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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?"
It is buried under the sand in Iraq somewhere.
Because it never existed in the first place. They are just making things up now, and there is no reason to believe anything they say, especially with all the egg coating on their integrity.
*De gozaru!*
...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.
IBM did agree to disclose the code in question in exchange if SCO published a pic of Darl in a naked fetal position on their homepage.
For a site with linux in it's url, it seems very negative against linux and has taken SCO's side in the past. Is such a story really news worthy coming from LinuxWorld?
Of course I am not even going into all the legal disputes, including the two orders by the judge for sco to comply and point to the lines they claim infringe (which they claim publicly to have, and they should have before bringing a lawsuit if they wish to get anywhere).
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.
Groklaw's IBM-dazzled observers
I don't know, but your article loses all credibility when it includes this statement in the first paragraph. Most of the Groklaw readers aren't pro-IBM, they are anti-SCO.
This is the second or third journalist to repeat this pseudo-meme, and that doesn't make it any more true. In fact, I think this has become so-called "LinuxWorld"'s party line.
People hate SCO because of what SCO has done, period. There is nothing more to say about it.
This article is a troll, plain and simple. I don't know anything about the disposition of AIX source code re: IBM and SCO's contractual relationships
in the past, but I certainly won't take any source seriously that is so broken in their understanding of the basic underlying facts.
Who is behind LinuxWorld? Why the ridiculous pro-SCO equivocation and anti-IBM attacks? Regardless of how you feel about IBM, how can anybody else associated with the software industry support a company that has made IP-lawsuits its first and only business priority?
is so fucked up (excuse my language, but i was pissed of):
SCO and IBM met in federal court in Utah again Tuesday for another go-round over the discovery that IBM hasn't produced in SCO's $5 billion lawsuit against it.
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, 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.
Anyway, the sealed Third Amended Complaint has to do with SCO's contention that - to compete against Sun - IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture - and one of the supposedly compromising IBM e-mails - that SCO just happened to read out loud in court the other day - suggests that IBM was conscious that it had overstepped the bounds of its Project Monterey contract with SCO, which was intended to produce only a version of AIX for Intel's Itanium chip (CSN No 564).
Well, during the Third Amended Complaint discussion, SCO's lawyer held up a piece of paper - that was duplicated on a projection screen that only the magistrate judge, Brooke Wells, could see - that listed all of the AIX code that IBM has and hasn't turned over to SCO. And SCO's lawyer pointed out that the only piece of code that IBM hasn't come up with - which was highlighted in red - was the AIX-on-Power code - to which IBM's lawyer replied that IBM "can't find it."
Shades of the Compuware suit. They "can't find it."
Makes one wonders whether IBM looked in that closet in Australia where it said a few weeks ago it just happened to stumble over the source code - the source code it swore - literally swore in court for two years - didn't exist - the code that it was supposed to produce during the court-ordered discovery phase of the suit that Compuware brought against IBM for, well, for stealing its source code.
IBM only managed to find the code after discovery had closed and the trial was about to start, a situation that it got its ears boxed for by the District Court for Eastern Michigan, which called its behavior "gross negligence."
Magistrate Wells has yet to cross that bridge, however.
After listening to what everybody had to say - and all the reasons why IBM shouldn't have to produce all the rest of the stuff that SCO wants - particularly the IBM Configuration Management and Version Control System (CMVC) and Revision Control System (RCS) that SCO thinks is the key to its case - she reserved any final decision so she could go off and have a think about it - and probably confer with her staff and her colleague Judge Dale Kimball, who's hearing IBM's motion for a partial summary judgment - a decision, IBM pointed out, that might make her ruling moot.
However, she did give IBM and SCO 30 days to exchange so-called privilege logs listing all of the discovery that they're not providing each other because it's allegedly privileged.
She also told IBM to get affidavits from IBM management, including CEO Sam Palmisano, the CTO of IBM's Unix/Linux interests Irving Wladawsky-Berger and IBM's board of directors, attesting that nothing more exists in their files regarding IBM's Linux activities.
See, IBM - having produced one single PowerPoint presentation - contends that there are no other e-mails, memos, business plans or presentations about Linux anywhere in the joint, evidently proving that not only can elephants dance, but that they really do have good memories.
The lunatic is in my head
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!
