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SCO Ordered to Produce Evidence
harmless_mammal and others wrote in with news from the SCO-IBM hearing in Utah today - apparently the judge has ordered SCO to respond to IBM's discovery requests within 30 days. IBM is asking SCO to tell IBM precisely what code it is alleging is infringing, and to date SCO has failed to show any evidence whatsoever. Some reports from the hearing are at Groklaw, which is already slow under the load. If SCO continues to fail to produce the evidence they've claimed they have, the judge will likely be very displeased, perhaps dismissing the lawsuit entirely.
We can end all this SCO crap. Though I get the feeling that they've already gotten what they want...
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Hopefully the judge will order SCO to pay for the courts' time in filing such a meritless suit, a practice I believe our entire tort system should follow.
I think SCO will either give the information (although probably not with "specificity") or else dismiss the suit on its own.
What's in it for SCO? They can only dismiss their own suit, not IBM's countersuit. Dismissing their own suit would be pretty damned close to admitting culpability in IBM's countersuit. Okay, their company is on its way to destruction anyway but I think they'll choose for a long drawn out death, not a quick one.
I know that I for one do NOT want this case dismissed. I would like to see it finished out for the future of Linux and the GPL. Let's put all this rubbish to bed. If this thing goes to court and SCO losses, then Linux and the GPL will be that much stronger. Less likely to be attacked down the road.
Great... so instead of posting a mirror, they make ABSOLUTELY SURE that Groklaw melts down.
I'm sorry, guys, but I really think this is crappy. You cry about how it's hard to mirror stuff, because it would require *gasp* permission. So instead of taking a little extra time, particularly when you know that the remote server ALREADY can't handle the load, you aim tens of thousands of hits at them.
I'm sure this isn't the intention, but it is essentially a deliberate DoS.
Enough excuses, already.... the prior permission thing just doesn't work anymore. Google mirrors practically EVERYTHING and they don't have specific permission. You can live by the same rules they do.
At the VERY least, in cases where the server is already obviously choking, post a synopsis without a link.
The courts are seldom presented with cases as completely devoid of merit as this one.
I certainly wonder if the judge will dismiss the case out of hand if SCO turns up next to nothing yet again in 30 days time. I don't expect an outright refusal, I expect a second game of hunt the copyright violation. But I also doubt that the judge is going to allow SCO to simply slide until the next 30 days ad infinitum.
Instead I think that the court will start with remedies like a fine and sharply reduce the scope of the case, if sco will not reduce the number of claims the court will. It happens all the time in complex cases, if you claim the defendant engaged in malpractice on 10,000 occasions the judge will tell you to pick five specific instances and the case will proceed from there. If you won't choose the five instances the judge will choose for you. If you loose on those five instances you loose the whole case.
Courts are real sticklers for deadlines in cases like this where they suspect one side is manipulating the system. The appeals courts have no sympathy either. Court dockets are overcrowded enough as it is.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
"Each side has spent bucketloads of money and all the judge could come up with so far is 'Shit or get off the pot.'"
In all likelihood, the lawyers that IBM uses are on retainer, and this hasn't really cost IBM much for legal fees. Thing is, this smear campaign has been damaging enough that once this is all said and done, IBM will be able to add libel and slander to it's complaints against Darl and his other brother Darl. All that they'd have to supply is proof of lost business or delayed business from people cancelling orders citing the SCO fiasco, and even if they're just delayed orders, IBM is a large enough company that months of inflation alone might be enough to show lost revenue.
The bitchslapping of Caldera is something that I'm looking forward to.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Even IF the SCO crime syndicate is thrown out of court, they will continue to "plead their case" in the media like they've been doing. They've already got a few trained seals slapping their fins on command in the media (like Didio) in their favour.
SCO needs a MAJOR smackdown if we're ever going to shut them up good.
1. Detailed migration plan and tools to ease transition from SCO UnixWare to Linux. This includes researching companies that will do his service. A paper showing hard numbers on the cost savings and benefit of migrating away from SCO Unixware.
2. Create a collection of testimonials from former SCO customers who has successfully migrated away from SCO products.
3. Extensive benchmark showing inferiority of SCO Unixware.
4. Feature comparison between SCO Unixware and Linux.
5. Create a list of things Linux can do that SCO products cannot do.
6. List of hardware that Linux supports which SCO products do not.
7. Create a list of companies using SCO product and educate these companies about findings from 1 - 4.
8. Urge Free Software and Open Source developers to drop support for SCO Unixware across all softwares being developed. GNU Software (GCC, Emacs, libraries, autotools, base utils), Samba, Apache, OpenSSL, OpenOffice, XFree86, Gnome, KDE, etc.
9. Dissemination of information regarding insider trading of SCOX stock. Collection of detailed information on who is selling how much shares and when.
