Paul Murray's weblog, with news you may have missed and my $0.02 worth on a number of topics.

"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it."
- Art Buchwald

I bet you don't have a friend who's an acupuncturist

E-mail me: pmurray [at] despammed.com

Die, SCO, die. Excuse the schadenfreude, but a computer company called The SCO Group is going down in financial flames ... and it couldn't be more deserved.

Since 2002, SCO's entire business model has been to intimidate and sue users of the Linux operating system, claiming that the OS infringes on its purported ownership of patents on the UNIX operating system. Shunned by users and facing an angry open-source software community that banded together to disprove their claims, SCO decided to play chicken with IBM. They sued IBM for selling systems running Linux, expecting IBM to settle, and then everyone else would cough up too.

Except IBM didn't blink. They eagerly went to court to force SCO to prove their claims. SCO demanded outrageous amouts of evidence from IBM, but dragged their feet continually when ordered to produce their own evidence.

(An aside: SCO was on its deathbed a few years ago. And then Microsoft invested in them, an amount that was lunch money to one of the world's largest corporations but enough to keep SCO going. As usual, Microsoft was trying to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about a threatening competitor. Today they're huffing and puffing that Linux contains some of their copyrighted code -- which they won't reveal -- and encouraging companies to pay them a licensing fee. Yes, pay to license alleged infringing code without proof. But they're big and scary, so some companies have caved.)

And then last week the judge ruled that virtually all of the UNIX patents that SCO claimed to own actually belong to Novell. Cue the sound effect of air leaking from a tire as the stock, which had once traded at about $20 a share, plunged. As I write this, it closed at 44 cents.

Ironically, a previous incarnation of the same company (Caldera) was highly regarded by the Linux community. But new management in 2002 took them down what appears to be a dead-end.

Labels: lawsuits, Linux, patents, software

posted by Paul Murray at 12:31 AM | permanent link |

If you read only one story about the $65 million dry cleaning lawsuit ... ... this column by the Washington Post's Marc Fisher would be a good choice.

Judge Who Seeks Millions for Lost Pants Has His (Emotional) Day in Court

By Marc Fisher
Wednesday, June 13, 2007; B01

Before trial began yesterday in the case of the D.C. judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaners after they lost his pants, the most extraordinary fact was Roy Pearson's demand for $65 million in damages.

That was before Pearson, an administrative law judge, broke down while testifying about the emotional pain of having the cleaners give him the wrong pants. It was before an 89-year-old woman in a wheelchair told of being chased out of the cleaners by an angry owner. And it was before she compared the owners of Custom Cleaners in open court to Nazis.

"I knew it: It's all my fault," said the reporter from German television who was sitting next to me.

The global import of Pearson v. Custom Cleaners was evident from the start. The courtroom was packed with members of the Korean Dry Cleaners Association and reporters from print and broadcast outlets in at least five countries. The guy from the tort reform lobby handed out bright green buttons protesting the $65 million "pantsuit." The gent from Fox TV sported neon-color paisley pants.

And Pearson, who by his account has spent more than 1,400 hours preparing his case, arrived in a black pinstripe suit. I hope he won't sue me if I mention that the pants could have used a pressing.

Labels: lawsuits

posted by Paul Murray at 12:45 PM | permanent link |