This is the end for SCO

[Mr. Harley]

Urban Ranger, it's why technically based people often loathe lawyers, and accountants. My father, a control systems engineer and later on executive at Foster Wheeler Corp (since retired) came home after one series of meetings in a foul mood. He had to explain, taking up an entire day, to the accountants the a two sensor tell-me twice safety system (the normal is three sensor) made the safety system LESS RELIABLE than even one sensor. I don't even want to consider the salaries that were sitting around that table, it concerned a full-fledged industrial complex. By the way, impressed by Ned or the fact I'm planning to be a gadfly on the local school board ?

That's why I suspected Ned had not done any coding, because his statements reflect a legal versus programmer paradigm. Though interestly enough, just getting a degree in IT at the Bachelors level doesn not gurantee real world coding, or anything outside of course work. After you right and debug your first few thousand lines of code on a deadline, you attitude changes. My last coding was on an IBM 360, or writing 4000 lines of code in Apple Basic for a commercial application (now I can't flirt with Alinistra either ) . I've done some database work since then, but no genuine coding.

I've enjoyed reading this, and will save this forum along with the excellent exchange on PRC vs. Taiwan. Ned distills the legal profession/SCO attitude very succinctly, and you, Wraith, and Q-Cubed have saved me a bunch of research!

[Q Classic]

i stand corrected about the nature of linux's status with gnu.

note also that linux distributions out right now should rightly be called gnu/linux, because a lot of the programs, although they work with linux, are part of the gnu project instead.

only debian thus far, i think, has actually started calling it that.

and sco? well, sco has no clue.

[Ned]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
That's why I suspected Ned had not done any coding, because his statements reflect a legal versus programmer paradigm.

I have an undergrad in Physics from a well know technical school, a JD and some work toward PhD in computer science. I also have passed the patent bar exam.

My programming experience includes designing an operating system and helping to code it. I did this while I was working in aerospace for classified military projects.

Back to the SCO case, it appears that SCO has resolved the copyright ownership issue with Novell as it plans to add a copyright complaint in the near future. This requires that SCO actually record the assignment of copyright from Novell and to register the copyright in the UNIX code.

The SCO site is now down, http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5119434.html, because of a hacker attack. However, I half recall Bois saying something about a patent complaint against IBM. This too would normally require that SCO record the assignment of the patents in order to bring the complaint without Novell.

[Q Classic]

in any case, i have my doubts about sco's claim. we'll wait a month to see what sco comes up with, then we'll have a clearer picture.

[Wraith]

--"As long as this keeps up, and keeps mid-sized businesses from adopting Linux, MS is smiling all the way to the bank."

This may backfire on them, if this is the case. If this case drags out too much longer, the GPL may get upheld in court. This is a particularly good scenario for a GPL test, as the opponent is a small, noisy, and fairly slimy looking company attacking one of the biggest companies around. It hardly looks like a fair fight (IBM probably has more IP lawyers on retainer than SCO has employees).

--"This requires that SCO actually record the assignment of copyright from Novell and to register the copyright in the UNIX code."

There is a time limit on how long you can wait to file copyright and then try to enforce it. Considering that some of the code SCO has published as "stolen" before was over thirty years old public-domain code, I still have very large doubts about any potential claims they could bring.

--"The SCO site is now down, http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5119434.html, because of a hacker attack. "

They've made this claim before. The odd part is that, in all but one of the cases, their upstream provider hasn't had any knowledge of such an attack.

It will be amusing to see just what level of all the above makes it into their court case. This has been their main credibility problem so far; they make amazing claims in the press, and refuse to back any of it up in court (most of it they haven't even brought up in court). This kind of "believe what I say, not what I do" behavior certainly does nothing to establish credibility.

The bottom line is they've been claiming, for months now, to have proof of IBM's wrongdoings. They've been in discovery in court for a few months, and have yet to bring any evidence forward; on the contrary, in fact, they've been doing everything they can possibly do to stall things (including filling documents just past the deadline). How can anyone take them seriously at this point?

Esecially when you notice that the MS licensing deal has put them into profit for the first time in ages, and Darl gets a huge bonus if he can keep it up for one more quarter...

Wraith
"Cooper, you remind me today of a small Mexican Chihuahua."
-- Cole ("Twin Peaks")

[Ned]

Wraith, It is very typical in IP suits for the plaintiff to be a non specific as possible during discovery and the law and motion stage. Anything they say can and will be used against them during trial.

It is the goal of the defendant to get the plaintiff to be specific and then to knock them out with a summary judgment motion.

What you are seeing here is the typical cat and mouse dance of IP suits. This can go on for years unless some magistrate is willing to hold the plaintiff's feet to the fire.

[Q Classic]

Wraith, It is very typical in IP suits for the plaintiff to be a non specific as possible during discovery and the law and motion stage. Anything they say can and will be used against them during trial.

the problem, ned, is that sco is being specific enough that defenders of linux can already punch holes in their claims.
that, sadly, is a problem.
also, the numerous claims they've made outside of the court of law, in public... they are being used in the court of law against them, specifically by redhat.

as for the ddos attack on sco, this is what some are reporting:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031210163721614

the press release explaining the ddos attack... apparently the cause of the attack is a well-known vulnerability which has been patched in virtually every operating system for a long time. sco not patching it is awfully negligent of them.

