IBM Responds To SCO: Business As Usual 828
Newsforge is running a statement from IBM on its decision not to bow to SCO's demand that they stop shipping AIX. In a statement this short, there's not much room for weaselly language, but the even-shorter version is this: "IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated."
IBM Responds to SCO Translation (Score:5, Funny)
Sun sponsors SCO? Possible proof (Score:4, Interesting)
How did Microsoft's agreement to pay you for Unix rights happen?
Darl: In the Microsoft case, they saw an opportunity. We originally approached them and said we're on a new licensing path; we have this intellectual property that we've started approaching vendors about. IBM is one we approached; Microsoft was another. We had about four big vendors in the last quarter that we talked with. With two of them, we signed deals. The other we're still talking with, and IBM we reached an impasse.
To me it feels like they are still talking with HP, and Sun decided to pay up to take a stab at linux (in the back, I might as well say). Or is there any other interpretation? Was anyone surprised at how quick Sun was to advertise that they are in the clear?
Boy, these Sun people don't seem like such friends of ours after all.
Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing in? (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO has made public statements and accusations about IBM's Unix license and about Linux in an apparent attempt to create fear uncertainty and doubt
I know it's silly but I always love when IBM uses the phrase "FUD" in corporate announcements since they know it means nothing to the mainstream press but it gets the Linux community all fired up. As petty and transparent as it is, IBM's press announcement can be roughly tranlated as "hey geeks, didja hear that? SCO called Captain Kirk a wimp, you feeling riled?" Well, riled we are...
The second paragraph: "IBM's Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It cannot be terminated" is nothing but pissing on SCO's shoes. Beautiful, I can't suppress a beaming smile.
I'm not sure you are right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm not sure you are right (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also about sending a message... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's also about sending a message... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's also about sending a message... (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides setting the industry back years and years it would probably bring about some changes in IP law.
Re:I'm not sure you are right (Score:4, Insightful)
Money is nothing more than a tool. It's what you do with it that matters. IMO, IBM has been doing some rather nifty things with their money in the past decade or so. SCO is using theirs to litigate. I think it's safe to say that one is "better" than the other.
I'm sure you're not right (Score:4, Insightful)
If the AC is out of a job, it's likely to be at least in part the fault of a greedy coorporation or two that hogged resources and fought destructively and dirty instead of co-operatively and clean. Greedy corporations (like SCO at present) are almost always driven by one or a few greedy individuals. They should not be able to use any corporation as a moral facade that they can hide behind.
Contrast insert-random-company-here with (say) Scaled Composites [scaled.com]. Burt Rutan may well make more megabucks as a consequence of his venture, but he doesn't need to and he knows it. If I had anything to bet you, it would be down on this premise: Rutan is doing it primarily for the challenge and to see if he can, not in the hope of earning squillions. Notice that even his domain has a wordplay in it: SCALED.COMposites. Anything that will encourage fair, competent and happy players like him and discourage the greedy has to be a good thing!
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Informative)
The irony is delicious, especially when it was Gene Amdahl who coined the phrase "fear, uncertainty and doubt" to describe IBM's tactics towards his company after he quit IBM and founded Amdahl Computers (see one of the 1975 entries at http://www.academic.marist.edu/pennings/hyprhsty.
Amdahl UTS (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh! How very delicious, indeed!
When I was a newbie Unix Sysadmin in the mid-eighties, it was at a Very Large University that had been given an IBM 3090 "supercomputer" (while the administration, whose salaries were paid for by IBM Corp, purchased a second for full price , at a time when typical academic discounts from Sun and SGI were up around 50%). Well, there were a number of IBM employees "advising" University IT services full-time with offices on campus . They were there to squash any and all use of non-IBM gear, they were.
IBM didn't really have a Unix offering at that time, and the faculty were just clamoring for Unix mini's -- Suns, SGIs, DEC VAXen running BSD 4.2/4.3, Apollos, HPs -- even PC's running XENIX. The faculty found it was more beneficial to their research projects to buy a smaller computer but have it dedicated to the project, than to have to buy time on the University supercomputer. For one thing, they'd have the hardware for as long as it lasted, and have, well, root access. And they could hire monkeys like me for peanuts to keep them running -- on the network!
Well, my installing BSD on VAXen and keeping a network of Suns and SGIs running on the network made me none too popular with the Brainwashed-By-Big-Blue Brigade-- much as my putting cygwin on Windows boxes and occasionally whiping Windows altogether with a nice Linux install makes me none too popular with the MSCE's that infest corporate IT department these days.But in academics, as well as in business, it's the Golden Rule: the ones with the Gold make the Rules. By bringing in research grants, the faculty, who wanted unix boxes, were making the rules. Also, since much of the money was coming in from DARPA and Friends, who all championed BSD (having funded its development) we had the funding agencies to refer to as well. But the B-B-B-B Brigade would continually try to sell us time on the 3090 -- and we would be, like "get your eyeballs off of my stack, jack!"
