IBM Puts Pressure On SCO

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Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday November 6, 2003 @09:24PM from the compelled-to-discover dept.

inode_buddha writes "An article at Groklaw shows IBM's legal team dissecting the whole SCO thing professionally and thoroughly. I'm almost willing to bet the case gets dropped with extreme prejudice, especially now that Novell is getting involved. Is anyone taking bets as to when the case actually closes and how?" I suggest the MIT Technology Review add this one to their markets.

27 of 395 comments (clear)

I bet ... by chrispy666 · 2003-11-06 21:27 · Score: 2, Funny

Is anyone taking bets as to when the case actually closes and how
...that it will close when we expect it the least, and in a way that we would never have imagined!
now give me my $699, you insensitive clod !

--
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
1. Re:I bet ... by Zemran · 2003-11-06 22:45 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  anyone taking bets as to when the case actually closes
  
  and there will be a 10% drop in content on /.
  
  --
  I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
2. Re:I bet ... by Ohreally_factor · 2003-11-06 23:25 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Since /. is about 1:9 signal:noise, I doubt we'll notice an overall drop of 1%.
  
  --
  It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
3. Re:I bet ... by orthogonal · 2003-11-07 00:57 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Is anyone taking bets as to when the case actually closes and how
  
  Is anyone taking bets?
  
  Are you blind man? The reason that SCOX is trading at $17.50 (that's American dollars, not Italian Lire or EverQuest gold pieces, that's American dollars my man!) is that a whole bunch of people are betting!
  
  When a stock goes from 78 cents (that's pennies, that's less than the cheapest Slurpy at 7-11) to $22.29 in the latest 52 weeks, that's not investing, that's gambling, pure and simple.
  
  And when the stock moves based on SCO's assertion that AT&T ultimately sold them the One Ring to rule all unix-like Oses, well... then, SCOX is Utah's Vegas, Atlantic City, and Churchill Downs all rolled into one!
  
  "Who can take a crap SCOX/
  Sprinkle it with lies/
  Cover it in Boies and a GPL theft or two?/
  The MacBride Man!/
  The MacBride Man can/
  The MacBride Man can 'cause he mixes it with FUD/
  And makes the crap taste good"
  (to the tune of "The Candyman Can")
  
  --
  Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Re: MIT Technology Futures. by cgranade · 2003-11-06 21:28 · Score: 3, Funny

X$699 says that SCO is dead before I get my Plasma TV.

--
#define DRM chmod 000
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2003-11-06 21:32 · Score: 4, Funny

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Rolling, rolling, rolling by jonathan_ingram · 2003-11-06 21:37 · Score: 5, Funny

7. As of the date of this submission, IBM has provided over one hundred thousand pages of production documents to SCO. IBM intends to continue rolling its production to SCO, despite the inadequate supplemental responses we have received from SCO.

I can just picture the trucks full of paper rolling toward SCO's lawyers...

--
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
1. Re:Rolling, rolling, rolling by Tin+Foil+Hat · 2003-11-07 04:32 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Hey, maybe the driver won't see them.
  
  *BUMP,BUMP,BUMP*
  
  Passenger: "I think you just hit some lawyers."
  Driver: "I didn't see any lawyers. Lets go back and see."
  
  *BUMP,BUMP,BUMP*
  
  Driver: "Yep, looks like I did. Damn that's rough."
  
  *BUMP,BUMP,BUMP*
  
  --
  No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
And now, the hammer falls... by dfung · 2003-11-06 21:52 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm glad I'm not on the receiving end of the IBM legal machine. As a bystander I must admit that it's quite entertaining:
"Either SCO has evidence to support its accusations or it does not. If it does, IBM is entitled to see it now; "
= "shit"
"if it does not, IBM will be entitled to dismissal of this case."
="or get off the pot"
At this point, Darl's lawyer turns to him and says, "You don't think IBM has run diffs on the source tree yet, do you? Because if they have and are ready to respond, we're probably pretty much screwed".
I pity the legal associates for IBM who have had to trace the provenance of every line in the source, but their pain will be worth it when SCO releases their first specifics and are nailed to the wall.
1. Re:And now, the hammer falls... by PerspexAvenger · 2003-11-07 02:42 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  They sue SCO, probably.
  
  The lawyers _always_ get their money...
Dissecting by Elendil · 2003-11-06 22:05 · Score: 3, Funny

An article at Groklaw shows IBM's legal team dissecting the whole SCO thing professionally and thoroughly.

And people say that animal testing should be banned... ;-)
1. Re:Dissecting by JamesP · 2003-11-06 23:54 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  And people say that animal testing should be banned... ;-)
  
  I for one am uncondicionally pro testing in telemarketers, McBride and spammers...
  
  --
  how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
Re:How about that. Legalese for the layman by Walterk · 2003-11-06 22:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Well, it's all thanks to the training which IBM lawyers get.

--

"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
Re:What if... by hplasm · 2003-11-06 22:13 · Score: 2, Funny

Guess....
Where's that candle?!? Stupid bloody darkness!!!

--
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
but there are thousands of lines of copied code... by penguin7of9 · 2003-11-06 22:19 · Score: 5, Funny

Here is one:
break;
Here is another one:
}
This blatant violation of SCO's intellectual property has occurred all over the Linux kernel and many GNU user programs.
Read just the CAPITALS in the article; by fruey · 2003-11-06 22:35 · Score: 2, Funny

II. SCO'S COMPLAINTS ARE MERITLESS AND IRRELEVANT.

No need to read the threads here, the summary of feeling is already in the original article :-)
Move along, nothing new to see here...

--
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Re: MIT Technology Futures. by stecker · 2003-11-06 23:11 · Score: 3, Funny

$499 says my plasma TV dims to half of its original brightness before this story stops dominating slashdot.
No, there are 368665 such violations by |>>? · 2003-11-06 23:28 · Score: 4, Funny

Gotta love linux:

$ cd /usr/src/linux
$ grep -riE "break;|}" * | wc
368665 1011575 14615858

At a dollar per violation, that's a better return than my lotto investments...

--
|>>? ..EBCDIC for Onno..
Alien Autopsy by AndroidCat · 2003-11-07 00:04 · Score: 4, Funny

An article at Groklaw shows IBM's legal team dissecting the whole SCO thing professionally and thoroughly.
Don't you usually only dissect something when it's dead? Yeah, that sounds about right--but stick the fork in to be sure. Pass the popcorn...

--
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Re:What if... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-07 00:16 · Score: 1, Funny

> stupid people feed the trolls
> [...]
> If it werent for the stupid ones, all of the above would just go away.

I guess you just proved your point by posting it.
Supporting IBM and Linux by EmagGeek · 2003-11-07 00:29 · Score: 3, Funny

I just bought two brand-spankin-new IBM laptops to replace my ailing HP machines. Going to put Suse on one of them and RH Enterprise Linux on the other one. Going to take a picture of them side-by-side and mail it to SCO. Can't wait :)
Re: MIT Technology Futures. by Nogami_Saeko · 2003-11-07 01:04 · Score: 2, Funny

2 weeks then? :)

N.

--
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Nyah nyah nyah at $1000/hr billable by paiute · 2003-11-07 01:38 · Score: 2, Funny

I love this objection:

20. IBM objects to plaintiffs definition of the terms "IBM", "Defendant", "you", "your", and "any synonym thereof" on the grounds that they are overbroad, unduly burdensome, and seek information that is irrelevant and not reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence.

--
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This is great..... by mormop · 2003-11-07 02:41 · Score: 3, Funny

Every press release that goes out gets more and more nuts!

They've claimed, retracted, changed their terms of reference, claimed IP, dropped IP and gone for "contractual terms", reclaimed IP etc. I mean this is the sort of thing judges hate i.e. being pissed around by claimants who know not the difference twixt arse and elbow.

I can't wait for the press release that reads:

It all started when a guy in the legal department started having traumatic flashbacks to a Vietnam movie he watched in 1991. This may or may not have had something to do with the half pound of red leb he'd been smoking while watching 'cos he was still at law school at the time. The resulting hysteria was like, infectious, and spread to the management, and like, before anyone realised what was happening we'd turned charlie into evil commie open source developers that had to be wiped out at any cost.

By the time anyone came round and realised that no-one was taking notice of anything we said it was too late. Our customers had migrated to Linux and mailed us telling us to piss off and it took 3 days to stop the management squatting on the roof and howling at the moon.

I mean, what happened man?......

--
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Bad courtroom theme music... by Dr.+Evil · 2003-11-07 03:24 · Score: 3, Funny

"I bring the courts attention to document 3,002,345 where it plainly indicates that Darl McBride had an intimate relationship with Bill Gates. Darl, could you please read the message you sent Bill Gates?"
"<ahem> I don't recall composing that message."
"Please read the message for the court"
"The message says 'I love you'"
"It is also plain that you sent many similar messages to Bill Gates, including instructions as to how he can enlarge his anatomy, is this true?"
Re:Clarity of response by agutier · 2003-11-07 04:16 · Score: 3, Funny

Freudian typo! I ment Mormon! My apologies to the Mormon faithful. I am very sorry.

I hope Darl and co get sued individually by hordes of Linux contributors for damaging Linux business and end up poverty stricken on the street corner begging for booze money in Salt Lake City.

A devout Mormon begging for alcohol in the Mormon capitol. Now, thats an imaginative penance. I second.
Re:With extreme prejudice? by AnotherBlackHat · 2003-11-07 08:17 · Score: 3, Funny

When a case is dismissed "with prejudice," it means the matter is considered decided, and the suit can't be filed again (although an appeal to a higher court might be possible).

Dismissal "without prejudice" means that the matter is not decided, but some un-met condition (procedural or otherwise) prevents the suit from going forward. A suit dismissed without prejudice may be re-filed at a later date when conditions allow.

IAAL, but I've never heard the term "extreme prejudice" outside of jokes and movies about assassination.

So clearly, dismissing with "extreme prejudice" means they can't bring suit again,
and judge orders the bailiff to shoot them.