Submitted by “Federal district judge Dale A. Kimball has handed down the final judgment in the SCO case. The decision dismisses SCO’s latest claims, grants declaratory relief to Novell, and sustains the court’s previous judgment that SCO owes Novell over $2.54 million (plus interest) for unjust enrichment.”
The sweet taste of victory..
Justice has been served!
The only good thing I can see from this whole event is that the Linux kernel is clean against UNIX SVRX copyrights.
Outside of that, nothing has changed except some lawyers got rich.. again.
I am glade it’s over. The whole thing felt like a complete waste of time, effort and resources (money).
Edited 2008-11-25 02:36 UTC
I always thought of it as an epic troll, just due to the sheer number of people that got bent out of shape on the internet.
What gets me about this is how SCO could seriously think that a group of people who’s goal is to write open code would simply go and rip off other code, then release it as their own and then encourage people to review it.
Do they really think that of all people the kernel developers would gamble that nobody would notice?
It just doesn’t add up and yet they persisted.
Well, you know what they say; you know others as you know yourself.
No it doesn’t. It just established that Novell owns the UNIX SVRX copyrights. Luckily for us, Novell understands there is greater chance of a longer term profit in selling linux, than suing it. From the SCO vs IBM documents it doesn’t appear that likely that there is any infringement, but that hasn’t officially been decided by a court of law.
As Novell release a full Linux distro, including the kernel under the GPL license, I think that would prohibit them from suing for copyright infringement.
One would think so. But that didn’t stop Caldera.
Technically correct.
SCO had complete access to (Novell’s) UNIX code, and also to the entire development history of IBM’s AIX, and of course Linux code just as everyone else does, and a HUGE incentive to find any infringement.
In over two years of searching, they eventually came up with … not one line of copied code.
Not one line.
I would conclude then that by far the largest factor that would prevent anyone at all going after Linux for violating UNIX copyrights is the simple fact that Linux code is not a copy of UNIX code.
Linux is a UNIX work-alike, but not a UNIX copy.
Then again … Windows is a VMS work-alike, not a VMS copy, and yet somehow I never see anyone ever speculating about someone going after Windows for violation of VMS copyrights.
Let it rest. Linux is not a copy of anything. It is legitimately-authored original code, designed to oeprate in a similar way to UNIX. Perfectly legal.
Microsoft will just have to learn to try to honestly compete with something for a change.
Windows is certainly not copy of VMS.
Probably a fair enough observation, to be sure. Windows NT design was certainly based on VMS ideas, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Development
“Microsoft hired a group of developers from Digital Equipment Corporation led by Dave Cutler to build Windows NT, and many elements of the design reflect earlier DEC experience with Cutler’s VMS and RSX-11.”
“Linux is certainly not a copy of UNIX”.
Equally valid.
In fact the latter is more apparent and self-evident, because we can all inspect the source code of Linux and verify it to be so … and many independent people early on in this whole farce in fact did an audit of Linux source versus UNIX, and found no infringement, so we have actual verification in the case of Linux that we do not have in the case of Windows.
It is interesting that SCOG Unix variants include a complete and complex “compatibility layer” that allows Linux userland code to be run under a UNIX kernel (sort of like Wine, but for running Linux programs on UNIX). The extent that they had to go to to do this means that SCOG knew very well that Linux was not a copy of UNIX.
I might also point out that Linux started out being written as a hobby by a lone student who didn’t like Minix, as opposed to being written by professional people hired in from another OS software company …
So how come Linux was the only one that was accused of plagiarism?
Edited 2008-11-26 02:18 UTC
>Windows is a VMS work-alike
BULLSHIT, that’s bogus propaganda in some hopes of desperately making Windows seem cooler than it is.
…. Windows is a single user pc operating system that had a few sprinkles one or two ‘concepts’ that were VMS like in its virtual memory system, and io system.
Of course those same concepts such as split kernel/apps memory space, IRQs etc appear in just about every other modern OS as well, like Linux, OSX etc.