I recall numerous acrimonious meetings with the BBBBB where they would point to this wonderful "gift" of the 3090 as obligating us to use it -- at which point we would counter with "Well, if it was running UNIX, we'd consider it..." They'd come up with their FUD to the tune of "Well, IBM is working on Unix versions..." (referring to AIX which was vaporware at that stage, and a BSD RISC machine that unfortunately never got off the ground).
But BOOM! We'd hit them with "Why not just install UTS on the 3090?"
Oh! The dirty looks we'd get for that one! Talk about hitting a raw nerve!
But now, IBM is our new best friend. The FUD Fighters and Champions of AIX and Linux.
It is way beyond ironic. It is so deeply satisfying!
Now IBM is famous for its interdepartmental rivalries. I do sometimes wonder if our little blows against the empire at that stage had anything to do with the ultimate rise of the groups, internal to IBM, that were behind the development of AIX.
The truly ironic thing, though, is that the technical sophistication and security features of the PPC chipset and OS/400 systems architecture are really starting to impress me as being quite a bit better than what either linux or unix on any hardware platform ever had to offer. *nix is just starting to get serious database-tuned journaling file systems, stable security implemented, VM's (or LPARs) to your heart's content, and use of an instruction set that can directly manipulate tables of 64-bit hash keys (on the PPC anyway). The AS/400 has had these things for a looooong time. So...maybe we were wrong back in the 80's, and IBM had it right the first time.
Truly ironic.
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Informative)
eric
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Informative)
"No one ever got fired for buying IBM",I dare you! (Score:5, Funny)
If you are about to quit and you have access to some company account (petty cash will do) then go and spend it all on 5,000 cpies of OS/2 or something equally as stupid.
Imagine the fame for being the firsrt person to be fired for buying IBM.
Re:"No one ever got fired for buying IBM",I dare y (Score:5, Interesting)
Old news. fortune(1) has the following quote from the WSJ in 1989.
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for
buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham
Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that
reason. He knows it because he fired the guy.
"He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I
bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says.
"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'"
-- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Insightful)
To my recollection, it goes back at leas to the late seventies, to the time of "IBM and the Seven Dwarves", when the Seven Dwarves (Honeywell, Univac etc) complained that it was IBM's main selling tactic.
It is an obvious tactic to use when you are overwhelmingly the largest plauyte in the field. IBM then, Microsoft now. An the fact is that there is some truth in it. You know that you will never be totally lost if you fall back into Microsoft's choking embrace. Maybe you could do better by hunting around, but why bother? Many peole prefer mediocrity to risk, even if the payoff may be high.
OTOH, I think it is a very bad signe for the long term propagator of FUD. IBM had a massive fall after years of FUD, and only recovered when it dropped that attitude completely and started competing on its merits. While you use FUD as your main marketing tool instead of excellence, you aren't developing your product properly, and eventually the competition will get far enough ahead that FUD won't work. And when that happens, you are in deep trouble, because you are already far behind. I predict this for Microsoft in 3-4 years time. The chanllenger may, or may not, be Linux. And the crash will take years to happen.
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Funny)
AOL already missed their shot as the big bad, since they are currently imploding.
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Informative)
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUD [wikipedia.org]
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if IBM flagrantly violated the SCO-IBM contract to develop Monteray (and I'm not saying they did), that is not the contract by which SysV was licensed to IBM. Unless SCO can point to something in the original IBM-AT&T contract that IBM violated (and which IBM hasn't since fixed), SCO may as well go piss up a rope.
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they do manage to prove IBM did that (unlikely, given IBM's usual extreme care in managing IP rights), IBM can argue the point that the clause was rendered moot because the "software products" had previously been disclosed by AT&T and others (see the USL vs BSDI suit, for example), including AT&T's successors Novell and SCO.
Sure, if, if SCO can prove that things actually happened the way they said, and that the license means what they think, and that the point was not rendered moot by previous actions, then IBM is in trouble. I wouldn't hold my breath on that point.
(*) The vague generalities mentioned have included JFS (Journaling File System), the Linux version of which was ported from OS/2; SMP, which in large part was developed (in Linux) by Alan Cox on hardware donated by Caldera for the purpose, and NUMA, orginally an SGI development. None of these things were in the SysV code that IBM licensed. For SCO to claim that these are non-disclosable "software products" for the purpose of the license, they'd also have to prove that their interpretation of the "derivative work" ownership reversion applies to such technologies that were added to UNIX/AIX by IBM rather than derived from it. Good fscking luck.
