08.17.13
Posted in Microsoft, Patents, SCO at 12:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Possibilities of lawsuits of interest that target Microsoft rivals and help discourage public participation (like SLAPP but bigger)
THE mysterious company that had famously sued Microsoft (VirnetX) and got paid a huge amount of money from Microsoft recently sued Apple again. It is on a path of destruction:
VirnetX Holding Corp. (NYSE MKT: VHC) today announced that on August 7, 2013, it signed a Patent License Agreement (the “Agreement”) with Avaya Inc. Under the terms of the Agreement, VirnetX has agreed to license certain of its patents to Avaya, in exchange for multiple payments to VirnetX and an ongoing reasonable royalty for future sales through the expiration of the licensed patents as outlined in the Agreement with respect to certain current and future IP-encrypted products. In further consideration, Avaya has agreed to license certain of its patents to VirnetX for its ongoing Gabriel technology product development.
Now that Apple is suing Samsung we should remember that any such troll which Microsoft and Apple pay can go after Android and GNU/Linux, equipped with precedence. Think of Nokia and its patent arrangements with Microsoft and Apple. Here is the latest from Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung:
There will be a hearing in Apple v. Samsung I in Judge Lucy Koh’s courtroom, Courtroom 8 on the 4th floor, on August 21 at 2:00 PM, so if any of you stalwarts can attend, that would be fabulous. You don’t even have to wake up early.
What’s it about? Didn’t they just have a case management hearing in April? Why yes. Yes, they did, but there have been “progress and changes” since, according to the parties’ Joint Case Management Statement [PDF], which fills us in on the details. Both parties would like some changes since the last case management hearing. Here’s the last joint case management statement, back in April. And the judge’s order on April 30 was to go forward immediately with the damages trial, unless certain things happened in the USPTO reexaminations of Apple’s patents at issue. Some of those things have almost happened, and there are other quirks, so some changes are being requested.
An article by Richard Hillesley, titled “the litigation business”, reminds us of the notion of lawsuits by proxy:
SCO’s action against IBM and others failed, but reflects a fashion in the technology industries – not restricted to SCO – for replacing innovation and business with teams of lawyers and threats of litigation, says Richard Hillesley
Lawsuits that involve patents — not copyrights — are the next wave of FUD against FOSS. Steam, a company whose CEO is “formerly” of Microsoft, has another legal tie with Microsoft created:
Jason Holtman, who spearheaded Valve’s Steam business for eight years before leaving the company in February, has a new job.
The former lawyer has taken a job with Microsoft, with a focus on PC gaming and entertainment strategy. Because he has just started at the position, Holtman declined an interview request, but confirmed the move.
Lawyer, not a technical guy. Will he help sue Microsoft’s competition over patents? Maybe, but ether way, it is important to keep track of these movement because entities like Acacia absorbed lawyers from Microsoft shortly before suing GNU/Linux from multiple fronts. █
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06.27.13
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, SCO at 10:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft staff which infiltrates the opposition is smearing this opposition from the inside and pushing Microsoft’s proprietary software deep within
We are still seeing that typical smear from Walli [1, 2, 3] and fellow Microsoft staff who try to demonise FOSS users, calling them “freeloaders”. This is not the first time we see this insult, but why does Red Hat give Microsoft’s Walli a platform with which to spread the insulting ideas? Here is the link (don’t click) and here is some more brainwashing where Microsoft interviews Microsoft on Linux (at a Microsoft site), grooming another puppet and infiltrator like Hilf and Ramji [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] before he quit. This one is K.Y. Srinivasan, whom we wrote about in relation to what he does inside Linux. Some Microsoft Web site recently pushed some articles repeatedly, trying to paint Microsoft as a friend of Linux. Will they kindly just step away and stop insulting Free software advocates while pushing Microsoft into everybody’s life, even GNU/Linux users?
People will never forget how Microsoft bankrolled the SCO case, which more than a decade later is still going on:
SCO is saying, we don’t have the copyrights. But we had contracts. The “among other things” means they have more in mind they don’t wish to tell us about yet, as is SCO’s wont. It’s about post-1995 SCO products and Project Monterey and IBM allegedly turning folks against SCO. Like they needed to turn anyone away from SCO. When a company shoots itself in the foot by suing its own customers right and left, it tends to create an atmosphere of alarm and distrust, resulting in others putting space between them and the foot-shooter.
