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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.
now give me my $699, you insensitive clod !
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
X$699 says that SCO is dead before I get my Plasma TV.
#define DRM chmod 000
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can just picture the trucks full of paper rolling toward SCO's lawyers...
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
What I wasnt to know isn't whether or not SCO get's it's ass handed back on a silver platter in court but rather when McBride's gonna face charges of securities fraud. There just isn't any other way to explain SCO's recent actions. Pretty blatant pump & dump case, so where's the charges?
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
What I'm wondering though, it seems IBM is just trying to get the case dismissed here on the basis that SCO refuses to show just what it is they did wrong. Say the judge goes with IBM and dismisses the case, then what?
Given the recent slashdot article about paying Boies for his work, how much do they stand to gain if it came to this?
Thanks to Groklaw for keeping close tabs on the trial. I wish general media would be equally forthcoming rather than just spit out whatever drivel SCO shoves their way.
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
Case closes. All SCO execs having got rich, got jobs with micro$oft or just laying low for a while. No charges pressed, only people who suffer are SCO's employees. SCO gets taken over or closed for good.
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.
I allready paid my license to SCO, will they be returning my $699?
It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
I can't really decide if I want this case dismissed or not. (I know my desires in the matter have nothing to do with it, but hear me out.)
:-)
:-)
On the one hand, if the judge comes back with "SCO is lying through their teeth, there's nothing here, SCO bugger off, sorry about all the trouble IBM", then it will neatly tie up the FUD machine and probably bring an end to SCO right quick. Yes, there IS such a thing as bad PR, and we don't want any more of it.
On the other hand, a dismissal would not allow for a vetting of the GPL in court. Of all the possible tests of the GPL, this is perhaps the most pro-GPL case we could hope for. (Not SCO's accusations, but IBM's responses that SCO is in GPL violation.) For a judge to formally declare theat the GPL is indeed valid and legally binding would be a very good thing, but won't happen before 2005 at the earliest the way this case is going. That's a lot of FUD time.
I really can't decide which to root for.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
It's been stated time... after... time... That's why it's been modded redundant. Basically, if you say something at the beginning that hasn't been said in that story, you're OK, unless it's a joke, in which case you've gotta make sure you're not beating a dead horse.
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...
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
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.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Parent is absolutely correct.
Dismissal of SCO's suit doesn't mean dismissal of IBM's countersuit.
In IBM's countersuit they accuse SCO of copyright violations and GPL violations. The GPL will have it's day in court. There is nothing SCO can do about that now.
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?
$499 says my plasma TV dims to half of its original brightness before this story stops dominating slashdot.
Who ares which way the legal action goes.. That is not the point. The idea is to spread enough confusion and uncertainty that corporate entities will be more likely to use perceived 'legal' and 'safe' versions of unix that don't have any licensing issues.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt contribute to the bottom line when it comes to conservative decisions about technology platforms. And let's face facts how many people read below the headline with its exagerrated emphasis on legal uncertainty and disarray.
No company wants to risk their technology decisions being upset by later unbudgeted licensing, legal and technical problems when the quiet life of a standard product from a multinational is on the shelf next to it...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
SCO has filed a motion to compel discovery against IBM and IBM has responded...
Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
Gotta love linux:
/usr/src/linux
$ cd
$ grep -riE "break;|}" * | wc
368665 1011575 14615858
At a dollar per violation, that's a better return than my lotto investments...
|>>?
I suspect SCO will stop before any actual lawsuit takes place, using some obscure excuse. But at the same time holding their doors open for future litigation, just to maintain the insecurity among todays and future linux users.
It appears that "IBM's motion to compel is scheduled for oral arguments on Dec. 5." (stolen from Groklaw). Hopefully after that, things will tank and we can get back to normal.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
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.
IANAL (or his coffee boy) but one thing strikes me almost immediately upon reading the SCO and IBM requests and responses: IBM's method and language is far clearer and to the point than SCO's. IBM does not resort to the use of (semi)abusive language but stays focussed and follows avery clear pattern of logic which basically states that IBM will present reasonable evidence as requested, but it requires that SCO also provide resonable evidence and point out exactly what, where and when has been infringed. That is something that SCO seems to have real problems in doing (and no, the 337'000 lines in 531 files in the Linux source that have been mentioned by SCO will not suffice as nowhere does SCO point out exactly, as required by law, which lines in those files are SCO's property with a reference to Unic source code), and SCO seems to have real problems in defining what has been infringed. In fact it seems as if SCO is trying to make a case as it goes along and has no real evidence to date.
