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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."
There's no way SCO is going to be able to analyze all this code before they go bankrupt.
... because as fishing trips go, there's one hell of an expedition being organised by SCO.
PS : Didn't SCO claim that they had print outs of all the copied code, that they could show anyone who signed an NDA? Why do they need to search any more of IBM's codebase.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
How can you turn over "even more" of something that's already open sourced?
Doesn't SCO know about kernel.org?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is just another meaningless delay of the case. Such things are actually a victory for IBM. IBM can afford to have this drag on forever. SCO's days are numbered.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Haven't read the article yet, so I'm sure this will be cleared up in a minute when I do, but ... Turn over it's linux-related code? Isn't that what EVERYONE who distributes linux does?
SCO's stock price is going up
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
To quote Groklaw:
Finally, it has arrived, Judge Brooke Wells' Order on SCO's Motion Re Discovery. It's annoying because she enables more delay, but other than that it is a pretty normal discovery order. SCO doesn't get access to CMVC, they do get more code and they get not all programmers' notes but some. She postpones any decision on production of documents from top managment. Keep in mind, she isn't the trier of fact. That is Judge Kimball. She is the Magistrate, so it's not her job to decide who is right or wrong. Her job is simply to make sure everybody's cards are on the table.
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.
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)
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
MyBlog
I'd pipe the code into a *.doc file and make the font about 48ish tahoma script.
Then print it on standard paper.
Hey, SCO, you might wanna bring a truck.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Plain English translation: Consider the source.
Seriously, this was reported in the Salt Lake Tribune? Anyway, enough preamble. This isn't a 'victory' for SCO, as reported. This is the judge partially granting a request for more discovery. Which means that SCO gets more delay, hence the 'victory' part.
Anything more is just fluff.
This starts to look very suspicious to me. I think I will wait few months at most and demand my money back if SCO don't prove their case. I'm glad that I bought and sold SCOX on exactly optimal time, or otherwise I would feel kind of stupid for buying all of those licenses to run 140 Debian boxen in my lab, and 60 Red Hat desktops in the library. Has anyone tried to return the license yet?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Well, as much as this annoys me, Judge Wells is right. SCO gets to look at still more code, but when they still don't find anything, SCO will have nothing left to say. There's nothing there there, and this order ought to establish that fact once and for all.
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.
1. Sue someone for using your code.
2. Have the judge force them to turn their proprietary code over to you.
3. Copy their code into your programs.
4. PROFIT!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
You can find a transcript of the order here on IP-Wars.net. Groklaw has an article about the ruling.
I think the order is outrageous personally. IBM's being ordered to produce all versions of AIX and Dynix along with notes, whitepapers, and all that fun stuff. This is going to be a mountain of code and documents considering that AIX is 20 years old.
--
Join the Pyramid - Free Mini Mac
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Thank you.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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?
The magistrate (who is presiding over pre-trial discovery, not the trial, where a judge will be in charge) noted that the contract between SCO and IBM may well give SCO more rights to the code than copyright law does. Thus IBM might be liable to SCO for putting code in Linux that doesn't violate any copyright SCO may have. IOW, Linux would be OK, IBM would not.
Another theory advanced by SCO that the magistrate did not dismiss out of hand is the possibility that internal IBM AIX and Dynix code changes may show a path between SCO code and Linux. IBM has been contending that if a bare comparison between Linux and SCO code shows no obvious copying, anything IBM did internally is irrelevant.
The bizarre bit is a footnote paying tribute to New York Giants football player Mel Hein that (to mix sports metaphors) comes from way out in left field. It's also ungrammatical ("He played 15 seasons going 60 minutes a game without nearly any rest"), which I'm definitely not accustomed to seeing in Federal court orders.
The code ordered to be handed over was AIX, not Linux. I really don't give a crap whether SCO wins on this, because I don't use it, and, since it is commerical and closed-source, if it has copied code, IBM should be punished for it.
If the Bushies want to do something about abusive litigation why don't they start with this case?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
after all, they have tons of money and if they settle, it will only cause harm to their competitors as they don't have tons of money
And this is different than a protection racket how?
You pay them and they never go away. They get stronger and start squeezing others. I'd rather see them wither and die. It's well known how the problem grows. Ever been to Yellowstone National Park. Why do you think there are "don't feed the bears" signs everywhere?
If you feed the bears, they simply become a big problem.
Please don't advise feeding the bears and hope they go away.
The truth shall set you free!
..but IBM (you know, the one on trial?) has all the code they licenced from SCO. I'm sure they've did lots of comparisons and know SCO is smoking crack. I'm sure they'll let us, the courts and the world know in due time.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
SCO succeeded in delaying even more by requesting more code. The judge granted some, but not all, of what SCO wanted -- e.g. they wanted every revision from IBM's AIX and Dynix source revision control system along with all programmers notes, but instead just got more code and some notes. While this is in part a "victory" for SCO as their request was partially granted, the judge noted that she was doing this so as to prevent any further complaints that IBM has not supplied enough code. In other words, this is the end of the line as far as code discovery goes.
Groklaw of course has more.
The enemies of Democracy are
Isn't SCO just asking for IBM to Open the Source for SCO to chew on? If all the OS source were Open Source, this process would be a 1-day grep affair.
--
make install -not war
Ferget that... if we're willing to destroy the forests to stick it to SCO, we ought to be willing to march en mass to even SCO office and sack/pillage them out of existance, barbarian horde style. Leave the damn forests alone, haven't they suffered enough?
