Daily Archives: September 27, 2003

I’ll Go Out On A Limb Here: SCO’s Motion to Dismiss Will Fail

Posted on September 27, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Predicting the outcome of lawsuits is a risky game. But I'm going to predict that this motion by SCO seeking to dismiss the declaratory judgment complaint filed against it by Red Hat will fail. Miserably. Unless of course SCO's lawyers were to promise the court that they would never bring a copyright infringement claim against Red Hat or any of its customers. That's highly unlikely, but it would certainly moot the case.

SCO is the company that has been running around claiming that Linux violates its intellectual property rights. While trumpeting this claim, and offering purported licenses to users of Linux, SCO has been unwilling to make public a single convincing example of infringing code. It seems pretty obvious that SCO's own actions create a live controversy sufficient to satisfy the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 UCS § 2201. Furthermore, the suggestion that the case is somehow precluded by a related action involving SCO and IBM is not at all persuasive, especially as many of the issues in that case involve a contract to which only IBM was a party. SCO is represented by David Boise's firm, Boies, Schiller & Flexner. So far, the paper in SCO's case and the client's general behavior are not making the Boise firm look good (yes, yes, I know some clients are beyond their lawyers' control….). Usually top-quality firms have aces up their sleeves before filing stuff like this motion, something that over time gives them credibility with judges, but right now I just can't see where an ace might be hiding.

There has also been recent action in the SCO-IBM case: IBM filed an elegant and reasonable-sounding counter-claim. It's an interesting document because it wraps IBM's case in the flag of open source and the GPL. IBM is represented by Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Meanwhile SCO insiders have been selling stock at a decent clip .

The whole SCO-Linux thing is too big to summarize here. If you're just coming in at the middle, the places to go for more info are Slashdot and especially a great blog called Groklaw. Worryingly, Groklaw—imprisoned by the responsibilities of success—is about to have a bit of an identity crisis.

Posted in Law: Internet Law | 1 Comment

A Modest Dinner-Party-Based Proposal For An Iraqi Exit Strategy

Posted on September 27, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

I had a very pleasant dinner this evening with a group that included David Carlson and Jeanne Schroeder, two professors from Cardozo law school, who were in Miami this week to give talks to the law school. The stimulating papers are unpublished, and I forgot to ask if they were ok to blog, so I won't. Profs. Carlson and Schroeder are, like Caroline and me, members of the rare group of married law faculty members who teach at the same school as their spouse.

Dinner conversation included a discussion of the Administration's $87 billion supplemental budget request for Iraq. David and I wanted to figure out how much this was per Iraqi, and how it compared to Iraq's pre-war GDP. But we realized we didn't know some basic facts about Iraq, so I promised to look them up when I got home. According to the CIA Factbook, Iraq today has an estimated population of just over 24,683,000, and (in 2002) had a GDP estimated at US$58 billion in purchasing power parity, giving it an estimated GDP per capita of about $2,400. (David's guess as to GDP was much better than mine, but I had a better guess as to the population.)

The Administration seeks $87 billion, but not all of it is for Iraq. According to the New York Times, “Of the $87 billion, military operations in Iraq would account for $50.5 billion. Military operations in Afghanistan would take up $11 billion, Iraqi reconstruction $20.3 billion, and Afghanistan reconstruction $800 million.”

Counting just the reconstruction grant, that makes a subsidy about equal to 40% of Iraq's former GDP, and about $960 for every Iraqi. Throw in what we are spending to occupy the country, and it's more than last year's Iraqi GDP, and about $3,230 per Iraqi.

Having seen these numbers, I've now cooked up a modest proposal for a US exit strategy from Iraq. Bring all the troops home. Give each Iraqi $3000 a year for the next year or two, and count on the free market to conduct the reconstruction for us at much greater efficiency than we would otherwise achieve.

Ok, I'm kidding. I think I'm kidding. Yes, I'm kidding. Definitely kidding. We can't do that until shortly before the election….

Posted in Politics: International | 3 Comments