Media Coverage Since the August 10th Ruling

by Pamela Jones
Groklaw

September 13 2007

Some of it is very good. Some of it is quite funny. My favorite is the headline, "Linux Users Uneasy at Ruling." Was that between the dancing and the whoops? Maybe it's the champagne, but I don't remember it at all. So to you historians someday, trust me, it wasn't like that. All the warning articles that Novell might turn on Linux and sue over copyright infringement... well, they can't, I don't believe. Even if they did turn into Mr. Hyde and want to, which they won't [ http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135959-c,unix/article.html ]. Don't you remember Chris Stone's 2004 speech at the Open Source Business Conference [ http://news.com.com/Novell+plugs+open+source,+dings+SCO/2100-7344_3-5173413.html ] (scroll down to the picture) saying there is no Unix in Linux? That's not even going into everything they filed in SCO v. Novell. I believe we can rely on that, not to mention that no one, including SCO -- even after sorting through every lick of AIX code that humans could produce in the IBM litigation -- could seem to find any infringement to shake a stick at. And heaven only knows they tried like the dickens. So who cares who owns the copyrights? If the copyrights are not being infringed, does it matter? All signs point to no.

All the folks that used to write so much about how SCO would win are mighty quiet now, I must say. Nor did that crowd tip the hat to Groklaw for calling it right. For the most part, they pretend they never wrote those other predictions. Others find it really hard to believe what has happened and some prefer to say that maybe SCO lost, but they shouldn't have or that it's just one small victory in a story still to play out fully. Lots of warnings about this story not being over yet. There do seem to be forces eager to prolong an anti-Linux stench in the air, in the face of all logic, not to mention reality.

One article from Daniel "What SCO Wants, SCO Gets" Lyons (remember this gem? -- "Linux companies face a nasty foe, yet claim they're not worried. They should be.") and one from Rob "SCO Should Win" Enderle (remember: "IBM made a serious mistake in introducing Unix code into Linux without proper notification to — or approval from — SCO, which is the current, documented owner of Unix."), and then they disappeared. Enderle says he "stopped following SCO years ago". I think he's being too modest. Just last summer, he was quoted [ http://www.michaeldolan.com/260 ] by AP, Business Week and CMP TechWeb opining about a ruling in the SCO v. IBM case and was described by the last as an analyst who follows the case closely. Lyons opened his article like this, "At long last, the SCO Group's ugly, often farcical legal crusade against Linux appears to be over." Well, say. "At long last"? When did he jump ship? OK. Welcome aboard and all that. Talk about your 180. Paul Murphy was the only one to admit he was wrong, writing "I would have cheerfully bet real money that this would never happen."

Paul McDougall is the new champion chronicler of SCO's agony, with more stories than any other single journalist since August 10, by my count. Either that or he is sticking in my mind for other reasons. Anyway, I don't remember him playing much of a role before, but I can't keep track of everything. Maybe he did and I missed it. But searching for him, I could only find one article from 2003, in September, which began, "In a counterclaim to a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against it by the SCO Group, IBM says SCO violated its intellectual property rights..." Anyway, it does seem like a changing of the guard. And one thing you'll notice is that since SCO's Darl McBride began talking to the media again, the stock price, which had slumped on news of the ruling, began to pick up again, particularly after several stories [ http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/08/31/sco-chief-were-not-dead ] began appearing that SCO had filed an appeal, which actually it hadn't.

And there are other indications our educational work is still not done. Two articles reported the order as a patent loss for SCO. So, once again, slowly: there are no patents at issue in any SCO litigation, for the simple reason that they don't have any UNIX or UnixWare patents. That's *another* item that they didn't get under the APA in 1995, although SCO lawyers have never disputed that exclusion. How then, a logical mind might inquire, can SCO claim it got everything, lock, stock and barrel? I have never figured that out.

Anyway, the new FUD cloud is that maybe SCO lost this round, but they'll soldier on and one day, when you least expect it, they'll find a way to get Linux after all, or someone will, somehow. In case you enterprise dudes were thinking of switching, someone appears to want you to think there is still a cloud over Linux. I'd say, personally, that it's the most picked over code in the history of software, and it is clean as a whistle. But no one listens to me, which is a shame, because I've called it right from day one. The other thing that I think is clear now is that the smear attack on Groklaw has picked up again.

The stock information is from Google [ http://finance.google.com/finance/historical?q=NASDAQ:SCOX ]. I am not a stock person, as you know, so that part of the story isn't as interesting to me as the legal and the FUD. When I read conversations like this one on Google [ http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.664357/browse_thread/thread/adbc95715e5a565d ] SCOX discussion board, I simply marvel and wonder how to get from where I am to where they are. But I know it is part of the story, so for those who like to track such things and for history, here's all the media coverage I could find matched up with what happened with the stock on each particular day. I hope you enjoy it, because it was a lot of work.

************************************

Here's what it all looked like the quiet month before the ruling:

***********************************

I can't forget the UserFriendly Cartoons:

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070812

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070813

http://ars.userfriendly.org/ cartoons/?id=20070814

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070815

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070816

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070817

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070818

02:02 AM EDTT

Copyright 2007 http://www.groklaw.net/ - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/