SCO's response to Red Hat [LWN.net]

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:04 UTC (Tue) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link] (1 responses)

Whew, got to give SCO credit for being howling a**holes with balls of brass.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 17:34 UTC (Tue) by donwaugaman (subscriber, #4214) [Link]

SCO can be thought of as playing a poker game with some very unusual rules:

- They don't have to show their cards until a judge says so;

- And the longer they stay in the game, the more of their own money they get to take off the table and replace with other peoples' money.

They've got a busted flush in their hand, but as long as they keep bluffing and stay at the table, they can pull off more of their own money and replace it with investor cash, which will all go up in a puff of smoke when they show their hand.

But the easiest way to bluff in poker is with other peoples' money. Hence, the brave front they've been putting up for the past several months. But when SCO finally goes down the tubes, it's going to make Enron look like a paragon of stability.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:13 UTC (Tue) by jtiner2 (guest, #13663) [Link]

those folks at SCO are having serious HUB errors. just in case you didn't know, that stands for "Head Up Butt".

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:27 UTC (Tue) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link] (4 responses)

"If you seek information for the purpose of informal discovery intended to benefit IBM in the pending litigation, or for the purpose of devising your own litigation plans against SCO related to Linux, we must respectfully decline your request."

It's amateurish to send letters that were never sent. But in any case it seems obvious to me that there is no way that Redhat could have agreed to SCO's conditions. Redhat could not indemnify SCO as this would give up their rights, hence SCO would have declined to show any proof in any case.

"To my surprise, I just discovered that your company filed legal action against The SCO Group earlier today."

I don't think anyone else is. McSCO must be very naive.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:33 UTC (Tue) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link] (3 responses)

SCO wasn't seeking to have Red Hat indemnify them. SCO is simply using the press release to assert their view of the facts of the situation. The letter to Red Hat citing Red Hat's failure to indemnify their customers and their SEC risk assessment disclosure is just mudslinging to make Red Hat's words and deeds support SCO's case.

Pure aggressive ballsy spin, in other words.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:46 UTC (Tue) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link] (2 responses)

So then what does:

"for the purpose of devising your own litigation"

Mean. Seems clear to me that SCO's asking for indemnification before showing proof. Or at the very least a good argument for such.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:53 UTC (Tue) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link] (1 responses)

They're just saying that Red Hat had better be asking for evidence of
SCO's claims for the purpose of figuring out how much money they
wanted to give SCO for the privilege of dealing in Linux, or else they could go jump off a log.

Spin, again. "We don't want you to be able to clean Linux of the alleged taint by coding effort or litigation. We want you, and everyone, to keep dealing in 'Linux Plus'".

Linux Plus, of course, is "Linux Plus You Give Us Money".

SCO's desire to keep the evidence in support of their allegations a secret (thus preventing any effort to cease infringement while continuing to keep Linux a going concern) while demanding payment from anyone and everyone using Linux is transparently extortive. Their attempt to make it seem like Red Hat are the ones being unreasonably litigious is the spin.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 3:45 UTC (Tue) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link]

I guess we agree then. All I'm saying is that SCO's conditions, as stated in the PR, are such that the only route Redhat has left was litigation. Agreeing with SCO's unreasonable disclosure conditions would only aggravate Redhat's problems going forward if they disagreed with the SCO's proof or wanted to remove the infringing code.

My favorite two comments;

Posted Aug 5, 2003 2:30 UTC (Tue) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link] (3 responses)

"I am also disappointed that you have chosen litigation rather than good faith discussions..."

"I must say that your decision to file legal action does not seem conducive to the long-term survivability of Linux."

I also liked this part.

Posted Aug 5, 2003 3:18 UTC (Tue) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link] (1 responses)

>>Be advised that our response will likely include counterclaims for copyright infringement and conspiracy. <<

Poor scox/canopy/msft/sunw! A victim of the rhat conspiracy!

I also liked this part.

Posted Aug 5, 2003 9:25 UTC (Tue) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

Poor scox/canopy/msft/sunw! A victim of the rhat conspiracy!

Make that "the vast rhat conspiracy."

Your favorite two comments;

Posted Aug 5, 2003 5:33 UTC (Tue) by sgposs (guest, #12391) [Link]

This is fine in a letter to Red Hat, but I doubt it will get them very far should a judge rule
that they must demonstrate the validity of their representations, at a minimum in
camera, if they aren't going to loose a quick summary judgement.

Judging from the potential pool of judges likely to hear this case, I would be dumping
SCO stock big time right about now. Those 80 lines better not have been in their GLP'd
Caldera Linux release or their counter action might well cost them more than they
bargained for. The Red Hat attorneys are shrewed to let SCO set the size of their own
damage claims, since whatever SCO greed compels them to ask for Red Hat will be
entitled to tripple damages (there goes that big M$ dividend that will be needed to
support the lawyers).