IBM gets to respond next, and I expect them to say that SCO has zero claims left standing. And then we’ll get to IBM’s counterclaims, at last. Here’s a chart of all the summary judgment motions left hanging when SCO filed for bankruptcy protection.
Remember that some people from SCO moved to Microsoft, where they now pretend to be FOSS people. notably Sandeep Gupta. █
“[Microsoft's] Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would ‘backstop,’ or guarantee in some way, BayStar’s investment…. Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar’s investment in SCO.”
–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO
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06.18.13
Posted in FUD, IBM, Microsoft, SCO at 12:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“[Microsoft's] Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would ‘backstop,’ or guarantee in some way, BayStar’s investment…. Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar’s investment in SCO.”
–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO
Summary: The SCO v. IBM case is reopened, despite a glaring lack of funds, resuming the FUD against Linux
Microsoft is now openly — not just covertly [1, 2] — supporting Apple’s fight against Android. “Microsoft disagrees that Judge Posner created a “categorical rule” or “blanket prohibition” on injunctive relief for infringement of SEPs,” says this post. “It calls the question of a RAND-encumbered patent owner’s entitlement to injunction relief “an interesting question — but not a question presented on appeal here.” Microsoft argues that RAND commitments must be considered as part of the eBay analysis, which it says Judge Posner precisely did here” (Posner is against software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).
Here we have Microsoft interfering with a competitor using a proxy or a litigation ally. It is typical Microsoft behaviour which goes back to the SCO case and prior to it, too. According to this [via], SCO’s case is still going on:
The Hon. David Nuffer has ruled on the SCO v. IBM motions, granting SCO’s motion for reconsideration and reopening the case, which IBM did not object to. Judge Nuffer apologizes to the parties for the error in his previous order refusing to reopen the case. Sounds like a mensch to me. I love it when judges don’t pretend something is the lawyers’ fault when it’s really the judge’s fault. He’s newly assigned to this case, and it’s been going on for over a decade, so he specifically tells the parties not to assume his familiarity, asking them to provide him with enough detail in the various briefs going forward to work with. And he has essentially accepted the IBM suggestions on how to go forward, which SCO did not want to happen. I was fairly confident he would, though, precisely because he’s new and he surely needs some time and help from the parties to get up to speed.
The pro-FOSS news site says: “After both parties have submitted their motions, the court will decide whether the case will be closed without further hearings with a summary judgement or if it will be re-opened in earnest.”
A Microsoft partner says “IBM’s lawsuit with SCO over just who owns Unix has crawled out of the grave and seems set to shuffle back into US courts.
“For the uninitiated, or those who’ve successfully tried to forget this turgid saga, a brief summary: SCO in 2003 sued IBM for doing something nasty to bits of Unix it owned. Or felt it owned. SCO also sued Novell, which it felt did not own some copyrights for Unix.
“Many private school educations later for the offspring of the lawyers involved SCO lost against Novell. By this time SCO was out of cash with which to keep up the fight against Big Blue, so the matter hibernated for a while.”
“Decade-old lawsuit exhumed in response to SCO motion for reconsideration,” writes Lee Hutchinson. Richard Adhikari writes the following summary in ECT:
The news that lawyers for The SCO Group have filed a new motion to reopen its case against IBM was greeted with incredulity, to put it mildly. Turns out that the bankrupt SCO really isn’t attempting to retry the case — there are some loose ends from the long and drawn-out proceedings that still need to be tied up. The motion did provide an excuse for traveling once more down memory lane, though.
What we have here is Microsoft-funded litigation. This one involved copyrights and Microsoft is currently trying patents, also using proxies to enhance impact (e.g. patent-stacking).
Thankfully there are some actions to curb patents in the US right now, even if some are misguided and badly-aimed [1, 2, 3]. Recently we got this ruling [1, 2] that “May Be A Boon For Biotech Startups” (no more patents on nature's basic genetics) and the text in Groklaw opens with:
I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature.