What is also noticable is that IBM is bringing SCO's public behaviour into the case, finally. SCO is finally being called to account for it's disgusting public behaviour, and I'm pretty sure that IBM is going to use Darl, Chris and Mike's statements against them in court. I think those boys are probably too fucking stupid to realise that what they're said amounts to public record and is admissable in court. I hope they end up being as poor as I am. 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.
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.
You're suggesting the Linux kernel alone has 30,000,000 lines of code in it? I don't think you and I are looking at the same kernel. It would be closer to say that 300,000 lines of code is 10% of the Linux kernel, which would take some substantial rewriting, and makes your last comment stupid.
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.
A message from our sponsor
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 :)
Is anyone taking bets as to when the case actually closes and how?"
Can someone run us through how we would get rich by shorting this stock (SCOX)?
If IBM gets their case dismissed, the stock is going to drop to $Worthless. Ive never actually done a short -- what are the details?
What does it mean? are IBM worried about losing ?
Oh wait, both selling patterns are pretty similar. This isn't really news it just means that people have set up automatic sales and these have to be done well in-advance. What will be news is when senior execs sell large amounts of stock automatically as the price DROPS.
If I was a SCO exec I'd be putting my sell price as a drop below 15 or a rise above 25, the drop price is the important one though as it will tell us how confident they are, the lower the drop price the more confident.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
2 weeks then? :)
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
If this does spell the end for SCO, what will become of UNIX in that case? Is it possible to finally move this ancient codebase - which seems to have little value beyond it's potential as an IP strongarm weapon - into the public domain once and for all?
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
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.
Well, damn. Imagine having to review 100,000 pages for maybe a few lines that *could* be important.
SCO also argues that IBM's motion was filed prematurely. That is false. This case has been pending nearly seven months. IBM served its first set of discovery requests more than four months ago. IBM filed this motion only after giving SCO more than 3 months to meet is obligations.
Well, Darl's on his way to a full year of profitability. If SCO has been able to drag it out for 7 months already, another 5 won't hurt them... much
Anyway, SCO's going down. Hard. I wonder if they'll sell me the copyrights to UNIX in bankruptcy court... I wouldn't mind having them for their historical value.
And now to balance things off from SCO's perspective. Never clueing in on the possibility that some companies pay their employees to produce some Software Libre. There's a balance out there between proprietary and OSS. You pick what best suits you, or your business model... but probably not a *nix that just now claims PAM as a feature.
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX operating system, today announced that Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride, will deliver a keynote address at the Enterprise IT Week/Computer Digital Expo (CDXPO) conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, November 18 at 5:00 p.m. The conference and keynote will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
O GO )
---
Darl McBride, SCO Group CEO, to Deliver CDXPO Keynote Titled 'There's No Free Lunch - Or Free Linux'
08:32 EST Wednesday, Nov 05, 2003
LINDON, Utah, Nov. 5
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990421/SCOL
In his address titled "There's No Free Lunch -- Or Free Linux," McBride will present his perspectives on the prospects of free industries, SCO's suit against IBM, and why intellectual property must be protected in a digital age.
"The Internet created -- and creatively destroyed -- great wealth. It also created a culture legitimizing intellectual property theft," said McBride. "When you defend intellectual property, you speak an unpleasant truth. People don't like to hear unpleasant truths. The alternative to this fight, however, is the death of an industry and thousands of jobs lost."
McBride will also explore how the information technology industry - software, hardware, networking and services -- depends on money passing from one hand to another, asserting that the livelihood of engineers and developers rests on paid models, even as those developers donate time to free projects such as Linux. McBride will lay out his assertion that without paid software, there would be little or no free software. At the conclusion of his keynote, McBride will be available for media questions.
McBride's keynote will be followed by a Town Hall discussion moderated by Jack Powers, conference chairman of Enterprise IT Week and director of the International Informatics Institute.
Where each side can only spend as much as the other. If I am sued by McD, and only want to spend $100 on my defense, that's all they can spend on their offense. Or if I sue McD, and only want to spend $2000 on the case, that's all they get to spend of defense.
... if McD wants to spend $1M, they have to loan me the difference from what I want to spend, and if they lose, they don't get it back. I have to agree to this loan.
:-) Seems like it ought to go a long ways towards reducing the money power in our legal system.
There has to be some minimum, of course, it makes no sense to expect a corporate lawyer to only spend $100 on a case. But no banks of several lawyers deponing hundreds of witnesses just to put the fear of McD in people.
Another aspect would be an escape clause
This would apply in all cases, criminal or civil. No more state DAs spending a fortune on sending some illiterate scumbag to the death chamber because his public dedfender only had $300 to spend.
