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SCO Spreads Rumors About IBM Lawsuit
yeremein writes "SCO says it has found a new smoking gun in its battle with IBM. This 'bombshell' was not found in a court document; instead it came from a reporter's interview at SCOforum. The scoop? 'SCO alleges that since 2001, AIX has contained code for which IBM does not have a license. Moreover SCO claims to have found internal IBM e-mails in which IBMers acknowledge this shortcoming.' With the announcement comes a hefty boost in SCO's stock price." SCO is also going to bundle its worthless linux licenses with its Unix operating systems.
Isn't this libel by SCO? Unless they can show substantial evidence, they are tarnishing IBM's reputation for personal gain. Even then, this is the type of thing that should be restricted to court. Would IBM be able to sue for wrongful damages?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Or perhaps I have it all backwards, but how can the stock go up 14% without this sort of thing happening?
Well - I don't know - SCO claims, IBM *has* a license for a preceeding version, but *not* for the version they are basing on now...
I don't know whether there is any truth in this, but if it SHOULD be, then IBM has done something wrong. And no matter how much I loathe SCO for what they're doing on the Linux side now, it's no reason to rip them off something in return.
Two wrongs don't make a right...
(I just hope, that this isn't true, but unlike a lot of their previous claims, they are putting up a VERY SPECIFIC claim this time; but yes - they are holding back the actual evidence behind it, as usual).
SCO have discovered about 5 or 6 "smoking guns" and they never turn out to be anything. Still, it hasn't been groklaw'd yet so we can't be sure what's going on. ;-)
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
Didn't they bring this up last year, when they "just discovered" it again? Come on, SCO, this is old news! Tell us some truth we don't know!
This sig no verb.
Their Lanham Act counterclaims in the lawsuit that SCO filed are directly referring to this type of behavior.
Actually, this is a big deal, and here's why:
1) SCO received those emails under a court order.
2) SCO only licenses IBM to distribute AIX code on Intel platforms, not PPC platforms, and that is the crux of this announcement.
3) The reporter's forum is where this came out, not where this originated.
4) The fact this is AIX not Linux is interesting. Essentially, this has nothing to do with SCO patent claims against Linux.
M
If SCO wins this, they would get an addition to their warchest with which to make trouble for legitimate open source software developers and users.
Notice that SCO hasn't addressed the cries of people who want to contribute things to people through the goodness of their hearts. For people who want to give something to people for free, SCO is saying "Eat your heart out."
I think the most insightful, or at least amusing, thing I've read about this case lately was found at the bottom of the forbes article:
Indeed, SCO says the company's biggest investor, BayStar Capital, has been pushing SCO to drop its Unix business altogether and simply become a litigation machine, bringing intellectual property-related lawsuits. But SCO insists it remains committed to selling Unix software--when it's not busy fighting people in court.
This tactic sounds soo familiar.. Where did I hear that again? .. Umm....
.. Oh yea.. they went to court and had NOTHING.
OH YEA.. It was when they claimed their 'smoking gun' with the millions of lines of code they discovered that were exact copies with the headers changed/removed.
Now, remind me again what happend with all that?
I now firmly believe that Darl and his cronies are sitting in his office each week betting on wether Darl can inflate the stock price or not for a given time period. I can think of no other explination...
bork bork bork!
This only works as long as there are people to sue (it's kind of like the idea that welfare/subsidies only work so long as there are wage-earners who you can tax). At some point in the future, people will stop working in industries that are lawsuit-prone, because you can't make a living at it (ie, medicine), and then the lawyers will have to find a new target. Eventually, either there will be tort reform, or else productive members of society will emigrate to some place where there aren't hordes of bloodsucking lawyers convincing plaintiffs that "You TOO can get rich off the blood of others, without lifting a finger!"
I used to work for IBM. There are plenty of pissed off temporary staff and contractors (and even full timers) who would be quite happy to cut and paste from Notes to Hotmail. Mark
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
so SCO starts making noise again? This is too much just to be a coincidence. It seems M$ is yanking Darl's strings again.
i wanted to mod some of these so bad, but there are a few things that need to be posted.
1. TSCOG claims that they are using source code that IBM never had a licence for.
well, if SCO never made them agree to a license, then why did they give them the code(if they did at all).
2. the wording makes it sound like they still have a valid licence for the older code.
The specific implementation that is supposedly owned by SCO, or a compatible implementation made by IBM itself ?
