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IBM Tells SCO Court It Can't Find AIX-on-Power Code
Ghostx13 writes "A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
IBM has nothing to hide, they just don't want to give up the code. Or maybe they can't find it because it doesn't exist and SCO is making a false claim.
First post?
...but that horrid layout makes it tough to tell where the ads end and the article starts.
I think you can safely laugh at this before RTFA.
This is one written by Maureen O'Gara, who has about as much credibility as Laura DiDio.
Straight to the FUD Shill round file.
Why should IBM be forthcoming ?
After all, it's SCO they are dealing with and to be honest, I don't know anyone who would want to deal with them, except maybe the guy with the horns and the tail.
I know who I'd rather back in a dispute of this nature, given the track records overall.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Linuxworld should be named "LinuxSuxWorld." It is devoted entirely to advertisers, with occasional snarky anti-Linux "articles" thrown in for show. They shouldn't even bother with the articles, and just shill 100% for advertisers like CNet/ZDNet.
Then again, it could just be another fluff piece to try and boost the stock price up from yet another 52-week low. On the subject of which, the price of SCOX is now at almost exactly the same level it was right before Linux got dragged kicking and screaming into the court case and things went crazy...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(1) SCO has all the SV code.
(2) SCO has access to all the code in Linux.
If there is no overlap between these two, then there is no copyright infringement, despite the crack-addled theories proposed. They may have a case against IBM for contract breach from one of their previous dealings, but I really doubt it.
What I wonder about is do they do this stuff as pure internet trolling? In other words, putting something out there that they know will inflame people so that it gets posted to Slashdot et. al. and therefore gets lots of page views and thus advertising dollars for their web site?
Or have they been bought off by somebody else? I mean, how does SCO, a broke, shitty company if ever I've seen one, get this small but vocal cadre of middling tech journalists to push their agenda loudly? Even now, when the market, mainstream journalists and anybody else with half a brain have pretty much written SCO off. That's why I wonder if maybe this is just trolling for ad impressions.
Just a thought... not a particularly focuses one, but a thought.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
If IBM wants to align itself with linux, it can't afford to play dirty licensing games with UNIX code. It's that simple. Either the company embraces open-source or else it's just another FUD factory -- even though it's currently a pro-linux FUD factory, it's still unacceptable.
I'm not saying IBM is guilty or innocent, but I am hoping to God it really can't find the code, because they make some good fuckin hardware, and I'd hate to have to hate 'em.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
So, open source is like some sort of backup system for IBM's source code, then?
:)
That IBM can lose source code to an entire operating system helps dispel any argument that, for posterity, source code is safer in companies.
Has been entirely and quickly forthcoming with millions and millions of lines of code that SCO has basically been demanding as part of a fishing expedition.
One single piece of code out of these mountains IBM claims has gone missing.
Possible explanations from this:
1. IBM is telling the truth.
2. This is the one single piece of infringing code in all of Dynix or whatever which is infringing, and so they are hiding it.
Reasons for believing number one to be true: Well, it's extremely plausible. Given how much that IBM has produced the idea one single document among all of this has been legitimately lost within IBM is fairly believable.
Reasons for believing number two to be true: Well, nothing. But it's possible.
We certainly
SCO's strategy, for lack of a case until this point, has been to demand increasingly larger mountains of discovery until they hit something that is unreasonable. Once something proves to be unreasonable, they go to the press yelling "What does IBM have to hide???". SCO's media shills, working in a vacuum as they do, have been able to do this as often as they like despite the fact that generally, the reason IBM has not provided these things is that the judge ruled they did not have to. Meanwhile, it is probably important to keep in mind SCO has consistently refused to comply with even the most basic of discovery demands, even sometimes when ordered by the judge.
Now they appear, within this strategy, to have struck gold. They have located something which IBM is not producing, but yet the judge actually agrees IBM should produce-- and which IBM claims it is unable to produce. However, still, they have produced no evidence that this indicates wrongdoing of, well, any sort. There's no way you could make this appear so much as suspicious except by pointing to, well, the fact IBM's been so entirely forthcoming up until now. Once you do that it is possible to make it appear suspicious, yet, but not possible to actually make anything of it in court; from a court's perspective this detail is quite small. So it appears this is no victory for anyone except SCO's disconnected-from-reality PR shills.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
> and any moronic idiot that is given mod points
> that mods an anonymous post should never again
> be given anything.
Surely that depends on whether you think mod points are allocated to assist overcompetitive nerds to rack up their Karma scores, or whether you think the point is to increase the visibility of interesting and insightful articles.
I note that *you* posted as an Anonymous Coward. Perhaps there's some significance in that, but I'm fucked if I can figure out what it might be. Fear of the mods yourself, perhaps?
At the hearing, one of SCO's lawyers, another young thing from Boies, Schiller & Flexner whose footwork was smooth enough to impress even Groklaw's IBM-dazzled observers,
Wow, wait, what? Is this meant to be taken as objective?
mentioned the little matter of SCO's days-old Third Amended Complaint, which, alas, is under seal reportedly because it's based on some e-mail that turned up during discovery that IBM now claims is privileged though there's supposedly no hint of attorney-client communication about it.
Notice that SCO's side in this case seems to have absolutely zero respect for the judge and his rulings? The judge rules that IBM doesn't have to produce something; this becomes "IBM won't produce this thing". The judge rules that something SCO did in the courtroom violates confidentiality and orders it sealed; this becomes some kind of who-me where-on-earth-did-this-come-from thing which is somehow implied to be IBM's fault. Don't you think, maybe, the judge so consistently failing to take SCO's side isn't just some kind of head-slapping, inexplicable coincidence, but perhaps indicates some sort of problem on the part of SCO's lawyers?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts