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IBM Denies Destroying Evidence in SCO Case
Rob writes "IBM Corp has denied claims made by SCO Group that it destroyed evidence relevant to
their ongoing breach-of-contract and copyright case, maintaining that SCO has had the
evidence in question in its possession since March 2005. SCO, which believes IBM breached
a contract by contributing Unix code to the Linux operating system, accused IBM of
destroying evidence in a July 2006 court filing, claiming that "IBM directed 'dozens'
of its Linux developers within its LTC [Linux Technology Center] and at least 10 of its
Linux developers outside... to
delete the AIX and/or Dynix source code from their computers.""
What's really funny about this particular SCO accusation is that they're basically accusing IBM of being careful not to accidentally put SCO's (alleged) IP in Linux, and trying to spin it as a bad thing. IBM didn't want its developers to inadvertently use AIX or Dynix code in their Linux development work, because IBM didn't want to risk revealing AT&T's trade secrets and violating their contract. So, IBM prudently directed developers who were going to work on Linux to get rid of the AIX and Dynix source on their machines prior to beginning Linux development work. Now SCO wants the court to interpret this attitude of respect for AT&T/Novell/SCO/TSG IP as bad-faith destruction of evidence.
I guess I have to admire their chutzpah.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I thought so as well so I looked it up: "In answering, the defendant is limited to admitting, denying or denying on the basis he/she/it has no information to affirm or deny"
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Source:http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?sel
The memo SCO complains about was written by a project lead from the Linux effort, and was distributed to a whopping total of eight programmers coming to the Linux project after having worked on AIX some time in the past. The whole gist of the memo was "given the litigation, it would be a good idea to have these people remove any sandboxes with AIX code in them before they start working work on Linux."
Only files on the programmers's personal machines were deleted. Anything that actually got submitted to AIX was in the central repository, which IBM produced to SCO five months previously.
Of the eight people who got copies of the message, four didn't delete anything, and the other four don't remember of they deleted anything or not.
The real kicker, as IBM points out, is that none of the eight people in question are listed in any of SCO's complaints about alleged IP infringement. If SCO thought these people had misappropriated methods or concepts from AIX and ported them into Linux, it was required to say so, specifically, before filing this motion as 'proof' that IBM was destroying evidence.
SCO's brief really boils down to, "We haven't actually accused these people of doing anything wrong. But if you adjust your tinfoil hat just right, you can see how their getting a memo to delete AIX files looks like evidence of a conspiracy by IBM management to destroy evidence related to this case." In practical terms, it's about half a step up from the Chewbacca Defense, and IBM's reply memo shows the Nazgul giving it the reaming it so richly deserves.