10. Analysis of all SEC filings by SCO especially that part about disclosure of all SCO's competitors and it's liability with investing money in SCO.
11. Create a collection documents debunking every single press releases, interviews and official statement made by SCO officials. Dissection of every sentence ever came out of Darl McBride's mouth clearly citing fallacies, misinformation, and contradictions.
12. Create a list of all patents held by SCO and then systematically try to disprove the validity of those patents by citing prior art.
13. Start a letter writing campaign to Wall Street analysts of all the findings from above. (There has to be Linux users who has connection to Wall Street folks.)
Any thought?
No, SCO has seriously damaged IBM's business, taking money out of their pockets. IBM needs to make an example out of them, preferably getting the SEC involved. You DON'T want to send the signal that "playing the Linux lottery" has no downside; that would only encourage other slimey types with no viable business model to attempt simular tactics. Oh, and if IBM is anything like Intel, their lawyers get paid the same regardless of whether or not they crush SCO into greasy pink pancakes, so letting SCO off easy won't save IBM any money.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Spending the extra money now will keep others from trying it and save money in the long term.
A warning to the others is ample reason for IBM to grind them into the dust.
If it were just about this case IBM would have just bought them outright since odds are that would have been much cheaper than this drawn out legal battle.
No.
IBM stands accused by SCO of breaching a contract between the two and divulging priviledged information or methods to others by contributing code to Linux.
IBM has as customers the governments of just about every country in the world that can afford to invest in IT. IBM provides solutions to hospitals, research centers, and buisnesses all who deal in sensitive or proprietary information. IBM can not have people going around saying that IBM broke a contract, especially by not treating sensitive data or methods correctly. IBM must, as a buisness priority, have SCOs claims declared completely baseless.
Which, cheerfully enough, means that IBM can't settle for anything less than the complete dismantling of SCOs claims, which will be quickly followed by the destruction of SCO by IBM's counter claims.
I'm not sure if that's true, or at least if it's true in the sense that you mean it. Part of the defensive value of IBM's suit is from making an example of SCO. IBM wants to prove to anyone else who might be thinking of launching a nuisance suit that it's a really, really bad idea. If the result is just a draw, or even a small win in IBM's favor (like SCO agreeing to pay legal fees) then there isn't sufficient example. If, OTOH, the final result is smoking craters where SCO, Canopy, et. al. used to be, it sends the much stronger message that suing IBM is a good way to lose everything.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Somebody else pointed out an additional dimension, which is that IBM feels that its integrity has been impugned. A key part of SCO's suit is that IBM has failed to live up to its contractual obligations. That's a big deal in business, because nobody will want to deal with you if they don't believe that you'll hold up your side of the bargain. IBM clearly has a very strong business reason to want their reputation cleared, which is a driving factor behind the Lanham Act violation countersuit. I sincerely doubt that they would accept any deal that didn't clear up that issue unequivocally.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
1. GPL has never been involved in a court case, so some buisnesses see it as unproven
IBM is not "some businesses" nor would IBM waste it's legal resources looking into matters that concern "some businesses".
2. What happens to the next piddling little company running out of money that may have something that they can BS into making it look like it's a big deal?
Huh? In no way could the countersuit set a precedent that "piddling little companies" should automatically lose to IBM. Each case of copyright infringement must be examined individually. Precedent plays no part.
3. Litigation is expensive, and SCO made IBM do most of the research already... does IBM's legal department want to look like they just wasted $$? In most businesses, that isn't a good thing for the department.
The amount of money already spent is completely irrelevant. IBM must weigh the remaining costs against the projected benefits of crushing SCO vs settling. Given that pursuing this in court will be very expensive (research is just one of many costs) and that crushing SCO doesn't benefit IBM any more than settling, I think the choice is easy. And the research money is certainly not "wasted" if it leads to SCO's law suit being dismissed.
4. I know some people at IBM have got to be emotional over this. So throw back in the we are pissed at sco part. :)
Since when did lawyers make important monetary decisions based on their emotions? Or the emotions of Linux advocates? Not likely.
5. If they win, given that IBM registers it's copyrights (please please tell me if I am wrong)
You are wrong.
The winnings could definately help defray some of the cost of Litigation
Let's speculate here. SCO has used shady legal shenanigans for years to pump up it's stock. All large purchases it has made have been mostly in stock. It's executives are being paid because dumbass investors believe their lies and buy their stock. Within about 0.002 nanoseconds of SCO losing their case against IBM every investor in the world will realize that SCO has no source of income, no product worth buying, and insufficient cash reserves. All of SCO's "wealth" will vaporize as their stock plummets. At this point any award against SCO is worthless because they won't have any money to hand over to IBM. So, why exactly does that seem like a worthwhile pursuit from IBM's perspective? (Hint: it doesn't.)