Watch the patents boosters react. Pamela Jones replies to this booster by saying: “He’s arguing CLS Bank was wrongly decided. Still. The law is quite specific that you can’t patent function in such a broad way it closes off all competition such that no one else can make a device that “scrolls intuitively”. But with software patents, that’s exactly what has been happening, and that isn’t even talking about the fact that software is mathematics and should not be patentable subject matter in the first place. But if it is going to be, the issue isn’t hardware or software; it’s specificity. If you want a patent, then, and it’s 100% software, be specific so you patent only the precise way you did what you did; that leaves room for others to do it a different way. And that is what President Obama said he’d like to retrain the USPTO examiners so they recognize the difference.”
In order to defend Linux we must watch out for patents on software and those who promote them. Microsoft is trying to sustain a SCO-like smear and scare, showing that the copyright plot against Linux is not completely dead yet (Microsoft has since then moved on to patents). █
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05.30.13
Posted in Cablegate, FSF, Microsoft, SCO at 7:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Harassment by proxy seems like a possibility now that funds to the FSF are being discouraged
Donations to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) are a dangerous or suspicious activity now (like post-Cablegate Wikileaks), at least based on this account from a reader/contributor of ours. Donations to the FSF are made more difficult now. Microsoft did this type of thing last year [1, 2]. Here is how the latest story goes:
Master Card called me about my FSF Subscription That’s very strange because I’ve been making monthly payments for about a decade. Someone is doing something nasty to the FSF.
At 8AM, I got a call from the fraud prevention department of my credit card asking me to “verify some recent activity”. I saw it in my email when I woke up about an hour after they called.
My Mastercard was robbed once before, so I checked online and called the customer service number printed on my bill. There was nothing suspicious in the online report or the last bill. I was not about to call the number left on my answering machine, which simply identified itself as “TOLL FREE CALL” It took some time to escape the menu, which was uninformative and dangerous because it wanted to change things. The key phrase “human being” did the trick and I was promptly routed to an operator at the fraud department.
The representative told me that my monthly FSF subscription charge had triggered the call and that means hundreds of false charges had been made in the FSF’s name. When she told me the FSF charge was responsible for the call, I said that was strange because I had been making regular automated payments since 2004. She told me that the trigger was probably false charges to other accounts. I asked her how many false charges it would take to make such a trigger. She said that it changes daily but that it would probably take hundreds.
I can think of four explanations for this:
1. The FSF made a mistake in billing. Unlikely.
2. Mastercard wanted to harass the FSF. Unlikely but they have a history of cutting off funds to Wikileaks and can not really be trusted.
3. Someone made fraudulent payments to Mastercard on many accounts. That could be done maliciously or as a misguided help, the result would be the same and no one should do that.
4. Someone wanted to harass the FSF by setting up fake accounts to play games.
Whatever the actual reason, damage is being done to the FSF’s reputation and it should never have happened to me. An algorithm that overlooks my long history of monthly payments is broken. Operators should be given the exact reason that a company has been labeled suspicious. The call was inconvenient and damaging. Further speculation added to that damage. Hopefully, Mastercard itself is not responsible for this and will get to the bottom of it.
I started a FSF Forum thread about this hoping to call the right kind of attention to the problem.
http://www.fsf.org/associate/forum/community/612250276
Discouragement through discomfort is an effective strategy. Proving this to be intentional is hard, almost impossible even.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols celebrates a decade of fighting back against SCO, whose funding from Microsoft is evident. Showing the intention or proving it is the hard part. With uncertainty or lack of concrete evidence, these attacks can carry on, little by little, proxy by proxy (one of the latest seems to be Nokia). Groklaw covers another curious attack, namely Oracle (a friend of a friend, Apple). The latest is this: “Google has now responded to Oracle’s appeal in the Oracle v. Google API copyright case. Plus it adds its own cross appeal.”
Copyrights were also used by SCO. In all cases, and wherever FOSS takes over, the intend is to tax GNU/Linux or impose a sort of blockade. █
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05.26.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, SCO, UNIX at 1:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO’s strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”
–Bruce Perens
Summary: SCO’s proxy battle is not over and more stories emerge which serve as reminders of proxy wars
According to SCO specialist/expert Groklaw, IBM has responded to this continued effort by SCO to revive litigation more than ten years after it started. It is being summarised as follows:”IBM has filed its response [PDF] to SCO’s motion asking for reconsideration of the Court’s order denying SCO’s motion to reopen the SCO v. IBM case. I have it as text for you.
