiracy nut. Then you realize that, no, Microsoft actually *is* as nasty as he claims.

    • Re:How can they keep doing this? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) * on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:18AM (#14400236) Homepage
      Well, remember those zombie films where a hapless victim unloads a clip of ammunition into a walking corpse, and the corpse stumbles a bit and falls down, only to rise back up and continue pursuing said hapless victim?

      Reload.
    • How are they making a profit today?

      creative accounting and earnings management, of course!

  • SCO still exists? (Score:4, Funny)

    by thparker ( 717240 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:53AM (#14399644) Homepage
    Isn't this over by now? The last time I saw a SCO article here, it seemed that even the judge was sick of their nonsense. Is there anyone still taken in by this charade?
    • As long as both sides have money it'll keep going.

      The winner will be the one with most money (which luckily for us isn't SCO).
    • Is there anyone still taken in by this charade?


      Man in suit of armor walks in and hits SCO over the head with a dead chicken.

      Dear Sir,

      I would like to protest in the strongest possibe terms about your SCO sketch. I have been a village idiot all my life and your Darl Mc Bride character is giving village idiots everywhere a bad name.

      Sincerely,

    • Re:SCO still exists? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mormop ( 415983 )
      "Isn't this over by now? The last time I saw a SCO article here, it seemed that even the judge was sick of their nonsense. Is there anyone still taken in by this charade?"

      Yep, you recall correctly but the last time a judge showed any honest sign of being sick of nonsensical and irritating behaviour in court Microsoft got let off by the "tainted" judge's replacement.

      Hopefully the judge in this case is only putting up with this bullshit in order to avoid accusations of failing to hear SCO's side of the story

  • Yea! (Score:2, Funny)

    by 'nother poster ( 700681 )
    SCO's back in the news. I've missed my SCO fix lately. This manouver looks pretty much as dumb as the ones in the past. I give them 3 weeks before they backpedal on the new, new ammended claims.

  • Sco ??? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Dam's ( 921393 )
    What's that ?

  • Ready... Set... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Volatile_Memory ( 140227 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:56AM (#14399668)
    ...YAWN.

    v.m

  • Second Amendment Complaint? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Roj Blake ( 931541 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:58AM (#14399681)
    Watch out, they have finally gone completely nuts and are going to start shooting!

  • Second Amendment (Score:4, Funny)

    by two_socks ( 516862 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:58AM (#14399683) Homepage Journal
    "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

    That's pretty off base, even for SCO.

  • Not my guns! (Score:4, Funny)

    by rharder ( 218037 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:58AM (#14399685) Homepage
    A Second Amendment complaint? Now they want to take my unix AND my guns!

  • SCO Needs to do more of this... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) * <wgrother AT optonline DOT net> on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:59AM (#14399689) Journal

    From the complaint (via Groklaw): V. PRAYER FOR RELIEF

    Wherefore, Plaintiff SCO prays this Court enter judgment for SCO and against Novell:

    Although I doubt God will be listening, as he's upgrading his SUSE Linux...

    • Although I doubt God will be listening, as he's upgrading his SUSE Linux...

      No, God is more of a "close to the metal" kind of guy. He is compiling his Gentoo box. Of course he has access to those nice quantum boxes so it goes really fast especially when He pushes them through a time portal...

  • In Corporate America... (Score:3, Funny)

    by thej1nx ( 763573 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @08:59AM (#14399692)
    In Corporate America, criminals/conmen sue you .... oh wait! bugger!

  • Didn't SCO have a ceiling agreement (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LinuxDon ( 925232 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:05AM (#14399720)
    I remember having read something about a ceiling agreement they have with their legal company.
    Namely that there was a maximum price they would have to pay for legal support, above that amount of money the costs were for the legal company.

    Couldn't find a link to it on Google though.

