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DaimlerChrysler/SCO Case Winds Down
kuwan writes "It was previously reported that SCO moved for and was denied a stay in their case agains DaimlerChrysler. (Remember that all of SCO's claims against DaimlerChrysler were thrown out except for the issue of whether or not DaimlerChrysler made its certification in a timely manner.) The opposition and reply memos for that motion are now available and apparently SCO's motion was so weak that DaimlerChrysler is asking SCO to pay the cost of preparing their opposition memo. A nice summary of the latest maneuvers is available at scofacts.org."
They were an old UNIX licensee from the AT&T days - one of thousands. A while back SCO sent requests to all of those ancient licensees requesting that they certify that they're only using the code in a proper way (and implying that using linux might be in violation; probably an attempt to drum up business for their lawsuit protection racket) Of course the license are for really old versions of UNIX so the question is pretty silly (it'd be like Microsoft suddenly doing a license audit of all Windows 3.0 customers) so almost noone bothered to actually reply.
DCC was one of the thousands that didn't reply. For whatever reason SCO decided to sue them as an example or something. DC basically replied with "We haven't used the software we licensed from AT&T for over seven years; there we've certified now go away" A judge ruled that this was a valid certification and threw 99% of the case away. They left SCO the option to continue the case soley on the basis of whether DC certified promptly enough (the contract between AT&T and DC didn't mention a deadline for this certification)
Amazingly SCO decided to continue the case in that vein -- probably so they don't have to admit defeat quite yet. Of course now they're trying to put the case so far on the back burner that it will never actually go to trial. DC is fighting that and trying to get SCO to go to trial now.
Don't forget the fact that SCO's letter to Chrysler was peppered with questions that were unrelated to the contract terms. Those questions involved detailing Chrysler's use of Linux to replace SCO's antiquated software, questions which have no relationship to the terms of the original Software License, and to which SCO had no right to even expect answers.
Again, this case was mostly about the hare-brained scheme that McBride and his cronies cooked up. Having been a litigious bastard in his own right, McBride thought that as soon as he started throwing the word "lawsuit" around, everyone subject to the threat would simply crumple up and pay SCO rather than fight back, and that other UNIX/Linux users would see this and pile on for the SCOSource licenses, thus leading to the huge pump on the stock price in anticipation of this seeming windfall.
Personally, I think McBride should turn back to his bag o' blow.
Requesting attorneys fees and costs from your opponent on a motion is pretty much standard practice. What will be interesting to see is if the defendants (Daimler/Chrysler) later move for sanctions under the local "frivolous claim" rule in their jurisdiction. These kinds of rules exist in the Federal courts (Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) and most states. It looks like Michigan has a similar rule in effect (MCR 2.625(A)(2), MCL 600.2591(2)). Nice thing about these kinds of provisions is that their sanctions can be directed against the attorneys as well as the parties. Sorry for not including links to the citations, but for obvious reasons I don't want to be responsible for the "slashdotting" of a particular Federal or state court website. Just Google it.
eldapo