[vox] SCO suing IBM over their Linux activity

[Mike Simons]

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On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 06:26:09PM -0700, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> however, i find myself caring less and less over the validity of SCO's
> claim (which we're all in agreement over) and caring more and more about
> the time frame in which all this will blow over and be forgotten.

> has there actually been any legal action yet?

  Yes, I've only read over and commented on SCO's original claim those
comments are in my first post to this thread (when I changed the topic),
based on reading that I had no idea what *thing* was "stolen".
 =20
  March 6th - SCO filed a case in Utah State Court against IBM for 4
              causes of action... (Misappropriation of Trade Secrets,
	      Unfair Competition, Interference with Contract, Breach of
	      Contract).
  March 7th - SCO notifies IBM that they are in breach of SCO's contract
              for UNIX, and on June 12th? (100 days), IBM will lose
	      rights to AIX.

    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,920733,00.asp

    =3D=3D=3D
       [the quotes are the CEO of SCO talking]
    "IBM has been happily giving part of the AIX code away to the Linux
    community, but the problem is that they don't own the AIX code," he
    said. "And so it's a huge problem for us. We have been talking to IBM in
    this regard since early December and have reached an impasse. This was
    thus the only way forward for us."
   =20
    The Unix contracts held by SCO were "extremely powerful and one of the
    remedies under the contract is that we have the ability to revoke their
    AIX license," he said. "We have to give them 100 days notice before we
    do that. If they don't cure the problems we have then we will revoke
    their license. We sent them a letter today informing them of that, so
    the 100-day clock has started."
    =3D=3D=3D

  March 25th - IBM replied that the complaint was wrong wrt what state IBM
               was based in New York (not Delaware), and so this is a
	       matter for federal court not state court.
  April 3rd - IBM requests additional time to form a reply to the
              complaint.
  April 30th - IBM responds to the complaint (not read yet)
  May 27th - IBM amends response to complaint.


  From what I hear the first major court action will happen Friday,=20
June 13th... but I expect that the case will be moved into federal court
unless SCO comes up with a very good reason it should stay in Utah State
court.

> is there a way that someone can force SCO into a court to either prove
> its claims or shut up forever?

  There is _no_ way the US court system could be used to do something like=
=20
that in 6 months or less... I can't imagine how that could happen
"freedom of speech" and all.


  There is a group in Bremen that has gotten a injunction passed against
SCO so that they must provide proof before claiming Linux users may be=20
liable for infringement of SCO's property.

  http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?tt=3Durl&url=3Dhttp%3A%=
2F%2Fwww.univention.de%2Findex.php%3Fface%3D1054349404x6711926160x2x59a103a=
0a0&lp=3Dde_en


> what is the estimated time in which linux can put all this behind us?

  Caldera's case against Microsoft (for killing DR-DOS but preventing=20
Windows 95 from working with it and refusing to sell Windows 95 without
a copy of MS DOS bundled in) took 4 years before MS settled in 2000 for=20
$400 million in a sealed settlement.

  I imagine if this does get resolved in court it will take 3 years or
more to resolve.  If SCO manages to get information about which lines
of Linux source are tainted sealed in court, so that the public can not=20
see what areas of Linux are in question, then the suspicion that Linux=20
is tainted will last until the case closes.


> this whole thing gives me a sense of deja-vu.  i don't think many people
[...]
> read about it in the news anymore...

  Unfortunately, *business* people will pay attention to stuff like this=20
for a much longer time than I care to think about.  Among suits I think
this could be a very bad blow to Linux... especially the way SCO has
to be spreading FUD without proof.

--=20
GPG key: http://simons-clan.com/~msimons/gpg/msimons.asc
Fingerprint: 524D A726 77CB 62C9 4D56  8109 E10C 249F B7FA ACBE

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