A small, but significant difference :). After all, Wine implements the Windows API (poorly, but still...), but it's not copyrighted or in any way owned by Microsoft.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"Nevertheless, you cannot go on fishing expeditions through discovery documents for alleged infractions that weren't part of your original complaint."
Sure you can. That's the whole point of discovery. That's why you have the power tio amend your suits after discovery.
Why is uninformed tripe like this modded at 4, Informative? Any frickin' law student would know better.
I'm glad groklaw is around:
"The next generation of AIX--AIX 5L--takes AIX to the next level with advanced technology, a strong Linux affinity and added support for IBM's Power and Intel's future IA-64 processor-based platforms, making it the most open UNIX operating system in the industry."
-- http://www.sco.com/monterey/aix5l.htm
I wonder why SCOG removed that page, then got it removed from the wayback machine and google cache so fast after that story was up on groklaw.
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-U
Most likely it is not baloney. SCO and IBM were mixing things up pretty good for many years. IBM may have missed an i dotting/t crossing and may have realized it later. I would guess that SCO has some sort of grounds to go after IBM on this mix-up. I doubt that it has ANY relavency to linux or any of their other cases.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"since my understanding is that during discovery you have to stick to what you're looking for."
BZZZ! Wrong answer based on wishful thinking.
How does uninformed tripe like this get rated 3, Informative? It's 100 percent incorrect.
looks like we slashdotted yahoo... thats impressive
That's a very good point. It would be really rather funny if someone like Novell or AT&T could prove they own SRV4, and then gave IBM a perpetual, irrevocable license to match their other one.
Whats most interesting about this story (and I'll reserve ANY judgement until I see it in court - I'm still waiting for SCO's copyright claims to be filed since Dec 2003, and that was promised in open court!) is whats NOT being talked about. What happened to Linux? In this instance certainly, and more generally all during SCOForum, SCO has been talking about Unix, and ignoring Linux. I think this is a great show of their final admittance that their Linux claims/cases are bogus. In regards to the "smoking bullet", they just didn't "find" this stuff today, they have had it for a while I'd assume, and I haven't seen any amendments in court. Not to mention, discovery is almost finished, and I would bet there are contradictory documents (affidavitts, deps) SCO has certified that say nothing of this. Didn't IBM ask SCO already (and they replied) regarding violations of SCO code in Linux, Dynix, and AIX?
This Groklaw report from SCOForum conference came down the pipes of one of the LUG mailing lists I belong to. Apparently they mentioned the IBM/AIX "bombshell" in private interviews during the same conference. I wonder why they didn't announce it on the stage?
-R
SCO and IBM teamed up to work on a 64 bit version of UNIX for 64 bit Intel processors. IBM backed out of the deal and in doing so SCO claims IBM also backed out of their licensing agreement for SVR4 code.
Except that:
1) SCO has never claimed any such thing in any court filing. Their court filings don't make anything approaching clear claims that A didn't receive a license for code B from C or anything else you would expect in such a claim.
2) IBM already had a license for SVR4 code at the time of montery
3) SCO didn't have rights to sell such a license in any meaningful sense
Now, IBM developers have been contributing a lot to the Linux kernel. Who do you think they got to write the kernel code? Probably a good chance that it was people that were familiar with AIX.
Actually that is explicitly not the case. There is a Chinese wall between the AIX group and the Linux group to avoid certain really copyright problems (none of which involve SCO BTW). Communication between them is controlled.
my point is that everyone should try and look at what's going on objectively because there is a lot at stake
Look at the threads from 2 years ago when this started. People here did look at SCO's filings very carefully. After many many repeated inaccuracies and lies in SCO's comments to reporters and inaccuracies which show an extreme lack of knowledge in their court fillings people rightfully treat their factual claims as false until proven otherwise. Similarly their legal claims have been nonsensical.
There is nothing at stake. Imagine if SCO had filed a wrongful death suit against IBM and everyone could show the supposed victim was till alive. Obviously SCO would get their day in court but no one would pretend there was any merit to the case; which is the proper way of dealing with this type of nonsense lawsuit.
This new claim is just the latest twist in a tangled story that began in March 2003 when SCO sued IBM, claiming IBM's programmers stole code from Unix, to which SCO holds some copyrights
It's funny how it went from "SCO owns UNIX" in the beginning of the lawsuit to "SCO holds some copyrights".
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Parent is exactly right...
