SCO Files Response To Demand For Evidence

The Welcome Rain writes "SCO has posted its notice of compliance with the court order of December 12, which required them to produce evidence. The document itself is brief, but refers to a sixty-page supplement which lists the offending lines, and asserts that it can find more when IBM produces some of the evidence demanded of them by SCO. Millions of lines on sixty pages? How silly."

Comments

"...all non-priveleged information..."

[numbski]

Translation:

The general public still won't get to see the evidence.

By putting all 'priveleged' information in an addendum....we won't get to see the infringing code. :\

Go fig. Put up or shut up my arse.

Will be waiting.

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO has shown that when they say they have done something, the chances are good they haven't. I can't imagine they'd refuse the court's direct order in this case-- especially since the court case is on hold until they cough up. But I'll still be waiting to see whether

• IBM is satisfied by SCO's response.
  
• IBM says "you haven't answered our questions at all".
  
• IBM is dancing in the aisles becuase SCO's evidence amounts to 60 pages of files taken from BSD and header files ruled as uncopyrightable in the BSD case.
  

Re:60 pages is not a million, but it's quite a chu

[yeremein]

Keep in mind that the 60+ pages comprises SCO's entire response. There were ten interrogetories SCO was compelled to answer. "List all the infringing code" was just one of those.

Besides, SCO hasn't shown anything credible in several tries so far. I'm betting on more of the same.

Even still, there are two points of fallback:

1. Novell contests ownership of SVR5 copyrights--SCO needs to beat Novell in court before it can succeed against an end user in a copyright infringement claim
2. The BSDi settlement questions whether SVR5 can even be protected by copyright in the first place

SCO complied, sorta

[UnknowingFool]

According to SCO they complied, but if you read their notice, they also note an exception.

The only exception to such production is the files of certain officers and directors for whom SCO could not obtain the requested materials during the holidays with sufficient time to review the documents.

This means that they couldn't get all the documents because people were on vacation. Let's see: they got the court order December 5. I wonder how many developers were given a mandatory 6 month vacation on a deserted island to start December 6th?

No ruling in BSD case

[ebcdic]

There was no ruling in the BSD case. It was settled out of court. You might take the judges comment's as suggesting what another judge might decide, but they do not constitute a legal precedent.

Re:No ruling in BSD case

[dmaxwell]

Assuming that SCO own the copyrights to SysV (and not Novell) then they are AT&Ts successors in interest to the code. AT&T settled a dispute involving that code base. That settlement will travel with the code regardless of who owns it. The parent poster is correct, it isn't a legal precedent in general. It sure as hell is one as far as Novell and (maybe) SCO is concerned.

Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient

[cyxs]

But they haven't yet complied with the order. They only provided part of the answers that IBM Requested and said that once they get IBM's code from AIX that they will be able to answer the reset of the questions.

And if I remeber the judges order was that it wouldn't allow for SCO Motion to Compel till IBMs motions were carried out. Also wouldn't the judge have to give fair amount of time after IBM gets the information for them to go over it and then provide the information that SCO requested. Because IBM has been saying that without knowing what SCO is sueing them over they couldn't provide the data that SCO wanted.

I could be off here...

[shaitand]

But I was under the impression that SCO was required to put ALL it's cards on the table AND THEN the judge would talk about whether or not IBM hadn't presented all the requested information.

SCO's statement makes it clear they are saying this is a sample only and they will cough up a little more after IBM gives what they want. Isn't this liable to piss off a judge who explicitly ordered they present everything?

Re:I could be off here...

[MuParadigm]

Yes, this is liable to piss of the judge, especially considering that the judge has shown a small amount of pissed offedness with SCO already.

I refer you to the following quotes from the transcript of the December 5, 2003 discovery hearing:

THE COURT: ... the burden is on the plaintiff to prove the existence of the trade secrets assuming that that's part of it, all right, and that it is appropriate to postpone discovery in those circumstances until such time as the plaintiffs have acknowledged what the trade secrets may be, and otherwise this Court cannot determine, as the other party cannot determine, what is relevant as to future discovery.

MR. MCBRIDE: Thank you. Yes. I will, Your Honor.

THE COURT: None of us know.

Or, how about this one:

MR. MCBRIDE: Your Honor, ... we gave them the source code of Unixwork so it's in there.

THE COURT: Didn't you give it to them in hundreds of thousands of pieces of
paper, though, without specifically identifying it?

