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IBM Subpoenas Intel Into SCO Fray
whovian writes "Since IBM was ordered by the courts to show more code, they are now reported by Groklaw to have subpoenaed Intel to show 'all communications between Intel and SCO or Canopy about IBM, Unix or Linux, all meetings with either concerning IBM, Unix or Linux, and all contracts or other business relations, past, present, or future, between Intel and SCO.' The text is available at the website."
If IBM really had this "in the bag", why would they need to do such a huge step as issuing a subpoena to Intel for all that information?
No company wants to give up that much information, especially when much of it is not useful for the case and possibly damaging to Intel's business.
So far, Intel has been a relative outsider in all of this, and it is hard to understand what IBM is trying to get by bringing in a hardware manufacturer into this software matter. This may be a motion to subpoena, but even IBM's army of lawyers seems to be grasping at any straw now.
I personally don't think SCO has a very strong case, but watching IBM's actions, it seems that IBM is the one with the lack of firm ground.
Wake me up when it is over.
I'm sure IBM would be happy if linux on ppc hardware got REAL popular
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But even then, the counter suits, and residual suits for damages, etc. This may be going on for a looooooooooooong time. When will it end is, indeed, a good question.
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only goes to show that nobody goes down alone.
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Don't ask me what it means, because all it means to me so far is that IBM suspects or knows something we don't yet know but we will, I'm sure, eventually find out. You don't usually have to depose your best friends, though. They tell you whatever you need to know volitionally, because they want you to win, and they'll do a declaration for you. You subpoena folks who are not eager to tell you what you wish to learn, or who wish to appear so.
No, you usually don't have to depose your best friends. Which is why this action may give some insight into the real state of relations between IBM and Intel.
Now that IBM has dumped their Intel PC business, they can afford to take off the gloves, and not have to worry about making nice in the morning.
So far the consensus here was that it is Microsoft behind the whole SCO debacle -- but what if IBM knows better (and I guess I'd bet my $10 on THEM knowing better ;-) ).
Is it a purely defensive move? Or is the the "beginning of the end" of the PC industry as we knew it?
Linux + PPC (+ IBM) might beat BSD + PPC (+ Apple) -- espcially since IBM makes the PPC part! -- and definitely beats Windows + i86, but why the hell NOW??? What do they know that I do not?
Maybe I should actually go RTFA, but I doubt it will clear things for me.
Paul B.
Bumblebee Man from the Simpsons gets involved?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
What they most likely want to establish is that SCO new Itanium was delayed and Intel notified them about the changing strategy of the processor.
SCO is claiming that the Monteray project was cancelled by IBM "out of the blue (Pun somewhat intended)" and due to the advent of Linux. IBM canceled the Monteray project as they were allowed to do since the business reason for continuing was no longer there. They need to have Intel confirm this, information which Intel obviously is reluctant to provide
Help fight continental drift.
OK, So SCO starts a frivolous lawsuit to try and become a household name before it goes belly up. Now, in the crosshairs, and with far more power and finances at their disposal, IBM calls in some other top-dogs to drag this out into a dirty courtroom scrap that promises to last even longer. Stalling tactics hoping SCO runs out of money? Maybe, but more likely, like most of these software-based lawsuits, it's just to add enough confusion to the mediation to keep anyone who wasn't actually there from ever seeing the truth. And this drama all plays out for us on the daily news... lucky us. Your tax dollars hard at work. That's one expensive soap-opera.
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Spelling and grammer helps when attempting to disseminate a professional opinion.
When will it end?
It will end when either the defense or the offense runs out of money. They will chase anybody and anything that had any contact with Linux in any way do drag out the proceedings until the money runs out.
From what I see, this was never intended to be a quick case. I just wonder who the heck is funding this new round of SCO legal action and how long can they keep it up.
Follow the money if you can.
The truth shall set you free!
In the before time, from the long long ago Intel ported and sold a Unix of its own.
Perhaps info regarding thost contracts is what IBM is after.
With very few exceptions, no one who will post in this thread has any authoritative knowledge of business analysis or high-level computing industry politics. I can also predict that not a single soul who posts in this thread will have a good understanding of the legal nuances of IBM's most recent actions in the SCO case.
So please, don't waste our time with useless conjecture, predictions, and "what-if" scenarios. Because really, what's going on here is just mental masturbation. Move along.
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Grmamar deos, but stuides have shwon taht if you at laset get the frist and last letetrs rihgt, poelpe can gerenaly raed it.
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You know if enough companies subpoena each other maybe we'll end up with "open source" hardware (not necessarily GPL) but force all the companies to give up their trade secrets and consumers reap all the benefits! MWUahahahaha!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
... well that aren't valid in the first placed.
It like a bunch of people have pursued some man made rules or laws that rely on the earth being flat. But now that the earth really isn't flat, these rules, these laws are having a problem holding up. A lack of integrity of the rules/laws of which so many have beeing following.
So yeah, its really not supprising the exposure of the web of distortion that has spread thru out the industry.
Imagine what it would be like to see from the POV of one having clairity of the issue. Imagine how those following and supporting such distortion would be preceived by such a POV.
Perhaps this is such a view!?
"Grmamar deos, but stuides have shwon taht if you at laset get the frist and last letetrs rihgt, poelpe can gerenaly raed it."
You forgot to read the last paragraph of the study:
"Doing this on purpose in a setting out of context generally implies that the instigator needs to find a new hobby."
On the other hand, there's another viewpoint: maybe all this is just a conspiracy of a curious IT historian, wishing to document the birth of Linux, and the spread of it, day by day, hour by hour. :)
"Ten years from now, they could do it in a few seconds." -- The Racketeer of the Hellfire Club, 1993, Phrack 42
Is that SCO/Caldera is Canopy group, and Canopy group has made almost all of its money by suing huge and successful companies. I'm not sure on their exact record, but I know they've done this sort of thing at least 2 or 3 times already. They are pretty good at doing this, so I don't like to see anything "going their way" at all... hopefully IBM can keep it on course, and kill them dead soon.
It isn't about code. SCO is claiming a patright on Linux. A patright is like a patent in that it covers general ideas, but a copyright in that it exists from the moment of creation. Unfortunately for SCO, patrights are not recognized in any country I know of, only copyrights and patents are and neither of those do what SCO wants.
IBM is a very big big company, they have a lot of leverage power with lawyers and with other companies. I am not following this as much as I should but it looks like IBM is pushing SCO into a corner and will use every arsenal to make a win. If IBM was going not going to win this court case they will settle. IBM will win it and it will be the end of SCO, we will then see slashdot posts about people buying SCO office furniture for $50.00 at there parking lots. IBM is a east coast company and they can leverage all the big wig lawyers to fight for them there is no way SCO can win. take care -A End result lawyers go home rich, SCO sells furniture and IBM's laptops go in to suspend using ACPI under Linux.
the SEC. and yet, they are doing nothing.
I suspect that following the money is next to impossible.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well, IBM made $3.04 billion last quarter so I can't see the defense running out of money anytime soon. SCO loss $6.5 million last quarter and apparently has less than $30 million in cash left. Of course, if you believe the conspiracy theory, then Microsoft made $4.75 billion last quarter. We could be here for awhile...
There are a lot of other ways to drag the case on and further drain SCO's finances. Involving an outside entity doesn't make sense, especially since doing so via supeona isn't exactly likely to promote good relations with Intel.
I think there's a bit more to this than we've seen... but if anything when the dust is cleared it will be very interesting to look back and say "ahhhh, I understand now"
The folks at Canopy are now suing each other (see the Register for details). That is justice.
I doubt a buyout is even a possibility, though that's cleary what SCO wants. IBM is probably just so pissed, that they want to squish 'em like the little, insignificant bug they are.
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Isn't anybody here considering that this subpoena might just be a technicality?
Like Intel, having some proof which might help IBM, but is under NDA and can't release it without being in breach unless the court specificaly orders them to?...