Why on earth does anyone listen to Forbes? They are about as baised as it gets. Look at the article:
"Linux zealots will no doubt write off SCO's latest claim as yet another PR ploy. Maybe they would be right. Or maybe SCO is misreading IBM e-mails. Or maybe the e-mails were written by IBMers who didn't know what they were talking about. Or maybe--just maybe--SCO is onto something. "
This from the people who said linux would never make it on the server and currently prophesy how it will never make it on the desktop. Notice how anyone that advocates Linux is a "zealot". Wow. Were all zealots. WTF are they? Oh journalists. I assume that they are "fair and balanced" at that.
Read on...
"One certain thing is that SCO has lost none of its appetite for litigation. To date the firm has sued IBM, Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ), AutoZone (nyse: AZ - news - people ) and DaimlerChrysler"
Yet NO mention of the Daimler suit being thrown out... nothing of any actual substance. That would refute the authors agenda. Hmmm...
Look at the summary of Linux Article's available at Forbes:
Linux Scare Tactics (gee, I'm scared of Linux allready)
Kill Bill (catchy... we are killing people now? eh?)
Linux Loyalists Leery (of Forbes maybe...)
Linux's Hit Men (If we had hit men, I'd vote to send them to Forbes. Have they killed Bill yet?)
IBM Refuses To Indemnify Linux Users (Yeah... they will leave you high and dry folks.)
Red Hat's Mad Matt Vs. Humongous SCO Lawsuit (One little lunitic Red Hat guy against all the odds... )
Why You Won't Be Getting A Linux PC (Really? I got one. So does my dad... who is 60.)
The Limitations Of Linux (It can't read my Fing mind... its defective.)
Boies' Take On Linux (Oh... I'm sure that is insightfull.)
The Cult Of Linux (As...opposed to say the cult of journalism?)
So we are all zealots and members of a cult! And Forbes knows everything, especially about SCO and how to pump their stock price. So who at Forbes is playing SCO's stock? That is what I want to know.
"There are a lot of people on here that are just going to blindly dismiss it. Also, I don't give two shits about SCO, my point is that everyone should try and look at what's going on objectively because there is a lot at stake."
... just what they file in court.
You cannot be objective when you do not have any of the facts.
So far, the ONLY thing you have is that SCO said something to a reporter.
SCO has, in the past, told reporters that millions of lines of Linux code was stolen from SCO.
Until SCO takes this to court, I'm going to believe that they're spewing more crap.
"Now, IBM developers have been contributing a lot to the Linux kernel. Who do you think they got to write the kernel code? Probably a good chance that it was people that were familiar with AIX. IBM is going to have to prove that there was a clear seperation of Linux developers and developers exposed to the SVR4 and Project Monterey code. Otherwise the Linux code is at risk too from this new discovery."
Too many "probably"'s and such in that statement. Again, without any FACTS, it's just worthless speculation.
It isn't up to IBM to prove that they're clean, it's up to SCO to establish that IBM is dirty. So far, SCO has failed to do that time and time again. Despite having all the Linux source code.
"If you look at what happened, SCO and IBM teamed up to work on a 64 bit version of Unix for 64 bit intel processors. IBM backed out of the deal and in doing so SCO claims IBM also backed out of their licensing agreement for SVR4 code."
And, again, SCO has claimed that millions of lines of stolen code were in Linux. It doesn't matter what SCO claims
"Yet AIX is now an SVR4 Unix and there is no licensing agreement for it. This aspect of the case doesn't seem unreasonable enough to not give SCO the benefit of the doubt enough to let them have their day in court."
How many days in court are YOU willing to give them?
Hint: Look up the word "barratry"
One of the reasons for this is that by talking, you're providing your opponents with ammunition to shoot you with. A couple of times now IBM lawyers have presented the judge with public statements by Darl McBride to support their own case.
Darl just can't keep stop talking. I can understand why - he's got his company share price to promote - but making detailed public statements about ongoing court cases has and will continue to bite him on the ass.
If he had half a brain, Darl would let his lawyers do the talking. That's what they are paid for.
If SCO truly found a smoking gun, I don't believe they'd be shooting their mouth off to SCOForum or any other source--they'd wait until they got before a judge or jury and then hit IBM with it,
What exactly are you basing this belief on? Surely not Darl's recent history...
Do you have ESP?
Notice how anyone that advocates Linux is a "zealot"
Exactly. Don't play their game. Someone calls you a zealot, ask them if they know what it means. It's not a swear or anything.
"One who is zealous; one who engages warmly in any cause, and pursues his object with earnestness and ardor; especially, one who is overzealous, or carried away by his zeal; one absorbed in devotion to anything; an enthusiast; a fanatical partisan"
Yeah, I'm an enthusiast, whats that got to do with anything?