  • From The Article (Score:4, Informative)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:05AM (#14399722) Homepage Journal
    This looked the most meaty and techy from TFA:

        EXHIBIT B

              Novell's unauthorized copying in its use and distribution of SuSE
              Linux includes but is not limited to the appropriateion of the
              following data structures and algorithms contained in or derived
              from SCO's copyrighted material:

              1. SuSE's implementation of the "Read/Copy/Update" algorithm
              2. SuSE's implementation of NUMA Aware Locks
              3. SuSE's implementation of the distributed lock manager
              4. SuSE's implementation of reference counters
              5. SuSE's implementation of asynchronous I/O
              6. SuSE's implementation of the kmalloc data structure
              7. SuSE's implementation of the console subsystem
              8. SuSE's implementation of IRQs
              9. SuSE's implementation of shared memory locking
              10. SuSE's implementation of semaphores
              11. SuSE's implementation of virtual memory
              12. SuSE's implementation of IPC's
              13. SuSE's implementation of load balancing
              14. SuSE's implementation of PIDs
              15. SuSE's implementation of numerous kernel internals and APIs
              16. SuSE's implementation of ELF
              17. SuSE's implementation of STREAMS
              18. SuSE's implementation of dynamic linking
              19. SuSE's implementation of kernel pre-emption
              20. SuSE's implementation of memory mapping
              21. SuSE's implementation of ESR
              22. SuSE's implementation of buffer structures
              23. SuSE's implementation of process blocking
              24. SuSE's implementation of numerous header files

    • Re:From The Article (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      21. SuSE's implementation of ESR
      You mean there's more than one ESR out there?!

    • Re:From The Article (Score:5, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:14AM (#14399775)
      Novell's unauthorized copying in its use and distribution of SuSE Linux includes but is not limited to the appropriateion of the following data structures and algorithms contained in or derived from SCO's copyrighted material:

      Pretty much everything that makes SuSE remotely like UNIX, basically. This seems to be derived from SCO's amusing claim that all our UNIX are belong to them; they must have sat down, asked themselves 'what makes a UNIX system so UNIXey?', written out a list and handed it to the lawyers...

    • Re:From The Article (Score:4, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:23AM (#14399834)
      You know what amazes me? What amazes me is that the Judge in this case has never even once asked "can you show me any evidence that you actually own any of this intellectual property". You would think that would be the first thing to get settled no?

      The American legal system is a joke.

      • Re:From The Article (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:40AM (#14400455) Homepage Journal
        Well, that's pretty much what the whole proceeding is about isn't it?

        It'd be one thing if Novell stole SCO's bicycle. But we're not talking about property and stealing, we're talking about property rights and agreements made about future behavior with respect to the use and non-use of those rights. Since what we're talking about is abstract, it's not as simple as looking in SCO's garage and seeing the bicycle is gone, then going to Novell's and seeing it is there.

        What SCO is arguing now is more like this: "Novell sold me the exclusive rights on the use its bicycle to court Mary. Then he rode over on his bike to Mary's house."

        Then Novell says, "True, I sold you exclusive rights to use that bicycle to court Mary, but I bought a different bicycle and used it."

        Then SCO says, "Well, you gave me exclusive rights to the design of the bike in courting Mary. Look see, the derailleur on the bike you rode works just like the one you gave me exclusive rights to."

        Then Novell says, "No, I sold you exclusive courting rights to use the components specific to the bike in question. The derailleur design is not specific to that bike."

        And so on. It's all about promises not to engage in broadly defined classes of activities centering around vaguely defined abstract entities. It's always going to be possible argue that an activity does or doesn't fall into the relevant class, or that the entity in question is or is not identical to the one covered in the agreement. On top of this, the judge is supposed to render if possible an airtight and irreproachable decision, otherwise he risks being overturned and losing judge-karma.
    • SuSE's implementation of ESR

      Oooh, be careful about pushing this one SCO. He's got guns [wikipedia.org].
    • How interesting it is that SCO is attacking almost all the things about SuSE Linux that are implemented by the Linux kernel, not SuSE itself.

