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IBM Subpoenas HP, Baystar, Sun & Microsoft
nicolaiplum writes "CNet is reporting that IBM is sending subpoenas to HP, Baystar, Sun and Microsoft requiring them to disclose most of their dealings with SCO over UNIX licensing and litigation." From the article: "The subpoenas demand that Microsoft, HP, Sun and BayStar hand over a range of information, including details of their dealings with SCO, by March 7. They will also have to appear in court later in March to give depositions." Groklaw also has links to each of the subpoenas.
The reporter got that aspect wrong. Read the original documents and it becomes clear that the recipients are "commanded" to appear in various lawyers' offices.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
the entire supply of Immodium for the state of Utah is missing.
Microsoft bought thousands of SCO licenses in an effort to undermine Linux -- not as a way of giving credibility to any of SCO's claims, but rather as a way to fund SCO's FUD campaign, in what amounts to a cash donation!
If anything should be subpoena'd its Microsoft's internal documents giving a risk/benefit analysis of making a cash donation to SCO in the form of to-Microsoft useless Linux licenses.
Talk about a turd in the punch bowl. Hehe.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Actually, the depositions will occur at law offices near the headquarters of the companies in question. Microsoft's, for instance, will occur in Seattle.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Damn! It has been so long since any new developments or any old discussion has been brought up about it, finally there is some interesting activity in the SCO v. IBM case. Still, I have to wonder why IBM is willing to spend the money for the additional activity? Is "fighting back" worth it? What do they expect to gain on this?
Personally, I can identify with wanting to fight back by exposing the sources of all the scuffle. But if I didn't have money to throw away and no easily identifiable profit motive, I just can't imagine myself doing it. Since corporations generally lack human emotional response, I can only assume there is good strategety and/or profit motivation. Anyone care to speculate?
sPh
Assign whatever weights you like.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
They may not need to win. MS certainly doesn't want to get DoJ investigations restarted again, and using SCO as a sock puppet to beat down on a potential rival sure is risky in terms of monopolistic practices. MS wants to avoid possible DoJ issues and get this whole thing buried? Well, write IBM a fat check, and consider them satisfied.
Why have I not seen a comment yet that said
And in Redmond today, a chair flew out of Ballmer's office and a scream was heard "I'm going to f*$#ing kill IBM!!!!!!"
Oops..I just made it.
= Grow a brain...
So will it end up all being a conspiracy masterminded by Microsoft to kill Linux? But Microsoft always plays fair, who would have thought!
Bill Gates on the stand: "Well, you see, it went like this your honor, App..."
Steve Jobs yelling from the courtroom: "Shutup! Shutup now Bill!!!"
Judge banging gavel: "Order [bang, bang, bang] There'll be order in the court room!"
RMS standing and asking for calm: "Judge. Notice that I did not call you 'Your Honor' as I do not honor the authority that you claim to hold. I will not place my hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth. The Bible is a book of fairy tales and fables for which I hold no respect..."
Steve Ballmer jumps to his feet and grabs a chair: "Jesus H. Christ [Throws a chair at RMS] This guy is a fuckin' loon... how the fuck did he get in here?"
Godwin's Law now in effect. Thanks for playing.. now go sit down. :-P
In some ways the scenario is worse than that. They will be taking depositions in private, and there will not be a judge present. Can you imagine being the poor nerd being asked questions with both the MS lawyers and IBM lawyers leering at you from all sides of the table. I wouldn't go in that room without the protection of being in a steel cage hanging from the ceiling.
"and despite their hype on Linux, less than 1 percent of IBM's servers ship with it."
But I think you are free to choose to order Linux on just about any of them. I thought that was the idea to be free to choose.
I used to HATE IBM back in the good old days. Between Eclipse.org and all the Linux resources they have on line I am an IBM fan.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Microsoft and Sun paid tens of millions of dollars to SCO in early 2003. Caldera (who is now SCO) had run their Linux business into the ground and after purchasing the UnixWARE from Santa Cruz in 2001 (to purportedly make Linux and Unix play better together), they ran it into the ground as well. Without that influx of cash, SCO would not have had the money to pursue the lawsuit against IBM. It just happens that SUN (IBM's largest Unix competitor) and Microsoft (who has a lot to gain from the discrediting of Linux) paid tens of millions of dollars to SCO and the only substantial thing they got in return was the lawsuit against IBM. IBM is also seeking information from SUN and HP because SCO gave them a clean bill of health, and they have distributed and made public much of the information that forms the basis of the lawsuit against IBM.
