Slashdot Mirror
Judge Petitioned To Unseal SCO-IBM Court Records
An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Maureen O'Gara has applied to the judge to open all and any filings or transcipts that till now have been sealed by the Utah district court hearing the SCO Group's $5 billion suit against IBM. Groklaw's Pamela Jones notes that 'O'Gara believes the public can't understand the case, because of the sealing' and some of the Groklaw.net members seem to agree that, that since in the U.S. any citizen has a right to review court records in order to monitor the performance of a judge, that O'Gara's 'motion to intervene' will most likely succeed." An anonymous reader writes that Jones last night said of the request "that she is 'of two minds' about the filing: 'I'm crazy wild to read everything. But on the other hand, the court and the parties wouldn't seal things without a reason that seems good to them. I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.' The legal filing to unseal everything has not yet become available via Pacer."
Sigh. I only came here because Groklaw was all slow. I know why now. *grumble*
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I, too, am crazy wild to read everything about this case.
... and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
that's bullshit. my tax dollars hard at work and yet i'm not able to see what's going on?
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Darl McBride is guilty of extortion, he's nothing but a crook!
I'm of the mind that if it affects me in any way, I should have the right to reviewmy government's decisions.
Just because someone sues you....that doesn't mean that all of your private information and trade secrets should become public information.
Mod points are pointless when you browse at -1.
... and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
About code? Sorry lady, I don't think anything shocking will be found.
We still know nothing about what SCO allegeds was stolen. If we knew, the Open Scource community could remove and rewrite offending parts in a few months. (I guess, IANA programmer) Why are people proud that FUD is the only thing they can produce?
I believe a portion of the public (many of whom are here) understand that SCO's case is ridiculous. Really it's just the extent of the ridiculousness that's being sealed off right now.
The part of the public that doesn't understand the case is not going to read these documents anyway. This would however allow experts to analyze the case more effectively, which will in turn benefit the general public's understanding of the case. All in all though, you've got to be in favor of these documents being opened up.
But various new sources have mentioned that Ms. Jones resigned from OSRM because SCO had systematically smeared her participation in that organization. No hard feelings between her and SCO could have crept into any of her announcements about that fine purveyor of THE Unix OS.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
While I'm no fan of O'gara, I must say that she has a point, albeit for possibly the wrong reasons.
The essence of the democratic proces is the transparency of that process. Is there something hidden that we as private citizens would be best served by knowing?
There may not be, but I for one would like the judge in this case to look upon this request seriously and reveal those elements of the case which it is in the public interest to reveal.
I worked at a law firm 4 years ago (in their IT department) and the whole legal system wrt this filing has confused me a lot. I always thought that trials were supposed to be public, but that certainly doesn't seem the case anymore. As of 2000, you had to have some sort of ID or know someone with an ID to get into a courthouse (and if you were coming as a guest of someone with an ID, you had to go through a security check, where as they could just walk in). It seems like most cases you hear about are closed to the public, and occationally the judge will allow some sort of video feed out to the press. It doesn't really bother me all that much because I don't have a huge interest in going and watching a bunch of trials, but I don't ever want to be put in a position where I'm tried for something and nobody is allowed to know anything about the case (as has happened to certain 'enemy combantants' in the last couple of years).
Whatever. It seems like judges are allowed to do whatever they want in their courtroooms, and no other branch of government gets to keep it in check (after all, an appeal judge will support his buddy judge in an appeal of a judicial decision).
In this case, I feel like the information should be made public, mostly because I think it would be great for the public to see that SCO's case is baseless and help clear the name of Linux before decision-makers decide to choose something other than Linux. I also don't see the point of making this case so private, there doesn't seem to be any sort of really good reason to make a case private (strong mafia/mob witness protection type issues, etc.). So, let's hope this filing succeeds.
I would agree with this on the surface...at least for things like National Security Issues, Trade Secrets and other things that do not belong in the public domain. But two things come to mind.
One: This is now a public issue, it has been brought into the courts. There is nothing going on here that should not be in the light of day if someone wants to wade through all the court docs.
Two: At what point does the line get drawn between public disclosure? Some things are obvious. How to make a hydrogen bomb, nope, shouldn't come out even if it is part of court documents. But where does the line end?
Is SCO using the thinking (right or wrong) that this is their proprietary information, therefore the public has no right to it? Wouldn't it be no less proprietary if we could all see it? If they win (blech) then it doesn't matter, we still can't "use" it. If they lose, then well, we can and it doesn't matter either.
Or, are they just using court procedure to hide from the public(media) that their case is weak/strong?
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
And when you're done pinching off, you are ready for the next step....
you know sometimes I get these funny images in my head. when I read this headline I had to picture a combination of two movie scenes. the first would be when they open the ark in indiana jones and the lost ark. the second would be the ghostbusters II scene when the Scoleri brothers come back for the judge.
as in: judge breaks the seal, evil spirits fly around the room causing peoples faces to melt, but then turning into a ghostly darl in the electric chair. The judge looks scared and says NO... not Darl SCOleri!!! I gave him the chair years ago! (judge's face melts from the evil influence of darl).
*sniff*... sorry I just get a little emotional at the notion of darl getting the electric chair.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
are you talking about the point where i wallow in my own stench for a few minutes or when I pay my $699 licensing fee
...not what is in the sealed documents, but whether PJ is an artificial intelligence which does not sleep or have maintenance downtime or whether she is really a bloke in a Red Dress supported by a small research office in OSRM.
Many comments here seem to ignore the fact that this is a civil, not criminal, suit. SCO is suing IBM; the only part the government plays is in providing the judge and courtroom. Why should information be released, just because it is involved in a court case? If you could force someone's private information to be leaked to the public merely by suing them for something, the right to privacy would be severely threatened. Is this what we really want?
> leaking confidential information from SCO that "Jews did World Trade Center."
How the heck did this nonsense slip in? It wasn't in the original article!
My rights don't need management.
Here's an extract:
...
SCO: I present to the court exhibit A.
Judge: What is it?
SCO: I present you the penguin, it's not just a penguin, it's an *EVIL* penguin. Look at it's eyes, look at his eyes! the way they look straight through you, as if to say "I'm Evil", look at the way he waddles along in his "oh so innocent" way, but he doesn't fool us, oh no, he doesn't fool SCO
Judge: Get the hell of my court!
unix is made out of PEOPLE... PEOPLE!!
Here's an extract:
...
SCO: I present to the court exhibit A.
Judge: What is it?
SCO: I present you the penguin, it's not just a penguin, it's an *EVIL* penguin. Look at it's eyes, look at his eyes! the way they look straight through you, as if to say "I am a evil penguin", look at the way he waddles along in his "innocent" way, but he doesn't fool us, OH NO! he doesn't fool SCO
Judge: Get the hell out of my court!
Groklaw accused Maureen O'Gara of lying about the court proceedings a while back, so I guess now we'll find out what really happened.
"PJ" definitely doesn't seem happy about this, sniffing: "I am glad she spells that out for the judge, so he realizes that he has a chance to destroy an entire segment of the IT industry should he choose to go along with the plot."
What's the matter? I thought groklaw was all about serving up the facts, and nothing but the facts?
Oh no, that's what journalists do...
From the article, Pamela Jones of Groklaw states,
personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.
In other words, you believe that people don't have the right to pursue information about this judicial government proceeding. That seems like censorship to me -- here I thought Groklaw were the good guys.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
The interest of justice is a sufficient incentive to maintain the ability to seal certain court filings by participants in a trial. Reductio ad absurdum: what happens if the provision for sealed documents is done away with? Individuals and companies involved in a suit will be *more likely* to attempt to hide evidence since its disclosure could be damaging to them if made public. The whole idea of discovery in a civil trial is to allow pertinent documents to be made available to the other side. If public disclosure of a document could cost a company or an individual much more than the value of the suit, it is highly likely that said document will conveniently disappear.
In current practice, the parties to a civil suit and the court agree to rules defining what may be kept confidential and then the rules are applied to various filings. Requests to seal are subject to challenge by the other party and the filing party is free to file a redacted version of a document without the portions that are subject to being sealed (e.g., leave out the formula for the "secret sauce" but leave in the rules for disclosing it, licensing it, etc.). This works for me.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Recently, courts have taken to imposing publication bans (Read: You've got a right to know, but to exercise it, you'll have to line up for a seat in person, not send your representative, the press), or to sealing documents at the request of either counsel.
I'm of the opinion that, in all but the rarest of cases, the public's right to know what sort of justice is being done in their name trumps parties' desire for secrecy.
I'd like to see the details of all settlements made public, none of this crap about parties using our courts to compel counterparties to agree to secret settlements.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
1) She is going to be deposed.
2) Her articles and publications will be scrutinized by the court and hopefully the SEC.
3) She is going to be asked to reveal her source for the sealed information (she published some of it).
4) All the SCO documents will be unsealed as well as the IBM docs.
5) More depositions! All kinds of people who had nothing to do with the case will be open to deposition. This list will surely include other writes for the publication such as Enderlee as well as other employees of SCO, Canopy and (hopefully) MS.
evil is as evil does
If we wanted more transparency in the world...
/.
they could start by unsealing the usernames of all these anonymous cowards on
M
PJ 'blogs' the facts, albeit sometimes with a fierce preserve for open source, but nevertheless, the FACTS.
The other news sites 'report' what they decide is 'news', and that 'news' can be swayed by whatever/whoever is paying them to say it.
I have been a posting member of Groklaw for ages now, and I damn well trust an ex-paralegal to investigate and 'blog' the truth, rather than any news reporter ANYTIME.
PJ has done the world of 'IANAL' geeks proud - and I would even say without a doubt without PJ and her blog, the SCO FUD would have worked and we would all be in the shit.
O'Gara is the witch that's been defending SCO all along and seems to be cozy with the management. I wonder if SCO put her up to this for some reason...
Get the Windows source code entered as evidence, then get it unsealed, same as this case.
Sometimes confidentiality is necessary.
Sometimes confidentiality is timely
Perhaps what we're really missing is a review process to determine what needs no sealing, what can be unsealed post-trial, what remains sealed through the appeals process, and what should remain trade secret.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Linuxgram part of G2News and claims to "broken most of the key stories in Linux since it was started several years ago." Her version of "news" includes stuff like this tidbit where she breathlessly reports that some guy -- shown two pieces of code with no background or research (and under a non-disclosure agreement no reputable journalist would sign) -- declares them to be the same. That and numerous similar examples show that her "inside information" is obvious; she's sucking up to SCO by spinning the story their way. In return, they give her "inside information" -- which amounts to trivia like this; who they hired for a lawyer or how much they plan to charge for SCOSource -- so she can claim an exclusive story. This isn't journalism, it's pandering.
Kind of reminds me of the old Daily Show slogan, "When news breaks, we fix it."
Except for O'Gara it's more like, "When no news breaks, we invent some."
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
The guys who modded him up are.
On the otherhand, SCO *does* have a very good track record at stalling their various court cases and launching off on tangents that ultimately lead nowhere but consume yet more time. So, suppose the have Maureen ask for the records, what's likely to happen next? Presumably the judge will have to consult with SCO and IBM's lawyers, time will pass, but they quite likely are going to end up giving her the response "no". So, unless things are very definite, Maureen can now ask for just some of the records to be disclosed. The judge then (she hopes) goes back to the lawyers and lengthy arguments ensue about which documents each side should, or should not, disclose.
Also, I wonder if there is anything more that coincidence behind the fact that this should come to light so soon after SCO received a setback in its legal proceedings. Funnily enough, SCO just had its motion to stay the Daimler-Chrysler case until after the conclusion of the IBM case denied... I find it very interesting that this should be announced just one day after SCO lost the ability to use the IBM cases as a brake in another of its lawsuits.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Second: PJ states that she is torn on this current issue. She would love to be able to read all the documents (including the ~35 that are sealed out of 2-300 that have been filed), but she also sees that merely having someone file a malicious court case shouldn't automatically remove all your right to privacy.
Third: Groklaw isn't just about the facts, and nothing but the facts; it's also about analysis of the facts. But the cool thing about Groklaw is that the facts are there to support the analysis, and if you can make a case that the same facts support a different interpretation, they will listen. They may not agree, but they will listen.
Fourth: Your particular quote has a context, which you didn't provide. The context is that O'Gara stated, "SCO's suit claims IBM improperly incorporated aspects of SCO's Unix operating system in Linux. If proved, it could derail the Linux market and take the open source movement down with it." Well, that statement is in a PR release about filing a motion, not in the motion itself. It also has the problem of not stating how, exactly, even if the Linux kernel goes down in the SCO lawsuits, it will take the whole open source movement with it. OS is much more than the Linux kernel; it's also Apache and gcc and BSD and...
But the point of PJ's comment is that the SCO lawsuits seem almost designed to damage the open source movement, by spreading as much FUD as possible for as long as possible. Note the absense of any concrete claims that can be verified, the presense of lots of widely publicised vague claims that can't really be nailed down, and the constant manipulation of the courts to prevent any concrete judgments from being handed down.
PJ's point, then, is that O'Gara's comment shows what the real game is. (Given her other comments, I don't think PJ is very worried about the judge not getting it, however.)
you people that think you have a right to every filed document regardless of content or reason for sealing are confusing the "right" to something with the "desire" for something. the two are not synonymous.
i mean, you must all be ok with sco having "unfettered access" to ibm's code repository just because they want it too. or maybe you people should have that access? after all, it's your tax dollars...
it's not a free for all; it's a court case and there are rules in place to handle these issues for a reason. just because your 18 year old mind doesn't immediately hit on those reasons does not mean they do not exist. or that they were not well thought through before being implemented.
i think i lost iq points reading the comments posted in this thread.
sum.zero
Now I'm stuck with an awesome response in buffer, trying to find the parent post again
Sigh.
I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
This case is really about Linux, and Linux is written by "the public". As a (small-time) kernel contributor I want to hear the sealed information relating to arguments in a court case that is attempting to damage the reputation of a project that I am a contributing author of.
Yes Exactly. Editor: Maureen O'Gara. Read the Fine Article. Maureen is the one trying to unseal to records because "If SCO's Case Proved, It Could Derail The Linux Market and Take The Open Source Movement Down With It". QED.
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
because i could have sworn that sco maintains it is a contract case involving project monterey and unix on power architecture...
but what do i know?
sum.zero
p.s. oss != public domain
This SCO propaganda that Maureen O'Gara fails to mention was published only in her own magazines is so wildly inaccurate that it cannot distinguish between Linux and all other open source software. PJ was making fun of some of the stupid hyperbole that O'Gara is shoveling out in her ludicrous attempt to promote SCO and her own slumping career, which suffered greatly after her last story.
Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat. - Jean-Paul Sartre
I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
Companies should never have the same rights as people, they need to be held accountable for their actions. And they wont do that unless business pratices are made open to the public.
Not picking on you per se (since everyone else in this thread is saying the same thing), but I don't think PJ actually accused O'Gara of lying. It's more like the rest of what you said. She reported that what O'Gara said didn't match any of the eyewitness accounts, so clearly somebody was wrong. But whether it was O'Gara who was wrong, or the eyewitnesses, PJ didn't definitely say since she wasn't there. Of course, the implication is clear, but the actual accusation was not directly made, if I recall correctly.
I believe that you are correct.
Note also that (in the grandparent to this) I did not say that Groklaw accused O'Gara of lying; I merely quoted the parent to that (great-grandparent to this).
I never said this motion would likely succeed. In fact, in my personal opinion, I think the motion may be defective for reasons I'll be writing about. I don't know where this kind of twist comes from, but I know it isn't me.
PJ
Wouldnt it be funny if the judge took the source code and gave it away on P2P networks.
they are already public information, bucko.
I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
When someone decides to file a lawsuit in a public court of law, the public then has EVERY right to know what transpired during that case, for several reasons:
1. Public faith and confidence in court proceedings cannot exist if the courts do not operate openly, allowing and inviting scrutiny of their performance.
2. Fairness in the courts cannot be assured except by the same methods listed above. Closed systems invite corruption, while open systems quickly and efficently expose it.
You have a right to privacy if you are at home in your living room, not if you make a conscious decision to go into a public arena such as a courtroom. Your "right to privacy" doesn't extend to kicking me off the bus because you want to be "in private" on it.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
According to this ip-wars.net story, this 13-page pdf of images is the motion to intervene. A comment at ip-wars contains a text transcription.
Here's an extract:
...
SCO: I present to the court exhibit A.
Judge: What is it?
SCO: I present you the penguin, it's not just a penguin, it's an evil penguin. Look at its eyes; look at his eyes! At the way they look straight through you, as if to say "I am an evil penguin." Look at how he waddles along in his "innocent" way, but he doesn't fool us. Oh no! He doesn't fool SCO
Judge: Get the hell out of my court!
You'd think that a near duplicate repost changing the grammar in a couple places would at least correct the glaring grammatical errors already present. Slashdot is an interesting place.
Direct away from face when opening.
When SCO broke into the $2 territory, I really hoped they were going to continue all the way to the bottom. The stock market really is nuts (which is why I'm into Euros these days).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
With the possible exception of the O.J. trial, this must be the most embarrassing court case the U.S. has had to suffer through in front of an international audience. It took the German legal system, what, a week to bitch-slap SCO? And they didn't even dare try any of this crap in countries like Britain.
So just what will it take for an American judge to finally throw this whole pile out? Why does SCO get to spread rumors that hurt the business of RedHat, IBM, and Novell for months and months without one single bit of hard evidence? This is not a game, it is about real money that is being lost because of FUD, real damage to product images and real smears to reputations. Just why does the judge get to wait forever to get something, anything done?
If P.J. has convinced anybody of anything, it is that the rest of the democratic countries can thank heaven that they are not stuck with the 18th Century anachronism we Americans pretend is a real, functioning legal system. Care to hazard a guess how much the lawyers have made on this already?
