SCO to go after Apple?

[schn4rk]

For those of you not familiar with the SCO case, they are the company that owns the rights to Unix V, and recently sued IBM over alleged copyright infringement. The allegation is that, when IBM legally had access to Unix code, they illegally included some of that code in Linux. (That's a simplistic version of the story.)

Well, a recent announcement has lead many to believe that their next target will be varieties of BSD. Since Mac OS X is BSD-based, this could get nasty.

For news on the announcement in question, try these links:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1387528,00.asp

http://www.newsforge.com/business/03/11/18/1742216.shtml?tid=2&tid=82&tid=85&tid=94

For more in-depth overall legal analysis of SCO-related news, check out:

http://www.groklaw.net/

My personal opinion: This is probably all just a stockmarket ploy - pump-n-dump. These lawsuits will go nowhere, and SCO is simply looking for as many new targets to sue as they can, to keep the game going as long as possible. Still, it'll be annoying if Apple gets dragged in to this, because they have better things to spend their time on!

 

[hvfsl]

The companies affected should put their money together and attempt a hostile take-over of SCO.

 

[tutubibi]

Originally posted by hvfsl
The companies affected should put their money together and attempt a hostile take-over of SCO.

That's exactly what SCO was hoping for.
Unfortunately for Darl (SCO's CEO), IBM did not budge.

 

[patrick0brien]

-All

To go after Apple for using BSD, is such a stretch from their already tenuous, unprovable, bad-faith, Linux drumhead it's more then funny, it's sad, and barely worth a thought.

From an Intellectual Property perspective, it's like suing you mother's college-roomate's chauffeur's daughter's pedicurist's dog-walker's 4th cousin's best friend's chiropractor for bending his thumbs during treatment, then later extending the suit all the way back to Lucy the Australopithecus' great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandad for evolving opposable thumbs in the first place.

 

[jxyama]

yup, well put patrick.

the whole SCO mess is a sad testament to the state of IP law, U.S. judiciary system in general and how a company with nothing to stand on can still milk $$$ for execs by spreading FUD, dragging its feet while pump-n-dumping. i really hope SEC will get on those execs' cases and put them away in jail for a good portion of their retirement.

"you are violating our agreement! pay up!"

"what part are we violating?"

"um, we can't tell you, find it yourself."

"what? you are being stupid, i'm suing back!"

"pay us anyway!"

yada yada...

 

[alset]

Actually, SCO has been receiving donations from an Anonymous contributor to keep the legal battle up. Many (including myself) suspect M$. Personally, I've reached the point of wishing bodily harm to SCO execs. Nothing serious, just scraped knees and stubbed toes, maybe some bumped funny bones.

Let's all collectively wish for birds to crap on the execs' cars.

Dan

 

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by alset
Actually, SCO has been receiving donations from an Anonymous contributor to keep the legal battle up. Many (including myself) suspect M$. Personally, I've reached the point of wishing bodily harm to SCO execs. Nothing serious, just scraped knees and stubbed toes, maybe some bumped funny bones.

Let's all collectively wish for birds to crap on the execs' cars.

Dan

M$ seems most likely, there is no one else that competes with Linux/Unix.

 

[Doctor Q]

Both SCO and the RIAA have strange ways of making money: threatening others. This might pay off in the short term, but it's hard to do business in the long term after you burn your bridges and alienate potential partners and customers.

Originally posted by patrick0brien
From an Intellectual Property perspective, it's like suing you mother's college-roomate's chauffeur's daughter's pedicurist's dog-walker's 4th cousin's best friend's chiropractor for bending his thumbs during treatment, then later extending the suit all the way back to Lucy the Australopithecus' great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandad for evolving opposable thumbs in the first place.

If there was a poll for best post of the month, yours is the one I would vote for! Good point and great example!

 

[bousozoku]

What's even more funny about this is that Tarantella, the original SCO who sold the UNIX pieces to Caldera, the current SCO, is using Linux to host their products. Did you get that?

Caldera was actually pretty quiet until Ray Noorda was ousted from Novell for his constant fight against Microsoft. When Ray joined Caldera, he bought DR-DOS (Digital Research DOS, the successor to CP/M) from Novell in order to file suit against Microsoft.

The current SCO has been threatening the whole BSD community, thinking that since it's mostly businesses using it, they will roll over and play dead. I think they'll find it a harder group to convince. AT&T made their stand with BSD and every bit of infringing code was excised to AT&T's delight. SCO will waste money and feed lawyers, but they won't make progress.

 

[Sun Baked]

They'll do a similar thing with Apple that they did with IBM...

Except in Apple's case they'll file and say OS X includes copyrighted code (the proofs in Apple's copyright statements) and then tell the court how Apple's selling SMP machines and using JFS.

Even though the Mac OS X in a 15-17 year old operating system.

 

[panphage]

Sorry, SCO, the BSDs are based on BSD-lite, and BSD-lite is clean. Just ask AT&T.

EDIT: ooh, remember to read first, make snide comments after. SCO is actually trying to overturn the AT&T/BSDi settlement. How odd is that? Anyway, part of the settlement was for BSDi to remove all copywrited code, so I don't think SCO will get any love here. AT&T was MUCH more interested in making sure BSDi had no infringing code: at that time UNIX was big money for AT&T AND AT&T actually had a market and a business model. SCO has none of these.

 

[jxyama]

SCO and RIAA...

slight difference, though. RIAA *used to* have a viable (maybe evil, but still) business model. now they are trying to resist having to adapt.

SCO, on the other hand, never really had a viable business model... they started doing this FUD crap hoping to scare some giant (re. IBM) to buy itself out, but IBM wisely didn't bite...

how annoying. i wish they'd just go away.

 

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by jxyama
SCO, on the other hand, never really had a viable business model

I don't agree. They haven't been stellar in the market lately, but selling Unix for PCs is not a bad business model. Competition, yes. Hopeless, no. Like Sun Microsystems, which has announced that they will support both Solaris and Linux and both SPARC processors and (starting next year) AMD processors, SCO has to find ways to promote Unix for low-end and mid-sized machines and to show that the company's long term experience has a value compared to relative newcomers selling Linux. SCO has been in this business since back in the days of Xenix, so they have plenty of experience to tout.

 

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
...
SCO has been in this business since back in the days of Xenix, so they have plenty of experience to tout.

It's not that SCO--they're named Tarentella now.

 

[alset]

Originally posted by jxyama
... they started doing this FUD crap hoping to scare some giant (re. IBM) to buy itself out, but IBM wisely didn't bite...

You know, if I were IBM and had the cash to throw into lawyers, I would run SCO's dying little company into the ground for being so presumptuous as to try to bully the market before biting the dust. Even if it cost me more than the settlement. Even if it turned into a huge waste of money. Then again, I'm very hard-headed.

I'd like to think this is IBM's position.

Dan