Re:hmmm

[WCMI92]

" Yeah - isn't it interesting that SCO seems to basically be saying that "we're waiting on the defendant to prove our case for us"? I hope McBride and Co. have their graves dug already"

Which they cannot do. You can't file a lawsuit to use it as a fishing expedition. It is the burden of the plantiff to prove their allegations. Considering that Linux source is available, I don't see why SCaldera needs ANYTHING from IBM to "prove" their "millions of lines" allegations.

The court set the deadline and put SCaldera's discovery on hold UNTIL they showed IBM exactly what they are accused of doing. Seems to me they have not done so. The next hearing will be very interesting. At the very least, Darl and his other brother Darl will have a VERY pissed off judge on their hands...

If they piss the judge off enough, they might have their case thrown out. The judge could even dismiss "with prejustice" meaning the same charges could not be made again. A dismissal would not affect IBM's countersuit.

The judge also could allow the case to proceed, but bar SCO from introducing any additional evidence other than what they just provided... Discovery deadlines are just that... A deadline. The party so ordered MUST turn over what they are ordered to, and then some, if they want to be certain to get that evidence into the court during trial...

If SCO had a case, they should have turned over exactly what they were ORDERED to turn over. But then, as most of us suspect, they DONT have a case, but want to use the spectre of one to get rich off a "pump n dump" while receiving revenue from Microsoft to encourage the FUD machine...

QOTD:Can anyone explain this huge trade yesterday?

[kko]

Check the post near the middle of the comments by jbardhan:

...but why would somebody have moved >100k shares yesterday afternoon around 4pm? Check here. That's way out of line with their typical volume...

Beautiful.

Novell going for a quick checkmate?

[fishbonez]

I don't think it's an accident that Novell released all it's correspondence with SCO this week. Novell is giving IBM a lot of ammunition in it's legal battle with SCO. In those correspondence, Novell is clearly trying to exercise its rights under its agreement with SCO and consistently sites the relevant passages in those agreements to back up its requests. SCO just dismisses every Novell request out of hand without reference to anything.

Of particular interest is Novell's assertion that derivative works belong to IBM, SGI, etc. This claim of ownership of derivative works is SCO's core argument. Without ownership of derivative works, SCO only has rights to actual code and not the methods, processes, etc.

I suspect Novell is hoping that IBM may be able to short circuit the entire process. If IBM can show that SCO is violating the agreement with Novell and that SCO's ownership is in dispute, SCO may not even have standing with the court to bring the lawsuit. In other words, SCO's suit could be dismissed until it has established clear ownership of the copyrights it claims IBM is violating.

SCO would then have to file a lawsuit against Novell. In the interim, SCO's stock price would freefall to nothing and it would not have the money to continue its fight. Novell could probably reclaim all the UNIX rights it supposedly sold if SCO is forced out of business.

Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient

[DarkAce911]

SCO got smacked around by the Judge in Dec and she is really going to be pissed on the 23rd with no discovery done. Novell has a letter that said SCO's lawyers were off over the Holidays. 60 of legalese is something that can be produced of lunch at most places. Remember, lawyers bill by the hour and you can never have too many docs. Someone on Groklaw.net said that each page must be worth 59 million dollars if SCO's wants 3 billion in damages.

I hope the 23rd is an open hearing with a transcript, its going to be real funny.

Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient

[vladkrupin]

Therefore, you can say nothing at all about it, other than the fact that they span less than 3600 different files.

Yeah, that's where specificity comes into play. I can say that you are infringing on my code in 3600 of your files, but that won't be very specfic. If you are showing line ranges, that's fine, but you still have to describe what exactly is wrong with those lines. That description is what should make the bulk of the document, not the line numbers themselves.

Re:SCaldera seems REALLY desperate...

[WCMI92]

Circumstantial evidence it is, and it may not be enough to get a conviction of Darl and Co, but it IS enough to show probable cause to launch an investigation...

IF SCaldera and it's executives from Darl on down are doing what we THINK they are doing (and so far evidence does not contradict it) they are guilty of some very serious crimes. If the SEC permits companies to get away with these things, then they prove that NOTHING was learned from Enron.

SCO at the very least is misleading investors. It's SEC filings do NOT include ANY risk statements involving Redhat and IBM's counterclaims, and nothing concerning Novell's allegations involving their license agreement.

Novell could go to court at any time and possibly get SCaldera's assets seized to pay them the 95% they were owed from the Darlgeld Microsoft and Sun paid!

Not to mention, their current stock price is SOLEY the result of what is likely a frivilous lawsuit, and insiders have been excercising PENNY stock options and making TENS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS on the backs of people who BUY these shares.

The fact that so many execs have options for SCO stock DRASTICALLY below the current price suggests to me that this whole scheme was premeditated...