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
This is the best news that scox's primary benefactor could hope for.
This ruling will insure endless delays. Which means the legal cloud over linux will remain for years to come. All the while "independant" tech analysts like Yankee Group will be cranking out articles about the overwhelming legal risks inherent in F/OSS.
The scox-scam is the one of the best investments msft has ever made. $50MM for all that FUD is one hullva bargin.
In the name of accessibility, it should be in Braille.
The contract isn't between SCO and IBM. It's between AT+T and IBM, and everyone at AT+T gave a deposition that says IBM gets to keep it's own code. That's in addition to the side letter AT+T sent to IBM that says IBM keeps it's own code, and the @echo newsletter that says the exact same thing.
As for SCO's theory of copyright, well, SCO would have to own the copyright first (it doesn't, Novell does). Then, they'd have to find their so-called path, which doesn't exist. If it did, they'd have found it in the 272 versions of AIX that IBM already handed over, and would have to have disclosed it by now. Should they manage to conjure one up with their illegal fishing expedition, they'd still have to slip that completely unsupported by case law copyright theory of theirs past Judge Kimball, which isn't likely.
If I were IBM, I'd file a motion to kick Darl in the nuts. Chances are this judge would grant it just to avoid the inevitable "I didn't get to kick Darl in the nuts, therefore the trial is invalid" appeal. Honestly, how much anal probing does SCO get to do before the judge can decide that their case is composed completely of crap?
They're really only sure in the press. In court, where facts are actually analyzed for truth, the story is a lot different...
The theory they're running with is that the code was inserted into AIX/Dynix a long time ago, and eventually worked its way into Linux, but over many revisions in the interim changed so that it no longer looks like the original SysV code, but still is the original SysV code from a copyright standpoint. That's why they can't find it in Linux, because it looks different now.
In reality, as opposed to "Darl Land", they don't have a leg to stand on and they know it. This is all just stall tactics and more attempts to get in the press with "SCO victories" to keep their stock from completely tanking while all the execs sell off their shares
To prove their assinine theory. They need to be able to show the original insertion of SysV code, and all the subsequent changes to it before it went into Linux so that they can prove that the current Linux code, which looks nothing like the SysV code, is actually the SysV code.
Which is of course completely at odds with their public statements regarding code in Linux. Their "experts" -- who they have failed to produce in court -- went over Linux and found tons of blatant infringements according to Darl. Apparently, what you say to the press can be a complete lie and so long as you don't reproduce that lie in court you're okay. Very few of their public statements about the evidence they have made it into their court briefs. Odd, that.
IBM has been saying this repeatedly. They've been basically mocking SCO's inability to actually find anything incriminating, and their failure under court order to show what code in Linux is actually infringing.
As to the Judge -- the issue isn't actually at trial yet, as discovery is still ongoing (and going and going and going...). They have been ordered to show infringing code, and SCO's response was "we can't until we see all IBM code, ever". Judge Kimball is not completely unaware of what B.S. this is, and has noted as much, but not really done anything about it. The going theory at Groklaw is that she is being judicious, and giving SCO as much rope as they need to hang themself so that any decision she makes is going to be rock-solid on appeal.
So far all that is going on is pre-trial discovery. Eventually (assuming SCO still has money to litigate with) these issues are going to be evaluated and if SCO isn't doing a lot better in the actual evidence department, they're going to get screwed.
But not really. This whole time regularly scheduled (so the SEC doesn't think they're timed) sell-offs by the execs have been occuring, and with SCO's bloated price they're making a killing off all the FUD and delays. When the case collapses -- and it will, there's no real doubt anymore -- Darl and friends will have already made their millions, and it is the rest of SCO that will suffer as the remaining employees are layed off and the assets liquidated. If history is any indication, Darl will quit just before this happens and sue what remains of SCO to grab another hunk off the carcass.
And then some other moron will give him a job.
The enemies of Democracy are
"Now prove that you're not, and give them your trade secrets in the process"
1. This is a civil case. Guilt and innocence have nothing to do with civil cases.
2. SCO has no access. SCO's lawyers (and the people they hire) have access, but a previous decision prohibits anyone from SCO getting a look.
Of course now others will rant about SCO's lawyers sneaking stuff to SCO, but that's nothing but conspiratorial horseshit.
What I don't understand is what they are going to do with this. Does SCO have and programmers left? Or any money to pay contractors? Who is going to do the analysis?
I find it odd that SCO can demand all this code and continue with this law suite against IBM, while the Novell case still isn't finished. It would be really embarassing, if after all the money they have spent, it was shown that they never fully owned UNIX. Just think of the law suites SCO would have to face if Novell showed that they still owned the UNIX copywrites, especially with IBM's backing for Novell.
This will end, either because SCO runs out of money, or IBM wins the case outright. Then, IBM sues SCO for what remains of their assets. Given the amount of money IBM has spent already, there is no way that SCO will be able to pay the damages that will be awarded to IBM.
Rather then forcing SCO into bankruptcy,IBM purchases SCO for pennies on the dollar. IBM now owns all licenses for unix, which given IBM's current stance means that unix is now effectively open source. The software karma is now balanced.
Customs Officer: Purpose for visiting the US
Me: Sacking and Pillaging the SCO offices
Customs Officer: Sorry, I think their lawyers just left with the last of the valuables. But feel free to go look for yourself...
... 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.