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:5, Interesting)
This does indeed to be what SCO wants to argue - that all these things that licensees have added to their own unix derivatives are somehow now their property. I think (and I hope) that when this finally gets in front of a judge they'll be disabused of that notion very quickly. This isn't just Linux and AIX they're talking about, it's Sun and HP and SGI and everyone else that's ever added features to a SysV derivative (which is everybody that's ever sold a unix, essentially - SysV isn't exactly a useful system without all the stuff the various vendors have coded themselves.)
I know it sounds like a bad joke, but it really does sound like 'all your IP is belong to us' is what SCO is asserting.
Re:Sorry were those YOUR cornflakes I was pissing (Score:4, Informative)
Beyond that, it's still not clear that IBM even violated this license... or rather, that SCO didn't violate it in claiming that IBM violated it. Depends on what information SCO submitted, in writing, to IBM. If they didn't detail the exact violation -- and their court briefing sure as hell isn't adequate -- then they're in violation of the license and cannot suspend IBM's license over this. It's exactly this kind of thing that got UnixWare in trouble with UC and BSD. If you don't play by the rules in IP, you risk losing the IP completely - it's the trade off for the monopoly power granted by copyright, patent, et. al. (and, yes, I know this is allegedly trade secret stuff, but SCO's gonna have one hell of a hard time making that stick against IBM -- I mean, come on... IBM was doing "enterprise features" before Unix even existed).
Predicting the next Slashdot announcement (Score:5, Funny)
details at 11
smack (Score:5, Funny)
SCO says IBM helping terrorists (Score:5, Informative)
Accoding to an interview at Byte [byte.com] with Chris Sontag, SCO's VP, Linux is used by terrorists, and therefore IBM's Linux efforts are equivalent to selling arms to terrorists. Because of this, Sontag expects the US govt. to support his case against IBM and Linux as part of the war on terror. He also accuses Intel of using Linux as a way to flout US laws that ban weapons exports to North Korea.
Unfortunately, this is not a troll or an attempt at humor.
Re:SCO says IBM helping terrorists (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SCO says IBM helping terrorists (Score:5, Funny)
would keep you going for a week.
Re:SCO says IBM helping terrorists (Score:4, Funny)
SCO: All your [code] base are belong to us!
Docs on SCO's site dont support SCO's postion (Score:5, Interesting)
"We agree that modifications and derivative works
The only qualification is that the actual lines of code from ATT's source code in the derivative works still belong to ATT.
Elsewhere, in the documents, I found a paragraph that implies that if IBM has someone look at the original source code, write new code, the new code belongs to IBM. This seems to completely destroy any argument that the "methods, etc" belong to SCO.
Re:SCO says IBM helping terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft - nominally won, but the original terms of the settlement were pretty much a slap on the wrist, which Microsoft is now (allegedly) ignoring [slashdot.org] anyway.
Gore - anyone who's noticed who our President is right now knows how this one went.
Napster - Lost in convincing fashion, so badly the company cratered.
Now maybe he has a knack for finding indefensible defendants (I don't think Perry Mason could've won Napster), but as far as I can tell, when you put Boies on the case, it's as good as lost!
SCO section? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SCO section? (Score:4, Funny)
The SCO section you speak of would quickly be obselete. It is probably not worth the effort.
What's more, SCO's claims today are illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's more, SCO's claims today are illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
Holy crap.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy crap.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy crap.... (Score:5, Funny)
Should be EBCDIC middle finger.
White collar WWE (Score:5, Funny)
the SCO lawyers will be puny, whiney, and the villians.
the IBM lawyers would all be built like Goldberg and carry lead pipes in. it would be a bloodbath, over in a few minutes, and save us all the legal crap.
let's face it, SCO is going to get bitch slapped hard by IBM at this point. they're trying to play hardball and up until now IBM has pretty much ignored them. however, like a fly that bites i have a feeling they're about to get swatted back into nothingness.
i guess courtTV needs their drama too.
Re:White collar WWE (Score:5, Funny)
phone call (Score:5, Funny)
The call, intercepted by an unnamed source, went like this:
Operator: Thank you for calling IBM. How may I direct your call?
SCO: Mr. Palmisano, please.
Operator: May I tell him who's calling?
SCO: Darl McBride, CEO of SCO
Operator: Oh, you again. *pause* He is still not taking your call. Would you like his voice mail?
SCO: *sigh* Sure.