B Movie Villains

Posted Aug 5, 2003 5:08 UTC (Tue) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (3 responses)

The SCO press releases are sounding more and more like dialogue written for B Movie villains. I haven't identified the genre yet, though. Bond's Spectre? Smart's Kaos? Avengers? Roger Corman? Ed Wood? Identify the genre, and we can start writing their press releases ahead of time.

B Movie Villains

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:03 UTC (Tue) by dbhost (guest, #3461) [Link]

Actually I believe the B Movie villain you are looking for would be the creeps found in TromaVille's Toxic Avenger series. God I loved those tacky movies! Where else do you see a stick up kid have his arm ripped off and then beaten with his own dismembered extremity?

Actually the longer the SCO thing goes on, and the more SCO's legal team releases public statements, the more it makes Beavis and Butt Head's ideas seem pretty danged smart.

B Movie Villains

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:19 UTC (Tue) by mepr (guest, #4819) [Link] (1 responses)

If you're looking for B, try Baghdad Bob

B Movie Villains

Posted Aug 5, 2003 15:56 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

Actually, Darl McBride used this analogy himself in a CRN interview back in April:

Everyone just says we're a company going out of business, and throwing a Hail Mary pass, but once we get to court, those who say that will look as strange as the Iraqi information minister on TV saying the infidels are defeated and did not get into Baghdad.

http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=41480

One of the things that has really stood out to me throughout this whole thing is SCO's loose and unprofessional talk. If this goes on long enough, it will come back to haunt them.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 8:32 UTC (Tue) by Neotron (guest, #13191) [Link]

It's possible that by "conspiracy", they might try to implicate in court that Red Hat and IBM are colluding with each other, in order that Red Hat can discover exactly what code SCO says is infringing on "their" IP, therefore "giving the game away" to IBM. They might be actually saying that IBM and Red Hat got together one day and came up with this ruse - very serious allegations, and $deity help them if that's true. However, $deity help SCO if that's proven not to be the case.

Strikes me as an underhanded and scurrilous attempt to divert the court's attention away from Red Hat's genuine reasons for filing suit.

Really, SCO either has so many winning cards that it can do and say all this stuff and come through the courts smiling, or this is the last gasp act of a company which tried to con it's way into profitability. I know which option I believe.

Not only corrupt, but uncouth

Posted Aug 5, 2003 9:24 UTC (Tue) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link] (1 responses)

Mr. McBride writes:

Dear Matthew,

Since when has it become acceptible to first-name a grown man you have never met and who has not given you permission to do so? So, the Modern SCO Executive now embodies a third, if petty, thing I hate about modern American culture. (The first two being "if ever something bad happens to you, find a scapegoat and sue him" and "if your stock fails and you're in a position to do so, pump and dump it".)

Not only corrupt, but uncouth

Posted Aug 5, 2003 12:22 UTC (Tue) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link]

Except that the letter references a telephone conversation they had previously had... in which the phrase "Call me Matt" may well have been said.

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 9:36 UTC (Tue) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link] (11 responses)

i understand ibm - they want to get to court asap so they aren't suing. i understand mandrake, they're going through bankruptcy.

but what about suse? the ibm 390 linux code was donated to the fsf is my understanding so the fsf have a say - what about them? and can they work with debian on this? what about lindows? lwn has a distribution list - what are <a href="http://lwn.net/Distributions/">the companies</a> here doing? sco has made noises about bsd. where are bsdi and apple?

and where are the unix vendors? where are sun and hp?

the unix wars of the 80/90's had a winner - microsoft. the linux wars of the naughts will have the same outcome if we let it get fought the same way. this is not an opportunity for sun/hp to grab a meager share of a meager market by dumoing on ibm/linux. it's a chance for them all to band together and grow the overall market.

sun, hp, bsdi, apple, suse, the fsf and all the rest should all file separate lawsuits against sco. and can we lobby state attorney generals to invoke rico or a similar action against sco? get sco's legal team BUSY. see how quick they can spend microsoft's "license" money.

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 10:03 UTC (Tue) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] (5 responses)

Most of the Linux distributions are the work of very small companies (KNOPPIX is a one-man gig), or volounteers (Debian).
It takes time to properly prepare your case; that is why it took Red Hat several weeks to file its claims, the letter they sent to SCO is important in that respect. It could be that SuSE is working hard on translating the documents they need and aren't ready to file just now. I don't know about their (and other distributors' plans)
The FSF carefully picks its fights, its policy is to prefer settlement over litigation. Don't forget that litigation can become pretty expensive and that it requires a lot of attention better spent on writing software.
Sun allready chose a side, it is one of SCO's sponsors in the fight. The other Unix vendors are keeping their heads down and wait until the storm blows over. They risk the IBM treatment when they attract SCO's attention.