“Is SCO selling a lie again?”“IBM tells Judge David Nuffer that it doesn’t oppose reopening the case at all — in fact it says it should happen. IBM has an proposed outline on how to proceed thereafter. Its plan differs from SCO’s.”
The Microsoft booster, in the mean time, took McBride’s claims at face value and wrote: “Darl McBride, the former chief executive officer of SCO, says he was offered $2 million by the Utah attorney general in May 2009 in exchange for taking down a website criticizing an area business person. Still pursuing the years-long legal battle against Novell and IBM over Unix and Linux intellectual property, SCO needed money at the time.”
“Microsoft mostly had the press on its side when it engaged in rackteering, spinning that as ‘licensing’, so the press was complicit.”Pamela Jones wrote in her site that “So many people sent me this url, I am posting the story. Otherwise I wasn’t going to. I don’t personally believe for a moment that this is the entire story. Darl has always been good at getting the media to print what *he* says is the story, invariably that he’s been wronged, but in time we get the rest of the story. For example, while he claimed for years that SCO owned the copyrights to Unix, it turned out to be untrue. So all the “wrongs” done were done to the media and court victims of SCO. So the real question is, why is he wanting the media to tell his side of the story now, after all this time? I note the article links to the Salt Lake Tribune, which says the FBI is investigating. That’s why I was going to wait until we have more information about all sides of the story before reaching any conclusions or even linking to the Darl McBride PR.”
And later, in the middle of the weekend, she added: “Here’s a question: on what basis would Darl McBride ask for $2 million to shut down a web site that the target alleged was defamatory? Or any web site? Allegedly the target owed $200,000 or so, although he denied it, so where does the $2 million figure come in? Why would he even agree to such a deal, if he did?”
“How likely is it that trolls like these wage war at the behest of someone else.”Is SCO selling a lie again? And if so, how about fact-checking? Are mere allegations guarantee of news coverage? Maybe it depends on who’s doing it. Microsoft mostly had the press on its side when it engaged in rackteering, spinning that as ‘licensing’, so the press was complicit.
It is worth mentioning that the company dismantled by Singer’s Mafia (Elliott Associates, the vulture fund) shows its effect in weaponising patents, having just seen patents (and copyright also) on load balancers being used for extortion. One report says: “Of 33 prospective jurors that were considered, five of them had patents of their own. (This trial was in the same court where a patent-owning jury foreman was likely instrumental to Apple’s blockbuster patent win over Samsung last summer.) No word yet on whether any terms of the settlement will be made public.”
This comes amid intervention by the same thugs who gave Novell’s patents to Apple and Microsoft (CPTN). Motorola came under fire from another vulture fund, Mr. Icahn, before it nearly gave its patents to Microsoft and Apple (Google needed to grossly overpay to outbid this duopoly of patent aggressors).
“Remember which company is scanning a lot of literature (it’s not Microsoft, which dropped these endeavours).”Here is an update from a case of patent trolls fighting Google/Motorola and another naming of patent trolls by the FRAND Blog that showed Apple and Microsoft ganging up against Android using FRAND/patent pools, whose purpose is to raise the cost of Android. The blog says: “Today brought the publication of what looks like is the first lawsuit of its kind — a complaint brought by a state attorney general (here, Vermont’s) against a non-practicing entity, alleging that the NPE’s patent assertion activities constitute unfair and deceptive trade practices under Vermont state law. (The suit was actually filed May 8, but it became publicly available today when the defendant was served.) The complaint was filed against MPHJ Technology Investments LLC, a company that has been characterized by some as the “scanner troll” — because it has sent demand letters to thousands of businesses that use scan-to-email technology.”
