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Microsoft Legal Documents To Be Destroyed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-probably-just-some-unimportant-stuff dept.

el-schwa writes "The Salt Lake Tribune has a story that talks about the old Micrsoft vs. Caldera anti-trust lawsuit. During the trial Microsoft tried unsuccessfully to get 937 boxes of controversial documents kept private. Now it appears that Caldera is no longer interested in paying for storage on the boxes, and they are scheduled to be destroyed."

42 comments

  1. why not make them electronic documents? by Numeric · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't believe a "tech" company would not convert these documents into some electronic form.

    Scan -> Save -> ? -> Profit

    --
    -- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
    1. Re:why not make them electronic documents? by Louis_Wu · · Score: 2

      It's the legal department of a "tech" company. I'd guess that they're 'bout as 'tech savvy' as a PHB.

    2. Re:why not make them electronic documents? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our company is currently going through a process of scanning and OCR'ing about 40 bankers boxes of documents - the cheapest bid for doing this( outsourced )is $12,000 - doing it in-house would have been much more.

      The question Caldera most likely asked themselves is: Is it worth paying $N/mo to store these documents or ~$48,000 to digitize them if we ever want to go up against a company( again )that we most likely will lose against ?

    3. Re:why not make them electronic documents? by elphkotm · · Score: 1

      "Tech" companies also means that they have alot of printers!

      Anyways, I don't see the reason why this is frontpage news on Slashdot. So what if they're destroying documents from a case that went on 9 years ago? Just more unbelievably retarded trolling of Microsoft by the Slashdot moderators.

      --

      <Amanda`> I just went out to the parking lot in my bathrobe to exchange warez CDs.
    4. Re:why not make them electronic documents? by tsa · · Score: 2

      I agree. About the digitization: everyone knows that the documents will be hard to read after ten years because 'standards' move quickly in the digital world...

      --

      -- Cheers!

  2. Ill chip in 20 bucks for a good cause. by Unknown+Poltroon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    SOmeone feed em through a sheet feed scanner.

    --
    All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
    1. Re:Ill chip in 20 bucks for a good cause. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're going to suggest feeding 937 boxes' worth of docs through a sheet feed scanner? And that suggestion merits an "Insightful" moderation?!?!?!!?!?!?!

  3. All the easier to forget history... by Picass0 · · Score: 1, Flamebait


    Well, let's just pave the way for M$ to return to the old ways. By all means Caldera, don't offer anyone the chance to base a future court case off of those documents.

    BTW - your distro sucks.

  4. "If the president does it, it's legal" by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 2

    During the trial Microsoft tried unsuccessfully to get 937 boxes of controversial documents kept private.

    How 'bout we call it the 'CalderGates' scam? Or maybe the 's' isn't needed and would avoid confusion?

    --
    Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
  5. Obligatory 1984 comparison by infornogr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building."

    1. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by BornInASmallTown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I would have to say that Orwell makes another point in this story that is even a better comparison to the current situation:

      "And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

    2. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by clonebarkins · · Score: 1
      "For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building."

      Dude, you just violated copyright!

      --

      "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand

    3. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 5, Informative

      Dude, you just violated copyright!

      Christ. Just because there's so much misinformation out there, and just in case some ignorant and innocent soul takes you seriously, let me clear this up.

      Title 17 of the United States code defines fair use rights in chapter 1, section 107. It says, in part and in summary, that you can make fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes of criticism and comment as long as you use only a small fraction of the work. Infornogr's quoting of 1984 was not a violation of copyright under United States law, or the law of any other country signatory to the Berne Convention.

      And clonebarkins, you're not funny.

      --

      I write in my journal
    4. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He not be funny, but at least he's not an imbecilic moron like yourself.

    5. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by styrotech · · Score: 2

      hehe, but seriously didn't the copyright on 1984 expire?

    6. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by Alsee · · Score: 2

      hehe, but seriously didn't the copyright on 1984 expire?

      Thinking it has is a reasonable, rational, and nieve assumption. Seriously it SHOULD have expired.

      1984 was written in 1949. It is therefore still under copyright. US and several other countries set copyright at life of the author + 70 years. From that point of view we could say that we are "lucky" that George Owell died almost immediately after writing it, in 1950. The copyright on 1984 will therefore last till 2020. That is, assuming copyright isn't extended again, as it has been extended 14 times before in the US.

      Don't hold your breath.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    7. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by styrotech · · Score: 2

      Well I didn't know about the US, but it is out of copyright here (NZ). We 'only' have life + 50 yrs here - I think that's the copyright rules in most countries (don't quote me on that though).

