Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 02:36:42 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Where can I find FreeBSD-related SCO lawsuit updates? Message-ID: <3F0FD6AA.E01F8AD0@mindspring.com> References: <20030709125055.GA90046@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20030709193315.A494@citusc.usc.edu> <20030710123509.GA97000@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <3F0D6AAD.9030406@potentialtech.com> <20030710141516.GA97366@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <3F0DAFDA.2050708@potentialtech.com> <3F0E91FB.57B452A5@mindspring.com> <3F0EB5BB.1080203@potentialtech.com>
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Bill Moran wrote: > I'm still having trouble understanding the motive behind all this. Money. > Obviously, SCO can't seriously believe they can gain anything from > this lawsuit ... Are they nuts and actually think they can win? Is > there some other motive that no one has yet to discern? Even if > the "Microsoft Conspiracy" theories are true, what does MS expect > to gain from such a silly attack, and why would SCO agree to be > a patsy? All tort (contract) law is really about risk analysis. It's very much like the scene at the start of "The Fight Club", when Brad Pitt is telling the apalled woman about how the automobile industry decides on whether or not to issue a recall. At this point, SCO's job is to make it more expensive to actually go to court than to pay them off. It is said that George Bernard Shaw once asked a socialite: =93Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?=94 Certainly, she replied with a smile. =93Would you sleep with me for ten pounds?=94 Shaw then asked. =93Certainly not!=94 she replied indignantly. =93What do you think I am?=94 =93We=92ve already established that,=94 Shaw said. =93Now we=92re just haggling over price.=94 = I haven't decided yet, whether IBM will settele, on the basis of the short term cost, or give no ground at all, on the basis that to do so would invite extortionary lawsuits from other companies (IBM is in a lot of businesses, which makes them a very big target). The idea that they would "stand on principle" never entered my mind. It probably helps to remember that their current CEO, Sam Palmisano, was Corporate Counsel for IBM for years before he became CEO, so it is more than likely that SCO really picked the wrong company to go after. There is also the faint possiblity that this is really just a marketing ploy, cooked up between the both of them. > The other thing that irritates me is the fact that US copyright law, > which is supposed to protect development and encourage it, seems to > be used to hurt it more often than not. This is not at all about Copyright law; it's about contracts. It's true that the Copyright law gave then the leverage needed to extract the license contracts in the first place, but it's the license contracts which are at issue. The legal system in any countery with a strong government will be used the same way by people who "play the system" to get what they want: you can't come up with a general rule that will cover every contingency (or you can, but we call that "Religion"). -- Terry
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