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IBM Motion to Limit SCO Claims Granted
Kalak writes "IBM's motion to limit SCO's claims to those that have specific version, file and line numbers has been granted, in part. At the end of last year, SCO made 294 allegations. IBM asked for dismissal of 198 of them due to lack of this information, 1 SCO withdrew, 1 IBM withdrew from the request, and 185 of them have been dismissed from the case. This leaves 107 of the charges are left to be addressed by means other than lack of specificity (such as public domain, BSD code, who owns it, etc.) As usual, Groklaw, has discussion, as well as the Order and an excellent chart of the history of alleged violations has been created as well."
I hope that people appreciate the fact that IBM didn't just lay down on this suit and settle by dumping some money. They could have, and they can afford to do so. But rather, they are playing this out in a manner where there will be a ruling- a ruling where I predict Linux code will be vindicated.
I'll be an IBM customer for a long time due to this. And Whether IBM means it as some grand "do good gesture" or not is meaningless.
The resolution of this will mean that the US will not fall behind in Linux Development. Which they could- assuming the legality of Linux changed here- but not elsewhere.
Go IBM!
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
It's got to be sooner rather than later. The whole travesty look like a dam beginning to leak now. Let's hope it resolves cleanly, with a lot of positive press for Linux.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
SCO are finished.
Move to call the trial "The SCO Monkey Trial".
Anyone want to second?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
IBM saw the entire affair for what it is -- extortion. They also knows that if they cave into one, they'll be defending themselves till cow comes home.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Judge Wells supports her decisions in a manner that effectively prevents them from being appealed.
She uses Sandeep Gupta's (he testified for SCO) testimony to support the requirement for specificity.
She uses the fact that SCO didn't complain when it was ordered to produce specific lines of code. She also notes that SCO never asked for clarification on that point.
She is firing SCO's own testimony and actions (or lack thereof) right back in their faces.
Some posters on Groklaw and the Yahoo SCOX message board have speculated that this decision means that a couple of the counterclaims are a slam dunk. In particular, it now appears that Linux is completely clear of copyright violations wrt anything that SCO owns or says it does.
What genious linked to a Geocities site from a Slashdot posting? I mean... come on.
Finally, some good news.
Looking at this ruling, and the other exceptionally clear rulings which have been handed down in this case so far, I really am glad that the SCO case was assigned to judges who really understand what it is they are doing. This has been an exceptionally slow case, but at least when progress in the case finally does occur, the progress is meaningful.
on McBride et. al's salaries when they move on to other companies, to continue trying to game the jacked-up "intellectual property" system. Anyone? I'm not a bookie but I'll put $800K out there. What severe repercussions!
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
In December 2003, near the beginning of this case, the court ordered SCO to,
"identify and state with specificity the source code(s) that SCO is claiming
form the basis of their action against IBM." Even if SCO lacked the code behind
methods and concepts at this early stage, SCO could have and should have, at
least articulated which methods and concetps formed "the basis of their action
against IBM." At a minimum, SCO should have identified the code behind their
methods and conceptws in the final submission pursuant to this original order
entered in December 2003 ane Judge Kimball's order entered in July 2005.
Well, here's the big question...
There's two possible reasons behind this particular lawsuit. One is because the SCO execs want to go after IBM for extortion. The other reason is because Microsoft is trying to go after Linux.
If the second is true, any actions from here may be oriented towards preventing Microsoft from being revealed as the Man Behind The Curtain, rather than winning.
Gentoo Sucks
Know what's funny? I just figured out that prosco.net is now a parked domain. I guess they didn't have the heart to keep pretending anyone wanted to read it.
Viper is the preferred editor of the Emacs operating system.
I'm sort of worried here. Someone allay this fear:
To a non-legal mind, this could be portrayed as "losing on a technicality". So my worry is that anti-Linux FUDders can point at this and say "Well, Linux dodged a bullet based on shoddy lawyering/poor rulings, so it's still risky". Granted, we know (and have known for a while) that SCO has a very weak cases, but PHBs don't, and Joe Average doesn't.
My worry is that SCO dies quietly when it suddenly announces bankruptcy, screws it shareholders, and abruptly the lawsuits all vanish.
It's worth reading the entire order from Judge Wells. However, for the benefit of those who don't enjoy reading legal documents, here's are the highlights. These are the Judge's words:
Essentially, the claims of copyright infringment in Linux based on UNIX source code just got thrown out of court. There are a few minor claims remaining, but they're minor and mostly related to old contractual issues that can only involve IBM, not third parties using Linux.
This is all still pretrial manuvering, during which the case becomes better defined. In the next phase, we have "dispositive motions", which will probably include a motion by IBM for summary judgement against SCO. Some more SCO claims will probably be thrown out at that phase.
