Notes from the SCO conference call

[Posted November 18, 2003 by corbet]

Quick update from SCO's teleconference: the company actually had relatively little to say. The real purpose of the call appears to be to disclose the fact that last quarter's results will look horrible due to the costs of its lawyers and the BayStar deal. They also made numerous claims that copyright-based lawsuits will be initiated against Linux users in "the next 90 days." There were hints that HP customers could be targeted, as a result of that company's indemnification promise - as had been predicted previously. The company claims to have sold other "Linux licenses," but would not provide numbers or any other information. Threats were made to go after Novell, should that company complete its acquisition of SUSE and continue to sell Linux. That's about it.

IBM satisfied?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 18:06 UTC (Tue) by df (guest, #14410) [Link] (4 responses)

*Hopefully* tapes have been made of this call and transcripts will follow shortly.

However, did one of the SCOX representatives state something to the effect that "IBM is satisfied" with what they've been given wrt to discovery? If so, that seems a gross mischaracterization of how the SCO v. IBM case is currently going. He was sort of mumbling at that point so perhaps I misheard.

IBM satisfied?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 18:08 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

I heard it more as "IBM knows what code we are talking about." Which is also pretty much untrue, unless SCO has been rather more forthcoming in the last few days.

IBM satisfied?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 18:19 UTC (Tue) by df (guest, #14410) [Link]

I think you are correct. I was laughing too hard to jot it down correctly. :)

IBM satisfied?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 23:03 UTC (Tue) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]

Seriously?

Isn't it the judge who needs to be convinced? IBM has a chance of getting the whole thing
thrown out if they don't start making a case.

These guys are making it up as they go. No wonder Boies and crew decided they needed a bit of
cash before going any further. It has become clear that there won't be any percentage of 3
billion.

Derek

IBM satisfied?

Posted Nov 19, 2003 1:03 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

Groklaw is currently working on transcribing the meeting. They have .mp3 and .ogg files for each segment of the call (Introduction, 10 questions, and Conclusion) and people are dividing up the work of transcribing them. If you're a member, you can see the list and volunteer to transcribe a segment.

How many times have they said "in the next NN days"?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 18:12 UTC (Tue) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

It's getting a little old. The same thing with the Linux licenses.
Now the deadline is the end of the year. It's almost like copyright
extensions: forever on an installment plan.

RedHat defense

Posted Nov 18, 2003 19:50 UTC (Tue) by whitleych (guest, #6866) [Link]

I would assume anyone sued by TSG could simply go out and buy RedHat??? After all, there is no dispute between TSG and RedHat, or at least that's what they told the judge in deleware. Of course, if they sue a company that is exclusively RedHat that puts a new complexion to the case in Deleware. TSG of course has never worried too much about consistancy, that's apparently something all the rest of us worry about unnecessarily.

This is turning into a bad lawyer joke. When asked about a vase he broke, a lawyer responded:
What vase......
it was my vase....
it was already broken......
you broke it....
and finally, it's not broken!

Which big linux user will SCO sue first?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 22:44 UTC (Tue) by mrons (subscriber, #1751) [Link] (1 responses)

My bet is google.

Which big linux user will SCO sue first?

Posted Nov 18, 2003 22:49 UTC (Tue) by ksmathers (guest, #2353) [Link]

Based on other sources, I'd guess the next company to see a lawsuit will be someone like Dreamworks. Actually that was what I thought as soon as SCO started blathering about suing 'Hollywood'. HP supplies several of the large computer animation houses with Linux clusters.

Hee, hee (I love it!)

Posted Nov 18, 2003 23:55 UTC (Tue) by jre (guest, #2807) [Link]

So, SCO is sorta, kinda going to send invoices, and they intend to sue somebody, somewhere real soon.

I hope they do. If anything disturbs Darl McBride's sleep more than contemplating his expected reward in the hereafter, it should be these words, from Groklaw:

Should we receive invoices from you, we will initiate civil actions under the anti-fraud and consumer protection statutes wherever we live, according to our respective circumstances. We also intend to contact our state attorneys general to request that they seek criminal as well as civil penalties against you, in addition to injunctive relief. In addition, we will file complaints with the FTC and other federal and state agencies, as appropriate.

May they be tattooed on his brain.
And as for the accounts receivable department at SCO -- hey, gang, I can't say I envy your task. You can only invoice someone who wants to be invoiced for something other than an actual product, and whom you can trust not to spill the beans about being invoiced.

Oh, and Boies, Schiller & Flexner -- good luck applying the screws to Hollywood. I bet studio execs just love being threatened by a guy who talks like a hitman from a bad gangster movie:
"They can choose licensing or litigation. If someone says they want to see a court ruling before they pay, we'll say, Fine, you're the lucky winner. We'll take you first.' I'd be surprised if we make it to the end of the year without filing a lawsuit."

Promises, promises. I sure hope they follow through, and suffer the consequences, but I'll give you ten-to-one that the end of the year comes and they're still just yapping.

BSD code?

Posted Nov 19, 2003 0:49 UTC (Wed) by rankincj (guest, #4865) [Link]

I noticed that McBride and Co. mentioned copyright violations and the old BSD code. My guess is that they think they've found BSD code in Linux that doesn't have appropriate BSD headers. On the other hand, I can't help feeling that this is "too obvious" not to have been checked for already, long ago.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?