Judge to SCO: All Your Base Are Belong To Us

[Lemur]

One of the tech world's silliest lawsuits draws to a close. In case you hadn't heard, a company called SCO has been suing everybody with a budget who uses or distributes Linux, claiming that they own Unix. (It's a lot more complicated than that, but I'm going to skip over it and direct you to a summation for the curious (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-Linux_controversies).)

Every single lawsuit depended on one of two concepts: (1) That Linux contained copied code from Unix, thus creating a copyright violation (SCO was never able to demonstrate anything on this front), or (2) Unix is copyrighted and owned by SCO.

The final stake was driven through the heart of this legal vampire today. Full article. (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070810165237718) Important bit:

[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.

The court also concludes that SCO should have been passing its extortion money back to Novell this entire time, which makes SCO liable for theft (known as "conversion" when corporations are busy suing each other).

Let's have a toast and a cheer for a patent zombie reaping what it sowed. And let's take a suspicious look at Microsoft, who paid SCO an awful lot of money for no obvious reason, just before these lawsuits started. I'm sure it's just a coincidence ...

-edit-

Here's a more succinct analysis (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5738390641.html) of today's victory.

[Xiahou]

Let's have a toast and a cheer for a patent zombie reaping what it sowed. And let's take a suspicious look at Microsoft, who paid SCO an awful lot of money for no obvious reason, just before these lawsuits started. I'm sure it's just a coincidence ...
:birthday2:
Good riddance. For years, their business model has pretty much exclusively been based on intimidating and suing other companies. Hopefully, SCO will just go away altogether now.

SCO, you have no chance to survive make your time. :beam:

[Banquo's Ghost]

At last. :balloon:

Do you have a system for punishing malicious suit? IMO, the worst aspect of this was that SCO was able (for a time) to frighten people - some of whom IIRC actually paid them license monies - without ever actually putting their "evidence" forward.

Their chief executive should be sent to jail.

I doubt if Microsoft's involvement will get the judicial attention it deserves though.

[Whacker]

'Twas only a matter of time before their whole strategy was cored like this.

Also, the two 'facts' that MS was funding SCO only for this lawsuit and the FUD surrounding it, as well as it being frivolous and malicious, are widely known and accepted. The problem is that it'd be just as hard and long of a lawsuit to prove that in court, and seek damages. It's really not worth it, in the end the only people who really win are the lawyers.

[Lemur]

Update: (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/13/sco_responds_novell/)

SCO 'disappointed' as shares plunge 70 per cent

Sue it forward

By Ashlee Vance, Published Monday 13th August 2007 19:31 GMT

Mimicking a scene from Monty Python's The Holy Grail, the SCO Group has issued a statement declaring that it's not dead yet.

Last week, a judge dealt a devastating blow to SCO's legal actions against both Novell and IBM. He ruled that Novell does in fact own the copyrights to Unix and Unixware. In addition, the judge gave Novell the go ahead to tell SCO to drop its claims against IBM and said Novell is owed some money from SCO's licensing deals.

All in all, many industry watchers pegged the decision as the wooden stake driven through the heart of SCO's ghoulish penguin hunt.

Not so, according to SCO. Probably . . .

"The company is obviously disappointed with the ruling issued last Friday," SCO said today in a statement. "However, the court clearly determined that SCO owns the copyrights to the technology developed or derived by SCO after Novell transferred the assets to SCO in 1995.

"This includes the new development in all subsequent versions of UnixWare up through the most current release of UnixWare and substantial portions of SCO UnixWare Gemini 64. Also, SCO owns the exclusive, worldwide license to use the UnixWare trademark, now owned by The Open Group.

"What's more, the court did not dismiss our claims against Novell regarding the non compete provisions of the 1995 Technology License Agreement relating to Novell's distribution of Linux to the extent implicated by the technology developed by SCO after 1995. Those issues remain to be litigated."

SCO continues to weigh its options for suing forward.

Meanwhile, SCO's stock dropped - oh - more than 70 per cent today, leaving SCOX at 43 cents per share, as of this writing.

[drone]

Someone set up SCO the bomb! :medievalcheers:

This is just the SCO v. Novell ruling. IBM is going to leave nothing but burnt office furniture and salted shag carpeting. :yes:

[Blodrast]

Kill every zig! ~D

[Lemur]

Remember, the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain or remove the head.

SCO files for chapter 11 (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070914-sco-files-for-chapter-11.html).

SCO files for Chapter 11

By Nate Anderson | Published: September 14, 2007 - 04:14PM CT

No business strategy is more time-honored than using a sleepy Friday afternoon to drop some seriously bad news on investors, and SCO has followed the old playbook to the letter. At 3:21pm this afternoon, SCO sent a press release across the wire announcing that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That sound you hear is the giddy chuckling of Linux devotees across the globe.

The move comes one month after a judge ruled that SCO did not possess any of the UNIX copyrights it claimed to have received in a deal with Novell, a move that dealt a death blow to most of its Linux-related litigation. Despite putting a brave face on the matter, it was clear that SCO was running out of cash, and observers wondered just how long they could keep going without the hope of a win in court to sustain them.

SCO still tries to spin the bankruptcy as positive news, of course, arguing that it is "in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its customers, shareholders, and employees," and will enable the business to keep running.

Groklaw, which has a certain interest in this story, has already dug up SCO's court filing in which they lay out their list of top twenty creditors. Amici, a document management firm, tops the list at $500,650, an amount that we would imagine is related to the mountains of paper churned up by the company's legal machinations. Boies Schiller & Flexner, SCO's lawyers, come next on the list. Also present are Microsoft, Sun, Intel, Fujitsu, and HP&emdash;someone's been buying computer hardware and software on some serious credit.

There are still details to be resolved in SCO's ongoing court battle with Novell. The original agreement between the two companies stipulated that SCO would have to pay Novell 95 percent of royalties collected from licensing the original UNIX intellectual property. Judge Kimball has already determined that SCO breached its fiduciary duty by failing to turn over the licensing money. In an upcoming bench trial, Judge Kimball will have to determine which portion of SCO's $25 million licensing deals with Microsoft and Sun were related to the UNIX intellectual property owned by Novell. Although SCO won't be able to totally dodge that bullet, it is all but certain now that Novell will never see a significant portion of the licensing revenue.

Is there any future for the fallen UNIX vendor? SCO CEO Darl McBride hopes to reinvent the company and focus on mobile UNIX. SCO offers a mobile systems management solution called HipCheck and a mobile server applications platform. With the relevance of proprietary UNIX technologies rapidly deflating, it's unlikely that mobile UNIX will restore SCO to its former glory. SCO also offers a subscription-based social mobile communications service that allows users to transmit electronic "shouts" to other users. SCO can certainly shout, but somehow, I don't think anybody will listen.