For all the speculation about IBM vs. Intel, it seems to me that this post had the most sensible explanation of what's going on here. The SCO case is about Project Monteray now, which was an AIX on Itanium endeavour. It makes perfect sense to drag Intel in to discuss what SCO was told by Intel about Itanium, and its various delays.
All this jumping to conclusions about IBM and PPC slugging it out with Intel is unbelievably silly given this other explanation that fits the facts (and the case) far better. Can we cut the stupid conspiracy theories?
Jedidiah.
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Not that I like SCO of course, but instead this just displays how meaningless our judicial system has become.
Our laws are meaningless today, because we've been disenfranchised by corporations.
All your base are belong to Google.
Lots of posters here seem to think that once the judge finds out who's "behind" SCO that something will happen. But why would there? Suppose they find a document where an Intel executive advises SCO to sue IBM? That's not against the law at all.
It's interesting for us to find out who's behind all of this, but not to the judge. These documents are only going to be needed because IBM thinks there's something there about licensing etc. deals. Not about helping out SCO or whatever.
So, how did Linux become so capable of scaling beyond the heights of the old UNIXs. More importantly, who helped put what where?
As with the marketing of cars and TVs, it is the vendor's high end leading edge models which sells the standard models, from which most of the sales and profit is made. For the enterprise server market today, that high end is multi-headed 64-bit SMP systems, never mind the fact that single 32-bit processors provide more than enough power to do most jobs. For all intents and purposes, it is the ability of the core OS to scale on 64-bit SMP systems that defines "enterprise scalability". Other enterprise feature are effectively just add-ons, which in the case of Linux, have been freely contributed from many vendors and developers.
Since version 2.0, Linux was more than just a 32-bit x86 operating system. With the insistence and assistance of Jon "Maddog" Hall, Linux was already ported to the 64-bit Alpha processor, which delivered great performance and stability. Just like the traditional AT&T UNIX source base, the ownership of the Alpha chipset passed though many hands, suffering the same fate of a thousand cutbacks. Even Alpha's "native" OS, VMS, has been ported to Itanium by HP/Compaq.
Since 1997, Intel has been promoting the Itanium line as the inevitable successor for every other server processor on the market. Despite the early vaporware status, Intel has been very successful, at least in terms of marketing. With the exception of its mainframe systems, even IBM ships Itanium systems that directly compete with their own Power processors.
For what The SCO Group has to offer with SCO Unixware 7,the Itanium line is the only 64-bit option. The problem for The SCO Group is that modern Linux can compete so well in that same market that the value of Unixware is rapid deteriorating to a historical curiosity. I suspect that The SCO Group (at that time called Caldera) executives were well aware of this before they acquired the server part of Old SCO in August 2000, or they would have known, if they spoken to the right executives and technical staff.
So how did Linux get scale on Itanium? The SCO Group would have you believe it was all IBM's doing, which isn't as interesting as the real story. The web of history weaves to encircle and entangle a much more diverse group of conspirators, including many of The SCO Group, Caldera, and old SCO's own former executives and other employees.
In October 1998, IBM, Old SCO and Sequent teamed up to collectively develop parts of Unixware and AIX into scalable 64-bit-ready ports for IBM's Power processors and Intel's AI64, or Itanium, under the banner of Project Monterey. But by then, it was already too late.
In February 1998, well before even the first prototype IA-64 chips were available, a skunkworks team at HP, with some assistance from Intel, began the work toward porting Linux to IA-64. By October 1998, around the same time that IBM, Old SCO and Sequent had finished negotiations, HP had completed the build toolchain. By January 1999, the Linux kernel was booting on an IA-64 processor simulator, months before the actual Itanium processor was available. In March 1999, at Intel, Linux was booting on the actual Intel Itanium processor. In April 1999, CERN joined the project for the port of the GNU C library and VA Linux Systems joined the project and rapidly improved the stability and performance.
In May 1999, the Trillian Project was founded and HP, VA Linux and Intel collectively provided their source patches to the Linux kernel for the Itanium port under the GNU general public license.
