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| SCO's 4th Quarter & Year-End Results Call on Dec. 22 |
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Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:26 AM EST
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SCO has announced officially the day and time for their 4th quarter and year-end financial results conference call. I'll show you the press release in a minute. Mark your calendars for December 22 at 5 PM EST, as I'm sure we'll be treated to lots of arm-waving about what they allege they found in the way of infringing code, or more likely how their case has never been about copyright at all. It's all about methods and concepts now. And they'll tell us about the $10 million cash transfusion too, I'll betcha, and how it shows such confidence in their case. December 22 is the drop-dead deadline for discovery to end on that topic of infringed code, and it seems very fitting that we celebrate the end of what was beginning to feel like perpetual discovery. Now, every year on December 22, we'll remember all that they put us through. And one of those sweet years, we'll know how it all came out...
Ah, the mind wanders happily, but jolting myself back to reality, this year we will still have to clench our teeth and endure some more blood pressure-ratcheting SCO spin, I expect, about that evil IBM employing people who have ideas here and again that if you hold the paper just so, and insert some stuff from the other side of the paper, and squint, looks a little like something in crusty old UNIX, those IBM pirates. SCO says it is the owner of the Most Holy IP in UNIX, unless Novell is, of course, or nobody is, for that matter, but if SCO is, they have a contract that wasn't enforced for two decades or whatever it has been, and they found some wording in one contract or in a letter in a dusty old file cabinet that no one is ever allowed to think a thought that was thought of before by anyone who ever saw UNIX code and they've rounded up some people ready to swear on the Bible the wording means such and so, until you actually depose them... and if you throw out some other agreements that contradict the contract, bingo. Payday!
Well, you catch my drift. That's the future, I'm afraid. It's not about trade secrets now. They dropped that claim like a hot potato, because there aren't any trade secrets in UNIX. It's not about copyright infringement in any normal sense unless they can find some code and get some copyrights, and so far, it's been mighty slim pickings on that score, for anyone who wants a payday. The only real copyright infringement claim left is IBM's, in their GPL copyright counterclaim. It's not about the GPL is unconstitutional any more either. I believe they may have outsourced that one, along with the Linux-is-unAmerican or whatever. Joke. Joke. Or is it, Joke? Joke? No, my friends, after all the discovery on all the dropped claims, what is left on the table? It's about pretty much nothing any normal person would ever care about. For which they would like IBM to hand over a gazillion dollars. Or is it duhzillion? I forget. Big numbers make my pretty little head spin. Perhaps that's why they told us it was about copyright and Linux and trade secrets and Hollywood-against-the-evil-downloaders. Words to prevent thinking. I believe that performance might end up costing them, and not only in the SCO v. IBM litigation. It has already cost them credibility. The mountain of code, remember? The deep-divers from MIT? Where are they now? In the most recent hearing, SCO's lawyer reportedly was repeatedly dismissive about the value of code comparisons. *Now* they tell us. And what about the letters to corporate Linux users that they might be violating copyright law? If SCO turns out not to even own the rights, well, those letters are a bit embarrassing, particularly when Red Hat and IBM start talking about how they were damaged by that SCO PR. Now, the case is just a weird but simple contracts case, to which Linux is merely a bystander. Like a toddler hit in a drive-by shooting in the Bronx or LA. By the way, in the following press release, SCO identifies itself like this: The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) is a leading provider of UNIX software
technology for distributed, embedded and network-based systems, offering SCO
OpenServer for small to medium business, UnixWare for enterprise applications,
and Me Inc. for digital network services. Here is how they identified themselves in their October 31, 2003 10K: Our core business focus is to serve the needs of small-to-medium sized businesses, including branch offices and franchisees of Fortune 1000 companies, by providing reliable, cost effective UNIX operating systems and software products to power computers running Intel architecture. We also provide a full range of pre and post sale technical support for all of our products, primarily focusing on OpenServer and UnixWare. Additionally, we provide UNIX-based professional consulting and custom software development services. So I'm thinking we aren't the only ones who will remember the SCO saga until our dying day, but SCO's memories won't be as sweet. Read on for the press release itself. ***************************
LINDON, Utah, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO(R) Group, Inc.
(Nasdaq: SCOX) a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology for
distributed, embedded and network-based systems, announced today it will
release its financial results, for the fiscal fourth quarter and year, ended
October 31, 2005, after the close of the market, on Thursday, December 22,
2005.
In conjunction with the release, the company will also host a conference
call that same day at 5:00 p.m. (EST) or 3:00 p.m. (MST) to discuss the
Company's results.
WHAT: The SCO Group, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Year-End Fiscal 2005
Financial Results Conference Call
WHEN: Thursday, December 22, 2005, 5:00 p.m. (EST), or 3:00 p.m. (MST).
HOW: If you would like to participate in the live call you may dial
(719) 457-2637 or (800) 946-0705, confirmation code: 7141218.
You may also join the call in listen-only mode via Web cast.
The URL is listed at http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm.
About SCO
The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) is a leading provider of UNIX software
technology for distributed, embedded and network-based systems, offering SCO
OpenServer for small to medium business, UnixWare for enterprise applications,
and Me Inc. for digital network services. SCO's highly innovative and reliable
solutions help millions of customers grow their businesses everyday, from SCO
OpenServer on main street to UnixWare on Wall Street, and beyond. SCO owns the
core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the
exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers.
Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of thousands of
resellers and developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized
support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO
products and services, visit http://www.sco.com.
SCO, SCO OpenServer and the associated SCO logo, are trademarks or
registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.
UNIX and UnixWare are registered trademarks of The Open Group. Windows is a
registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other brand or product
names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or
services of, their respective owners.
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| Authored by: LocoYokel on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:33 AM EST |
As needd.
---
Waiting for the games I play to be released in Linux, or a decent Windows
emulator, to switch entirely.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: MadScientist on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:35 AM EST |
| Please makes links clickable also. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:38 AM EST |
When I first read this post with all of its sarcastic language, I was a little
upset. Why? Because sarcasm can be a tool that is often used when you really
don't have a point but want to degrade the other side.
However, after I read it the second time, and have thought back over the YEARS
of this, I've come to the conclusion -- this is the ONLY way to cover this
situation. It has gone beyond the bounds of just reporting it as
"news". In fact, notice how all the journalists that work for major
news places just ignore this case and story now.
Oh well, my only other comment is that it really should not be a
"gazillion" or "duhzillion", I think it should be a Homer
Simpsonesque "DOHzillion".
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- *zillion - Authored by: hardcode57 on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:58 AM EST
- LOL!!! (n/t) - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 12:42 PM EST
- LOL!!! (n/t) - Authored by: rc on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:18 PM EST
- LOL!!! - Authored by: micheal on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 03:40 PM EST
- *zillion - Authored by: Stumbles on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:25 PM EST
- ITYM Brazilians - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:50 PM EST
- Tone of Troll - Authored by: iceworm on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 06:16 PM EST
- Tone of Troll - Authored by: rm6990 on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 06:36 PM EST
- Tone of 'Tard - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 17 2005 @ 05:05 AM EST
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| Authored by: Peter H. Salus on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:47 AM EST |
Well, with that $10M, SCOG will be able
to make their balance sheet look a lot
better. But whatever they do, they'll
be wasting lipstick on a pig.
---
Peter H. Salus[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: N. on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:55 AM EST |
"Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation."
Who mentioned Windows?
---
N.
(Now almost completely Windows-free)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 11:58 AM EST |
| Note Buisness description in latest SEC filing:
( also the risks section is
always a fun read )
The SCO source section is twice the size of the Unix
Buisness section. No revenues (except the one time payments that made them a
profit one year) but lots of expense so I guess it is a buisness line.
Also
no correct attribution of the UNIX(tm) registered trademark of the
OpenGroup.
Sec.Gov page HTML doc latest 424b3
Unix
Business
Our UNIX business primarily serves the needs of small-to-medium
sized businesses, including replicated site franchisees of Fortune 1000
companies, by providing reliable, cost effective UNIX software technology for
distributed, embedded and network-based systems. Our largest source of UNIX
business revenue is derived from existing customers through our worldwide,
indirect, leveraged channel of partners which includes distributors and
independent solution providers. We have a presence in a number of countries that
provide support and services to customers and resellers. The other principal
channel for selling and marketing our UNIX products is through existing
customers that have a large number of replicated sites or franchisees.