[Flush][laughter]*click*
Re:phone call (Score:3, Informative)
IBM's plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever get hit by 50 gazillion patent infringment lawsuits and the one of the worlds biggest legal departments?
Hydrodemolition Robot Crushes With Water (Score:5, Funny)
Steve
IBM or Tyler Durden? (Score:5, Funny)
SCO: Dddddon't hurt me!!
IBM: We ship your clothes, complete your financial transactions, know your insurance info... WE GUARD YOUR DATA WHILE YOU SLEEP, DO NOT FUCK WITH US!
International Law (Score:5, Interesting)
"It is also undeniable that the business climate in the U.S. lets someone take a far more aggressive attitude towards a competitor's customers than does the climate in Europe. SCO should have anticipated this, but Sontag seemed to be quizzical about what these European lawsuits are demanding, and how SCO should react to them. I got the impression that SCO's management was thinking entirely in terms of U.S. law, and have not thought through the international implications of their actions.
I find this amazing, especially considering that SCO's latest 10Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that "revenue from international customers accounted for 48 percent of operating system platform revenue." "
Question. (Score:5, Interesting)
If that happens:
What is stopping the people within SCO who started this case and subsequently destroyed SCO utterly from quietly selling all of their SCO stock sometime between now and the point SCO goes into court, thus making gobs of money in the span of time between SCO's stock price being temporarily knocked up by all the publicity around this case and SCO's stock price being knocked down once it becomes apparent SCO has nothing to back up their claims with?
What is stopping the people within SCO who started this case and subsequently destroyed SCO from walking out of SCO with incredibly lucrative golden parachutes, and possibly simply being rehired at another company in incredibly high-ranking, lucrative positions just because from the ignorant perspective of another corporation's board, hey, they were the ones who got SCO all that attention and tried to capitalize on that IP, even though it didn't work out?
I think specifically i'm thinking of Daryl McBride here. But I can't get rid of the sneaking suspicion that, by design this case is designed to cause SCO to go SPLAT like a little tiny bug on IBM's windshield, obliterating it and its stock value utterly, while somehow letting the board members who initiated this entire fucking mess somehow wrangle a huge amount of money for themselves out of it and walk away scot-free and with a big impressive "CFO, SCO CORP" bulletpoint on their resume. What is stopping them from doing this? Anything? Anything at all, either legal or in the way corporations hire? Will the people responsible for causing this mess have consequences, or will the only ones to face the backlash after SCO implodes be the stockholders and employees?
Echo echo echo echo echo.
Re:Question. (Score:5, Informative)
IBM +1.75
SCOX -0.28
Re:Question. (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, like if their VP of Engineering sold every bit of stock he had? Ha ha, yeah... wouldn't that be.... hmmm...
Newsforge: SCO VP Opinder Bawa cashes out [newsforge.com]
Re:Question. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait...
From finance.yahoo.com (Score:5, Insightful)
2003-06-11
OLSON, MICHAEL P
Vice President
6,000
Automatic Sale at $8.59 - $8.66 per share.
(Proceeds of about $52,000)
2003-06-09
BENCH, ROBERT K.
Chief Financial Officer
7,000
Planned Sale
(Estimated proceeds of $60,000)
2003-06-09
BENCH, ROBERT K.
Chief Financial Officer
7,000
Automatic Sale at $9.16 - $9.3 per share.
(Proceeds of about $65,000)
2003-06-06
HUNSAKER, JEFF F.
Vice President
5,000
Automatic Sale at $8.90 per share.
(Proceeds of $44,500)
Re:Question. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, apparently nothing [yahoo.com].
Notice the huge block of 26-34k shares sold off-market at 1/10th penny apiece to all the executives just before the 100-day-warning IBM volley in March? Notice how this isn't an annual reward program -- didn't happen last year? Notice that there's not been any insider buying since that point, but plenty of selling once the stock swung upward?
This sort of thing is not going to go unnoticed by the SEC. At this point, if I were playing devil's advocate and suggesting this were a glorious pump-and-dump scheme, I'd say that McBride and friends were merely playing for the cameras at this point, trying to look genuinely quixotic to the end while they take their turns selling off their chunks at one million percent profit.
A lot of people are going to walk away from this with very fat wallets, no matter what happens. Some anticipated the market's buy-in and have already entered and exited. :-)
SCO is really small..... (Score:3, Interesting)
See SCO run (Score:5, Funny)
See SCO lie.
See stocks fly.
Fly stocks, fly!
See Gartner blow.
SCO stocks grow!
Grow stocks! Grow!
See Novell.
See Novell smack,
Smack SCO! Smack!
See IBM.
See IBM laugh.
SCO lawyers barf.
SCO stocks cut in half.
See SCO.
