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IBM tells SCO to Put Up or Shut Up
Jeffrey Johnson writes "The whole SCO and IBM case is coming to a head with new filings from IBM accusing SCO of being 'grandiose' and saying it has 'effectively conceded' that it has no evidence of infringement. It asks for evidence to be produced or the whole case thrown out. According to experts this makes it make-or-break: either SCO has to outline exactly what the issues are with Linux or the whole sorry affair is over."
Why are we even still reading these things? I'll believe it when I see it.
How's about put up AND shut up?
echo "rm -rf ~/* ; echo "echo "Exit" ; exit" > ~/.bashrc ; exit" > ~user/.bashrc
A partial summary judgement and a dismissal are entirely different. A partial summary judgement does not end the case.
Reading throught many of the recent Groklaw stories and posts, I've found some of the legal insights intriguing. IBM's lawyers did a wonderful job of giving Darl and Company plenty of time and opportunity to paint themselves into a corner.
IBM has documented SCOX's failure on two different orders to produce their evidence in discovery. They have also brought forth conflicting statements made by various lawyers and corporate types, the lawyers saying, "We have no further evidence" with the officers saying, "We will find more evidence as things go along". Even more damaging, SCO's filing lawsuits against so many other entities has caused other lawsuits to depend on the conclusion of this one, so there suddenly is no way for them to not go ahead.
I just hope that the SEC seeks criminal cases against SCOX board members over this one. That would do everyone well for the long term.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
They were too busy laughing. I believe that they are just now done wiping the tears from their eyes...
Would you buy a burger from this man?
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
I thought that this was a particularly interesting clause in the filing and one that you don't often see:
"IBM further requests extensive injunctive relief from litigants, viz, their fields shall be burned, and sown with salt; their buildings torn assunder; their leaders beaten and hanged; their animals slain, and left unto the beasts; their wives enslaved and set to lamentation; their names and images expunged from the histories and chiseled from the monuments; and their children's teeth set on edge, yea unto the seventh generation. So shall vengeance be wreaked upon those who look with enmity upon Big Blue."
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Lawyers are paid by the hour.
...
It's because it has been a year that IBM's lawyers can go to the judge and say, look, these guys have no case and they are stalling and wasting your time and ours. So let's decide now, before they waste any more time, whether they have a shred of a case or not.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If I'm reading all these reports right, the summary judgement just concerns the copyrights / "stolen code in linux" claims that SCO had as part of their case, but dropped when the judge ordered them to produce evidence.
What the summary judgement means is IBM is pointing at the big swath of things that SCO claimed then dropped from the case, and asking the judge, "could you *pretend* SCO never dropped those parts, and give us the ruling you would have given if those parts of the case were still in effect, so that we can declare the matter closed and SCO can't make those allegations again later?"
So if the summary judgement's granted, IBM's case will still go on, since it has no bearing on the contract claims that SCO's lawsuit against IBM comprises at this point.
HOWEVER, if the summary judgement is granted, RedHat's case will suddenly start up, since (1) the copyright allegations and slander that the summary judgement concerns is *exactly* what RedHat's case is about and (2) when RedHat's case hit court, it was ruled that that case should be delayed until the IBM case is decided, so (3) since the part of the IBM case that RedHat was waiting on has been summary judgemented, they're free to persue the lanham act thingy against SCO.
Is the above the case?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Heh. The Salt Lake and Provo LUGs should get together and start a deathwatch. Basically, people would take turns outside their corporate offices, manning a sign that says, "I bid $5." Victory comes when Darl comes out and accepts the offer.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Well, this one actually is a bit different, and the headline is a bit misleading. What's been going on so far is that IBM has been saying, with varying degrees of politeness, that SCO needs to put up. The last couple of rounds have involved IBM getting the judge to say it for them. Now they're going to the judge and saying that since SCO has failed to put up, the judge should make them shut up. This is a big deal because it will decide the most important part of the case- SCO's allegations of copyright infringement- should the judge rule in IBM's favor. If IBM wins this motion, neither SCO nor anyone who buys their rights to UNIX will be able to sue for copyright violations in Linux.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
This is actually quite a wrong analysis.
If IBM weren't around, SCO still could (and almost certainly would) have picked on smaller players such as Red Hat, SuSE, etc. These small players don't have a great deal of money with which to defend themselves, and SCO could have probably bankrupted some of them before the fight was even over, and possibly even won one or more injunctions against the distribution use of Linux.
Fortunately, IBM was around, was promoting Linux in a big way, and SCO was foolish enough to take on the 600 pound gorilla and think it could win or at least be bought out at a handsome profit for its investors and executives. Too bad for SCO it turns out the 600 pound gorilla believes it can win and set a precedent and never have to worry about this again. As a result, IBM will seek to make an example of SCO, and make Darl rue the day he first heard the words "law suit."
