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Story: Unix decline extends SCO revenue drop

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Unix/Autozone corrections continued.

My post on Unix dec was snipped, so here is the rest, with a little overlap.

c. I think that the sequence of events contradicts SCOG's explanation of its reason for failing to move for a preliminary injunction. Autozone said:
"AutoZone's ... "Spirit" server had some OpenServer compiled programs on it because of a recent restoration of the server after a crash. ... All of the files ... were loaded back onto the machine during the recovery process.... All of these programs (1,130) were removed from the server by October 26, 2004, after copies and backups were made ... The relevant OpenServer agreements between SCO and AutoZone ... are still in place and do not include any prohibitions on AutoZone's use of OpenServer compiled code on Linux machines. Accordingly, most of the OpenServer compiled code discussed above is properly licensed, and AutoZone is under no legal obligation to delete or recompile the code. Nevertheless, because AutoZone does not need the code to be compiled under OpenServer to serve its purposes (or in some cases, because AutoZone no longer needs the code at all), AutoZone has removed or recompiled the code as a courtesy to your client and to avoid any further issue regarding these files in this litigation." SCOG took all that time to decide that this statement justified declining to file a preliminary injunction. Why didn't SCOG file the PI on grounds that the evidence so far indicated the presence of more evidence to be discovered showing continuing infringement?

d. Groklaw (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050601230259434) says: "And on page 8, they say they found AutoZone copied two COFF files, Compx and Decompx, "which were programs that it had licensed from a third party which contained SCO code onto all 3500 of its machines located in the United States and Mexico and has been using those files since at least January 2000." ... They licensed some code from somebody else, binaries to boot for which AutoZone did not have the source code ... and SCO claims rights to that code. The same page of the Report also says that AutoZone thought it had not used either Compx or Decompx programs since 2003. They copied it onto all the servers, used it from 2000 to 2003, they originally guessed, without any way of viewing the code, found out some servers still had the two files on them after 2003, and bingo, a crime of great magnitude from two files that they licensed from someone else, and likely had no reason to think were infringing anybody's code. ... some of the programs they found when they went looking in discovery don't even run in Linux, so they couldn't use them, even though they were still there on the servers. Some were pre-Y2K. In short, stuff nobody even knew was still there."

In the SCO v IBM case, Judge Kimball was astonished to find, after reviewing the sealed and public documents, that, after two years of claiming mountains of code infringement in Linux, SCOG was unable to find enough evidence to show a sufficient disputed fact to require IBM's CC10 claim to be heard by a jury. I don't find astonishing the fact that SCOG could not find enough evidence to justify filing a preliminary injunction motion against SCOG.

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