LWN: Comments on "Lawyers in charge"

File suit against a Linux user?

giraffedata — Fri, 28 Nov 2003 17:42:51 +0000

I can't see how a case can be successfully completed against anyone using Linux until it is clear that they have done anything wrong in doing so.

Note that there is no allegation by SCO that the Linux user did anything wrong. A copyright infringement suit is not about punishing wrongdoing -- it's about collecting royalties to which copyright law says one is entitled (when the alleged infringer disagrees).

File suit against a Linux user?

rankincj — Fri, 28 Nov 2003 14:23:11 +0000

The first suit is about contracts: IBM put JFS, NUMA and RCU into Linux, and SCO's list of "discovery" files strongly implies that SCO are not going to claim anything else here. IBM owns all the relevant copyrights and patents for these so SCO can only sue IBM for "breach of contract". Specifically, the AT&T contract says that IBM must keep derivative works of UNIX secret, and so SCO must be classifying RCU, NUMA and JFS as derivative works. IBM does not.

SCO's new threats are about copyrights, and so they *must* claiming to have found ancient System V code within Linux. This is not related to the RCU, JFS and NUMA code. However, I seriously doubt that there's any significant amount System V code to be found. It's been 9 months since the original claim and I'm sure that people have been searching diligently for any signs. And the silence has been deafening.

Lawyers in charge

corbet — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 19:15:20 +0000

Actually, it doesn't say that a settlement with one company would "save" SCO. That is clearly not the case. Any settlements would, however, provide the company with a bit of money to make more mischief and a great deal of PR fodder. It would not be a good thing.

Lawyers in charge

mongre26 — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 18:39:51 +0000

SCO has stepped in it big. The original article is incorrect in assuming that one weak adversary that caves to SCO would save them, it will not.

Why? There is the little matter of Redhat and IBM with pending lawsuits against SCO including Major copyright infringement cases which could result in substantial liabilities for SCO when the most likely outcome of these cases occurs. Even if SCO settles they are going to be left with some hefty bills.

The best the current SCO gang can hope for is that some sucker will come along and bail them out and the open source community has to put up with these new fools until SCO is finally ground into the dust of the utah desert.

What is most ammusing is people throwing money at SCO. That is like buying a ticket on the titanic while watching it sink.

File suit against a Linux user?

jre — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 16:08:32 +0000

Depending on how, exactly, SCO goes about the attempted money extraction, they may risk more than being told to take a hike. They seem to be aware of this; after Groklaw pointed them to the statutes on mail fraud, the promised invoice mailing was conspicuous by its absence.

File suit against a Linux user?

ekj — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 11:50:55 +0000

Sure it's possible for them to *start* a case. After all anyone can start a case against anyone at any time for any reason at all.

I could start a case against you for posting that question. The case would likely not get very far, that's true. But sure as hell I can *start* it. (yes it'd get thrown out at the first opportunity)

They could not win a copyrigth-case without showing evidence that there is indeed something to which they hold copyrigth in Linux. But they don't nessecarily need to. In the USA, even *winning* a court-case can cost big bucks for the defendant. They don't expect to win any case without showing evidence. They are hoping to find a target soft enough that it'll settle instead of letting the matter get to court.

My bet is that such targets are harder to find than SCO think. It takes 5 minutes with Google to find out that SCOs claims are pretty shaky. Most companies would do atleast that much if faced with legal threats.

File suit against a Linux user?

bryn — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:21:04 +0000

Is it possible for SCO to start a case against a Linux user before the IBM/SCO case resolves things one way or another? I can't see how a case can be successfully completed against anyone using Linux until it is clear that they have done anything wrong in doing so.