      For a little perspective:
      SCO: Novell is using Linux buses in their SuSE transportation network. Linux buses infringe on our copyrights on the UnixWare bus, because they have four wheels and an engine; therefore, Novell is infringing on our copyrights!

    • Re:From The Article (Score:3, Informative)

      by msobkow ( 48369 )

      1. SuSE's implementation of the "Read/Copy/Update" algorithm

      RCU was developed by Sequent as part of NUMA IIRC, with the express intent of it being used by multiple operating systems. I was working on a Sequent S81 years ago, and their sales reps were quite excited about the idea. IBM subsequently acquired the rights by purchasing Sequent. SCO will lose this one.

      2. SuSE's implementation of NUMA Aware Locks

      See above RE: RCU.

      13. SuSE's implementation of load balancing

      Nonsense. If SuSE used SCO/SV

  • Err, uh .. what? (Score:4, Funny)

    by thaerin ( 937575 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:12AM (#14399760)
    "So SCO is essentially admitting that Novell owns the copyrights at this point, but is saying that Novell breached the contract (that specifically excluded copyrights) by failing to transfer them to Santa Cruz."

    I can see there collectively being a large amount of heads exploding after trying to make sense of that one. I'm thinking SCO has nothing to do with Santa Cruz and more to do with SChizOphrenia because they've seem to have lost touch with reality.

  • Bah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lunenburg ( 37393 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:15AM (#14399784) Homepage
    The fact that this hasn't been laughed out of court yet makes me sad.

  • /. editors up to their usual form (Score:4, Informative)

    by puzzled ( 12525 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:16AM (#14399791) Journal

      SCOX is arguing that Novell has infringed on their copyrights with SuSe Linux. They've also argued that Novell has failed to properly transfer the copyrights to them. Two lines of argument, each in opposition to each other, are perfectly fine the the court system. I forget the name for this, but basically SCOX is offering judge Kimball two different ways to give them 'relief' for Novell's supposed wrongdoing.

      SCOX has admitted nothing. The meaning of 'admit', to a court, is that one of the parties involved is giving up information to the court that the other side can't prove. If SCOX were 'to admit' a lack of copyrights in lawyerspeak their case would instantly disintegrate and the door would open to Lanham Act claims and all sorts of other nastiness. SCOX never, ever 'admits' to anything.

      There are plenty of people with knowledge of this case - see groklaw.net for mind numbing detail, or go to the Yahoo SCOX board if you'd like rowdy commentary and a sad, funny little troll named backinfullforce.

    • SCOX is arguing that Novell has infringed on their copyrights with SuSe Linux. They've also argued that Novell has failed to properly transfer the copyrights to them. Two lines of argument, each in opposition to each other, are perfectly fine the the court system. I forget the name for this, but basically SCOX is offering judge Kimball two different ways to give them 'relief' for Novell's supposed wrongdoing.

      Agreed, but I don't think this one's well set up. The idea is to present the same concept as a f

      • Re:/. editors up to their usual form (Score:5, Informative)

        by mkoenecke ( 249261 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:38AM (#14400432) Homepage
        Just to clarify a bit, as an attorney: it's termed "pleading in the alternative," and in this case SCO's claim is better described as "We maintain that we own the copyrights; but even *if* that were not the case, we would win anyway because Defendant was contractually obligated to transfer them to us." It is not the same thing as admitting, even conditionally, that they might not own the copyrights.

        (Note: just pointing out how "pleading further and in the alternative" works, not - Heaven forbid - supporting those clowns at SCO.)
  • So now they admit they never owned the copyrights. Doesn't this just end the IBM thing. If Novell dismissed that issue, can the morphed case go on? I expcet IBM to file something new very quickly (Partial Summary Judgement) to start ripping SCO a new one. Here we go again!