See SCO whine.
SCO says "It's mine!"
See IBM.
IBM puts foot down.
SCO execs start to drown.
Drown SCO, drown!
Jury Duty (Score:5, Funny)
"Do you know what Unix is?"
No
"Do you know what Linux is?"
No
"Do you know who SCO is?"
No
"Do you know what IBM does?"
Ummmm they make typewriters?
"Ok, you are on."
Bwuahahahahah
Other players in the game (Score:3, Insightful)
OSI paper explains a lot (Score:5, Interesting)
(I'm sure it's been posted here before, but it's required reading)
CousinDave
How time change (Score:5, Insightful)
My how things have changed since then.
Even the big bad 'client/server' model is back..
<whiiir>, <shoop> (Score:5, Funny)
Point by point translation:
SCO, shut up or put up.
Just who do you think you are?
Fuck off.
History of this court case (Score:5, Insightful)
But in the same time, the crowd gets more enthousiastic, more violent in their responses and more sure of themselves.
It feels like the time between october last year and somewhere april this year when the TV stations and pulp-newspapers around the world had specials every day about the upcoming war, with new(tm) and improved(tm) reports about how this was going to be finished and how everything would turn out right at the end.
I'm going to ignore the SCO non-newsitems on slashdot until this case is over and read a proper review of it in one of the less sensational newsletters. Just my 2 cents.
The IBM droid says (Score:5, Funny)
Man, this is going to be fun.
Wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
Who is this guy doing this "press release" anyway? Why isn't there an official statement from the company?
And why did Timothy post this himself, linking to NewsForge (no less), instead of posting one of the hundreds of submissions he undoubtedly must've received, given the "hot topic"?
Sometimes I just wonder...
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T Not SCO owns Termination rights (Score:5, Informative)
In section 3.03 of exhibit B it clearly states that "AT&T" may revoke the licence for non-compliance. Moreover paragraph 4 of the cover page contains a standard "no alterations unless signed in writing" clause. I see nothing that allows AT&T to sell this termination right without IBM's approval. There are similar sectoin in Exhibit A, section 6.03 and paragraph 4 of the cover page.
Re:AT&T Not SCO owns Termination rights (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter who's name is on the deed to your house, if you sell that house and the deed with it, the new owner now has all rights to it.
Re:AT&T Not SCO owns Termination rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what was in the mind of IBM'S legal team but I am willing to bet that having this tried in SCO'S home court wasn't topping their list of desirable venues.
Further the process of federal court is significantly different and more expensive than state court. So Your'e looking at what from the begining would be a very complicated and expensive lawsuit, IBM looks on and says lets make it more so and slow things down too.
BTW while I don't know whats going on in IBM'S head its pretty obvious by SCO's choice of counsel that they realised this was going to be a federal case from the start. If they felt there was any chance this was going to stay in Utah, they would have hired a well connected Utah firm, not Boies who is a federal player.
Big Blue (Score:5, Funny)
That sounds familiar (Score:5, Funny)
List of IBM's alleged violations (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen this posted before. In a news.com article [com.com], IBM's alleged violations are listed:
Specifically, the transferred code includes the Journaled File System (JFS), extensions to make Linux work on a multiprocessor server employing the non-uniform memory access (NUMA) technique, Sontag said. In addition, he said read-copy update (RCU) for relieving some memory bottlenecks on multiprocessor servers, was transferred.
Re:List of IBM's alleged violations (Score:4, Informative)
Re:List of IBM's alleged violations (Score:5, Informative)
Linux JFS is based on OS/2 JFS, not AIX JFS.
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:CL5Bwe26iPIJ
The new Journaled File System, on which the Linux port was based, was first shipped in OS/2 Warp Serverfor eBusiness in April, 1999, after several years of designing, coding, and testing. It also shipped withOS/2 Warp Client in October, 2000. In parallel to this effort, some of the JFS development team returnedto the AIX Operating System Development Group in 1997 and started to move this new JFS source base tothe AIX operating system. In May, 2001, a second journaled file system, Enhanced Journaled File System(JFS2), was made available for AIX 5L. In December of 1999, a snapshot of the original OS/2 JFS sourcewas taken and work was begun to port JFS to Linux.
Dear SCO: (Score:5, Insightful)
sure, you might go after one division, and hope that just want to shut you up, but the core of the company? never.
Re:Dear SCO: (Score:5, Funny)
IBM says (Score:5, Funny)
SCO is running into a brick wall (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM is calling on SCOs bluff, so SCO either has to fold or show their weak hand and lose.
Now, a brick wall is running into SCO (Score:5, Informative)
What this means for Linux: win/win (Score:4, Insightful)
IBM and the strategy of Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you do / / /
Don't fouque with Big Blue
Or Big Blue
Will annihilate you.