      There are copies of it on the web - I have seen an Aussie one around.

    8. Re:Obligatory 1984 comparison by dvdeug · · Score: 2

      US and several other countries set copyright at life of the author + 70 years.

      Actually, the situation is much more complex in the US, and the summarized form much different. The actual rule in the US is that copyright lasts 95 years from publication. That only applies to works printed before 1979 (? thereabouts), and the author + 70 years applies to works printed on or after 1979, but the first book to enter copyright under author + 70 will be in 2050, so it's mostly moot.

  6. Hilarious by 4of12 · · Score: 3

    how quickly Microsoft and its antagonists can get worked up by someone lazily and recklessly waving about the possibility that some old dirty laundry is about to disappear...

    IIRC, there have been some funny stories about shredders running long into the night at various places and times (Arthur Anderson's Enron task force, the McDougal's savings and loan, Iran Contra, etc.) Probably a lot more that I'm missing.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  7. What's in them? by Gerry+Gleason · · Score: 2
    Is there any public information about what the documents contain? There must be at least some general information related to the original dispute and the arguments about whether they could be kept private (obviously Caldera won this point since they have the documents). Presumably these are copies if MS needed to keep the orgininals for themselves, although by now those may be gone.

    Can they be released to a third party for preservation? Even if they can't be released, someone could pay to preserve them if there would be any future value in that. I can understand Caldera not being interested in paying to keep them.

    1. Re:What's in them? by clonebarkins · · Score: 1

      It says in the article that Caldera couldn't find a third party who wants them. I find that hard to believe....

      --

      "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand

  8. Maybe Project Gutenberg... by clonebarkins · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...will want them. Wouldn't that be sweet!

    Support free online books!

    --

    "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand

    1. Re:Maybe Project Gutenberg... by dvdeug · · Score: 2

      Why would Project Gutenberg want them? Project Gutenberg's aim to scan an encyclopedia failed on the grounds that there wasn't enough time and volunteers. Maybe with the growth of PG, it could be done, but it sounds like this is much larger than an encyclopedia, and surely much more tedious.

  9. Garage@Home by skookum · · Score: 4, Funny

    Time for a new distributed computing project, Attic@Home, where you donate a bit of spare storage area to put some boxes...

  10. Re:Shredders by The_Guv'na · · Score: 2

    IIRC, there have been some funny stories about shredders running long into the night

    Yup, you do RC. It pisses me off! How come your Government [which, let's face it, means big corporations] gets privacy and the Average Joe gets snooped on by amenities engineers, neighbours, bent cops, and bent cops++ [pronounced "Effbee Eye"]?!?!?

    If I had my way all shredders would include a scanner and mobile phone to upload faxes to a government database for monitoring in case there's any chance of a remote possibility of lawbreaking! Or liberalism. Or socialism. Or accurate political journalism. Or dissenting opinions...

    Ali

    --
    Ph33r m3!!!
  11. just imagine how much they'd get for them... by The_Guv'na · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...on Ebay!

    Just auctioning them page by page would generate megabucks. Just think about it... Some loons will pay a premium for every page from a file just to make sure it was complete, or just for a single page on the off chance it contained some real gem of info that really gets up Microsoft's arse :)

    1. Obtain, modify, and release a free OS.
    2. Flog legal docs on Ebay.
    3. Profit!

    Ali

    --
    Ph33r m3!!!
  12. You want 'em? Take 'em! by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't get on Caldera's ass because they don't want to pay to have the stuff stored. They're willing to turn them over. Bug the EFF or someone to go pick 'em up. I'm sure they'll turn out to be very interesting.

  13. 'nuff said by tchdab1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Caldera claimed the helter-skelter of "confidential" stamps on hundreds of documents appeared to have been "done by monkeys." That explains the code too.

    1. Re:'nuff said by isorox · · Score: 2

      "done by monkeys." That explains the code too.
      Microsoft originally set out to produce a sequal to Romeo and Juliet.

      But what am I saying, not like I could do any better

    2. Re:'nuff said by Alsee · · Score: 2

      Microsoft originally set out to produce a sequal to Romeo and Juliet.