  • ESR? (Score:4, Funny)

    by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:21AM (#14399827) Homepage
    21. SuSE's implementation of ESR

    I know Debian has "Virtual RMS", but I think SuSE is really going weird if they implement stuff like this. Weird syslog messages from SuSE boxes:

    Jan 4 06:47:45 localhost esr: gunning some processes

  • Gotta love that circular reasoning. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jaywalk ( 94910 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:26AM (#14399855) Homepage
    The amendment is hysterically funny if you keep in mind that the original charge was for Slander of Title. In other words, SCO sued Novell because Novell claimed title to copyrights owned by SCO. Now we have SCO asking the court for this:
    (a) requiring Novell to assign to SCO any and all copyrights Novell improperly registerd in UNIX and UnixWare following the Asset Purchase Agreement: (b) preventing Novell from representing in any forum that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights; and (c) requiring Novell to retract or withdraw all representations it has made regarding its purported ownership of the copyrights;
    So, having sued Novell because Novell said it owned the copyright, SCO asks the court to transfer those same copyrights from Novell to SCO and -- having transferred those rights -- to admit that Novell no longer has them.

    Does SCO even know what they're suing for?

    • Hmmm.. it looks as if they are claiming now that Novell has registered further copyrights with respect to UNIX/UnixWare after they signed the contract with SCO, which SCO now wishes to see transferred to them.

      The entire suit is hysterically funny, of course, but this one point looks to me as if it would fit the original claim well (however stupid the claim was, of course).

  • bleh. (Score:2)

    by bmo ( 77928 )
    I disagree with Senator McCain. I believe in torture. I believe that Darl, Yarro, BiFF, Anderer, the lawfirm of BSF, and the rest of the foul bunch should be chained naked together, repeatedly dunked in a barrel of ripe chum that's been brewing on the dock for the month of July, and fed to sharks with frikin' laser beams.

    --
    BMO
    • I'm sorry, but feeding SCO lawyers and execs to sharks (even mutated ones with head-mounted "lay-zers") would be considered cruel and unusual. Some types of shark, after all, are an endangered species.
  • I think Novell should file a Second Ammendment claim asking to bear (and use) arms in their case against SCO.

  • It's all about delay, and msft scare tactics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @09:47AM (#14400007)
    "Oh man, they must be crazy! The lawsuits make no sense at all!" Right? Wrong, scox is being crazy like a fox. What scox is doing makes perfect sense.

    At this point, the entire point of the scam is keep delaying. Msft's army of shills are screaming the message: "People are being sued for using Linux - don't use Linux." Of course the msft influenced tech-pop-media is leaving out the details, but most of the public isn't interested in the details.

    There is also a very powerful object lesson being sent to other companies: "if you contribute to Linux, you better be ready to spend $100MM to fight a msft backed nuisance lawsuit. And you better be squeaky clean, because the discovery will never stop." How many companies want to bother with that? "Screw it. I was going to donate this code to Linux, but it just isn't worth the trouble."

    McBride rakes in an easy $1MM a year. Scox market cap goes from $6MM to $70MM. Life is good for the scox scammers. Scox execs can lie, cheat, and steal, all they want. The USA bogo-justice system isn't going to do anything about it.
  • "So SCO is essentially admitting that Novell owns the copyrights at this point, but is saying that Novell breached the contract (that specifically excluded copyrights) by failing to transfer them to Santa Cruz." Ok, bare with me, I think I have worked out how to defeat Microsoft and then take over the world....

    1 Get SCO to sue Microsoft from breach of copyright
    2 Sue MS for breach of contract and get them to turn over the copyright to us
    3 Get LOTS of money and domination in the software world 4 rep
  • Taking some liberties with Despair.com:
    "Persistence: It's over, Man...let it go!"

  • Novell Did Steal from SCO (Score:3, Funny)

    by ehaggis ( 879721 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:08AM (#14400147) Homepage Journal
    SuSE begins with "S" just like SCO. Obviously Novell should be sued for taking it from SCO.