[Urban Ranger]

At this point, I don't think anybody gets upset by McBride anymore. We just laugh at him instead.

[Mr. Harley]

Okay, Ned, I sit corrected (by the way, I was wondering if the programming and aerospace would be tied in - was trolling).

So you can still flirt with Alinestra.

I agree, from having watched the IT cases unfold reference MS, that this is the typical dance. However, usually it's the big company using the legal system to tie-up and stymie the smaller companies business and/or patents/copyrights. That's why so many people are puzzled by SCO. They initiated this attack on the local HUMONGOUS frog, have made the Serbs look like PR experts, and don't fit the profile of either aggreived little company (all the secondary suits/threats getting other IT companies/people pissed) or big nasty legal system abuser. Since they don't fit the profile, and they are stalling, it is guaranteed to produce all of this speculation.

Plus, they actually are instigating it. The number of businesses and IT professionals affected by SCO's claims are staggering. Since a critical part of any conflict is knowing your opponents strategy, and even better yet his underlying motivation, it actual requires this speculation. Hey, if nothing else it's made something besides computer games and Microsoft ongoing (in the computer industry) news. My bets are on IBM and the Linux community.

[Q Classic]

sco actually has very few people comparatively running on its software--less than 10% of the market (actually, i think it's even less than 5%).

furthermore, since the beginning of this lawsuit, sco has actually lost customers--all of its profits have derived from investment by such luminous lenders as baystar capital.

[Wraith]

--"Wraith, It is very typical in IP suits"

But SCO keeps saying this is a contract suit, not an IP suit. There's been no copyright or patent claims made so far, at least not outside of press releases. SCO has continually (generally, whenever the stock prices started to dip; you can pretty much chart their press releases by looking at a graph of the stock price and predicting one every dip) made loud and extreme statements about all this proof they have, but they won't show it to IBM. Notice that they've already been showing some kind of "proof" to people in the press, they just won't give it to the court.

--"Anything they say can and will be used against them during trial. "

Which is why it was so surprising to see Darl's brother represent them in the discovery motions hearing. He made a couple of off-the-cuff remarks that are going to haunt Boies later (including, IIRC, one about there being no trade secrets in SYSV).

--"apparently the cause of the attack is a well-known vulnerability"

You can look at their netcraft chart as well. That's not what a DDoS would look like from the outside. It looks more like someone pulled the wrong cable out of the wall, or SCO set their firewall to block the web server's IP.
Sadly, the best way this can be interpreted for SCO is simple and utter incompetence (not a good thing for an OS vendor, although it never seems to hurt Microsoft), but it looks more like a smear campaign. Hopefully Red Hat will subpoena their server logs and hammer them with more libel claims if they're faking it.

--"sco actually has very few people comparatively running on its software"

He probably meant all of SCO's anti-linux claims.

Wraith
Strip mining prevents forest fires.

[Urban Ranger]

Yes, the netscraft chart puzzles me as well...

[Ned]

Wraith, even though this is a so-called contract case, all contract breaches appear to be IP related. It is clear that the reason they did not bring pure copyright infringement counts heretofore is related to the fact that it did not own the copyrights; and because they did not own them they could not register them, a prerequisite for filing suit.

[Ned]

I just tried to get onto Groklaw. I got a message that they had been DDos by the slash dot crowd.

And who might these people be? Supporters of Microsoft?

[Wraith]

--"Yes, the netscraft chart puzzles me as well..."

They were incredibly quick on the draw with their press releases, as well. I haven't double-checked this, but it looks like their first press releases must have made it into media hands before the "attack" started.

It actually looks like a regular planned maintenance. Their site has gone from "linux/apache" on Netcraft to "unkown/apache". In addition, the content of their site has changed; most of the material related to the IBM case has dissapeared.

Some of the recent speculation is that SCO is laying the groundwork for a "hackers ate my homework" excuse for delaying discovery. IBM should be taking note of this. Since SCO claimed, in the press, that they were working with their ISP and law enforcement on this, IBM can go ask "did SCO talk to you about this?" (their ISP's reaction was basicaly "what DDoS?")

--"It is clear that the reason they did not bring pure copyright infringement counts heretofore is related to the fact that it did not own the copyrights;"

Hehe. This doesn't seem odd to you at all? "We don't own these copyrights, but lets sue someone over infringing on them anyway?" What kind of lawyer would actually take a case like that?

--"I got a message that they had been DDos by the slash dot crowd."

Slashdot is a very popular news site for computer geeks. It has also generated something called "the Slashdot effect" thanks to this viewership. When a story is posted on Slashdot with a link to a site, that site is suddenly hit with a huge amount of requests (note: legit ones). Very few sites are prepared for this, and many go down under the sudden load.
Think of it like running a small corner store, and one day it suddenly catches attention for some reason and you suddenly get 100 times the usual customers.

Wraith
"Anyone who hates dogs and kids can't be all bad."
-- W. C. Fields