This will cost IBM countless of millions of dollars over the next few years. Wouldn't it be cheaper to spend a few grand and pay Bruce Willis to kill Gates and Ballmer? Or why not build a terminator? Oh yeah, it would have Lenovo parts and turn on the americans in a blink. Darn chinese are too smart.
We should all remember, Subpoenas are a commonly utilized legal term which is needed to get another party to comply. Most large companies are not even allowed to give any of their documents (which have other legal bindings on them, probably for non-disclosure) without a subpoena. People just tend to think "subpoena omg"
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I created a mirror for the subpoenas, including easy to read html versions.
200GB/2TB $7.95 Coupon: SAVE90DOLLAR
I want to know what Rob Enderle has to say. I haven't heard much from him lately and I need his "forward looking emerging technology advisory firm" and the insight only they, ok - he, can give.
Mr. Enderle, are you there? Should I be concerned that IBM is stealing all the thunder while SCO continually gets bitch slapped out of the headlines (and court)? SCO is still going to school the technology world, right? You predicted they have a solid case and not to rule them out. Are they still a sure bet? After all IBM is the unethical company in all of this because you told me so...and that's stronger than Bible in my book anyday.
Yeah, when all this is over and the books are written, SCO's choice of targets for lawsuits is going to go down there as sensible as invading russia proved to various european nation states over the centuries.
First they pick IBM, who probably have more lawyers than R&D engineers. Then, for collateral damage, they pick on a car company, what was it, Daimer-Chrystler. I mean, car companies. They have legal departments on 24-hour call waiting to dismiss the classic "I ran over a bus queue of 8 people while drunk, it was the fault of your ABS system" lawsuits coming in every day. Having someone sue you over linux violations is just a spare time activity.
On the other hand, from the lawyers perspective, going up against well funded legal departments guarantees large amounts of cash coming your way...
I don't think IBM is looking for settlements, they are a lioness on the hunt. IBM is looking for blood, following the money trail.
"Non quatro" is playing. If I were MS, I would be concerned about IBM's blood lust revealing some anti-trust evidence and turning it into Kolar-Kotelly. The terms of the settlement with DoJ are NOT friendly to officers if they are caught with their hands in to cookie jar.
This is going to be fun...I'm sure there is some piggy type squealing going on in Redmond right now.
FPO
Does this mean if IBM loses (please don't die laughing until you read the whole reply), that Microsoft will have to rewrite NT because of all those methods and concepts used by the former Unix programmers who wrote NT that are part of SCO's precious IP?
Sadly, having been involved in a number of dealings with judges and American law, this could actually still turn out bad. Judges are lacking in basic skills and make rulings that are completely OTT and wrong. IBM, could still lose. Although, they have a great team of lawyers and a great presentation, and the judge seems to have gotten a clue as to the shenanigans of SCO. It ain't over till it's over. On the flip-side, SCO may have damaged what little of a case they had by being so OTT. SCO has no case and never did, but all you have to do is fool the judge into believing your BS over the other team's BS.
I worked on ICL kit, and even though we thought they were superior to IBM, IBM never shut anyone out. They didn't try and extend COBOL, mag tape formats were open.
For nearly three years I've been rolling my eyes after reading these comments like: "oh yeah, scox is gonna get their ass handed to them now." Scox will likely lose the case, but that is immaterial. People still continue to adopt Linux at about the same rate, but that is also immaterial.
Msft is sending a message to those companies who might dare to contribute to Linux. The message is: "if you contribute to Linux, expect to be tied up in court for the next five years. And expect to spend $100M in legal fees, and expect to have some sleezy Utah penny-stock scam company digging through all of records, expect endless and pointless "discovery." Expect depositions, and expect to bashed in the tech-pop-media, and expect other endless hassles." From now on, contributing to Linux is not something that you just casually do. Clearly, this will slow Linux development.
The entire scam is costing msft less than $100M, hardly more than a few of their idiotic, and ineffective, commercials. Even if IBM sues msft, it will have been worth it for msft. Forget the DoJ, the USA government works for msft.
The scam is also working out well for scox. Who else would pay darl $1M a year? When darl took over, just before the scam, scox's market cap was under $6M, now it's over $80M.
So, while the groklaw cheerleaders gloat about scox's great defeats; the execs and msft and scox are laughing up their sleeves.