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 11:23 UTC (Tue) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link] (4 responses)

they can fight together or they can hang separately. it is in all unix/linux vendor's interests that sco be put down asap. if sco beats ibm then sco owns all the work sun has done on the unix kernel - that's what sco is saying. sun's developers are really working for sco and to whoever sco decides to license the technology sun develops.

sun, and the others are doing a poor job at protecting their interests.

Where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 12:20 UTC (Tue) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] (3 responses)

Don't belief everything SCO says. Try to check the claims SCO makes.

Where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:47 UTC (Tue) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link] (1 responses)

sco's claims are full of crap - anyone familiar with the history of unix knows that. but the average consumer and the average judge are not those anyones. sco will fight this in court and they'll fight it in the press. they only have to win in one area and then linux has the same commercial prognosis as unix - bleak.

otoh if all those companies i mentioned go after sco on this then sco will be damaged - financially as well as legally and pr-wise. in addition if each company does an "open source" defence (where all the law firms blog their progress and therefore fight the pr-war as well as assist each other) then it means sco nearly has to fight all the lawyers on our side in each case.

again, i want sco spending their ill-gotten gains as fast as humanly possible. and answering a few dozen lawsuits and motions around the globe is certainly a way to drain their cash, their credibility and their will to fight. sco has decided to play a very unfair and unjust game. linux distro companies should wake up and start playing by the rules sco has laid down - dirty, nasty and merciless.

Where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 17:01 UTC (Tue) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link]

I heard you mentioned Open Source Defence... take a look at GrokLaw. I think we're doing fine, the press is giving even-handed views and only a few dozen of the 1500 companies that got the SCO letter informed about licensing conditions. As far as I know, none have signed.

Judges and the press will get an introduction in Unix history and "penguin loving Linux geeks", as far as they need it. So far the Tux lover image gave us a good public image; do we need an association with biting law sharks?

Where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 6, 2003 5:59 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

How would you do that ? Seriously.. They have consistently refused to give ANY clue as to what exactly they claims are, except it has something to do with Linux.

Earlier they where saying: "This is not about copyrigth, it's a contract suit", now they're saying "There are verbatim copies of parts of unix in the Linux kernel". Which will it be ? Is it about copyrigth or not ?

It'd be easy to "check" their claims if they'd actually come out qand state those claims. A statement along the lines of: "The numa-implementation in file foo/numa.c is a obvious adaption of our code." But they've said no such thing.

Nor will they. They can not. Because there is no substance behind the claims. This will go on until someone drags them, kicking and screaming and stalling to the very end before a judge and force them to put up or shut up.

Indeed this is already happening. Here in Germany SCO got a court-order against them, preventing them from making public claims about Linux without also offering evidence. SCO responded by simply closing their german website (www.sco.de), now it has reopened, but it's chemically free of ANY mention of Linux.

In USA, Redhat has asked for the very same, or a similar ruling. We'll see.

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:01 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

SuSE are actually quite a big author of linux, and they're older than RedHat. However they aren't as rich.

And they aren't American!

Don't forget, IBM has been keeping its mouth shut busily lining its ducks up. RedHat now seems to have decided its ducks are lined up for a turkey shoot (excuse the mixed metaphors :-)

And don't forget also, that in SuSE's home country, SCO has already had its mouth gaffer-taped, probably with SuSE's assistance.

I'm hoping that SuSE is also lining up ducks - with the obvious one being memory management. The current memory management code is almost entirely the work of two people, both of United Linux, namely Rik van Riel who iirc works for Connectiva, and Andreas Archangeli who works for SuSE. Another duck might well be journaled file systems - Hans Reiser might not work for SuSE but there's a strong link between them.

All being well, if SCO don't come up with anything firm against RedHat, Suse will then drop Clause 4 and wait for the fireworks ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:49 UTC (Tue) by gallir (guest, #5735) [Link] (1 responses)

AFAIK, Rik van Riel has moved to Red Hat.

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 15:13 UTC (Tue) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

From the last 3 emails I saw from Mr van Reil.. I would agree that he works at Red Hat now.

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 5, 2003 15:12 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> the ibm 390 linux code was donated to the fsf is my understanding

I heard this too but a quick grep of the kernel sources doesn't confirm it.

This issue has plenty of people working on it. FSF has plenty of other work to do (stuff that other people aren't doing and journalists aren't hyping).

(for my long post on this topic, my second post to the previous story:
http://lwn.net/Articles/42374/)

Ciaran O'Riordan

where are the other vendors?

Posted Aug 6, 2003 18:29 UTC (Wed) by alexs (guest, #13637) [Link]

the primary reason why RedHat needs to sue
is the fact that any such claim from SCO
might negatively impact on the business that
RedHat is driving. beeing one of the major
software players on the Linux market means
that they are less impacted by spending money
to lawyers than other companys in this market.

why should any big and small company jump into
that legal business when some one or two companies
are enough to clean up that situation? why do
a costly mass sueing when not even all facts
are published. if Red Hat wins then any other
company can sue SCO on the same base of facts
and hoping for a refund from SCO. If Red Hat
does not win for some reasons, then still the
facts are open and all the people can decide
how to go on themselves. the opening of the
body of the permanently claimed "obscure" source
thefts will also open ways to resolve the core
problem. obvious that SCO/Microsoft dont want
to make that happen soon or anytime at all.

is the SCO request for paying license fees on
a per-CPU base an offer for buying sacked cats?

They are damn fast responding on attacks.

Posted Aug 5, 2003 9:55 UTC (Tue) by philips (guest, #937) [Link]

$subject
It looks like they have nothing else to do.

It is really nice to see how simple compain of covered shares sell, can produce that much of noise.

SEC on SCO & its friends.

P.S. But McBride is really damn good in doing this kind of affairs...

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 10:14 UTC (Tue) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]

Conspiracy? Ah, it all becomes clear now! Where's my tinfoil hat again...

Comments on letters

Posted Aug 5, 2003 11:34 UTC (Tue) by kmself (guest, #11565) [Link] (1 responses)

First letter: signed by SCO's CFO. Hmm. CFO. Not CEO. Not internal counsel. Oh, SCO's executive bio page doesn't list a chief counsel.

Paragraph 1: sets context.

Para 2: bluff.

Para 3: obtuseness (RH's letter specifically states disclosure of source and basis of IP claims), reality grasp failure (RH's letter isn't a good-faith negotiation, it's a unilateral request), further obtuseness (RH's request is for public disclosure, and on court victory, would provide same, inconsistent with Caldera/SCO's mention of confidentiality)

Para 4: failure to comply. As RH's request for declaratory judgment makes clear, there is no trade secret basis for Caldera/SCO to conceal specifics of infringed code.

Letter two: Para 1: preliminaries, Para 2: posturing, Para 3: stating the obvious followed by...um, Darl, you have to disclose copyright claims then don't you, Para 4: complete validation of RH's request for declaratory judgment.

Comments on letters

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:04 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Uniteral request? Strange things, those ... :-)

Don't you mean unilateral demand? "Put up or shut up!"

Cheers,
Wol

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 12:28 UTC (Tue) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link] (1 responses)

Note this comment:

I am also disappointed that you have chosen litigation rather than good faith discussions with SCO about the problems inherent in Linux.

(emphasis added)

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 12:33 UTC (Tue) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link]

Sorry about that... hit Publish instead of Preview. I was trying to point out that SCO is banging the "Linux is wrong because it is an unauthorized version of Unix" drum again, hence the "inherent" remark. It looks like the lawyers told Darl he could go back to the "All your OS are belong to us" train.

SCO's response to Red Hat

Posted Aug 5, 2003 13:29 UTC (Tue) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

I've never heard mention of the SCO suit on the radio in my area, much less any mention of Linux on my local classical-music station.

However, this morning, in the middle of the 3-minute newscast between (e.g.) Beethoven and Strauss, they mentioned that Linux is "poised to become a major competitor against Microsoft in the enterprise, due to some major improvements in the operating system, which is produced collectively by programmers all over the world." [paraphrase.]

Now, I REALLY understand the reason for this lawsuit.

Money (as usual.)

SCO's missing the biggest financial opportunity

Posted Aug 5, 2003 14:14 UTC (Tue) by macemoneta (guest, #2717) [Link] (1 responses)

They should have made this a pay-per-view event, for all the attention it's getting. This is like the geek version of the superbowl. :-)

The end result is that because of all the media coverage, people that have never even heard of Linux are starting to read about it. In the final analysis, after SCO is beaten into a fading memory, this action will probably be remembered as significant for raising the general public's awareness of Linux.

SCO's missing the biggest financial opportunity

Posted Aug 5, 2003 18:15 UTC (Tue) by llywrch (guest, #9903) [Link]

> In the final analysis, after SCO is beaten into a fading memory, this action will probably be
> remembered as significant for raising the general public's awareness of Linux.

Maybe. My local paper had a wire story this morning about Red Hat entering this lawsuit, which described events from the SCO Group's point of view (e.g., MacBride et alia are being prevented form recovering their stolen intellectual property). If this case goes down as an example of ``this is what happens when someone puts your code in a GPL'd project", there may be a backlash.

Which reminds me: I have to write a letter to my local paper.

Geoff