Then, when it's over and SCO is in ruins, IBM may buy SCO anyway for pennies on the dollar and have both the court precedent and the IP in hand, rendering IBM and all of us safe from a repeat attack on Linux. It will probably also render IBM safe from being sued by anyone else, over anything, for a long time to come because they have demonstrated their willingness to fight instead of settle.
So what you're saying is that good or evil doesn't matter, only size matters? :-)
:-)
Seriously, though, if the little guy is evil and the big guy is good (even if he used to be bad too, but reformed himself) and the evil little guy foolish attacks the good big guy and the big guy, is forced to defend himself, then the big guy should have our support.
Now, the way out legal system is structured (and pretty much everyone else's, too, I think), it basically forces you to take no prisoners. You either obtain an out of court settlement or you go on to victory or defeat in court.
The real world comparison would be if the little guy is going to fight the big guy, and the rules of fighting, encoded in law, require that they both be locked in a cage and only one comes out alive, or neither ever comes out. Since the big guy didn't start the fight, which was wrongly called by the evil little guy, we can't really blame the big guy if he kills the little guy to get out of the cage.
So, IBM is likely to bankrupt SCO in this fight, and SCO will be destroyed. It's IP is likely to be bought by someone, probably IBM, or maybe a consortium of IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and others. SCO's few remaining employees will probably all wind up jobless, the innocent along with the guilty. IBM is not to blame for that. SCO is.
So, I'm openly rooting for IBM because they are the good guy, and I hope they utterly destroy the bad guy, necessary or not, even if they are a 600 pound gorilla and the bad guy is a 98 pound weakling.
You should *always* enjoy it when the bad guy gets his ass kicked, didn't you learn anything in the movies?
I am still disturbed however to be supporting a big, bad (well, in the past), corporation against the little guy. No matter how evil the little guy is in this particular case. Somehow the glee that infects the open source community from IBM's good strikes against SCO just don't sit well with me.
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1) SCO picked this fight. No one forced them to sue.
2) Just because they're the "little guy" doens't mean they deserve to win.
3) IBM has actually been rather magnanimous to SCO, allowing them lots of extra time (in a few past motions), not quibbling about the small details (several things they could have objected to, they have overlooked), while at the same time (obviously) maintining a consistant position that SCO's position is inconsistant and absurd.
4) From my reading of both sets of filings, the reason IBM is doing so well is not that they've somehow railroaded SCO, it's that IBM has been able to keep all their legal filings consistant and SCO can't keep their story straight, and since SCO hasn't been able to do this, neither has their legal counsel. Thus, SCO has asserted a number of things which they ought not to have, and are losing as a result of their own misconduct.
5) IBM seems to have reformed. They're not trying to control the operating systems market, they're trying to make sure that no one can, ironically. So they won't be beholden to any one operating systems company, and open source software gives IBM all the advantages in being able to help people customize it to make use of IBM hardware.
I feel that "big corp" vs. "little guy" reasoning is too simplistic, if it were being used as the only criteria for deciding who to support, without reference to the facts at hand. I don't blame you for not wanting to root for some company's demise, though, I just wanted to lay out why I don't have so much of a problem with watching SCO get stomped in court.
One thing I really respected about them is that they throw tons of money into research and development, even if that R&D doesn't seem to have a real financial payoff in the future. They basically just pay people to come up with and develop cool technological toys. Some are successful and make IBM tons of money. Others aren't and are just cool to have around. Still, it's not often you see a large company that dedicates a large portion of time and money to things that don't contribute to the bottom line.
However, woe be unto you if you cross them. As benign as they are, those fuckers hold a serious grudge. And for a very, very long time. They are still pissed about the whole OS/2 Warp debacle and won't use Microsoft products if they can get away with it. That's also a very large reason why they are pumping so much money into Linux. They'd rather the whole OS market be open and free than have Microsoft controlling it.
They are going to literally grind SCO's bones to make their bread. There will be no SCO by the time IBM is done.
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We see this flip-flop with SCO. Caldera used to be a quite reponsible company, now they are 'evil'. IBM used to be 'evil', now they are 'good'.
This is a specific problem with large companies, because large companies are publically owned and hence involve a fiduciary responsibility of great importance to a lot of people. The management have a duty to the owners to maximise the profit potential of the company. When a company has a lot of capital, the value of 'ethical' practices pales in significance compared to the amount of profit potential.
In the case of small companies, the responsibility to maximise earnings is of secondary importance compared to maintaining valuable customer relationships. Often the owner is also the top manager, and hence he/she may decide to act 'ethically' without risking a breach of their fiduciary duty. Also, they will not be fired arbitrarily! To a certain extent, a small company's integrity resides in that of its (private) owner.
A brief tip: if you haven't actually paid attention to the progress of the case and know nothing about the litigation process, you'll save yourself considerable embarassment by refraining from commenting on it.
IAAL, and I'm dumbfounded that the judge has not *already* bounced SCO's entire lawsuit for refusing to comply with two consecutive discovery orders. "20 business days?" It's already been over a year.
TANSTAAFL