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SCO Having a Hard Time In Court
jamienk writes "The beginning of the end is in sight. SCO has been reprimanded for the second day in a row by a second judge in their campaign against Linux. Basically, Judge Wells ruled that SCO's vague claims of IP infringement will not be allowed to be heard in court, since it was all clearly a poor attempt at avoiding showing any evidence. Next, SCO will face compelling counterclaims against it by IBM." From the article: "At issue was whether SCO would be allowed to sneak in new allegations and evidence in its experts' reports that it failed to put on the table openly in its Final Disclosures, in effect, as IBM described it, reinventing its case at the eleventh hour. The answer today was no, it won't be allowed to do that. IBM had asked for this relief: 'Insofar as SCO's proposed expert reports exceed the Final Disclosures, they should be stricken.' More details will be arriving in a while, but assuming the early reports are accurate, we may assume that this is what the Judge has ordered." This is a follow-up to a story we discussed yesterday.
To paraphrase the ruling "Insofar as this proposed item exceeds anyone's tolerance for blatant dupes , it should be stricken."
One of the greatest dupe farts of all time.
Fight on, SCO
... IBM put a stake through blood-sucking SCO's heart? Will there be appeals? How long can this go on?
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
Sure glad I don't have any SCO stock.
The end is in sight and will probably mean the dissolution of SCO assets as the company folds up and dies, since this was a last gasp ploy to hit a litigation jackpot of billions of $ from IBM, et al.
Sad to see, as SCO was once a respectable company in Santa Cruz, CA.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What I think is sorely missing is a page where interested persons can go to see what the next deadline in the case is and what various known future deadlines are.
I'm constantly reading about assorted developments, but I can't find any place (groklaw included) that provides a clear up-to-date summary of "Where SCO vs. IBM is RIGHT NOW". I've seen the SCO Scorecard, but it's not lucid enough to be grokked in a reasonably short amount of time.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I (like many I imagine) am tired of this debacle dragging on indefinitely and would like to know WHEN we can expect hard deadlines to elapse and this mess either get to a trial or get thrown out.
I don't think so. I think he duped a story that was put up by a different editor about 2 hours after it was posted about 6 months ago so, not a record.
What do you mean, vindictive?
In 1 year, I wonder what people would rather choose to own:
100 shares of SCO stock or 100 nude photos of Janet Reno...
Even after you've made your decision, what the hell do you do with 100 nude photos of Janet Reno??
This is my signature. There are many like it but this one is mine.
For people like me who have just woken up from a coma in the last few minutes, this regurgitated news is quite handy.
As SCO's share price seems to be plummeting a bit today, I decided to download a stock ticker for my desktop to watch the price fall in all its glory. The one I went for, CoolTick, is limited to two symbols in the trial version. Fine by me, I only want to watch SCOX. I now have scrolling across the top of my screen "SCOX v 1.25 -0.75 N/A Purchase License".
Well, it made me chuckle anyway.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
...thanks...I'm going to need to stop and buy more beer on the way home tonight to wash that visual out of my head.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I suppose technically it's an update, clarifying how SCO was trying to avoid showing evidence, through claiming IP infringement. The rest is dupe though.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
No, no dupe. First story was about Judge Kimball affirming an order Judge Wells maid (the striking a lot of evidence) and this story is about a hearing that Judge Wells held today.
Not a dupe. There really have been two distinct SCO stories in the last 24 hours or so.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
CODE OR GTFO!
It's been a long time.
"Basically, Judge Wells ruled that SCO's vague claims of IP infringement will not be allowed to be heard in court".
This is completely wrong!
The CLAIMS will be heard in court. However, most of the EVIDENCE (or lack of) to back those claims has been ruled inadmissable because SCO did not comply with the court's order regarding specificity (show us the code!).
You're right. One sentence was worth an whole new post instead of an update to the one still on the front page.
"Sufferin' succotash."
1:06 EST SCOX 1.21 Down 39.50%
It's unfortunate that it has taken SCO so long to go down over this one. Would have been happy to see this over years ago. Thank God IBM has deep pockets, and the desire to see this through. With luck, by the time they're done even if they're given SCO as the prize, it will essentially be worthless, which is also unfortunate, but only for IBM, who deserves a better reward for fighting the good fight this time.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I guess slashdotters only read the title nowaday, not even the summary.
While its great that this farce is finally nearing its end, I really can't believe it took so long. This thing has been dragging out for years, with SCO just never showing any concrete evidence. To me, that just shows how broken the whole process is.
I agree. I love SCO stories. It is the best reason I have ever seen for the HAHA tag.
SCO's stock went into a screaming dive today. It's down 40% today on heavy trading, about 20x the normal volume. The mainstream business press has picked up the story, and, this time, there's no ambiguity.
Forbes seems to have really had it with SCO. Much of SCO's early FUD appeared in Forbes articles, which now makes Forbes look bad.
While the old SCO certainly wasn't as bad as the current one, they were still bad. The Michels boys were just as crooked as they could be. For years, they didn't issue stock, until they had products and cash coming in. Instead, they just issued promises that they'd "take care of you". That they did, by issuing significantly less stock to the original employees than is normal for a startup. But they didn't care. Once they had product, they didn't need the orginal employees as much, and so they gave the original crew the shaft.
n s
This is also the second time that SCO has worked with Microsoft to shut down *NIX competition. Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microport#Applicatio
Fortunately they failed, as Microport later helped the FSF put gcc on the 386 by giving them a free copy of UNIX.