I have been working with IBM Content Management products for about 3 years now as a Sys-Admin / Programmer.
On occasion I'm in Awe of IBM. The abilities they have to produce huge enterprise applications in a short amount of time is amazing.
But usually I'm in Awe of IBM in a negative light
There have been several times that IBM couldn't come up with the binaries for some of their fixpack levels of some of their products., let alone the source code. The developers were like . . . uh . . . we don't have that code any more.
Oh yeah? Where did it go?
The fact that they can't come up with the source code for some parts of their AIX OS does seem suspicious but comes as no shock to me.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
IBM has document retention policies specifically to limit liabilities. Or more like document destruction policies. All emails have to be wiped after two years. They probably truly don't have the code anymore.
Recently I had the misfortune of Microsoft trying to find some include files from an Embedded Win CE V3 platform builder (don't ask, it wasn't my decision to use that crap) for me for an older single board computer. They no longer had the source, either. And it would have been very *good* for them if they'd been able to come up with it. They literally didn't have it anymore.
Throwing company materials away as early as possible is the newest predefensive corporate legal maneuver. If tobacco companies had done that, they'd have saved a lot of money. Probably watching the tobacco companies is what gave other companies the idea.
Banky Edwards: Alright, now see this? This is a four-way road, OK? And dead in the center is a crisp, new, hundred dollar bill. Now, at the end of each of these streets are four people, OK? Are you following?
Holden: Yeah.
Banky Edwards: Good. Over here, we have a mild-mannered, restrained, God-fearing Darl McBride holding the stolen SVR4 code. Down here, we have an SCO-hating, angry as fuck, full of rage, frenetic IBM lawyer. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?
Holden: What is this supposed to prove?
Banky Edwards: No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? The mild-mannered Darl, the angry IBM lawyer, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny?
Holden: The angry IBM lawyer.
Banky Edwards: Good. Why?
Holden: I don't know.
Banky Edwards: Because the other three are figments of your fucking imagination!
For every additional motion SCO has to file to make IBM play ball, that's more money from their pocket.
Every time SCO doesn't immediately get what they ask for, SCO is forced to wait it out a bit longer.
Admittedly, I have no insight into IBM's strategy against SCO. But were I to be faced against the litigious whores at SCOX, I wouldn't want them to have an easy time of it.
-kev
(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.
here is the link
I left this as a response to that horribly written, ad and idiocy infested article.
You can't handle the truth.
*waves hands*: This is not the source code you are looking for.
Not that I have any reason to trust IBM but I have all the reasons not to trust SCO: What if a corrupt IBM employee made that code disappear? SCO cannot do that? What about another company who already helped SCO out?
It's SCO's *third* claim, so maybe they devised a better FUD tactic this time? These questions and similar ones I would have dismissed as too unlikely, but in this case I believe IBM is innocent until SCO proves otherwise.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
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
Right in front of my eyes, some of the comments left on that site have disappeared, it went down from 8 to 5 comments in just a second.
So, the truth hurts, and the truth in this case is - everyone who goes to read this article hates what is written there but most likely does not understand the entire issue at hand about the SVR4, leaves a comment of this sort: "This site is ugly and ad-ridden, and Maureen is a SCO shill" and the editor removes the comment. The entire issue is like that SCO was allright with this move by IBM and there is a story to support this at groklaw. The story goes like this: there was a document on the SCO's site for a while that talked about how great it will be that IBM will have SVR4 code in their Power design... But the article was remove from SCO site.
You can't handle the truth.
IBM has nothing to hide, they just don't want to give up the code.
I think that this is right, reading the prior court documents at Groklaw.
Or maybe they can't find it because it doesn't exist and SCO is making a false claim.
AIX runs on Power..... So this is not it.....
More likely, I think. SCO is saying " Show us the code. IBM has been saying "Here is the general source code for AIX. The rest you need a court order for."
I think SCO is making false claims about IBM's non-compliance. Nothing new.
Of course we can't read the third ammended complaint yet nor do we have IBM's response. So this is all one-sourced, one-sided at this time.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I am amazed that Slashdot would lend credibility to a story by Maureen O'Gara. She's nothing more than a hack with an obvious anti-Linux bias.
I had been considering subscribing to Slashdot. I have now decided that I'll spend my money where the editors have better sense.
> 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?
