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SCO Denied Again In Court
CDWalton writes "Groklaw has the latest in the SCO v. IBM case. Judge Wells denied SCO the opportunity to get depositions from involved parties after the date she had specified as the cutoff for those activities." From the article: "Brent Hatch started out talking about the request to take the depositions of Intel, Oracle, and The Open Group. Judge Wells brought up her October 12, 2005 order and said that depositions MUST be completed by the cutoff date. That any that cannot be taken by that date must be forgone. Brent stated that they properly noticed the depositions before the cutoff date and that they were not taken for reasons outside his, or his client's, control ... Judge Wells asked if the subpeonas were defective in some manner. Hatch: Yes, they were."
Because lawyers get paid by the hour. That's why.
Asside from the fact that judges work on several cases at the same time, so they have to schedule things, there are HUGE amounts of documents involved in a case like this.
The legal system is full of loopholes, extensions, exceptions, and other silly rules that are designed to cover up for inadequecies in other laws. This helps to give everyone a fair chance by providing an abundance of opportunities to get justice, but as a result, the cockroaches that are running from the light have plenty of dark corners to hide for awhile. It usually delays the inevetable, but in some cases if they stall for time long enough it can work out in their favor. Though it also can mean the farther you lift the hammer in the air, the harder it hits when at last it lands. I'm looking forward to SCO getting "nailed". It will be entertaining to watch their entire world suddenly collapse in on itself under the weight of justice, as the last of their shoddy bracing gives way at once.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Cases like SCO v IBM take such a very long time to resolve for several reasons.
1. The case is complicated. They're dealing with a web of contracts and code dating back decades.
2. Judges give everyone lots of time for *discovery* to minimize opportunities for appealing the decision later on. It'd be a massive waste if they spent years litigating a case, only to get it overturned during appeal because of something that would have only added a week to the discovery process.
3. IBM hasn't been pushing for an accelerated time table because of #2. IBm, like the Judge, doesn't want to win & then have to spend another 10 years in Appeals Courts.
So... no, I don't think you can blame inefficiencies. Or if there are inefficiencies, they are left in place in order to avoid greater inefficiencies.
SCO's lawyers have fucked up this case in so many ways that the Judge is beginning to seriously lose patience. I'm actually quite amazed that the Judge has given them so much slack up till this point.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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The ______ Agenda
Not really. The problem with cases like this is that there's one party involved (SCO, in this case) that is not actually interested in a quick resolution - or any resolution at all. Quite the opposite, actually; SCO has been and still is trying everything it can to stall the trial as much as possible, and it will continue to do so in the future.
The reason for this is that they're ultimately paid by M$ (and maybe Sun) to create trouble - the whole trial is just a vehicle for FUD, meant to create doubt in middle and high management whether Linux is "safe" to use. Attacks from a technical perspective didn't work, so now they're trying to spread legal FUD - the same thing they've already done with patents and the like, too. The judge is probably well aware of all this, but the court still has to assume good faith and act as if the case potentially has merit.
It's not clear to me how to deal with problems like this without also adversely affecting those who actually *do* have a good reason to sue and who *are* interested in a quick resolution (where it's possible).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Somebody is probably making big bucks buying and selling every few days.
Maybe like a game of hot potato. One day someone is going to wake up and find it worth $0.00.
Why, IBM is laying down a trap for SCO. Plain as day the longer SCO goes on the more IBM can claim for expenses and damages. When SCO can't pay, IBM gets SCO licenses and SCO is history.
What looks really interesting the IBM supoena's to HP, M$, SUN and Baystar. When the house of cards SCO builds finally gets blown away, will it reveal itself as a FUD campaign by those 4? If so does it open up those companies for lawsuits by IBM, RedHat, etc..?
So, to sum it all up.
The good news: IBM is spending one billion dollar on Linux. The bad news: it is all going to their lawyers...
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Apparently Darl McBride will be giving a keynote speach at the Moscow Interop show in June. How the hell could anyone consider him for a kenote speach unless it's to throw stuff at him. Article on Yahoo at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060215/law019.html?.v= 44.
-Aaron
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IBM dropped the patent claims nearly a year ago, so as to expedite the case.
IBM also file several summary judgement motions and the court told them to stop doing that until after discovery.
I don't think you can say that IBM is dragging this out.
SCO has so far not been asked to make a specific accusation yet for gods sake.
You are incorrect. SCOX has been not only been "asked", but they have beeb ORDERED to specify what their allegations are, on *THREE* separate occasions. They've failed to do so (while claiming they have) each and every time.
The last time they did it, they filed everything under seal, so that nobody besides IBM can point out that they've failed again (and yes, IBM has pointed it out to the court - out of the 294 items that SCOX filed, IBM has said that only one (yes, *ONE*) is "specific" enough for the court, but that one doesn't actually identify anything that IBM did.
Why hasn't anybody asked SCO what bits of unix they own, what pieces SCO alleges Ibm stole.
Again, they did (and not just "asked", but *ordered*, by a federal judge.)
They still haven't said what IBM stole form them.
This bit is correct, but that doesn't mean that nobody has "asked".
From the article:
1. "...the January 12th subpoena was defective in both substance and service." The subpoena is a document compelling the other side to show up at a deposition with certain documents, ready to talk about certain topics. Its substance was basically its content, what it was intended to communicate. The service is the procedure by which the document creator gives it to the target person (organization) in a legally effective way. The judge says the subpoena was defective in both characteristics, so it's not legally binding.
2. "...That even had it not been defective it provided inadequate notice and time.
Judges like to give 2nd reasons, when available, for their decisions, out of meticulousness (which is a good thing in a judge) or desire to forestall appeals (not a bad thing). Here, the judge is saying that even if she was wrong about point #1, the subpoena is no good because it didn't fulfill legal requirements as to the amount of time before the deposition that the subpoena has to be delivered, and warning (notice) about the content of the deposition. Ideally, depositions are not supposed to be occasions for surprising witnesses with weird questions, but a Search For The Truth, so witnesses are supposed to be given fair notice & time to prepare.
3. "[the judge's] October 12th orders were clear, not subject to unilateral decisions to violate."
TRANSLATED: the judge is really, really pissed. SCO's lawyers are giving totally bogus arguments, in her evaluation, which not only needlessly delays this particular case, but also strikes at the integrity of the entire judicial process.
It appears from this article that SCO believes its only hope would seem to be to bait the judge into saying or doing something stupid, like Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case a few years back.
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