Anyway, I like my scheme
Infuriate left and right
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.
It ain't over for a looooong time yet.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Martha Stewart is a Democrat (or at least has donated a pile of money to democrats over the years).
IBM has a very interesting point that I have seen mentioned before. The below is from the Groklaw link
Interrogatory No. 1 asks for the identification of files and lines of code from Unix that SCO contends IBM has misappropriated. It is Unix software, after all, not Linux software, that IBM is alleged to have misappropriated.
IBM is basically saying, show us "your" Unix code that you think we took. This makes more sense then the arguement I've been hearing by the Linux community of show us the Linux code that you think infringes, although the Linux community has no real right to see the SCO Unix code, IBM should have that right as a member of the lawsuit. That would make things even harder as SCO may not be able to turn up such code as it probably does not exist. From a legal standpoint, it makes asks SCO to prove infringment of their code in that manner and takes away thier shotgun approach of ifs, coulds, and resembles.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
"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?"
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34553.htm
Specifically, In the process, a federal judge deemed the GPL enforceable and binding.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Read the last para just before the section 'Migration' starts. http://www.thejemreport.com/software/freebsd51.php
FreeBSD license lets anyone to use their code in any propreitary software and not affect the software license. So I can take code from FreeBSD and incorporate it into my propreitary software and not having to release it to the community. That is I believe what happend with SCO, they thought they owned the code that is actually licensed by FreeBSD in the first place.
First point -- on the assumption that the case will continue, which I believe, it may be some time before anyone knows which lines are "tainted". For example, SCO points at the source files for JFS and says "These may be tainted." IBM says, "Which lines?" SCO responds with, "Any lines which you developed under AIX. Which are those?" SCO's legal theory seems to be that any features of AIX which were transfered to Linux are a violation, unless IBM can prove that the code given to Linux was developed as part of a non-AIX operating system, then ported to Linux directly from that non-AIX system. IBM is using the obvious tactic of providing a mountain of raw information, then demanding that SCO sift through it and identify the lines that are in question -- make it too EXPENSIVE for SCO to continue the case.
Second point -- on the assumption that SCO wins, which I don't believe will happen, generating cleanroom specs may well be a problem. As I understand it, the contract forbids revealing the methods as well as the source code. IBM would be in the position of having to say to the Linux community, "The code and documentation that we revealed to you, and on which your specs are based, were trade secrets that we did not have the right to reveal." ANY use of that information -- such as writing specs -- could be deemed improper by a court. However, if SCO wins and gets a large settlement from IBM, I would expect the judge to rule that SCO has now been compensated for the loss of their trade secrets, and that the Linux community is free to make use of those "secrets".
SCO appears to have (although IANAL) a simple case that is at least arguable. I have to believe that all of the public posturing, much if not all of which is irrelevant, is intended to run the share price up so that the executives can cash out.
Groklaw is now hosted by Ibiblio, so it's a bit harder to Slashdot.
http://www.tuxrocks.com/
Assuming there's anything in there, right. But by "rewrite" I hope you mean a complete cleanroom implementation, because otherwise it really is illegal. From what I'm told, there's nothing left in 2.5 (and I think 2.4) that was even remotely SCO (even that via old BSD).
I'm also sorry that modding is an issue for you. I participated in the discussion, and that is all I did so please accept my apologies if my opinion including the use of GPL and "vindication" somehow wasn't valid.
Sorry, that was a joke not directed at you - rather at the RMS-head mods. Sorry if that wasn't clear, no offense intended.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
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.
- - - -
The real Tetsujin 28 is a giant robot.
So clearly, dismissing with "extreme prejudice" means they can't bring suit again,
and judge orders the bailiff to shoot them.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Well, IBM will have to provide the evidence, and is doing so through the discovery process, although it may fall to SCO to organize it. To beat an example to death, consider JFS. There is no question that it is available as part of AIX. There is no question that the code and methods were revealed to the world through Linux. What remains at question are (1) was it ported to Linux from AIX or not, and (2) more importantly, if it was ported to Linux from AIX, do the contract terms require SCO to approve such a revelation? Only IBM has the evidence to prove or disprove the first proposition. If I were one of SCO's attorneys, I would be doing my best to get the judge to rule that IBM should be organizing the evidence to show the development history. And I would be telling Darl and the rest of them to STFU, that there's a whole lot more potential value in quietly winning the contract case in court than there is in sending those damned invoices out...
Really? Is it fun? The closest I ever came was playing obnoxious witnesses in mock trials at law school. That was fun!
At least have to courtesy to properly attribute the replaced parts analogy to Asimov! ;-)
All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)