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SCO Denied Motion To Change IBM Case Again
Rob writes "SCO Group Inc's attempt to change its legal case against IBM Corp for the third time
has been denied by the judge, who has also set the two companies a deadline to present
their respective evidence with specificity. Despite repeated public declarations
that it has evidence Linux contains Unix code that infringes its copyright, SCO
has yet to present any evidence to the court." Bad news for them all around, lately.
Don't investors typically eventually say "ain't gonna happen" and walk away? Is there an obvious reason why this hasn't happened yet?
I am a
There's a lot of discussion on Groklaw about what happens when tSCOg goes bankrupt.
The minute tSCOg loses the first of the many cases it has going, it goes bankrupt. Its fate is then in the hands of the bankrupcy trustee and the creditors. My guess is that all the cases then get settled out of court on terms agreeable to the creditors. In the case of IBM this means a declaration that Linux is totally unemcumbered by anyone's Unix IP.
I furthermore guess that this bidder will be Sun, because it's a major licensee of SCO IP and would ABSOLUTELY NOT want to be in a position of having it's Solaris based on the IP of any other potential acquiror.
Then we'll have some peace for a while, as whomever ends up owning this IP will not have the stomach to continue the lawsuit; but it'll stay in some uncontested limbo forever.
Other reasons why I think it'll be Sun: Some of sun's management like to see themselves as an operating-systems-IP company. They want to own the part of SCO that IBM licensed to be better positioned in their "IP sharing partnership" with Microsoft. etc.
Basically when Santa Cruz and IBM worked on the project known as Monterey in the late 90s, it was understood that both companies would use code developed from the joint venture in their products. SCO claims that IBM used the jointly developed code on Power based machines when the original agreement only specified that IBM could use it on Intel machines. They filed in October 2004 to change the claim to add this to the current suit. They wanted more discovery and time to pursue this new claim.
In the current lawsuit, the deadline for changing the claim was February 2004. Under certain circumstances, a party can go beyond deadlines but only for "compelling reasons." SCO's compelling reason was (1) they "just discovered" this fact and (2) IBM filed a counterclaim (9th) that requires them to research it.
IBM's answer to the court was convincing and many fold. They produce documents, emails, presentations, public announcements from Santa Cruz as far back as 1998 that describe how IBM was to use code from the joint project in Power. They also produce IBM public presentations, software documentation, and public announcements about the same thing. Finally they presented industry reports and discussions from tech magazines both online and offline from 2000 that discusses IBM's use of the code. IBM ironically points out that SCO provided some of this source material to IBM in the lawsuit filings.
IBM's message is simple: (1) Santa Cruz knew. If SCO is the legal and corporate successor to Santa Cruz, then it is SCO's duty to know everything that Santa Cruz did. (2) Since SCO provided some of the material, SCO had to know since 2003 when they filed the lawsuit. (3) Even if SCO was totally clueless about Santa Cruz's materials and it's own filings, a simple search online up to 4 years ago would have uncovered the fact that IBM was going to use the code in Power.
As far IBM's 9th Counterclaim, IBM chose to reduce/clarify the scope so that it was not as broad and SCO's new claim would have no relevance.
On a side note, one of IBM's statements is interesting:
SCO wanted to convince the judge that no more discovery would be necessary to add this new claim saying that they had already done a lot of work. But IBM asks the question: If they have compared our closed source AIX with their Unix, why do they claim they couldn't compare open source Linux with their Unix without our AIX source code?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well, if you've ever watched parlement in Canada, the UK or anywhere else, the word "honourable" takes on an entirely different meaning.
But the other "bad news" that is linked is GOOD for SCO. (Novels motion for dismissal in SCO's slander suit against them is denied.)
There is another possibility. The press know they have been duped and don't dare admit it publically.
Maybe the so-called IT "press" was in on it. Most of the alleged IT "press" seems to be nothing more than MS sock puppets, ad-servers, lapdogs, and "yes men" and no more. Care to bet your mortgage payment they're not getting payola?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
That was great, but how does it contradict what I said?
Now, quit laughing. I know that judges are impartial (or "apartial", which is a distinction without a difference). But once the trial starts, they know who's got it and who doesn't. They intentionally keep their minds open - judicial think, you called it.
A mind isn't open if it isn't processing what it's being given. They don't give a ruling before all the evidence is in, but much of the time the ruling would be no different if they did.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
If SCO did win, it would most likely be on the contract claims, not the copyright ones. Since IBM owns the copyrights on their own code, they wouldn't be violating SCO copyrights, but just be in breach of contract. IBM would be liable for damages, but none of us would.