[pchelpers] SCO humor

Hi folks,

For those of you who haven't been following the SCO comedy, here are
two headlines of interest. I suspect that SCO will fold, and that some
SCO board members will find themselves in jail soon.

http://www.groklaw.net

************************************************

Another Redacted SCO Document Shows The Game Plan
Saturday, July 23 2005 @ 03:43 PM EDT

Here's SCO's Reply Brief in Further Support of its Supplemental
Memorandum Regarding Discovery [PDF], which has now been refiled in
redacted form. When I read it, I understood several things:

    1) why Judge Wells granted them all the discovery she originally did

    2) what SCO's strategy is

    3) that much of SCO's need for discovery is to defend themselves
    from IBM's counterclaims, and

    4) that even if they were to win the IBM contract claims, which I
    doubt, Linux has now been vindicated once and for all, ironically
    enough *because* of all the discovery SCO obtained.

After all, if the only way to find copyright "infringement" in Linux
is to sort through all *unreleased* versions of AIX and Dynix going
back ten years to try to find some abstruse, nearly impossible to find
nonliteral infringement that can only be proven by tracing methods and
concepts mini steps through a decade of AIX and Dynix development that
not even SCO can put its finger on after two years of effort and
mostly because of contract terms that they argue give them more rights
than copyright law, it seems obvious that no normal person would blame
Linus or the Linux development process for not noticing something as
hard to discover as all that.

And SCO still hasn't shown any evidence of infringement two years into
the process and after having access to all versions of everything,
released and unreleased, despite their public claims in 2003 that they
already had in their hands such evidence. Now they tell us they are
still looking.

(continued)

************************************************

Novell Files Answer and Counterclaims, and Tells Us the Rest of the
SCO Story
Friday, July 29 2005 @ 07:37 PM EDT

I know you are waiting with eager anticipation, because today is the
day Novell was to file its answer to SCO's slander of title complaint.
I have verified that they have done so. Here is what I know so far,
with the document to follow as soon as possible. UPDATE: Here it is
[PDF], Novell's Answer and Counterclaims.

Here's the big news. Novell tells the court that SCO contacted Novell
after Darl McBride took the helm, and they asked Novell to go in with
them in a "Linux licensing program". Novell refused to participate,
calling it a "scheme". It was in that context that SCO asked Novell to
give them the Unix copyrights. They repeatedly made such requests,
asking Novell to amend the Novell-Santa Cruz agreement to give SCO the
copyrights. Novell repeatedly said no.

The next biggest news is Novell is bringing Microsoft and Sun
Microsystems into the picture. It looks like we will eventually find
out what role they played, if any. Novell tells us that it began an
audit of SCO's activities in July of 2003, which it was entitled to do
under the contract, but SCO refused to turn over requested information
regarding Sun Microsystems' and Microsoft's licenses or any others
under the SCOsource program. Novell says that SCO had no authority to
enter into new SVRX licenses with Sun, Microsoft, or anybody else and
they noted that the IP License for Linux SCO was offering appeared to
be SVRX licenses, because they purported to grant rights related to
UNIX System V or UnixWare. SCO never turned over anything, and that is
the foundation of Novell's breach of contract claim, and it leads to
the breach of obligation to remit royalties claim. SCO never asked
Novell for permission to enter into any new SVRX licenses, so none of
the new licenses, Novell asserts, falls within §1.2(e)'s exception to
SCO's general duty to remit 100% of SVRX royalties to Novell. They are
asserting their rights to all but 5% of what Sun and Microsoft paid.

They ask the court for specific performance, to compel SCO to comply
with its audit *and remittance* obligations. Specific performance is
legalese when you are asking the court to make the other party to a
contract do what it said it would. They also ask the court to set up a
constructive trust for SCO to deposit the revenues from Sun,
Microsoft, and all revenue from its "Intellectual Property Licenses
with Linux end users and UNIX vendors," to protect Novell from "SCO's
wrongful retention of monies owing Novell due to SCO's failure to
perform its remittance obligations." That should get the SCO lawyers
to wake up with a start. Do you think SCO is finally sorry it started
down this road? I'll bet the lawyers are, even if SCO isn't. Novell
has just handed them a lot of work to do, with uncertainty as to
getting paid for it. That uncertainty is also why Novell asks the
court to order a trust be established, because, Novell says, SCO is
quickly dissipating its assets.

Discovery, here we come. We'll get to see those Sun, Microsoft and
SCOsource licenses yet, methinks. If the court sustains these claims,
all the SCOsource money SCO ever got or ever could get would go to
Novell, with a small handling fee to them for their trouble. Actually
not even that. Novell says SCO was unjustly enriched by keeping the
revenue but not fulfilling its administrative, remittance and audit
obligations, so they don't deserve the 5% either. Novell is aiming its
arrows straight at SCO's heart, where it lives, namely its pocketbook.
Oh, my, oh, my. Not to the moon after all?

(continued)

-- 
Scott.




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