SCO already guilty of Lanham act viols

Message ID: 235528
Posted By: rgriffith64
Posted On: 2005-02-12 13:56:00
Subject: SCO already guilty of Lanham act viols

No the Judge has not ruled. But he clearly is aware enough of the situation to eventually rule for IBM on Lanham Act violations by SCO.

Even if SCO does find something now. It is very, very clear that up until this point there is no, zip, zero, zilch, nada, evidence of IBM doing anything wrong, or of any copyright violations by Linux of any sort. The Judge was clearly aware of this and stated in the ruling that SCOs public statements were "at odds" with thier total lack of evidence.

This puts SCO clearly guilty of Lanham Act violation. The only remaining question is how badly will the Judge put the boots to SCO. Well that all depends if SCO can scrape up anything from here on in.

The point is that SCO is clearly guilty of disparaging both IBM and Linux when they had no evidence at all. It does not matter what the final state of evidence SCO does manage to gather is, SCO had no basis for the statements it did make. This also pretty much means a clear win for RedHat whenever that case starts moving and means that SCO WILL BE facing PSJ for Lanham act violations.

Message ID: 235530
Posted By: diogenese19348
Posted On: 2005-02-12 14:03:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vio

<<
Even if SCO does find something now. It is very, very clear that up until this point there is no, zip, zero, zilch, nada, evidence of IBM doing anything wrong, or of any copyright violations by Linux of any sort. The Judge was clearly aware of this and stated in the ruling that SCOs public statements were "at odds" with thier total lack of evidence.
>>

Agreed. And at this point, Red Hat's suit in Delaware (yo, judge, wake up) needs to move forward. Whatever SCOX has left for IBM it is still clearly Lanham violations...

Message ID: 235533
Posted By: walterbyrd
Posted On: 2005-02-12 14:32:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vio

Does it matter? Scox will be bankrupt before any of that goes to trial.

I think that was the plan all along: if they bug $$ from IBM, great. Otherwise drag it out, milk it for what is worth.

Darl said scox will only have $7MM in cash by Jan 31. Figure scox will burn at least $2MM a quarter?

Message ID: 235534
Posted By: heimdal31
Posted On: 2005-02-12 14:37:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vi

<< Darl said scox will only have $7MM in cash by Jan 31. Figure scox will burn at least $2MM a quarter?>>

More once IBM gives them billions of lines of code. Outside experts are not included in the BSF fixed-price agreement.

Message ID: 235540
Posted By: manyhats23
Posted On: 2005-02-12 14:48:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vi

>>
More once IBM gives them billions of lines of code. Outside experts are not included in the BSF fixed-price agreement.
<<

Does anyone actually think SCOX is looking in all that source code IBM has provided? Why waste the money? SCOX probably hasn't even unwrapped the FIRST set of source code IBM provided.

--m

Message ID: 235548
Posted By: rgriffith64
Posted On: 2005-02-12 15:04:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vi

> Why waste the money? SCOX probably hasn't even unwrapped the FIRST set of source code IBM provided.

Because if SCOX cannot provide evidence that they examined the code IBM will use that as evidence of bad faith in the negotiations and pleadings. Not that the SCOX case could go even further downhill, but SCOX has pleaded that the ONLY way they can prove their cas is to go over the code. The court is laughing at their case but is not ready to throw them out. The court says okay, you have jack squat but are screaming loudly that the answer is in the code. Here is the code. "Make my day". If SCOX does anything less than a full examination of the code there is going to be an awful lot of legal weight thrown around.

This is why the "SCO win" of the code is really a loss. SCO was playing it as a legal bluff again, looking for any possible grounds for appeal. SCO said "we need the code" they said it loud and often. The court had the choice of standings is ground on the zero evidence provided so far or on bending to SCO and giving them what they wanted.

The problem is SCO has zero evidence for the fishing expedition they are on. There really should not have been given this scope. Still if SCO finds nothing or even worse does nothing with the code then they are in big trouble. This would be trouble for the legal team as well as SCO. For the SCO lawyers futures this code needs to be examined, it will be bad for the SCO lawyers is SCO cannot pay for it because then the legal firms will have to pay for it out of pocket (failure to consider evidence for a client or failure to pursue due dilligence on behalf of the client are bad).

If the code delivery is upheld, I can see IBM not even talking with the SCO bankruptcy trustee until SCO's lawyers have paid for the code evaluation. IBM wants to be proven clean, if SCO or SCO's lawyers pay for it so much the better.

Message ID: 235585
Posted By: hamjudo2000
Posted On: 2005-02-12 20:01:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vi

Our legal system has many checks and balances so that it will continue to function despite a few biased judges. That doesn't mean that it will function quickly, or efficiently.

Because IBM has the resources to follow this through to the end, we will eventually see the correct ruling. I hope to see the ruling this decade.

Message ID: 235588
Posted By: walterbyrd
Posted On: 2005-02-12 20:20:00
Subject: Re: SCO already guilty of Lanham act vi

>> I hope to see the ruling this decade. <<

What an optimist!!

My guess is that the case will never go to court. Scox will be delisted, go bankrupt, and go out of business. Eventually, there will be a settlement, probably for a very small, and undisclosed amount.

The case will die with a wimper. Darl, Sontag, and Yarro, will escape lawsuits, and crimminal prosecution; and will go on to other executive positions.

It won't be worth IBM's while to pursue this for another five years or more.

Other companies will try to pull similar scams. I wonder if msft will back them? Or has msft learned it's lesson? My guess is that msft will back more linux fud scams. This is called being "aggressive" in business; instead of being called what it really is: illegal.

The texts of these Yahoo Message Board posts have been licensed for copying and distribution by the Yahoo Message Board users "rgriffith64", "diogenese19348", "walterbyrd", "heimdal31", "manyhats23", "hamjudo2000" under the following license: License: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0.