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Judge in SCO Case Notes Lack of Evidence
In a follow-up to yesterday's story, Allen Zadr writes "Computer Business Online has an article up today entitled 'Judge astonished by SCO's lack of evidence against IBM'. From the article: "Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements... it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence..." This is exactly what Groklaw has been saying all along, and they have commentary on the news as well."
Judge astonished by SCO's lack of evidence against IBM
in other news, i'm astonished by the delay in reaction! didn't we all know this, hmm, i don't know, the day of $699?
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Lets face it. Some people can't see the truth.
:]
Microsoft knows that the bleeding will not stop, they just are putting duct tape (SCO lawsuite) to prevent a flow of their customer base. It gives them a chance to `change their strategies`.
[: Only Sheeps Avoid the FireFox
Look how thin the trading is. This is a stock that is well into penny stock land, volume wise. The only thing keeping the price up is that the people who have been suckered into buying SCOX haven't bailed out yet, waiting for a miracle.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
People made money on what is clearly a pump and dump scam. Go to Yahoo finance, and put SCO in and look at the 2 year graph. People were fooled, there was no case, no evidence, no nothing. This was just Darl being instructed to attack through indirect VC funding, and my guess is he made out quite nicely. The next step is for the IRS and the SEC along with the Justice department to jointly open an investigation regarding this conspiracy. This is no different than organized crime running boiler room pump and dump, it just pretended to be legit.
This is exactly what Groklaw has been saying all along, and they have commentary on the news as well."
It's called due process, and it's something I find vastly amusing.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
#include std_IANAL.h
IF you RTFA, you would see that Judge Kimball is trying to have this case sealed tight at it's end. He doesn't want SCO turning into a legal zombie and winning a chance at appeal, even though it's really dead. He wants them in a hermetically sealed coffin and thrown into the bowels of the earth.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I was just thinking that I feel pretty old now. Anybody else been geeky long enough to remember when IBM was the big bad bully?
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
Is it even remotely possible for SCO to stop these shenanigans and drop this case at this point and still survive as a company for any period?
They can drop their case, but IBM already did a full retaliatory patent based counter strike. If they drop, they have nothing to negotiate with later... Not that they stand much of a chance anyhow. (and not that it matters, the SCOX execs have already done a huge pump and dump and it looks like they got away with it)
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Despite their public pronouncements, SCO's case against IBM seems to have evaporated down to a claim that IBM continued to distribute AIX after SCO revoked their Unix license. To which IBM is replying "You had no right to revoke our Unix license, you morons!" Did SCO actually have legitimate grounds for revoking the license, or is SCO going to get bitchslapped by the judge for revoking a license they had no right to revoke? It's beginning to look like SCO's legal strategy was concocted by an 8 year old kid! Doesn't making claims in press releases that cannot be substantiated in court invoke the ire of the SEC? SCO executives appear to be on the express train to federal prison. They made ridiculous unsubstatiated claims, and now they can't back down from those claims, because doing so would only be used as evidence that the whole thing was an ill-conceived "pump-and-dump" scheme in the first place! McBride's best case scenario now is that he drags the whole thing out long enough so that he dies before he gets sent to prison...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You ever see any action movies? Usually the movies will have some scene where the chief good guy/bad guy/bad guy's Top Thug will get challenged by some stupid thug/underling/rent-a-cop, usually spurned on by alcohol/his friends/basic stupidity. We then get treated to a scene where the principal character goes above and beyond what is necessary to deal with the situation. They go further than they need, to demonstrate to other minor characters and to the audience: This person is a badass.
IBM is betting the farm on Linux. This is a new business model if you're younger than about 40 years old; to IBM, free software that sells the service and equipment is how they got big in the first place.
SCO unwittingly played right into IBM's hands. IBM waited for a good six months until SCO had made a ton of public statements (and Groklaw had started really building up a database -- "open-source legal" if you will -- that helped them in this regard). Then, IBM brought forth the counterclaims.
The counterclaims are not geared towards destroying SCO, but they will have that effect. The counterclaims are designed so that IBM can use this opportunity to create a substantive legal precedent for the new license that represents the old business model.
(Editorial comment: It's worth noting that the GPL and FSF are essentially reactionary; Stallman's not so much trying to create a New World Order as to restore the way things were back in the good old days. That's why I say that this new license represents IBM's old business model.)
What's happened with Wednesday's ruling is that IBM is more than they dreamed to get from this case: Not only is the judge clearly siding with IBM, but the judge is so pissed off with SCO that he will now guide the case towards a substantive legal precedent that not only rescues Linux developers and users from this current legal threat, but will stand the test of appeals and time.
Much as fair-use advocates go back to the Sony vs. MPAA suit, Linux businessmen in the future will go back to this lawsuit to show why it's perfectly sound and justifiable to use Linux without any worry. This is our Betamax suit.
SCO (and if you follow the money, Microsoft) really, really shot themselves in the ass with this lawsuit. In attempting to extort money from IBM and give them trouble, they ended up giving IBM the opportunity to get exactly what they wanted. The more that lawyers like Groklaw's marbux and others in the media look at the ruling, the more they realize that not only is SCO about to be destroyed, but Linux and the GPL will soon be ironclad.
When this court case is done, Linux and the GPL will be bulletproof.
That's why this particular frivolous lawsuit is taking so long: Once IBM made those counterclaims, it no longer became frivolous. And the price for the frivolity will be dire not just to SCO, but to every company that supported them.
Over the past year every company remotely connected with SCO has done what they can to distance themselves from them. EV1 apologized for buying Linux licenses. Another company that won Linux licenses as part of a settlement deal had to go on the public record denying that they paid for those licenses. Baystar, the company that put money into SCO on Microsoft's recommendation, backed out and asked for its money back.
Doesn't sound very frivolous any more, does it?
"So why the hell is this case STILL dragging on?"
SCO have rights, IBM have rights, and the People have rights, and all those rights must be meticulously preserved, especially the right to due process of law. You know SCO have no case. I know SCO have no case. IBM know it. Judge Kimball knows it. But if he rules with prejudice, the case will have simple grounds for appeal, because rights to due process of law will have been abridged. IBM do not want this, and neither does Judge Kimball. Do you want the current case to run its course and be the last word on the subject, or do you want it to drag on for years and years in appeals because Judge Kimball was careless?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.