[vox] SCO suing IBM over their Linux activity

[Mike Simons]

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On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 03:51:41PM -0700, zeruch@damagestudios.com wrote:
> On Fri, 30 May 2003, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > what if the combined court cost, unwanted publicity and nervous
> > customers turns out to be more expensive than buying SCO?
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> Its not just money, it would be in effect the principle of paying to set =
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> bad precedent.  IBM has historically had many opportunities to just settl=
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> conflicts by acquisition and has usually opted to 'sit out' or 'smash' th=
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> opposition, because it functions as a deterrent.

  Yes, this came up in one of the first things I read... If you read
the SCO CEO's quote, IBM responded in a no nonsense, 'we do not negotiate'=
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way.

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2003/tc20030523_2790_tc=
121.htm                                                                    =
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Q: Why have you not chosen to pursue these types of claims against other
companies that develop both Unix and Linux?
[...]
A: Our feeling is that if our intellectual-property rights have been
violated, then all parties need to recognize that and work out some form
of compensation or action. The majority of other vendors are stepping up
in a positive fashion.

We want to protect our rights, but our goal is not to litigate with
anybody. In IBM's case, they came back and said, "If you go down this
path, we are going to disengage. We are not going to do any more
business with you, and we are going to encourage others not to do any
more business with you." That was in fact what happened. The impact was
immediate and swift. No doubt, we lost some business and some revenue.=20
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