We
access these companies through their information technology or purchasing
departments with our Area Sales Managers, or ASMs, in the United States and
through our reseller channel in countries outside the United States. In
addition, we also sell our operating system products to original equipment
manufacturers, or OEMs. Our sales of UNIX products and services during the last
several quarters have been primarily to pre-existing UNIX customers and not
newly acquired customers. Our UNIX business revenue depends significantly on our
ability to market and sell our products to existing customers and to generate
upgrades from existing customers.
SCOsource Business
During the year
ended October 31, 2003, we became aware that our UNIX code and derivative works
had been inappropriately included in the Linux operating system. We believe the
inclusion of our UNIX code and derivative works in Linux has been a major
contributor to the decline in our UNIX business because users of Linux generally
do not pay for the operating system but pay fees for services, distribution and
maintenance. The Linux operating system competes directly with our UNIX products
and has taken significant market share from these products.
In an effort
to protect our UNIX intellectual property, we initiated our SCOsource business.
The initiatives of this business include seeking to enter into license
agreements with UNIX vendors and offering SCOsource IP agreements to Linux and
other end users allowing them to continue to use our UNIX source code and
derivative works found in Linux. We believe that our SCOsource revenue
opportunities have been adversely impacted by our outstanding dispute with
Novell over our UNIX copyright ownership, which may have caused many potential
customers to delay or forego licensing until an outcome in this legal matter has
been reached.
In addition to our other SCOsource initiatives, in March
2003, we filed a complaint against International Business Machines Corporation,
alleging, in part, that IBM had breached its license agreement with us by, among
other things, inappropriately contributing UNIX source code and derivative works
to the open source community and seeking to use its knowledge and methods
related to UNIX source code and derivative works and modifications licensed to
it to decrease the value of the UNIX operating system in favor of promoting the
Linux operating system, of which it has been a major backer. Based on these
alleged breaches, we delivered to IBM notice of termination of our license
agreement with IBM that permitted IBM’s use of our UNIX source code in
developing its AIX operating system. Based on similar violations, we also sent
termination letters to Sequent and Silicon Graphics. We have also commenced
litigation against Novell and others to protect our intellectual property and
contractual rights.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 12:17 PM EST |
"...treated to lots of arm-waving about what they allege they
found in the way of infringing code..."
My guess is they'll
do the standard obligatory "we have confidence and it's proceeding, end comment"
type of answer pertaining to the lawsuit.
I must admit though, at this
point, I'm actually missing Darl shooting off his mouth. His statements are so
easy to prove false that it's actually become entertaining.
RAS[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jbb on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 12:24 PM EST |
PJ said:
Now, every year on December 22, we'll
remember all that
they put us through.
IANAL, but
it seems to me that SCO might still prevail in
its request for more discovery
from IBM's Linux developers.
IBM has indicated that if this is granted then
the deadline
for the end of discovery on infringing code will have to be
extended.
I think that if SCO's discovery request is denied there is
a good chance they will raise as big a fuss as
possible, perhaps appealing
the decision if that is allowed
at this stage of the proceedings.
---
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power
to make you commit injustices. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 12:53 PM EST |
My head also contains less brain than yours. So, being a bear of little brain,
I beg you to explain ... What is this "weird but simple contracts
case" of which you speak?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:13 PM EST |
| Specifically, trade secrets as they relate to "methods and concepts".
Let's
suppose that I have a "method or concept". But it's not secret. Specifically,
it's not a trade secret. It's also not patented. (And it's not trademarked,
either). It is embodied in some code that is copyrighted. But what's
copyrighted is the code, not the "methods and concepts".
So, if someone
reads the code, realizes "oh, that's how you do it!", and proceeds to write
their own code that does the same thing (but doesn't copy the copyrighted code),
there's nothing legally to stop them.
So my "aha!" insight here is that, if
I understand correctly (and IANAL), if you don't have trade secret protection
for your "methods and concepts", and you don't have patent protection for them,
then you don't have protection for them at all.
And this isn't about
trade secrets. SCO admitted that. And they don't have any patents. So methods
and concepts isn't going to fly. It's words and bluster, devoid of any
meaningful legal content.
MSS2 [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:41 PM EST |
| I think it's generally accepted right now that IBM is not interested in settling
this case with SCOG, but in actually winning.
I know this is a rather
pointless hypothetical, but was this always the case?
Would IBM have considered
a settlement with the right terms?
Honestly, even if it was a shakedown,
it's a very
expensive one. It seems pretty clear that SCOG's
going to lose, and that the
odds are IBM will have lost a ridiculously large
sum of money on this.
So, was there a way that SCOG could have gotten IBM to
settle? As much as I
like how IBM has handled this, and as much as I've enjoyed
watching IBM's
lawyers in battle, I think that SCOG could have extracted some
money from
IBM if they'd done things differently.
I think that SCOG did two
things that made a settlement unlikely:
1. They publicly slandered IBM. The
accusations that they made, widely and
loudly, meant that settling would have
resulted in IBM losing face. "Neither
party admits wrongdoing" would have been
seen as "IBM knew they were
wrong, but won't admit it." SCOG didn't realize
that IBM does value their
reputation - and that you're supposed to blackmail
people with embarassing
material before it's known to the
general public, not
after.
2. Greed. While I don't actually have any clue
how much SCOG would have
been willing to settle for, if their bellicosity is
anything to go by, they vastly
over-valued their hand, and thought that they
could get IBM to give them way
more cash than they deserved - they probably
didn't ask for an amount
related to IBM's legal and discovery costs, but rather
wanted an amount
related to their claims, which just wasn't going to
happen.
I guess what I'm saying is, given how much this is costing IBM, I
can't imagine
that there wasn't some way that SCOG could have shaken down IBM
with
something - but SCOG's behaviour tends to make me believe that they don't
even know how to do a shakedown properly. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Would IBM ever settle? - Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:49 PM EST
- Would IBM ever settle? Yes!!! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 02:05 PM EST
- Would IBM ever settle? - Authored by: PJ on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 02:18 PM EST
- I doubt it - Authored by: Lourens on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 03:37 PM EST
- IBM could not have brought better PR. - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 04:06 PM EST
- Where is the Wookie? - Authored by: akStan on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 04:40 PM EST
- Would IBM ever settle? - Authored by: webster on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 04:47 PM EST
- Would IBM ever settle? - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 17 2005 @ 01:51 AM EST
- The mistakes... - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 01:07 PM EST
- Isn't what SCO's doing ILLEGAL, anyway? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 18 2005 @ 03:17 PM EST
- Not at this point. - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20 2005 @ 01:12 AM EST
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| Authored by: webster on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:45 PM EST |
It is so nice of PJ to remember all of this for us and provide a context for the
up-coming 4th quarter and year-end result. She has done such a nice job that
SCO is seriously considering cancelling the call and just issuing a press
release with the figures. She has already anticipated their "spin"
and what may be some glaring omissions. They are not going to sound like they
are grounded in reality if they don't address menacing risks like the dire
copyrights situation. Yes, they are going to cancel that call. Why sound like
a bunch of death-row converts?
---
webster
>>>>>>> LN 3.0 >>>>>>>>>[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jsusanka on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 01:46 PM EST |
Meanwhile while microsoft has sco getting our attention
they have been
gathering quite an IP portfolio for that
day when linux becomes the desktop
standard.
href="http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,2118968,00.htm">SGI<
/a> [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 02:41 PM EST |
"... and if you throw out some other agreements that contradict the
contract, bingo. Payday!" PJ
What agreements contradicting what contract? This is the first I heard of this -
I can't recall any UNIX licensing agreement between AT&T and any of
AT&T's licensees that contradicts the terms of the AT&T contract and
AT&T's official clarifications of the relevant terms of the AT&T
contract.
---
Know your enemies well, because that's the only way you are going to defeat
them. And know your friends even better, just in case they become your enemies.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 02:57 PM EST |
Good: the SCOG litigations will be remembered for triggering the birth of
groklaw as a solid, reliable, independent voice of the Open Source community.
Bad: SCOG's IBM litigation is turning into a multi-year epic, in which SCOG
keeps its case alive through the sheer power of bull and their sheer diligence
in shoveling it.
---
Know your enemies well, because that's the only way you are going to defeat
them. And know your friends even better, just in case they become your enemies.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 06:29 PM EST |
| Hmmm... Everyones already gone home for the Christmas Holiday (or at a party or
whatever..)
great time for a conference you want no-one to remember.. ;-) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 16 2005 @ 07:04 PM EST |
Your analysis of the stuff leading up to SCO's long-hoped-for "Payday"
reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes from one episode of South Park:
Phase 1. Collect underpants.
Phase 2. ?????
Phase 3. Profit.
Now THAT'S a business model, and I'm almost sure SCO have drawn theirs from it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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