How likely is it that trolls like these wage war at the behest of someone else. Remember which company is scanning a lot of literature (it’s not Microsoft, which dropped these endeavours). █
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05.20.13
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Patents, SCO at 8:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Violent revolution by Microsoft, CIA style
Summary: A recollection of very dirty tactics from Microsoft, which uses money to oppress, overthrow, and even hijack its opposition
Paul E. Singer (aka “Elliott“, a misnomer for a bunch predatory investors) can be accused of letting Microsoft grab Novell’s patent portfolio through CPTN. More recently we saw this vulture preying on another company and now we see it destroying BMC for personal gain. The Microsoft booster (only occasional) at the Financial Times says: ‘The deal marks a success for Elliott Management, the activist investor that accumulated 9.6 per cent of BMC shares and won two seats on the company’s board.”
That’s entryism. Pamela Jones wrote about it that “Elliott Management forced the Novell deal too. Since Microsoft was involved in all that, what is the real purpose of all this?”
Novell is no longer a focus of ours. We mostly ignore articles about SUSE, taking a passive approach. But Novell’s patents and the tactics of entryism cannot be ignored. Microsoft is now doing to Nokia what it did to Novell and at the end of the day we are left dealing with just another SCO. Here is some more coverage about Novell and SCO, courtesy of Jones:
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Our own Justin Ellis attended today’s hearing at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Novell’s appeal in Novell v. Microsoft. This is the antitrust litigation Novell brought over WordPerfect. He has a report for us. He begins with his general impressions, and then provides his notes on the arguments.
What we have learned from those two cases is that Microsoft can turn opponents (like Nokia) into allies using entryism, essentially an infiltration and/or bribe. Microsoft funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars for Novell to change teams after Novell had become a fierce antitrust opponent of Microsoft and Microsoft paid tens of millions of dollars to SCO when it attacked Linux with empty copyright claims. More recently Microsoft also bribed Barnes & Noble to defect from legal action against Microsoft to a Microsoft alliance or even a sale to Microsoft (see [1, 2, 3] for background). Not too long ago Barnes & Noble complained about the patent system and shortly thereafter Microsoft tried to abduct and silence the company for good. Regarding the news that “Microsoft Mulling Nook Media LLC Purchase For $1 Billion” Pamela Jones wrote: “And so Microsoft kills off another Linux-based offering in the market, just as its deal with Nokia killed off another. Anti-trust regulators, are you noticing the subtle strategy?” Regarding the news that Microsoft claims to be making billions from Android ‘licensing’ (extortion), Pamela Jones wrote: “To regulators: please notice that it is Microsoft and Apple who are claiming that Motorola is asking for unconscionable amounts of money. But Microsoft is making much, much more per device. Remember that they claim if they had to pay Motorola less than this per device, somewhere between $3.50 and $4.00 per unit, they couldn’t stay in business. So, the question before you has to be, is Microsoft using patents to destroy its chief competition? And NO ONE has tested these patents to determine if they are even valid. It’s all done by bullying. Barnes & Noble revealed that the patents shown to them by Microsoft were junk, that they didn’t want them, use them or need them. Please look into this. Thank you.”
What Microsoft does is almost certainly illegal, but since it takes a lot of lawyers and lobbyists to enforce the law against criminal corporations, it is unlikely that anything other than a large corporations can successful press charges against Microsoft executives, leading to a jail term (e.g. for racketeering, bribery, and so on). We see this quite frequently in the energy and banking sectors. The law is not being practised (or practised only in one direction), hence it’s just relish. █
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05.07.13
Posted in Apple, Courtroom, GNU/Linux, Google, Patents, Red Hat, Samsung, SCO at 5:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Accepting the status quo, like sheep led to slaughter
Summary: Red Hat is too soft on the issue of software patents, based on its comments to the USPTO; Linux/Android continue to suffer from software patents in court cases which may last years
Red Hat has hardly been a flag bearer in the fight against software patents. It is not as bad as IBM, but it is not always helpful, either. Red Hat itself is filing to receive software patents of its own, making a distinction between what it calls “bad” software patents and “good” software patents. It tends to focus on trolls and in its Web site OpenSource.com (Red Hat-run) it has almost a monopoly on views regarding software patents.
Nevertheless, in the wake of USPTO opening up to feedback Red Hat is making its policy known:
The USPTO has been asking the public to respond to a series of questions with suggestions on improving patents. It is aware that the technical community isn’t happy with the way patents are being issued, particularly software patents. You are familiar with some of the USPTO’s questions, because we at Groklaw responded to two of them, topic 1 on how to improve software patents, regarding functional language, and topic 2, suggestions for future topics for discussion.
