IBM Puts Pressure On SCO

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.

Comments

Fraud

[fiftyfly]

What I wasnt to know isn't whether or not SCO get's it's ass handed back on a silver platter in court but rather when McBride's gonna face charges of securities fraud. There just isn't any other way to explain SCO's recent actions. Pretty blatant pump & dump case, so where's the charges?

Re:Fraud

[roystgnr]

So, you are suggesting that the SEC should make an administrative decision while the matter is pending in federal court?

Nope. But after SCO's case is dropped and SCO's remains are divided up between the IBM and Red Hat countersuits, then it might be a good time to take another look at the millions of dollars of SCO stock that it's executives and majority owners have been selling, at prices which have been inflated thousands of percent by their own hype. The SCO/Canopy plan, "Fraudulently squeeze as much money out of investors as possible while destroying the company's long term viability" shouldn't even be legal, much less encouraged financially like it has been so far.

SCO will of course be sued by their stockholders.

Or their major investors, if RBC and Deutsch aren't smart enough to get out before the bubble pops, and if the "they're front men for Microsoft!" conspiracy theories are baseless (which I think they are - Microsoft has already been pumping millions of dollars into SCO publically, so apparantly they don't feel they need to keep such funding a secret).

How about that. Legalese for the layman

[Cooper_007]

That's a first. A legal document that uses terms I can understand. Go IBM!

What I'm wondering though, it seems IBM is just trying to get the case dismissed here on the basis that SCO refuses to show just what it is they did wrong. Say the judge goes with IBM and dismisses the case, then what?
Given the recent slashdot article about paying Boies for his work, how much do they stand to gain if it came to this?

Thanks to Groklaw for keeping close tabs on the trial. I wish general media would be equally forthcoming rather than just spit out whatever drivel SCO shoves their way.

Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -

Re:How about that. Legalese for the layman

[Ohreally_factor]

>ay the judge goes with IBM and dismisses the case, then what?

Then the IBM countersuit goes forward. Oh, SCO will still have some explaining to do.

Re:but there are thousands of lines of copied code

[watzinaneihm]

The whole thing is funny. According to the article, SCO pulled up some 519 files which have around 300,000 lines of code, which might or might not contain tainted code. That is something like 1 percent of Linux kernel code. Rewriting the whole thing might take a month or two at the maximum, assuming cleanroom specs can be developed out of it.
If that is worth a billion, then is Linux worth 100 billions? Linus is then richer than Bill.

When thieves fall out...

[dipipanone]

One of the things that I find interesting about this whole case is the fact that Boies used to be a partner in Cravath, Swaine and Moore -- the law firm that are handling the case for IBM.

You've got to wonder what Dave's ex-partners currently make of all this. I guess initially they might have been somewhat anxious, thinking 'Oh no, one of our own coming after us. He'll be tuned in to all our cunning strategies and will use them against us.'

Now though, they must be laughing their asses off, thinking 'Good job that dummy left before he did any real damage to our reputation.'

On the other hand, given his twenty percent of all new investment in SCO, Boies has already had one decent payday, but you've got to wonder whether that will be sufficient to compensate for the damage to his firm's reputation that their handling of this case must have done to date?

Re:When thieves fall out...

[arth1]

Lawyers almost always benefit, no matter which side of a case they're on.

That's an unfortunate side effect of how the US constitution has been interpreted (by lawyers, I may add). Having the right to councel is interpreted as the right to the best councel your money can buy. It's apparently not unconstitutional, though, to have one side with a court-appointed $500 overworked defense lawyer who hasn't even had time to talk to you before the trial, while the other side has a $5 million staff of dedicated experts. That's considered a fair trial...

What would be more fair was if both sides paid what they thought the case was worth to a common pool, who was then split equally between court-appointed attorneys. Then you're entitled to as good a defense as your adversary, and if you're in the right, and contributed enough to cover basic fact-finding for both parties, that should mean you will win, right?
Oh, but the lawyers would lose...

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:And now, the hammer falls...

[theonetruekeebler]

SCO's lawyers get a twenty percent payoff if SCO wins or IBM settles. If SCO is bought out while the lawsuit is pending, the lawyers get twenty percent of that, too. source.

Nice to see that the lawyers themselves understand this suit is nothing more than a way to harass a large company into paying off.

Insiders are making bets

[The Mutant]

And they ain't good..

Insiders are all selling. Keep in mind that they have complete and perfect information about their firm, and its future prospects.

Insider selling is usually a sign that management feels the shares they hold are over, not under, valued.

Re:I bet ...

[Ella the Cat]

I suggest a Slashdot poll. Seriously. Then we can look back and see whether or not Slashdotters in the aggregate can predict the future regarding something we clearly have a lot to say about.

Re:Clarity of response

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

"IBM does not resort to the use of (semi)abusive language but stays focussed and follows avery clear pattern of logic "

IANAL, but IAAPW (I am a professional writer) and IBM's filings are superbly written. they have a good final edit team at work. Compared to them, the SCO lawyers are handing in the sort of incoherent work typical of term papers done at the last minute with the help of large amounts of caffeine.

This could easily be used in a "legal writing" course as "how to" and "how not to" write briefs, motions and memorandums.

Re:What about UNIX?

[linuxbikr]

Actually, NO ONE wants the UNIX Sys V code and all the contracts and copyrights that go with it! AT&T dumped it because it was becoming a pit they couldn't escape from in terms of contractual arrangements, royalties, rights, etc. So many companies are tied up in one way or the other with the original UNIX licensing agreements that it is quite the Gordian knot to unravel.

It was for sale and Novell stepped up to the plate. Sun didn't want it. IBM didn't want it. HP didn't want it. They knew what a disaster the thicket of licensing on the original UNIX was. Let it be someone else's problem. AT&T knew it and Novell found out shortly thereafter. Then they realized how much of a problem it was and went looking another sucker..er..buyer for the UNIX codebase. And SCO was dumb enough to think it was a good idea.

You can't open source Sys V. Too many confidentiality and licensing agreements are in place and those licensees would have to agree as a whole before that code could get released since all of them use some of that code in one form or another. I am sure that very little original SysV code exists in AIX except for compatibility purposes. SunOS/Solaris is based on BSD Unix so they probably licensed Sys V just to cover their bases.

Methods and concepts for Unix are already more or less in the public domain. The POSIX standard and the Open Group have that covered. Unix and Unix-like clones have been implemented and reimplemented so many times over the years and the ideas are so well known, who would want the Sys V code at all even for historical reasons? I'd sooner want to see the code to the PDP-11 than the Sys V codebase. At least the PDP-11 code has a rich history behind it that might bring back some fond memories for some. Plus, it's dead and gone. Unix is alive and kicking and if I want to see how Unix works, I need look no further than the Linux Kernel Whitepapers and Annotated Code guides.