VMS shares as many similarities with other operating systems as it does with Windows…Lots of things about all OS’s are somewhat the same. Leave it to Microsoft to try to desperately claim some legitimacy to their most bug ridden product in history just because they hired a manager away from Dec.
Believe me, I grew up on a RSX on a PDP as my first systems admin, and moved on to VMS from there including lots of learning about VMS internals….Windows is not any closer to VMS’s design than Linux.
This is a huge myth that was started just because Cutler worked for Microsoft at the time. But the only similarities between his work at Dell and Microsoft was his MANAGEMENT not anything much technical.
Edited 2008-11-26 03:00 UTC
Hardly. The corporate veil still protects Darl, Chris, and the others who deserve to be punished. The only ones who ever got hurt by this were the original employees and the outside investors who were not in on the scam and didn’t know when they were supposed to get out. All the wrong people are being punished, and all the wrong people are getting off scot-free, financially the better for their participation.
And the whole thing really lost any relevance to Linux years ago.
Edited 2008-11-25 02:55 UTC
Hardly. SCOG made clearly outrageous claims against Linux, and then produced not one shred of evidence even when they were sued back by RedHat for making said outrageous unsubstantiated claims.
Anyone who invested in SCOG must have been feeble-minded, and they got justly burned for helping to fund the malicious lawsuits that SCOG tried to launch.
As they say in the classics … “serves them right”.
As for the employees … those who got out when the company became an IP troll litigation company, and went into malicious attack mode, are victims to some extent but they are probably OK. Those who remained with SCOG … serves them right too.
Edited 2008-11-25 04:20 UTC
Your fangs are showing, Lemur. Some of SCOG’s remaining employees are still doing respectable technical work on OpenServer 6. Or they were, at least, up through a year ago when the latest stable version was released. Not everyone quits their job because their employer insulted Linux. You might. I might. But everyone should not be expected to.
These events surely cannot have not come as a complete surprise to them, but “serves them right” is too vindictive for my taste.
Meanwhile, as I’ve said before, the prime movers… the real culprits, have likely seen a net financial benefit from all that has happened, will never be taken to account by any court, and will be happily on their way when everything is over.
What has happened is probably the closest thing to actual justice that is possible under the constraints of how corporations and their employees are handled under US law. But anyone happy that “justice has been served” in this instance is thinking more like a sports fan than a concerned citizen.
Edited 2008-11-25 05:07 UTC
It was more than that … the lawsuits were a shameless attempt to destroy Linux and FOSS … which in turn represent the collected efforts of 1.5 million + developers over many years. The lawsuits were an attempt to appropriate the works of others, and if not appropriate them then destroy them.
That is a thoroughly despicable act, and worthy of far more contempt than mere words can express.
I’d imagine that those SCOG employess had been offered shares to stay on … a ticket in SCOGs litigation lottery if you will … I can’t think of any reason any self-respecting technical person would choose to stay otherwise. They had 4+ years worth of opportunity to leave.
I’d say that Openserver 6, and the careers of those who continued to work on it, are as much toast as that Mercury-like planet I mentioned a while ago.
A thoroughly deserved outcome in all respects IMO.
Now you’re making stuff up to vilify them? Well, if those are the rules… I’d imagine that The Linux Foundation is paying you to vilify them any way you can. Certainly Darl, Chris and others were given plenty of financial incentive to play out the charade. But folks who came over from the Santa Cruz Operation and continued to work on the Unixware (and now OpenServer) kernel were most likely there to do just that. As to your assertion that no self-respecting technical person would have stayed… this may come as a shock to you, but not everyone embraces Linux as their personal political platform and/or purpose in life as you seem to think they should. Some people have real lives.
Edited 2008-11-25 07:44 UTC
Well, I agree with sbergman that it’s a damn shame that the individuals who started this circus are left practically unharmed. Maybe they were able to initially fool themselves that they actually had a case, but obviously they must have realized they didn’t when they couldn’t offer any shred of evidence to support their case or when they realized they DIDN’T EVEN OWN the Unix copyrights, which was the whole base of all their litigations. Yet they continued to make pretense in the media of having a winning case. Can anyone say stock scam?
