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theducksBack in Feburary, a company named SCO claimed that Linux contained code which was part of System V Unix.. which SCO resold the rights for to other companies. It claimed IBM had put the code there, and thus announced it would be taking them to court. They also wouldn't say which parts of the code specifically we copied, so the infringement would continue and they'ld hopefully get more licensing fees. Then over the last 6 months they've gradually added more companies to their list of infringers, eventually saying end users owed them $700 - $3000 per machine running linux, and just this week claimed that if you had a Sharp Zarus linux powered PDA, or a Tivo (which runs linux), or even some Cisco gear, you owed SCO money. Representing them, SCO had one of the ex-DoJ lawyers from the anti-trust case against IBM in the 70s/80s.
SCO claimed that when AT&T broke up, the license for System V went thru a number of companies and ended up with them, and thus, since IBM was alledgedly distributing things from System V, they could terminate IBM's license. IBM, on the other hand, said "no, one, our license wasn't with you, two, our license to System V and AIX is irrevocable, three, we wrote the code which you claim is in both AIX and Linux, and four, STFU." Novell also piped up and said "and actually, the license with IBM to distribute System V Unix still belongs to us", and being a wise company, Novell also assured IBM that they would not be doing something stupid like siding with SCO. SCO's part in this is also murky, as the company called SCO today is not the SCO of the past, which closed down and sold all remaining assets and trademarks to what is NOW called SCO.
SCO probably should have thought about this course of legal action a bit better. The US federal government dropped suit against IBM in the end, as it wasn't worth pursuring. The government was running out of money to fund it, while IBM still had plenty of lawyers with sharp teeth to go another 20 rounds. IBM has also been sued for patent infringement by several companies in the past, however once word got around that IBM held patents on pretty much anything electronic, this ceased, as after stirring big blue from its slumber, companies would often find countersuits from IBM detailing even more infringement, and asking for settlements of .. more than the company's assets. For this reason, I have often quoted that "attacking IBM with patents in somewhat like trying to eat a live tiger". SCO had also been contacting large companies using Linux to offer them "reasonable licensing terms". Several European courts found this to be akin to blackmail, and issued injunctions preventing them from doing so again. In the US, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating hundreds of complaints about SCO attempting to do a "pump and dump" of their stock. Which considering the stock went up over something which isn't a fact, and then many people with stock options started selling, they may well have something there.
Over the last week, RedHat has countersued them for attempting to mess with their business (RedHat's market value is about 6 times that of SCOs), which should have worried them, and today, IBM showed their hand and filed suit against SCO for.. you guessed it, patent infringement, along with breach of contract over claiming they could terminate AIX's license. IBM's view of patents is much like the US's view of of nuclear weapons. They'll keep them locked in an underground vault until someone says they're going to use them against them, and then they'll unleash them all. In other words, "Terminate THIS".
SCO claimed that when AT&T broke up, the license for System V went thru a number of companies and ended up with them, and thus, since IBM was alledgedly distributing things from System V, they could terminate IBM's license. IBM, on the other hand, said "no, one, our license wasn't with you, two, our license to System V and AIX is irrevocable, three, we wrote the code which you claim is in both AIX and Linux, and four, STFU." Novell also piped up and said "and actually, the license with IBM to distribute System V Unix still belongs to us", and being a wise company, Novell also assured IBM that they would not be doing something stupid like siding with SCO. SCO's part in this is also murky, as the company called SCO today is not the SCO of the past, which closed down and sold all remaining assets and trademarks to what is NOW called SCO.
SCO probably should have thought about this course of legal action a bit better. The US federal government dropped suit against IBM in the end, as it wasn't worth pursuring. The government was running out of money to fund it, while IBM still had plenty of lawyers with sharp teeth to go another 20 rounds. IBM has also been sued for patent infringement by several companies in the past, however once word got around that IBM held patents on pretty much anything electronic, this ceased, as after stirring big blue from its slumber, companies would often find countersuits from IBM detailing even more infringement, and asking for settlements of .. more than the company's assets. For this reason, I have often quoted that "attacking IBM with patents in somewhat like trying to eat a live tiger". SCO had also been contacting large companies using Linux to offer them "reasonable licensing terms". Several European courts found this to be akin to blackmail, and issued injunctions preventing them from doing so again. In the US, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating hundreds of complaints about SCO attempting to do a "pump and dump" of their stock. Which considering the stock went up over something which isn't a fact, and then many people with stock options started selling, they may well have something there.
Over the last week, RedHat has countersued them for attempting to mess with their business (RedHat's market value is about 6 times that of SCOs), which should have worried them, and today, IBM showed their hand and filed suit against SCO for.. you guessed it, patent infringement, along with breach of contract over claiming they could terminate AIX's license. IBM's view of patents is much like the US's view of of nuclear weapons. They'll keep them locked in an underground vault until someone says they're going to use them against them, and then they'll unleash them all. In other words, "Terminate THIS".
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Date: 2003-08-08 03:41 am (UTC)THE SOLUTION TO THE SCO PROBLEM
SCO has a market cap of about $145M. For many companies, that's not terribly hard to come by in their warchest, especially a company like, say, IBM, or such.
A hostile takeover for that could look a lot like "Hi, we're big-corp, we plan to buy every share of SCOX we can get our hands on and the instant we have something resembling 51%, we plan to cease operations of the corporation entirely, leaving any remaining shareholders with worthless stock. Thus, it's in your interest to sell to us as early as possible, lest you be left holding worthless pieces of paper."
"We won't be on the board of directors, we won't be officers of the corporation, we'll simply propose the resolution, act upon it, and shut the company down in one fell swoop. We're doing this because the existing management is a menace to the industry in general, and it's a public service to put SCO out of business."
I have to believe that would work, if you could find someone willing to do it. That and the stock price for SCO would probably plummett as shareholders became more desperate to be "in the portion of the shareholders who saw some return instead of being left holding their dicks in their hands"