I am sorry, but that is the most ignorant answer I have seen in a long time. And rated "insightful"...
The big question is - who would you entrust with the responsibility to judge what is important, what is not "good" for the public? I consider myself an extremely honest person, yet I would not entrust myself with the discrimanatory power to decide what should and what shouldn't be open to the public.
"power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
You will learn (hopefully) the truth of this saying with age.
The whole point here is exactly this: Openness. It is the only thing that works. It does impede some progress in certain cases, but it is the only thing that ensures us against corruption, which WILL come if we dont have checks in place...
-TN
puke
Man, she's ugly too.
ClientServerNews (LinuxGram's "sister company") have released a PDF document of the filing by O'Gara.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Please, don't ever lose your idealism. It's the primary catalyst for making things better. It's our vision of how things ought to be that makes it possible to change the way they are.
"When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain
Does anyone remember when Caldera was suing MS?
Whatever happened to that suit?
... if Maureen O'Gara would melt if she got wet!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
> I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
Oh, that's just silly.
These are publicly traded companies wrangling over copyright and licensing details. The sealed material doesn't contain "private" stuff that would truly deserve to be kept private (like personal medical records and such). It most likely just contains details about their business operations, contractual matters, and so forth.
If a company has trade secrets, and those secrets end up in court documents, then I guess the company wasn't careful enough now, was it? They should be more careful next time. (I'm reminded of Scientology v. Fishman here.) Companies are abstract legal entities that don't deserve "privacy" like people do. Companies have something much better than privacy -- they have highly-paid lawyers looking out for their interests. If those lawyers screw up and end up releasing "sensitive" information, then I, for one, am not going to shed a single tear.
I only have one, Anonymous coward. It is on every post I post, what more do you want my address or something?
First off, there is a balance between the right to privacy and the right to know.
Secondly, hasn't it occurred to anyone that SCO has been asking for an awful lot of company confidential material from IBM? With "awful lot" I mean to the point of being rediculous and apparently completely irrelevant to the case itself.
Given the ease by which bits of confidential information appears to make it into the public (like the reading out of IBM data in court despite a judge's order to stop it) I would, as IBM, feel rather concerned - these are, after all, their business secrets. And sorry, you *don't* have a right to know those. Otherwise go and ask Microsoft for the same, they're in court more often AFAIK.
I agree you/me/planet ought to have full access to court proceedings, but I think SCO is demonstrating quite clearly how this can potentially be abused. Given the origin of some of their financial backing I guess it's imported expertise.
Now, back to the journo, I have no idea what her motive is, but I remain unconvinced this has anything to do with real journalism.
Disclaimer: all of this IMHO, and IANAL etc..
Insert
Corporate citizenship allows plaintiffs to actually recover when a corp has wronged them. Who are they going to sue? The individual officers who have hightailed it to tahiti or have no money? It allows innocent members of the corp to be shielded from liability. It allows a court to determine where the Plaintiff may have personal jurisdiction over the Defendant and if a federal court has diversity for subject matter jurisdiction. Stop spewing the groupthink found here on slashdot. Corps are treated as citizens for a good reason. I doubt you have a better reason for not treating them that way other than "well.. sniff.. I saw that movie the Corporation and they said... sniff.. that corps are bad and ruining America... sniff."
This is a CIVIL case, what do you not understand about that? If you and your landlord were involved in a legal dispute and some nozy reporter came along in your CIVIL dispute and demanded access to your phone records, emails, etc...even though they may not be pertinent to the case, would you then think that reporters should be able to mess in other people's business?
"I can see dead servers"
I can't see how the judge would agree to open up court documents that contain trade secret information, unless it's in a redacted form (and then it might render some of the documents devoid of content).
And what basis would your legal team "company" have to sue the other company?! To transfer the assets that give your company the right to sue would imply transfering things you don't want to open and then you are back to the beginning...
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Calling these FUD-monkey shills "news sources" is like calling the Iraq Info Minister a "news source". O'Gara is as reliable as Microsoft wants her to be, which is not at all. She's no better than Didio, Enderle, and the stock pumpers on the various message boards. These people make me sick, and I cannot wait for the day when their masters get thrown in the clink for this blatant fraud.
P.S. If you're reading this, or (more likely) having someone else read it to you, Biffy or Luddite, go fuck yourselves, biotch.
HAHAHAHA:
Moderation -2
100% Offtopic
This guy is telling the truth about an offtopic post, and HE gets modded offtopic! It would have been nice to have people like these moderators in some of my college classes. They'd make everyone else seem smart.
You mods are such bitches!