Atleast ‘analysts’ like Enderle, Lyons suffered big dents to their credibility due to their non-fact based statements regarding the SCO case (O’Gara didn’t have any credibility to begin with so nothing lost there) and how they were going to win. Lyons atleast later admitted having been a fool for believing in SCO despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever. Enderle on the other hand tried to put the blame on the litigators lack of experience, ignoring the fact that there was no case whatsoever to begin with.
You’re just trying to make every single person working for SCO as an evil-doer and a generally dislikeable person. I doubt that’s anywhere near the truth, no matter how you try to make it look like it.
First of all, not everyone there might have been able to find another job, perhaps due to too big of a distance between their home and the new working place, perhaps due to not getting paid similarly well, or perhaps they just thought things will turn out one way or another. Then there’s of course people who don’t even have anything to do with computers: secretaries, cleaning staff (unless hired outside), general maintenance…Those people just want to hang on to any job they can find, they most likely don’t know much if anything about Linux at all. And you want to blame them, too?
No, try to work out your issues and not blame all the wrongdoings on the wrong people.
Guys, Lemur is a foss, and particularly a Linux troll. I think its time to starve him, not feed him. There ya go, Lemur, your last bite. Savor it.
Excuse me?
SCOG sued IBM in the (admittedly deluded) hopes of extorting 5 billion dollars, and trashing the honest work of a million + contributors to the common good across the globe. They were simply fools for failing to realise how many people were willing to devote how much time and effort trying to stop them. Look at the collected input into a site like Groklaw, and estimate how many person-hours have gone into writing all that material over the years, and you may get some idea.
I get … what exactly? … from pointing out on OSNews exactly why this corporate greed behavior is so utterly unacceptable. Hopefully I get people to re-examine exactly why they are such lemmings for continuously letting corporations walk all over them.
You get … what exactly? … from questioning my motive … apart from a possible further unjustified smear on the efforts towards software liberation?
You call troll … I call astroturfer in return … I’ll leave it up to the reader to examine possible motivations for each position and who stands to make any money by ripping people off out of either position.
Edited 2008-11-25 09:27 UTC
Those employees who are out of work at SCO are not evil, the receptionists, janitors, developers, designers, testers, it support people, they are not the corporate management, and can not be held accountable for what that management does.
Sometimes having a job is better than having no job and standing on principle. Principles won’t feed the baby, or pay the mortgage.
Agreed. Precisely so. Who would have thought otherwise?
Hopefully, like everyone else on the planet they could foresee the stupidity of SCOG’s management, and have accordingly pre-arranged a new job for themselves to go to when the SCOG scam comes to its painfully obvious conclusion.
Edited 2008-11-25 12:21 UTC
I can think of plenty of reasons why a self-respecting technical person would choose to stay.
In the grand scheme of things, the actions of SCO are quite harmless compared to the activities of some other corporations. Perhaps it is a sad indictment of the modern world that people are willing to work for weapons manufacturers, fast food chains, coffee chains or [insert evil corporation of choice] but it is the real world. People have mortgages to pay and not everyone can quit a job on Friday and be back working on Monday. For some folk, feeding their children is more important than Linux and FOSS. I wonder how old you are, because your priorities and attitude seem a bit “adolescent”.
I can understand someone being passionate about Linux and FOSS, but as sbergman27 pointed out, your comments are quite vindictive. To me, you sound like you are equating the rank and file employees of SCO with collaborators of a murderous regime.
The only way to stop things like this happening is to make the people at board level personally responsible. CEOs and directors can flit from one company to another, leaving a trail of lawsuits, bankruptcies and lost jobs. It’s not just the USA, it happens everywhere. To take pleasure in the fact that people lower in an organisation, who don’t make policy decisions, can (or should) lose their jobs, shows the same level of callousness that motivated the McBride and Sontag.
Exactly so. I hope the CEOs and other suits who dreamt up this SCOG scam lose their shirts and forevermore have to live in poverty. The lawyers can have some of that action also.
WTF??
Hopefully the former SCOG people who had nothing to do with the scam can get a decent job elsewhere immediately. Who on earth would want otherwise?
The fact that there would be no job future at SCOG should have been obvious for years to even the most junior of SCOG employees.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=SCOXQ.PK#chart1:symbol=scoxq.pk;…
There are not many companies that keep going after dropping from $20 down to $0.13 and then declaring bankruptcy, with four deadset loser court actions still on their books.
Anybody at SCOG with even a modicum of sense will have another job lined up.
Hopefully the former SCOG people who had nothing to do with the scam can get a decent job elsewhere immediately. Who on earth would want otherwise?
Some people invest lots of time and effort into a project so much that it’s their passion to keep working on it even if they don’t own it. That may or may not describe some of the people that stayed behind, but it’s a possibility. There are a number of possibilities. Besides, getting a new job is easy anyway, especially with a global economic crisis shadowing above. I even had a dream a little over a week ago that Sun was laying off 6000 people… wait, I think that was a dream.
Do you drink Coke? Pepsi? Do you buy sportswear like, say , Nike? Do you buy cheap technology made in China? Cheap clothes? Did your dad give your mom a diamond ring?
On the ladder of evil companies SCO is pretty damn low on the rung, ya know.
Yes, because SCO only employed technical people. No other staff like beancounters, secretaries, adinistrative staff etc. Well, I guess they did but it sure serve those people right for wanting to feed their families and not knowing about Linux!
Seriously, dude, grow up and/or get a life.
> Yes, because SCO only employed technical people. No other staff like beancounters, secretaries, adinistrative staff etc. Well, I guess they did but it sure serve those people right for wanting to feed their families and not knowing about Linux!
Get real. A secretary or a beancounter can walk into a normal, saner company right across the road tomorrow without a second thought. They should have had a plan to do so for years now because the writing has been on the wall for the demise of SCOG for a tremendously long time.
The only people whose technical reputations will be rightfully trashed over this affair are those who continued to work towards helping SCO perhaps achieve their ends for years after the true nature & intent of SCOG as a vexatious litigator and bottom feeder was painfully obvious.
Gupta is one such name that comes to mind (and certainly a person who was a recipient of SCOG shares).
Edited 2008-11-25 09:40 UTC
“Get real. A secretary or a beancounter can walk into a normal, saner company right across the road tomorrow without a second thought.”
Not true, at least not in the US currently. Or haven’t you noticed the unemployment rates and lack of new jobs? What company are they supposed to walk into making the same money, which counts out that it is possible if they would like to ask if you want fries with the burger?
That bad hey?
Beancounters especially at SCOG have had four + years worth of warning that the company they were working for had “bet the house” on a losing strategy and was headed straight towards oblivion.
Surely in four years anyone could line up a job elsewhere with better prospects? Even in the US … four years should be long enough. If the new employer wants to know why they were looking for a new job, a beancounter would merely need to show the new employer SCOG’s share price chart. This gives a valid reason why this person is seeking other employment, and at the same times shows the new employer that this beancounter is well aware of the current number of beans …
Edited 2008-11-27 01:13 UTC
“That bad hey?”
Yes, that bad. I actually know people that were with companies and did just that. The problem is when the new company they were looking for downsized, the newest people are the ones to go. So, they ended up leaving a place just to get canned from the new job. Some of them have dropped off the unemployment rolls already as the benefits have run out. The jobs are just not there sadly.
Lemur: http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/4679/scorf5.jpg
(ok, it’s actually me. If it was Lemur, he’d probably be egging SCO’s janitor’s car or something while shouting “serves you right!”)
Edited 2008-11-25 09:37 UTC
Surely the janitor who, through no fault of his/her own, now has to take the trouble to find another job, would be helping to egg the SCOG suits cars, while shouting “serves you right!”
What is it with you Yanks always attributing the blame in any place but your corporate overlords? Have the corporates put something in your water, or what?
Now you’re getting it, Lemur2. This is precisely what I said in my post, which you disagreed with, resulting in this thread. It’s easy to fall into the trap of really believing that legal incorportation (literally, to make into a body or person) really does create a new person, in this case named SCOG, which can be admired, punished, and judged as a person, when in fact, it is just a fiction and an artifact of law, albeit with a substantial legal significance. In actual fact, a corporation is not a person but a diverse collection of people. Some secretaries, some upper management, some kernel engineers, and some janitors.
Condemning the overlords, while having compassion for the other folks is exactly the way of thinking that I have been trying to get across to you.
I’m not sure what it was that you misread about my position, but I can assure you that you need not have bothered because this too was my thinking all along.
All of those who sought to reap millions from trashing the efforts of others are the ones to be held in contempt. That group includes any who testified for SCOG (including Gupta who cherry-picked and then re-arranged Linux code in a despearte and rather pathetic attempt to show similarity). It includes any who obtained SCOG shares on the expectations of millions obtained fraudlently from IBM. It possibly includes some of the lawyers, who must have been able to see the truth from very early on, yet kept going.
It clearly doesn’t include the janitors and secretaries.
There’s not much room for “misreading”. The highlights, for reference:
—
Lemur2: Those who remained with SCOG … serves them right too.
—
Me: Lemur. Some of SCOG’s remaining employees are still doing respectable technical work on OpenServer 6. Or they were, at least, up through a year ago when the latest stable version was released … “serves them right” is too vindictive for my taste.
—
Lemur2: I’d imagine that those SCOG employess had been offered shares to stay on … a ticket in SCOGs litigation lottery if you will … I can’t think of any reason any self-respecting technical person would choose to stay otherwise … I’d say that Openserver 6, and the careers of those who continued to work on it, are as much toast as that Mercury-like planet I mentioned a while ago.
—
So, what is it that you are thinking that I “misread”?
Or dedicated Unix kernel engineers?
Edited 2008-11-25 22:55 UTC
I was talking about those technical people who stayed on with SCOG and who tried (in vain I might add) to help SCOG “prove” some sort of infringement in Linux. Those who were rewarded for so doing by SCOG giving them shares in the litigation lottery.
Sorry I didn’t make that clear … as it turns out I cretainly didn’t.
Amen to that.
Not because of any perceived insult, but they should have found new jobs because it was clear they management was not interested in long term development of their products and seemed to bank the companies future on a lawsuit they had little chance of wining. If its clear your company is going to the sewer, you find another job pronto, regardless of the reason why.
I hardly believe The SCO Group will ever pay any part of the judgement in good faith.
I believe they’ll attempt to appeal it to death or file bankruptcy for protection status. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t believe that Novell will ever see a dime of the judgement.
However, the victory itself is very sweet for Novell, even without the money. Their stock will end up speaking more than the any money from SCO.
The day had Novell (NOVL) trading well and up about 10.9% at the close.
SCO Group (SCOXQ.PK) is still trading at about 13 Cents. Right down where the seaweed grows.
SCOG are already in bankruptcy. The judgement against them just in the Novell case is more money than they have.
How are they going to fund an appeal? They haven’t even got through the original set of cases yet.
Novel has a document from UnitedLinux timeframe where SCO pledged all of its IP in Unix to UnitedLinux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._Novell
“On April 10, 2006, SuSE (part of Novell) filed a Request for Arbitration with the Secretariat of the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris, France. Years earlier SCO (then named Caldera) had signed contracts with SuSE (now owned by Novell) involving UnitedLinux. In this contract the UnitedLinux members agreed that each member would have broad licenses to exploit and distribute Linux products that include UnitedLinux technology, and they agreed to arbitration of disagreements. ”
So there is this arbitration to go through still.