Of course IBM saw it as extertion. But IBM can afford to pay, just to not have to deal with it. IBM realizes, however, that Linux is going to play a big part in it's future, and while a one-time extortion fee could be rationalized, allowing SCO to bleed them forever could not be allowed to be a part of IBM's business plan.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
If you read the ruling its clear that this is no "technicality". This was a massive failure by SCO to produce any of the evidence they alleged they had. The court ordered them no less than 3 times to provide the required specificity. They just went 'la la la' and tried to get away with not providing it.
Knowing full well that this would eventually happen, don't you think that if SCO had ANY evidence worth even a wet fart, they'd have produced it during discovery? They have nothing, and everyone knows it.
21 actually
SCO made 294 claims.
IBM objected to 198 of the claims.
Judge Wells allowed 17 of IBM's 198 disputed claims and barred the rest.
That leaves 117 of SCO's 294 claims standing. ~66% gone.
1 really damn good read. Judge Wells's order was fantastically fun.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
GAH! I corrected you and screwed up the numbers myself.
Judge Wells allowed *11* of IBM's 198 disputed claims (23, 43, 90, 94, 186-192) and barred the rest.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
Of course they didn't because their whole game is to stall stall stall.
Not by a long shot. It's a bit more than a technicality when a federal judge writes in a decision that you:
- Ignored court orders for specificity
- Implied you tried to game the system and bs the judges
- The judge takes time to point out how you lied to your stockholders in the press
- The court stops speaking legalesse and says something like, "The court finds SCO's arguments unpersuasive."
- The court says you didn't meet the standard of proof you requested of the defense (the burden of proof is on you)
- And that your failures were willful
That's a long way from a technicality. That's SCO getting gut shot and left to wander around in extreme pain while they bleed out and die.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
How does this affect the Red Hat and Novell cases? I seem to recall they were waiting on a decision here, but since they also deal with Linux code ownership, could any of the now-dead claims come back up in those cases?
* kitten is on the prowl
<cicada> Bzzz!
<kitten> *jumps* wtf?
<cicada> Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
* kitten walks toward cicada
<cicada> BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
<kitten> CHOMP! -chomp- -chomp- *gulp*
* cicada has left channel #meatspace (Ouch!)
<SIGBUS> Hey, that was a Quality Kill! Good kitty!
* kitten purrs
* kitten is on the prowl
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
So MS or whoever will be spinning the saga in a year or two as "hey, they were still looking, that's a lot of code", and make it out as a travesty of justice.
I doubt anyone will be saying that. Reason being - you file a lawsuit against someone after you discover that they have injured you in some way. Nobody files a suit and then looks for their injury. Except SCO, for some bizarre reason.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Three of the claims IBM objected to were "negative know how". SCO argued that these were cases where IBM figured out how to contribute something to Linux because they saw how UNIX got it wrong. In other words, that IBM infringed SCO's intellectual property by not using SCO's source code. Wells expressed doubt about the argument -- calling it a "tenuous position" -- but accepted that there was good reason for not providing the source code.
The rest of the claims she allowed really weren't about coding at all. They were claims that IBM employees who worked on Dynix were contractually prohibited from working on Linux. Again, she wasn't ruling on the merits but agreed that this was a case where source code wouldn't be expected.
Finally, there are the items IBM didn't object to; the ones where SCO actually provided source code references. IBM has already said that it's planning to deal with these with a request for summary judgement.
Also on the chopping block, there's another motion on the table by IBM to scrap most of SCO's expert witnesses. It seems SCO was trying to use those witnesses to add a bunch more code to their "final" list of allegedly infringing material. It remains to be seen how much of that survives.
In a nutshell, it doesn't look like enough of SCO's case will survive long enough to make it to trial.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
At a minimum, IBM's sixth counterclaim is for breach of the GPL, which is based on copyright law.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
You know, the ones that like to say "PJ over at groklaw is an SCO hater that only presents one side of the story. SCO is going to win". LOL. How often have these bozos been wrong about this case? How often has PJ been wrong? Aside from Groklaw I don't see any reporting on this ;^)
The fact that the Judge sanctioned SCO for "willful disobedience" rather than "bad faith" is analogous to Scooter Libby being charged with obstruction of justice rather than treason or some other more serious crime. In both cases the judge/procecutor/investigator knows the party is guilty as hell but life is easier by going with the easier to prove charge.
The judge is simply trying to avoid wasting appellate judges time by not giving SCO anything they can reasonably dispute (i.e. "it wasn't bad faith because she can't read our mind").
Suppose, when all is said and done, and IBM wins, they are awarded a chunk of change sufficient to bankrupt SCO. Wouldn't that mean that IBM would in fact end up owning SCO? And wouldn't they then have access to all SCO internal papers, such as Darl's personal email archives, memos, etc? In fact, unless Darl quit, he would then be working for IBM, and all his papers would become IBM property.
Wouldn't that be fun!
Infuriate left and right