IBM has provided SCO with the full source code to several versions of AIX that they were ordered to by Judge Brook Wells, within one week of being so ordered. SCO was directed to parse those source code files and identify the files and lines of that source code, that they believed were specifically relevent to the case they are persuing related to IBM.
So far all SCO has done has been to complain that the code (which they specifically requested and which was granted by Judge Wells) was not sufficient for them. Further they have requested copies of all versions, sub-versions, itterative builds, notes, and so forth for AIX, back to the very begining of AIX, as well as e-mail and memos from executive management that might be relevent to the case.
IBM has basically responded, 'you will have to take the results of your code review of the material you have received so far, present them to the Judge, and show what part of those results entitles you to further discovery.' Additionally they have pointed out that what they are asking for will take orders of magnitude more work to provide than what they had requested earlier.
SCO has made the interesting response that IBM's versioning software should make these responses easy to comply with, and 'Hey, just give us direct/remote access to it, and we won't have to bother you about it.'
Umm, yeah, anyone else think that the judge granted them the opportunity to make a brief fishing trip to some streams they have named, and SCO is saying 'Hey the fish have not been biting, let's make it a flight to a deep water fishing expedition.'
I am not a lawyer, much less a judge. Based upon what I have seen published, I would have a very hard time approving further discovery into AIX code, much less AIX-on-Power code, which was not asked for in the first place.
-Rusty
You never know...
It's funny, but the transcript of that court hearing is sealed. Why? SCO read a priviledged email out loud in open court, strangely enough, concerning this very architecture (and that's all we'll know unless SCO & co. leak information, or the court releases a redacted transcript). As you may or may not realize, that's bad. As in the kind of thing that gets the lawyers in trouble.
:]
So that makes it hard to comment on what this all means, but it does make me suspicious here. What better way to spread FUD than to get the court transcript sealed and blather whatever you like to the media in the mean time? Whether by accident or design, that's exactly what SCO has been doing.
And, as for this code, I sincerely doubt it contains anything helpful to SCO. By all accounts, they've filed an utterly baseless lawsuit that has forever been in search of any wrongdoing by IBM, and they haven't exactly come up with a lot.
Every single piece of "evidence" they have ever put forth that we can actually see and analyze has been shown not to support SCO's position. Rather, they pounce on anything the least bit out of place and use innuendo to imply that there "must" be something more to it, because we cannot assume they would be so stupid as to do something like this without some proof...
Given that that's how they've been operating, I conclude that this is nothing more than an unscripted bluff. That's right--they have no master plan, they're just making up crap as they go along, using whatever story is most convenient at the time. That's why the story keeps changing--they're bluffing and they have been the whole time. It was never anything but a shakedown premised on the theory that a company the size of IBM must have something to hide.
So, to anyone who says "there must be something to this, or SCO wouldn't have done that," I say: SCO really is that dumb.
Now, as for the other story, we're getting legal threats, etc. from that fellow who tried to buy Linux for $50,000 over on Groklaw, all due to some old court documents where people called him delusional. He did say something about a secret, personal mission to "save" Linux (or something--I don't claim to have his story straight any more than someone can claim to understand what SCO's current claims are).
I wonder when this will be turned into a geek soap opera? "As the SCO Burns" or something?
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
Scribbler O'Hara misunderstood her SCO input:
... the little matter of SCO's days-old Third Amended ...
>
> Complaint, which, alas, is under seal
There is no Third Amended Complaint. To file a 3rd amendment
SCO needs approval by the Judge and IBM has to be
consulted. Although their chances to be refused are high,
it may happen that SCO ask the Judge for permission to file
such an amendment because they are so desperate to extend
discovery to the end of time and never have to let down
their pants in court.
Note that the story about AIX using non-licensed
Unixware code is more than one year old and was already
dissected and debunked, see Groklaw as usual:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=132
Groklaw has a rebuttle here.
Basically the whole story is a lie. The judged sealed the transcripts of the hearing (probably because of the confidential email the SCO lawyers read aloud), so the author couldn't have checked her facts. All the witnesses who attended the hearing and reported back to Groklaw say that IBM never said anything about "losing" code.
Just another Microsoft shill.
There were 2 folks there who reported to Groklaw what happened. They also report that Maureen O'Gara was *not* at the hearing.
See: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200410231 53851359
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody