Questions for the SCO meeting

[Evan McNabb]

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Michael Torrie, Tallie Anderson (from the BYU law school) and I sat down, r=
ead
the 30 page Complaint filed by SCO and came up with a few questions we have
for the meeting on Wednesday.  At the end are a few funny questions from
slashdot. :-)

I know Jayce is still looking for questions, so if you have anything else t=
o contribute
that would be great.

-Evan

----

1.If Version 7 of Unix has been released to the public (on the SCO web page
sometime between 1998-2000, which is after the last amendment to the licens=
ing
agreements in 1996), what information is still considered to be worthy of t=
rade
secret protection?

2.What precautions has SCO taken to make sure that this information remains=
 proprietary?

3.In what way has IBM induced SCO's customers to reverse engineer,
decompile, translate, create derivative works, modify or otherwise use the =
UNIX
software in ways in violation of the license agreements?

4.Are these cited license agreements those that were entered into by AT&T p=
rior
to SCO's acquisition of the UNIX technology?

5.If these license agreements are the original AT&T agreements and the
misappropriation cause of action is based on technology released and develo=
ped
during Project Monterey, then how is it possible that AT&T could have induc=
ed
these customers to have breached contracts concerning information that is n=
ot
covered in their licensing agreements?

6.Does the license agreement entered into by IBM and AT&T ever specify who =
has
rights to derivative works created by IBM?

7.In the absence of a derivative works clause, doesn't IBM have the
rights to any derivative works that don't directly copy the software
licensed by AT&T?

8.Under Utah law, an employee is not an agent of a corporation unless he is
acting under authority given him through his position.  Several of the quot=
es
in the complaint including that cited in paragraph 101 were made outside of
work on an internet rumor site designed to provide computer gossip as being
indicative of IBM's practices?

9.Particularly, paragraph 101 which distinctly illustrates that the person
speaking had no knowledge of the way that liability for patent infringement
occurs.  Even if IBM uses distributors, IBM is still liable for patent
infringement and in most cases it is very likely that IBM indemnified its
distributors anyway.  What evidentiary value does this statement have?

10.What does Karl-Heinz Strassemeyer do at IBM anyway (paragraph 101)?

11.Does SCO plan to bring forth code as evidence, or just quote IBM employe=
es?

12.It is claimed that the reason Linux has improved so much in the last sev=
eral
years is because of the proprietary knowledge that was added by IBM. Howeve=
r,
many other companies have been involved in making Linux a powerful, enterpr=
ise level operating
system, such as HP, Cisco, Computer Associates, Dell Computer Corporation,
Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., Intel, NEC Corporation, Nokia and Toshiba. Coul=
d it
be possible that the combination of these corportations helped to improved =
Linux, and not
SCO's code?

13.The trademark "Unix" is currently owned by the Open Group. In several pa=
rts of the
Complaint, SCO is refered to as the owner of "Unix". SCO owns the AT&T Bell=
 Labs source
code, but not the Unix trademark. It sounds as if this term is misused in s=
everal
parts of the document. What is meant by "SCO is the present owner of both U=
NIX and SCO/UNIX
software"?

14.In the Complaint (1.c) it is claimed that SCO Unix is widely used. Exami=
nation of SCO's
10Ks reveals that their 2002 market share (according to the Jan 27, 2003 re=
port) could=20
not have exceeded ~3 - 4 % ($64.2 million sold by SCO in a $1.69 billion Un=
ix market).=20
Is < 5% really "widely used"?

15.The overall community reaction to SCO's lawsuit has been unfavorable; th=
is negative
publicity could hurt the struggling company even more. What are SCO's plans=
 if they do not win?

16.Who made the decision to file this lawsuit? Was it approved by SCO's Boa=
rd
of Directors? Was there a vote among shareholders, or were any consulted in
making this decision?

------- Funny (Slashdot)------

17.Does SCO differ at all from Dilbert's world, and if so, how?

18.I was just wondering, did you guys wake up one morning and just decide to
be evil? Or did you have to work at it for a while? Or did it just happen by
accident?

19.I was going to start my own Evil Corporation(TM) and I was trying to gau=
ge
the level of effort required. Also, you didn't happen to aquire the IP righ=
ts
on Evil(TM) as well, did you? If so, what are your licencing fees for that =
one?
I don't want to get sued over here.

20.Have you guys considered approaching the RIAA with a view to offering yo=
ur
operating system as a platform for their website?

21.Since SCO has its back against the wall and has really nothing to lose at
this point, is SCO planning on using weapons of mass destruction as a part =
of a
last-ditch effort to remain relevant?

22.Why did you choose David Boies, as your lawyer who has lost every major
case he has ever been involved in? Like being the DOJ vs Microsoft
prosecutor(DOJ may say they won, but lets face facts they lost miserably),
Napster defender(You don't see Napster anymore do you), and 2000 Election
Re-Count Lawyer For Al Gore(Is he president?)

23.There is no way Linus could of even developed an algorithim anything rel=
ated
to Unix. After all the Unix IP is a tradesecret and no one really knows how
unix or shell scripts work. Only sco knows this and anything that is sysV h=
as
to license it from SCO! It is impossible to come up with a clone because its
such a deep undocumentated secret that only a corporation can achieve this =
with
Sco's help.

------- Funny (Slashdot)------


--=20
/********************************************************************\
       Evan McNabb: <emcnabb at cs.byu.edu> <evan at mcnabbs.org>
		     http://evan.mcnabbs.org
             System Administrator, CS Department, BYU
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