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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
sPh
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.
Still, I have to wonder why IBM is willing to spend the money for the additional activity?
2 20214214
Because the drama, oops I mean SCO vs IBM case, is not over. It is still in the descovery process.
From http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060221
22-Dec-05 - Final Deadline for Parties to Identify with Specificity All Allegedly Misused Material
27-Jan-06 - Close of All Fact Discovery Except As to Defenses to Claims Relating to Allegedly Misused Material
17-Mar-06 - Close of All Remaining Discovery (i.e., Fact Discovery As to Defenses to Any Claim Relating to Allegedly Misused Material)
As you can see, we're in the part that I've highlighted in red [bold], which is over on March 17. It's all about defenses now. In other words, SCO filed it's list of ha ha allegedly misused material, and now IBM gets to do discovery to establish its defenses. Don't forget the expert witnesses also:
14-Apr-06 - Initial Expert Reports
19-May-06 - Opposing Expert Reports
16-Jun-06 - Rebuttal Expert Reports
10-July-06 - Final Deadline for Expert Discovery
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...
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?"
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.
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.
It's not so much Windows "killing" OS/2 -- IBM can live with that in a fair fight. It's that Microsoft was parternered with IBM on OS/2, and saying nice things about it, right up until the eve of the Windows introduction.
Microsoft not only sucker-punched IBM on that, but also all the 3rd-party application vendors who were diligently developing for OS/2, leaving the Windows field wide open for Microsoft's Office apps.
-- Alastair
Auto-reply from Robert Enderle:
I would like to say that I never made any speculation on SCO and that I simply meant they should have their day in court. I stand by those statements. Linux lunatics are simply outrageous in their claims against corporations like Microsoft, so they should just submit brokeback. I got an email from a guy, whom I assume was truthful, telling me how he received 300 letters of hate mail from Linux zealots for backing up SCO in a groklaw article. This is just lunacy! When some infantesimally small percentage of loyal users just can't take the rational way out, that tells me to never use the product they support. I simply want to level the playing field, to show that Microsoft and Linux are equal. The executives at Microsoft are good people. Bill donates his personal time and money to stopping worldwide disease. Executives who do this are good people, regardless of whether they turn their offices into WWE wrestling rings, forget to wear antiperspirant, or use death threats when intoxicated. SCO simply is the little guy and should win. Well, it should win because it defends the almighty intellectual property laws. Let's forget any interpretation from some Constitution drafted 230 years ago that IP laws should be for the "progress of arts and sciences." This is 2006, not 1787. If they had computers back then, they would certainly have stood for free market and the protection of that value via software copyrights and patents. The fact that IBM is winning this case so far only goes to show how much they have bribed the courts and are using their influence unfairly. I think both sides have made mistakes, but I'd much rather be controversial to get more site-hits, so I'll only point out the fact that IBM is just a big-bad big-business called big-blue, so they must die and roll over to the freedom fighters at SCO. McBride is a Mormon, and mormons are all good people, so that argument is just outrageous, that he would be unethical. The business machine at IBM is only interested in profit and wishes to milk everyone for everything in order to attain that goal. So, despite the judge remarking on the utter lack of evidence presented by SCO, and the fact that IBM is supporting Linux, which I hate only because I instigated a flame war with Linus Torvalds, which he won, and which I should have not picked at the time. He was 20 and I was much older, but he had made some crack about software patents being mathematical constructs. I just couldn't let him and his Linux fringe lunatics attack me with their inflated rhetoric. So I flamed him. I was right though, because now I get hate mail daily from Linux zealots, so despite the fact that I call Apple a company led by and used by fruits, and despite the fact that I write anti-Linux messages all the time with the premise of being "fair and balanced," I was ultimately right about Linux zealots, so I will be right about SCO. Please excuse me from the office for a few weeks: I am organizing a fund raiser to provide SCO all the legal support they need.
Sincerely,
Rob Enderle