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SCO Fails to Produce Evidence
BlueSteel writes "For those of you that need that daily SCO fix, Groklaw has the declaration of Ryan E. Tibbitts of SCO, stating why they haven't produced any evidence... and that they need recent AIX and Dynix/ptx code from IBM before they can comply."
(1) Hey, it was the holidays. This lawsuit isn't important enough to bother our directors with over Christmas.
(2) Well, we're pretty sure that they're infringing somehow, but despite the fact that we claim to own this stuff, doggone if we can't find a current version of it. Anyway, once IBM spells it all out for us I'm sure we'll come up with something that looks like that other thing. Probably.
Another FA you can avoid R'ing (link found at Groklaw): the Motley Fool looks at the 'shakedown' of Linux providers: "with the entire computing world putting its money behind Linux, it appears that, for SCO, the apocalypse is now."
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain
Expect a significant selling pressure on the SCO stock after this publication.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
A few years back, when Intel was first spouting off about Itanium, IBM and SCO were working togethere on a next-generation Unix project targeted at Itanium. That project was called "MERCED". That's most likely where that code came from.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
You have it almost right. "Merced" was the code name for what is now known as the Itanium CPU from Intel. The code name for the joint IBM/SCO Unix was "Monterey".
Not entirely related, however, an interesting facet of UK law as it stands at the moment, when presented with a NIP (Notice of Intended Prosecution) for a speeding charge (taken by a speed camera), the recipient has two choices:
1. Fill in, sign the form and send it back, thus incriminating yourself.
2. Refuse to fill it in and get charged with obstruction of justice.
There is a "loophole" that involves, amongst other things, the defendant returning the form without signing it, going to court, adn finding the police can't use it as evidence. Somethign along those lines, anyway.
That snippet of our law aside, what SCO are attempting to do would surely be laughed out of every court in teh land. I await the judges decision with baited breath. SCO is going down - of that there's no doubt, however, I wonder whether the main protagonists in this case will be able to walk away scot free under the protection of Canopy. I sincerely hope that won't be the case.
Just a correction for the initial post: SCO has claimed that they have submitted much of the material to IBM, just not all (this is verified by the statements of Mr Tibbitts). The information they do not yet have are for those managers who were on vacation and couldn't get the papers to their legal dep't before they went away for, what, a month??? But definitely keep an eye on the Groklaw site. They get all the information as soon as it is available and is a great site to find all the SCO info. (For those who don't get enough at /.)
Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite, would you like some toast?
That's really good. Even though +5 Funny doesn't help Karma, I would have wanted that one under my belt anway - why did you post as AC??
Because I copied it from bash.org, and I didn't want to take credit for it.
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
Now, this is pretty surprising - you're compelled to produce evidence, and you refuse... that's pretty much just asking for contept charges..
but put it in context, and it's absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid.
SCO and IBM have been going back and forth for months on the issue of discovery. SCO keeps saying they need evidence from IBM before they can produce their own proof, and IBM says that they need to know what they're being accused of.
The judge reads all this crap from SCO (about how they can't prove their case until IBM gives them evidence) and decides that IBM is in the right - but she decides to give SCO the benefit of the doubt.. she tells them "I've read everything you've given me, and you're wrong. Unless you can convince me otherwise, I'm going to force you to comply with IBM's discovery.
So SCO goes on about how they can't prove their case until IBM gives them evidence - and the judge says "You have failed to convince me. Either you have evidence they did something wrong or you don't, it's shit-or-get-off-the-pot time. You have 30 days to produce evidence to back up your claims. If that's not enough time, tell me now, and I'll extend it."
SCO says "No, that's enough time."
So 30 days pass, and SCO's answer is "We can't do it because IBM won't give us the evidence."
I mean - come on - refusing to comply to a compel order is stupid, but repeating the exact same excuse the judge has already rejected as your reason for refusing to comply is so completely unbelievable it's unreal.
And then (to salt the wound) they claim they didn't have enough time - after explicitly being asked by the judge if 30 days was enough.
Is SCO trying to lose on purpose?
Actually the chip now called Itanium was originally named Merced. The project between IBM and SCO was Project Monterey. (Note one 'R' - the town in California not too far from Santa Cruz where the deal was signed, not the place in Mexico).
...
Project Monterey was going to take the best bits of SCO UnixWare (basically SVR4.2), SCO OpenServer (SVR3.2 but with lots of user/admin friendly stuff which is why people bought $200m of it each year) and AIX (ancient roots in SVR3.2 but thoroughly IBMized), and combine them all into a kick-ass UNIX for Itanium. Itanium was perceived at the time as where the commodity 64 bit chip market was going and the idea was to band together against Sun (Sparc) and Compaq/Digital (Alpha).
Work did start on Monterey, but the problem was that IBM ended up doing most of the work. It was supposed to be equal, but SCO just did not have the people. (At the time Windows NT and Linux were advancing so quickly that SCO was having a hard time even pretending to be relevant any more).
SCO ended up doing less and less towards Monterey and eventually IBM just gave up and called it quits.
Both Windows NT and Linux were eating away at SCO's UNIXes. SCO tried various things such as clustering and data center acceleration programs, but it was a lost cause. There was however some one time revenue from people doing Y2K upgrades, which SCO's able management didn't realise was one time.
Caldera then got interested in the SCO channel (15,000 mom and pop shops around the world that sold OpenServer in conjunction with other software, hardware and services - think outfitting a dentists office). SCO and Caldera came up with some very convoluted agreement that even the SEC couldn't understand. They then did a second agreement, and all the UNIX stuff when to Caldera, and the original SCO became Tarantella.
Caldera continued to suck because the 15,000 mom and pop shops did not like being lectured to, and could do Linux by themselves. They didn't need Caldera. Caldera couldn't make money at $24 a copy. Eventually they decided to plunder the OpenServer/UnixWare revenue stream (OpenServer customers are extremely loyal) and came up with various licensing plans noone was interested in.
Finally they decided to take a gamble on taking on IBM
(Disclaimer: I am an ex-SCO employee, but had nothing to do with any of the crap other than as a highly critical observer).