      Set an enough of monkeys pounding away at random on enough of keyboards and sooner or later they will commit a violation of anti-trust laws.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  14. Stuff Gates Wants Buried (Re:What's in them?) by edward.virtually@pob · · Score: 2, Informative

    For a good idea of what kinds of interesting things are in those documents, see The Microsoft File : The Secret Case against Bill Gates by Wendy Goldman Rohm. It will be a travesty of justice if these documents are allowed to be destroyed. These are the documents that prove that Microsoft sabotaged DR-DOS by putting a check in Windows to issue an error if you tried to use it with DR-DOS -- an action Microsoft liked to and probably will again (once these documents are destroyed) call an urban myth -- and many other key illegal actions that made MS a monopoly, such as the activities in Germany alluded to in the article. History is written by the winners, obviously. :-(

    SOMEONE NEEDS TO SAVE THESE DOCUMENTS! EFF? ESR? FSF?

    1. Re:Stuff Gates Wants Buried (Re:What's in them?) by /dev/trash · · Score: 1

      I thought it was an Urban myth just like the "Who would need more than 640K of RAM" statement.

    2. Re:Stuff Gates Wants Buried (Re:What's in them?) by edward.virtually@pob · · Score: 1

      Well, that'll be what the history books say. But currently there's still some online coverage left. See this link for some documentation. Be sure to save it to disk before it gets sent to the electronic memory hole.

  15. However by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They plan to keep the illegal documents.

  16. MS Destruction by Locke!Erasmus · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they will destroy some bugs and security holes soon, too!

    --
    I should have picked out the nickname Demosthenes!Tecumseh.
  17. Heh, 900+ boxes...??? by pdboddy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That would take a bit of time to scan, since I didn't see mention of how big the boxes are. There could be hundreds of thousands of pages... I know I wouldn't want to do that amount of scanning, even for the overtime. =P And it definitely wouldn't be a small amount of space electronically either...

    --
    Julie Moult is an idiot.
  18. Re:Shredders by Noel · · Score: 2
    How come your Government [which, let's face it, means big corporations] gets privacy and the Average Joe gets snooped on by amenities engineers, neighbours, bent cops, and bent cops++ [pronounced "Effbee Eye"]?!?!?

    Ray Kroc (founder of MacDonald's) said it best:

    The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.

    Somehow, this seems to be a main guiding philosophy in our "culture". It's revolting. Perhaps we should, too.

  19. What a co-incidence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I needed something to put my monitor on!

  20. scanning that much stuff by phr2 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I have some experience with scanning piles of paper. For about $5K you can get a production scanner that does 100 pages/minute or so. That means these 3 million pages would take 30,000 minutes or 500 hours to scan, about 12 weeks full time, assuming you could keep the scanner running flat out, which in my experience is not easy. The work is not very demanding but it's tedious. Despite the automated equipment you're constantly shuffling paper around and there tends to be a lot of pauses in scanning.

    At $10/hour (salary+overhead for some clerical type in a low-wage state) that's about $5K in labor, plus the hardware. Plus there's the matter of 900 boxes of paper--a full trailer load, so another several K$ to get it delivered to where it's being scanned, plus then you have to store it. Overall, you're looking at $15-20K minimum to scan this stuff. It's sort of possible some organization is interested enough to throw that much cash around. I can't see many individuals willing to do it.

    1. Re:scanning that much stuff by Anonymous+Custard · · Score: 2

      Overall, you're looking at $15-20K minimum to scan this stuff

      Yeah, but that's assuming that one commercial organization is going to do it. What if 900 slashdotters each took one box and shared the scanning effort with some of their friends, then uploaded it to a central database/web server? I know I'd donate my own time to setting up the database and some web pages to help display the documents. And I'm sure Sun or some other company would gladly provide the server space to hang out some potentially dirty MS laundry.

      Sure, you might get some lousy scans, or a few lost papers/boxes, but it's better than just shredding all the information.

      --
      $8.95/mo web hosting
    2. Re:scanning that much stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the distributed idea is pretty awful, organizationally it'd be impossible to manage, getting the boxes TO the scanners would be more costly than just hiring some company to do it all.

      the said $20k to scan is cheap compared to storing for 9 years etc.

      that said microfilm is still and always has been a legal alternative to keeping originals, and while it may cost a little to get it microfilmed, but again the storage costs are way lower...

  21. Scan what? by MacAndrew · · Score: 1

    Who the heck puts things on paper first any more, especially a software company? Didn't the Microsoft docs all start out as electronic docs, which Caldera should have demanded rather than paper? If the docs were all created on paper rather than MS Word, or whatever, what does that say about MS?

    A missed opportunity for insight into the Microsoft,. Presumably Caldera at least indexed the material. Now if the documents are not sealed, there's nothing to stop Caldera from giving them away FOB. To someone with a really big truck and a lot of time on their hands.