This is like defending the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany: You just fall back a little, and fall back a little more, and let the opponent thrash around, kicking and screaming, burning energy and money, wasting men and machines, building up a supply line that he can't defend. SCO has to stay in the headlines, has to keep pushing deeper and deeper so the press stays interested, or else people will catch on to the fact that the don't have the resources to take Moscow, let alone Sibiria, before winter comes.
And winter is on its way. Once the stock market realizes that this is going to be long, drawn out battle, they will lose interest in SCO, and the stock price will start to fall again -- we saw the first frost on Monday. Their stock price is like the temperature in Kelvin, likely to fall towards a very absolute zero if they don't keep moving. SCO is not equipped to fight unter six feet of financial snow, while IBM has resources to burn. This is where the comparison breaks down: IBM is not a starving Communist dictatorship, but rather has the industrial capacity of the U.S. to draw upon.
So time is on IBM's side, while SCO is running out of ways to escalate this fight. And this is what is so beautiful about the press release: The way it makes clear that there will be no quick, furious battle, just a steady stream of legal artillery raining down on SCO while IBM slowly marches away, giving ground, gaining time. The actual court case will trap SCO like ice, and the the snow will start falling, and SCO will start starving.
And all this time, safe behind the Urals, the penguins will be breeding...
Why speculate about buying SCO? (Score:5, Interesting)
It amuses me to no end that people consider buying SCO to be a valid option to be brought up again and again. There is no point. It would be of benefit to SCO shareholders, and to reward them for putting these idiots in place is not on IBM's agenda.
If IBM were to buy anybody, they might buy Novell, since Novell owns the patent. Relatively speaking, that'd be an end run around SCO. In fact, if you really wanted to have fun as IBM, you'd buy the patent, and sell it to FSF for $1, and have the patented code GPL'ed.
Excerpt from next year's verdict (Score:4, Funny)
The court also finds that IBM is SCO's "daddy", and instructs SCO's legal counsel and executive management to "say it, biatch".
IBM announces Blue Thunder (Score:4, Funny)
This is that funny feeling you get... (Score:4, Interesting)
You know you do..
You're getting out of your car with your briefcase and your bag of groceries and you have this eerie feeling you're forgetting something important. You stand up and reach for the door and give it a shove. As the door careens toward closure, that little switch in your brain flips and that little voice starts screaming "Take it back! Take it back! Your keys are in there!!!" In an instant, your body wretches trying to catch the car door closing but to no avail. That little voice in your head then says "Awww shit, you really fucked up now, and you're beyond the point of no return."
This is what SCO has just done. They have started the final nail in their coffin in their juvenile, if not heroic, last stand. Their captain has just delivered the message to the crew that this cause is more important than their corporate lives, and they will fight to the death even though the odds are indeed impossible.
In other news, monster.com stock is up 40% today on a wave of new resumes, mostly for UNIX developers.
Now, if this turns out to be a "David and Goliath" situation and they get one of these "root for the underdog" bleeding heart liberal judges, we may have an interesting time yet. These do-gooders who think that parity is more important than justice and truth are easily conned by the "crying little guy" who is actually the devil incarnate.
IBM-SCO dialogue... (Score:5, Funny)
SCO: What?
IBM, pointing his gun: Say "what" again. SAY "WHAT" AGAIN! I dare you, I double dare you, motherf***er! Say "what" one more goddamn time!
SCO: You s-s-stoleee my source code...
IBM: Go on.
SCO: I w-w-want YOUR m-m-money...
IBM: Do I look like a bitch?
SCO: What?
[IBM shoots SCO in the shoulder]
IBM: DO I LOOK LIKE A BItCH!?
SCO: NO!
IBM: Then why you trying to f*** ME like a bitch, SCO?
SCO: I didn't!
IBM: Yes you did. Yes you did, SCO. You tried to f*** ME. And I don't like to be f***ed by anybody, except by Micro$oft.
SCO now wants $3,000,000,000 (Score:4, Informative)
- Blames Linus for letting proprietary stuff into Linux
- Complains Open Source "can be used for encryption, scientific research and weapons research" in Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya
- Says IBM copied RCU
- Sequent added to the complaint
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017965.html [com.com]
Hard Statistics on IBM vs. SCO (Score:4, Informative)
SCO
Net Assets: $37.4m (Source: Multex)
Total Employees: 340 (Source: Multex & Yahoo! Finance)
Legal Department Employees: Unknown (See below*)
IBM
Net Assets: $96,484m (Source: Multex)
Total Employees:
315,889 (Source: Multex)
Legal Department Employees: 308 (Source: Law.com)
Sources:
IBM Balance Sheet - http://yahoo.multexinvestor.com/IS.aspx?ticker=IB
SCO Balance Sheet - http://yahoo.multexinvestor.com/IS.aspx?ticker=SC
IBM Legal Department as of 2002 - http://www.law.com/special/professionals/nlj/2002
IBM Legal Department in 2000 and 1999 - http://www.corporatelegaltimes.com/editorial/surv
*SCO's legal department is not anywhere in the top 200, naturally, and no mention of size or otherwise is made in any SEC filings, etc. However, unlike IBM, SCO has no "Head Counsel," nor is any real mention made of an in-house legal department. From this, I construe that SCO either outsources its legal needs to a third-party firm, or does not employ enough lawyers to require a full "department." The acquisition of David Boies perhaps corroborates the first. Any additional information that anyone has would be helpful.
Indemnification and the worst job in the world... (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO thought they'd be smart today, pull the plug on IBM and the AIX installed base and let all those multi-billions of dollars of customers force IBM to it's knees. Oh please... A standard part of the (megabuck) license agreement that the AIX licensees sign is that IBM will indemnify them against patent and copyright infringement committed by IBM in constructing the product. IP infringements do happen, intentional or not, and it's only reasonable for a licensee to expect the licensor to stand behind their product. That's indemnification - it frees the person who's purchased the license from having to defend against an embedded IP infraction. In addition to IBM indemnifying their own code, they would normally ask indemnification against infringements by the licensee if they make mods.
Now, if you're buying software from me, I can promise indemnification and buy and insurance policy. But you won't buy from me, because the IBM salesman also paid you a call, and explained that his ability to stand behind his product legally is unmatched by anyone else, probably in the world. More lawyers, more patents, more money and more lethal force than anybody else is packing.
I've mentioned it in earlier postings, and it's popped up in this thread too. Little gnats often pop up and try to suck some blood from IBM. They are crushed quietly and behind the curtain by IBM's IP portfolio and legal muscle. Usually the customers don't even hear about the problem, which is the way they like it. Nothing probably makes the IBM contract management group more angry than having a SCO make a ruckus in public and cause them to have to call their gazillion licensee to tell them that there's no problem.
The only question on how this will turn out is whether IBM will take SCO out for a ride in their limo before fitting them with concrete boots or whether they get it in broad daylight at the toll booth.
Which leads to the worst job in the world (yes, even worse than yours). I remember reading an article that mentioned that only 3 SCO employees are focused on the lawsuit (yes, many many more non-employees), while the other couple of hundred continue on their path of innovation, the Caldera way.
I think everybody realizes that this is going to take a while. The guy you *don't* want to be is the VP of Sales as SCO. Now, you might have been jazzed that your company was going to squeak, IBM would buy it to make the problem go away, and you'd go home with your $20 million bucks. Only it didn't work that way. Not only is IBM not going to buy you a mansion, they're not going to even acknowledge your squeaking. You might have felt a buzz of pride thinking that IBM would have to rename AIX to "SCO AIX". Now, IBM has about 3000 people talking to every client in the world telling them how their enormous company is going to crush your clueless company.
Then the SCO CEO comes into your office, says "This isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be" and tell you that it will be really important that you maintain SCO's revenue stream since it will be too damn obvious if Microsoft gives SCO anymore money.
When SCO makes a sales call today, do you think anybody *doesn't* laugh at them? That's a job that sucks.
Oh well, I guess you can hope that Microsoft buys you before the end of the quarter. In two weeks...
David Fung
Re:Ob: IANAL (Score:3, Funny)
IBM: <yawn> <glances over shoulder> Oh, SCO? You still there? Eh, fuck off, will you? <goes back to sleep>
Re:way to go big blue!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Its probably a better risk/reward route to fight in court than just to stop shipping AIX. I mean, did anybody really think IBM would just snap its fingers and go, "Drat." like that?
Even if they are in the wrong, its probably a better business decision to fight it given that you cant just shut off a revenue stream like AIX (tho probably smaller than it used to be) at the request of a competitor.
Course they could be in a right as well, in which case taking it to court isn't exactly a display of courage rather than simply doing the logical thing.
I just never thought I'd live to see the day where IBM is getting support from nerds and the like
IBM can't give (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahead of all the others, SCO's biggest mistake was that they accused IBM of ignoring its confidentiality obligations. IBM either partners with or manages systems for every major company on Earth. (Maybe a few other planets, too, for all I know.) IBM Global Services' main stock in trade is its trustworthiness in keeping secrets. A measly $billion$ isn't even in the noise compared to the value of IBM's reputation in this matter, so IBM simply can not afford for SCO to have even a shred of credibility when the dust settles.
This sucker is going to a finish, and I somehow doubt that IBM will be the one finished.
Re:way to go big blue!! (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM most likely employs more people in their legal department than all of SCO. IBM is going to go into court with SCO and stall, bleeding them dry in the process. The legal fees will bankrupt SCO and IBM will not even break a sweat. Want proof? Go to your local University library and start reading the New York Times from the early 70's. 1971 or 1972. If I remember correctly IBM went into court to file a brief and the brief was 56 4-draw filling cabinets. It took the lawyers 2 years to read it. Ever seen mainframe documentation? Visualize that as legal paper work. SCO is dead they just don't know it yet.
Take a few years (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of use depend on *nix; Windows have a few servers here and there, but ... and think about the possibility ... if SCO won this case in, say, 2007, and all UNIX derivatives were invalid, what would we be left with?
MS Windows, which by then would have Palladium. If SCO get their way, even *BSD will be dead; in the worst-case scenario, the US will be depending on European laws making something (Linux, *BSD, whatever) legal to be distributed (hmm, maybe under license?) to the USA
This is *NOT* a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM most likely employs more people in their legal department than all of SCO. IBM is going to go into court with SCO and stall, bleeding them dry in the process. The legal fees will bankrupt SCO and IBM will not even break a sweat.
You do realize that this is precisely what is so wrong with our legal system and how corporations abuse it, right? It just happens to be working in our favor at the moment, but what happens why Goliath goes after the little guy and the little guy is right?
Um, this is easy Re:This is *NOT* a good thing. (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the Supreme Court of the US's order lists sometimes.
Look for "Motion for petitioner to proceed in forma pauperis is granted".
That means "I don't have to pay the legal fees cause I can't afford it".
Re:MOD PARENT UP. Re:This is *NOT* a good thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
I also agree. SCO is wrong and so is IBM but that does not change that the fact that IBM has been down this path before and will use what ever stick they can get their hands on. Right, wrong, or indifferent, today in America the guy who has the most money to spend on lawyers wins. You don't like this? Fine! What are YOU gonna do about it? Talk is cheap.
SCO is wrong on 3 counts. 1) this bullshit that they own all the IP of Unix and all subsequent Unix like OS. 2) that suing people is a legitimate business model and 3) the thing that really pisses me off. That they can threaten IBM, Apple, the Linux, FreeBSD and Open Source community and get away with it with out retribution. In my view stupidity should be painful and stupidity on this scale should cause SCO and everyone associated with them should be extinct. All I have to do is wait a couple of years and they will be.
This does not change the fact that the patent and legal system in this country is profoundly fucked. But one pile of shit at a time.
Re:way to go big blue!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to rain on your parade but you do know that is IBM PR at work. There's almost certainly a team of IBM lawyers meeting with SCO lawyers to talk a way out of this mess 24hrs a day.
I mean, c'mon people! Wake up and smell the PR action going on here.
This isn't "IBM, defender of the free". This is "IBM, that's mine, that's mine, that's yours and now it's mine".
If you were IBM would you come out with press release saying "Oh shit, we're fucked. Whatawegonna dooooooo". Um, no.
The Power to Destroy (Score:5, Insightful)
The SCO Group of Lindon, Utah (not to be confused with the cutting edge SCO design firm of Santa Cruz that had made contributions to science) is simply trying to use the power of patents to destroy in its quest for riches.
There are many who consider the power to destroy as a greater power than the power to create.
Even though IBM may not have a perfect past, they do have a long history of creating things, and that history deserves a little bit of admiration. IBM has made a good steady stream of contributions to science along the path of it quest for world dominance. So, yeah, I will cheer big blue as I personally value those who create more than those that simply brandish threats and demand payments.
Re:Yes, we all hate SCO (Score:4, Funny)
Nah, Apple are safe... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:SCO isnt showing anyone the code... (Score:4, Insightful)
3.IBM, red hat et al can then say "yes we were using your code but we stopped as soon as we found out about it" which means that SCO cant do things like filing an injunction that says "if you use our code, you have to pay us mega $$$"
SCO can't do that anyway - read a little bit about the doctrine of laches.
SCO has been harping on about this for two months. If they went to a judge now and said "we want a TRO to stop these people from using our code", the judge would say "since you didn't think it was important enough to ask them, or to do this when you found out about it, you must therefore value any infringing code at $0. And since you have declared that the code has no value, I'm not gonna stop someone else from distributing it."
Seriously. By not telling anyone where it is, SCO has declared that the monetary value of any of "their" code in Linux is $0.