  • ELF again. Sheesh. (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:10AM (#14400167)
    ELF again. Sheesh. How many times do we have to explain that to them?

    They must not be into Dungeons & Dragons I guess.
    Listen up..Elves come in a large variety of races, and each has its own nuances. They are here described in alphabetical order: Dargonesti, Dimernesti, Drow, Gray Elves, High Elves, Kagonesti, Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Valley Elves, Wild Elves, and Wood Elves.

  • IBM or Novell should just buy SCO out (Score:3, Informative)

    by Khopesh ( 112447 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:21AM (#14400264) Homepage Journal
    SCO's Fiscal 2005 Results [sec.gov] noted that their assets total roughly $30 million (down from $56 million the previous year). See also the SCOfacts.org Scorecard for SCO vs. World [scofacts.org]. IBM's numbers [yahoo.com] are all measured in billions of dollars, and Novell's numbers [yahoo.com] all exceed a hundred million.

    If IBM or Novell (or some trust composed of several heavy hitters) completely bought SCO out, all of this legal crap would go away. It's not too far-fetched, either. We could even see SCO's copyrighted UNIX code released under the GPL ... in the event that we actually wanted it ;-)

    Maybe my suggestion is a year or two early; at the rate SCO is shrinking, its value will soon drop below the cost of defending its claims in court.

    • Re:IBM or Novell will *NOT* just buy SCO out (Score:4, Interesting)

      by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:35AM (#14400403)

      That was the theory three years ago, when IBM could have bought scox for $20MM. IBM wanted no part of it then, and after three years, and about $100MM spent by IBM, you can be absolutely certain that IBM wants no part of that scam company now.

      When you buy scox, you buy lawsuits, lots of lawsuits. Scox has violated many companies, and many laws. Do you think IBM wants that? Do you think IBM wants all the ill will that comes with buying scox?

      IBM's linux business is in the billions, the msft/scox nuisance lawsuit is hardly worth jeopordizing that.

      • Re:IBM or Novell will *NOT* just buy SCO out (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @11:01AM (#14400641) Homepage Journal
        Not only that IBM didn't want every IP crooked company on the planet trying to sue it just so IBM would buy them out. One of the stranger twists of fate is that IBM really does own patents on just about everything having to do with computers. One of that patents it is claiming SCO infringed on is for a menu structure! There is an old story that Microsoft found out that IBM was infringing on like ten of it's patents. When they meet IBM brought in a list of 5,000 patents that Microsoft was infringing on. True or not the moral is you don't start an IP fight with IBM. IBM wants to make sure EVERYONE know that so they are going to slap SCO as hard as they can. Novell wants Unix back. Why? So it can make Linux an official Unix and gain mind-share in the Linux world.

    • IBM's not going to buy SCO out, or settle on any terms SCO would agree to. And nobody else is crazy enough to buy SCO out and take on the legal problems. The big problem is that SCO didn't just sue IBM, they publicly claimed IBM stole from SCO and ignored contract terms. Those are deadly serious claims to make considering the amount of business IBM does with governments, militaries and financial institutions (domestic and foreign) who have less than no tolerance for shenanigans and who won't do business wit

  • Duel it out (Score:3, Funny)

    by Thyme3333 ( 639566 ) on Thursday January 05, 2006 @10:38AM (#14400433)
    The two headquarters are within 10 miles of each other (Sco in Lindon, Utah and Novell in Provo, Utah)...why don't they just meet in the middle and duel it out man to man?

  • This is on topic.

    I think ibm has some agreement not to sue msft untill at least 2007. Also, with the present administration, the DoJ will take no action against msft. The scox-scam trials are set mid-2007. And when does Vista come out?

    All the financing for this purely malicious lawsuit was provided by msft. Msft has cost IBM around $100MM in legal expenses, so far. Msft has also used this lawsuit in msft's smear campaign against Linux - which is a substantial part of IBM's business.

    Msft has also used the sc

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