A bootable kernel alone however does not make an OS make. HP supplied the patches for the toolchain (initial GCC C/C++ compiler, gas assembler, ld linker). Intel supplied the test platforms, apache, EFI, FPSWA, SCSI, SMP, libm (the old Linux C libraries). VA Linux ported E, E-Term, XFree86, utilities
Then every failing company with a past contract with IBM would file a lawsuit and hope to be bought out.
In the long run, it's better for IBM to crush SCO, publicly, slowly and legally.
so you can bet that both Intel and Microsoft
would like to see SCO Group succeed in court.
Sun is pushing Sparc and AMD processors, IBM
is pushing (hard) with PPC processors, and even
HP is courting AMD processors -- all three
with their UNIX and GNU/linux.
Microsoft courted, and then dumped support
for microcomputers based upon the Alpha, MIPS,
and PPC processor. Intel's many mis-steps
with the Itanium (ia64) processor may well be
an issue that IBM would like to raise with
the court, especially as regards IBM's short
lived alliance with SCO.
IANAL, but no matter how much code IBM reveals
in court against SCO Group, SCO's main attacks
center on (1) ownership of derivative works,
and (2) legality of the GPL. Either could
seriously damage F/OSS if the case goes to SCO.
I do not have very much faith in the USA's
system of justice these days, particularly
since the DoJ let MSFT off the monopoly hook
so readily (after regime change).
Many these discovery laws are powerful!
People can go to jail if they fail to disclose!
I work in litigation and subpoenaing someone with something as ridiculous as this is a great way to keep the other party busy and give yourself some extra time. In addition to that, it adds costs to the other party's litigation.
Sometimes, you can just keep subpoenaing and they won't be able to keep up. And generally when that happens, they will want to settle.
Wonder if Intel is going to have one of its attorneys claim legal professional privilege over the documents that they want to discover?
All fun and games I say!
IBM filed this motion on Jan 19. The actual subpoena was signed by IBM's attorney on Jan 13. SCO's motion for more discovery was granted Jan 18.
The blurb for this story is a little misleading. IBM planned to do this and may have even already had the subpoena executed by the time SCO's motion was granted. The timing was coincidental not causal.
What are they trying to pull here? That Intel was possibly behind SCO's litigation? I doubt it..
Lawyers get to make lots of money on this, but historically Intel has wanted to see big UNIX fail so it would help Xeon sales. Intel has never really been xNIX friendly although some of it's technology came from chips like the Alpha that were designed for UNIX.
This is now hurting Intel in that the most popular, and probably the best processor to run Linux is an AMD Athlon 64. And with competition from other chip sets Intel sales and margins are dropping.
The bottom line is if IBM can show Intel provided SCO the technology then in fact SCO has no claim, which I suspect be the case. IBM probably knows many SCO claims agqinst IBM were derived elsewhere as SCO hasn't innovated anything but business extortion since the early 80's.
When will it end?
Not soon enough.
You are making my argument for me.
The "Itanium processor logic model" mentioned in the press release was a software simulation using the RTL description (written in ihdl) of the chip ("csim" to be exact). The simulator ran at an effective rate of about 1Hz from a netbatch queue amongst a huge farm of workstations in Santa Clara, and took weeks to complete (the simulation was not parallel).
The version of Linux that was booted (at 1Hz) was a highly stripped version of 2.2, ported by a team in Oregon independent from the Trillian efforts. The simulation took weeks to complete. Several months prior to that date, the same team booted Mach 3.0 in the same simulation environment.
Both of those kernels, as well as others configured for single & multi-processor with a few user-mode tests, were used during first silicon bring-up in late August of 1999.
The RTL source of the chip is used by additional tools to place and route signals and functional blocks (built from transistors and signal lines). That information is then used to produce masks, which are then used to produce wafers.
Trust me, as a guy that should know, there was no silicon until late August of 1999.
If I posted a photo of the wall-plaque that sits near my desk, it might convince you (tapeout July 4th 1999, samples August 30 1999), but I can't do that.