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IBM Ordered to Show More Code to SCO
editingwhiz writes "Bob Mims of the Salt Lake Tribune has the scoop straight from the courthouse steps: 'A federal magistrate has handed a partial victory to Utah's SCO Group, ordering computer giant IBM to turn over more of its Linux operating system-related program codes. U.S. Magistrate Brooke Wells' ruling, released just minutes after Salt Lake City's federal courthouse closed Wednesday, came in the Lindon software company's contractual suit stemming from Big Blue's alleged distribution of Linux applications purportedly tainted with SCO's proprietary Unix code.' If at all possible, SCO's going to be even more insufferable now -- it has a glimmer of hope."
IANAL, far from, actually, but shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't SCO be releasing code to an independent party to determine if its copyright has been breeched? Or will they keep requesting more code and fish around for something they can 'try to claim' is a copyright violation?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Has SCO been ordered to show any code of theirs that they claim has been infringed upon?
So IBM turns over some code, and SCO says "yep, all of that is an infringement, pay up!" How do we know otherwise?
-kidlinux.
Because the code they're being ordered to turn over is for AIX and Dynix, which isn't Open-Sourced.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
Uhh Darl, you're fifteen minutes are up.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Paying them off would admit that SCO's got a case. By fighting them (which they definitely have the resources to do), they're sticking up for the entire community. Way to go IBM!
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
SCO has already failed to produce any real evidence of Copyright code in Linux. Nothing produced by SCO from any of this evidence can change that. Everyone using Linux is safe.
This request is to support SCO's weird derivative tale that despite AT&T contracts saying IBM was free to develop code, Novell waiving the rights, and testimony from various people that IBM is bound by contract such that any code that touches SCO code is still controlled by SCO.
Why would SCO need to analyse IBM's code, if the reason for the lawsuit is in the first place because SCO knows IBM infringed on SCO's code?
I mean, in order to know there is infringement, you'd have to have already figured out what part of the code was "stolen", right?
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
You know, you're probably joking but you do have a point.
Perhaps the whole point of this was to have an increase in SCOs stocks so that folks have the opportunity to dump and jump the ship.
These days when laws are written by the rich and bought over by the powerful, you never know =)
What is seems is that IBM may have gotten System V from SCO and then added some features that were original creations of IBM (to create AIX/Dynix). IBM is then alleged to have given those new features to Linux. SCO is claiming they own those "new" features created by IBM because of some wording in the System V contracts.
Now, we can all reasonably conclude that this is stupid; if I buy a car and design a new fin for it, then sell the fin design to others, the car companies don't claim the fin design is their property. However, when we purchase a car we don't sign a "derivative works" contract with the car dealer or manufacturer.
The way I see it there are a couple of things that could happen. One is that the original contracts may be found to say that derivative works are property of SCO, in which case IBM did not have the right to give them away for use in Linux - and I would say IBM was dumb to sign such a contract and should legally pay. However, even if the contract was written for that scenario, the court might find that such a provision is "unreasonable" and is void (similar to the car example). Another way it could go is that IBM somehow took code that it did not originally create but thought it owned and contributed it to Linux. This is a little more tricky because it's basically an "oops, we didn't read the original contract correctly".
Out of those scenarios, the latter is the worst because it would mean that [Linux] is infringing. In the former case, either SCO owns the derivative works or doesn't. I would argue that, if SCO is found to own the derivative works, IBM charges them some large amount of money for the development of those new works. Probably to the tune that SCO is filing in the suit, since that is the apparent value on those features. After all, IBM did not develop those features gratis for the benefit of SCO!
All in all, I think all sides (SCO, IBM, the Linux crowd) are focusing on the wrong things here. Litigation never added value to society at all and sucks up resources. I definitely agree with the camp that thinks SCO would be better off devleoping product than litigating.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
... it is a victory for SCO, because it's
A) irrelevant to the case
B) something they asked for
C) onerous for IBM to produce, and
D) something IBM didn't want to give them (because it's irrelevant to the case, as well as onerous to produce.)
Yes, we all know that SCO is going to use this as a delay. First, it will take IBM a long time to produce it, and as soon as IBM hands it over, SCO's gonna request *more* time, because it's too much for them go through in the remaining discovery period.