Red Hat’s suggestions play along the lines of software patents as a given, which is problematic. Groklaw‘s ‘cref 66895 suggestions], on the other hand, were very good and they are essential for a meaningful discussion of the real issues. Elsewhere in Groklaw there is a discussion about a legal case involving the best-selling Linux devices, the ones from Samsung. Here are the latest two updates on that:
1. Joint Case Management Statement Filed in Apple v. Samsung
The judge in the first Apple v. Samsung patent case in California, the Hon. Lucy Koh, asked the parties to file a joint case management statement, just in case she decides to go forward with an immediate second jury on the issue of damages on the 14 products where the first jury got the math wrong. And they have now done so [PDF]. There will be a hearing on all this on April 29. Of course, they disagree. Because they don’t agree on how to go forward, they each set out their positions, once again. The short version is that Apple wants to hurry up and have the trial immediately and Samsung wants to hear from the appeals court before the new damages trial goes forward, so as to ensure the same mistakes aren’t repeated.
2. Judge Koh’s Order in Apple v Samsung: No Stay on Damages Retrial, Unless…
Judge Lucy Koh has reached a decision [PDF] on going forward on the retrial on damages in Apple v. Samsung. Trial is set now for November 12th, on damages only, same Daubert rulings, motions in limine, discovery disputes, and evidentiary objections ruled on the same as the first trial, meaning if she made mistakes in the first trial, they’ll be repeated in the retrial. “The parties may not relitigate these issues,” she writes. So it’s all for the appeal court to figure out. She isn’t interested in reviewing all that. So if the appeals court orders a third trial, that’s the way it will have to be. She wants to keep the damages retrial short and sweet and limited to just one issue, and then send it on its way to appeal, so no new theories and no new fact discovery. There is a schedule for expert discovery. The jury will be 8 people, with the parties’ given three peremptory challenges each. Apple asked for the very same jury instructions, but she says they will get together on October 17th to discuss “how to
present infringement and validity findings” to the new jury. Other than that, she is silent on that point.
Trial expected at the end of this year, eh? Justice is taking too long, so it’s SCO all over again in that respect. What needs to occur some time in the next year or two is elimination of software parents in the United States (or radical cut-down). Red Hat just doesn’t go far enough to achieve that. We need other fronts in the fight against software patents; Google ain’t it, either. █
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10.06.12
Posted in SCO at 2:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Groklaw provides another timely glimpse at the state of SCO
TECHRIGHTS hardly touches Novell and SCO because both companies are dead or defunct. Litigation carries on as a spectator sport (Microsoft is involved in antitrust) and there are lesser known cases against Novell and SCO. As Groklaw put it: “Do you remember Wayne Gray, the guy in Florida who tried to to get the trademark INUX, was challenged by X/Open, the owner of the UNIX trademark, and then ended up suing Novell, X/Open and SCO, claiming a conspiracy and adding RICO claims? X/Open won on summary judgment a couple of years ago, he appealed, lost there too, and now the final chapter in this incredible saga is that Gray must pay X/Open’s attorneys’ fees in the amount of $404,820 plus interest of 6% from June 28, 2010 to September 30, 2011 and an interest rate of 4.75% from October 1, 2011 to the present, and $5,016.82 to cover their costs in dealing with him.”
According to another post about UNIX and SCO, SCO is bankrupt and “is now officially transferred from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. Here’s the order [PDF]. The Chapter 11 trustee, Edward Cahn, was to turn over all the records and assets to the interim Chapter 7 trustee as soon as the US Trustee appoints him or her, and file with the court within 14 days a list of all unpaid debts incurred after the Chapter 11 bankruptcy began and within 30 days a final report. Of course, as he requested, he is now appointed [PDF] as the Chapter 7 interim trustee. He just changes hats.”
Here is the balance: “SCO lists $82,431 in cash on hand on the conversion date. That means some of you reading this now have more money than SCO.”
A lot has changed since this site was born. Many companies we opposed no longer exist or are no longer influential. This is indicative of success, but it also suggests that our goals should evolve. A large barrier now is an issue rather than several companies; it is software patents, which some of those companies use. The remainder of today’s posts will be about patents. █
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