Then there is the case against IBM, and more to the point the surviving counterclaims against SCOG in that case … including the counterclaim that SCOG distributed SCO Linux after having repudiated the GPL … and so SCOG distributed IBM’s copyright code in Linux without a license to do so … and they tried to charge people $699 for a binary-only copy of Linux.
Then there is the Lanham Act case where RedHat sued SCOG for making unsubstantiated claims against Linux, and thereby maliciously interfered with RedHat’s Linux business.
There is a minor case against Autozone as well.
SCOG has not a leg to stand on in any of these cases, and they involve SIGNIFICANT claims against SCOG. Most of the counterclaims against SCOG are as near to slam dunk cases as it is possible to get.
AFAIK all of these have to settle before there can be any appeals. SCOG after all brought these cases (except for the RedHat case, in which RedHat sued SCOG).
There is not a hope of SCOG surviving any of this, given that SCOG to this day have produced not one single shred of evidence, not one line of source code, where SCOG can point to any infringement in Linux of SCOG’s IP.
SCOG is more toast than a Mercury-like planet milliseconds after a supernova explosion in the core of the nearby sun. It is not reduced to component sub-atomic particles just yet, but it is merely a matter of time.
Edited 2008-11-25 04:08 UTC
Hopefully the bankruptcy protection doesn’t allow this troll to climb back up again, but I have a feeling..
In the mean time, a round for all!
So, how long will we have to wait until we hear about SCO begging the Government to bail them out? Everyone is getting a slice of the bail out pie, might as well share it with dodgy software companies too!
Or Microsoft, since they were said to be funding SCO in the first place.
owns SYSVr4? And is there ever going to be *any* hopes of opening up REAL unix, well besides Solaris 10?
It would be nice to put this whole thing behind the industry, and open up perhaps one of the most fought over peices of software ever.
Novell owns all copyrights from UNIX created before the time of the deal with SCO. What is REAL unix? I don’t even know what that means, or why it would be useful.
I do feel a little sorry for all the companies/individuals that paid SCO for licenses for Linux.
I also question Microsoft’s motives for giving SCO a LOT of cash near the beginning of this case…and now that the whole thing is over – whether there will be any backlash on them. Will they get away with this?
It is a clear win for Linux and for companies who survive on Linux. Despite the software itself being free, Linux is big business and now represents a growing industry so this is great news.
Most of us knew all along but a lot of businesses became very reluctant to touch linux when SCO first made their claims public. Hopefully these businesses will have new confidence to try it out now.
Take solace in the fact that there weren’t many. MS paid their $15 million, but it wasn’t really for any Unix/Linux licenses. Sun paid. But they made a special deal that allowed them to open Solaris. It may have been a bogus deal, being with SCOG, but Novell later supported it, so its effectively a go. EV1 did pay up… and later said they wouldn’t do it again, if they had it to do over. And then I remember there was an $11,000 mystery payment that I’m not sure we ever found out who had made. It’s remarkable how phenomenally unsuccessful SCOSource was. I’d have expected more gullibility than that.
My memory may not be completely accurate on all this. SCOs shenanigans don’t even merit my going back and reviewing them at this point.
Edit: And oh, yeah. Baystar got shafted. But they didn’t buy licenses. They invested unwisely, possibly based upon Microsoft’s advice. And no, it is very unlikely that MS will ever be called to account.
Edited 2008-11-26 03:59 UTC
It wasn’t surprising to me that very few companies fell for the SCOG scam.
Microsoft and Sun … both of whom produce their own OS and who therefore presumably don’t use linux themselves … pipe up immediately after SCOG launches the scam and they both pay miniscule licennse fees to SCOG … and all three companies seem utterly unable to tell us what it was all about … and we were supposed to believe from that that there was substance in SCOSource?
I mean come on … how stupid did SCOG think everyone was? Pull the other one, it plays jingle bells.
What was surprising to me was that one company, EV1, actually did seem to buy it. Dupes. It did absolutely nothing but make EV1 look silly, perhaps even complicit, and it drove EV1 customers who were using Linux away in numbers to seek other providers.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Edited 2008-11-26 04:44 UTC