Then there was the sexual harassment which went one (resulting in two lawsuits, as reported in the Press), and the guy they drove out of business who was dumb enough to give them an exclusive - after which they deliberately refrained from selling the software or letting him out of their contract. And the CEO saying that they'd steal as much as they wanted from Linux. And more and more.
The point is that crooked business practices has been the norm for SCO throughout its history, with few exceptions.
It's far more honest to say that the original SCO was rotten too; just not as rotten as the current version.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/01/05 51238
Posted today, around 4 hours or so ago. Yes, it's a dupe. Yes, there was another story regarding Judge Kimball's de novo review of Magistrate Judge Wells' earlier decision, which was upheld in its' entirety.
This story, as well as the one that link will take you to, are in regards to SCO getting put in their place, once again, with regards to IBM's motion for PSJ regarding the claims left following the Motion to Compel.
Oh, and IANAL, just one of many who's followed this case over the last 3 years on Groklaw. Thanks PJ!
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/01/05 51238 is the story that is being duped. BOTH stories are about Judge Wells. That story only mentions Kimball to say "A day after Judge Dale Kimball reaffirmed Judge Wells' order tossing most of SCO's case." Keep reading: "Judge Wells has stricken large portions of SCO's expert reports." Oh hey, that's what the current story is about!
It is a dupe.
I guess the only thing left to say is,
Na na naa na...na na naa na...hey hey hey...goodbye...
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Is seeing this after such good news. :D
Now that was below the belt. Let's keep their maids out of this. Just because they are from fucking Utah and have 5 wives and 3 "maids" and 27 children doesn't mean that's any reason to make fun of them.
I just hope hope hope that the people involved in this legal scam of SCOs didn't dump their stock today.
Many posters recently pointed out that they thought this was a stock pumping scam designed to get the stock up on the possibility of getting a large settlement from IBM. Now that the chances of that happening are slimmer and slimmer, what would you bet that before these announcements, important execs at SCO dumped their stock?
I hope not. They should burn like the Enron execs should have burned.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"One sentence was worth an whole new post instead of an update to the one still on the front page."
/.ers don't RTFA, a one-sentence change in the summary is a significant change in information and volume that /.ers do read.
Since, allegedly,
Today is the biggest one-day drop since the scam started.
Scox's market cap still 4X as high as when darl started.
well it would seem like a dupe to those who don't RTFA.
Compare that article to this one from when the whole SCO fiasco was getting started. Same author, you'll note - very different attitude. I love the hilarity of juxtaposing the titles of the two articles. Back then Lyons was calling Linux advocates and users "crunchies" - now he just calls them "fans" and says things like "companies... have built booming businesses around Linux."
Not that he'll get called on the hypocrisy or anything.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
There will probably be a lot more than just one sentence handed out, when all this is over. Somebody might want to seize Darl's passport, because the SEC will be wanting a Very Meaningful Chat with him about the Lanham Act, not to mention running a pump-and-dump scheme from his own board room.
This is not my sandwich.
What has been very interesting is that SCO publicly has been given almost no chance of winning, while privately the company has convinced several folks, including me, that it has a strong chance.
See he is shifting blame already. If everybody had been oh so nice in public then we'd be convinced too.
As I read it, the judge has said that SCO can't slip new evidence in because the period to submit evidence to the court has passed, so anything they find now is not admissable for this trial.
Does this new material give them grounds for appeal or even retrial based on new material? I assume that it'll be as nonexistent new material as all their nonexistent old material was, but how does the court system deal with this? Is there a way the judge can say that they've shown bad faith and as such it can be assumed that anything new they come up with will be just as vapory, and pre-emptively bar it?
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
There were 3 stories, one about Judge Kimballs ruling yesterday and 2 stories today about judge Wells. Their are clearly duplicated.
PENAROL: Seras eterno como el tiempo y floreceras en cada primavera.
Now those not in the know are thinking "so what the hell does SCO have to do with MS or Novell ?" or even worse
"Those Slashdotters are just biased MS haters".
And the answer to these thoughts my young padawan learner (or MBA) are the following facts:
Which now leads us to the ultimate reason for why I believe these incidents are indeed related and not an accident
a motive !!
Both the SCO lawsuit and the MS-Novell agreement are designed to cast (at least to most tech-unsavy MBA types) a huge legal cloud over Linux specifically, and FOSS in general, of which Microsoft would be the only benefactor.
Case Closed
I need a break after that one.
Now that MS has its shiny new cross-licensing patent contract with Novell, it now has a new opening in its war on Linux. They are probably pulling back all resources from the SCO front, getting ready to exploit this new angle for a few years.
Software Wars
Hattie: Millionaires, nothing! The stock's only worth three kajiggers!
They could explain it, it's just that neither side wants to. If you add up the money exchanged, the net result was that MS paid Novell some $300 million, which means MS was buying something. MS thought it was worth $300 million to create the speculation of legal trouble with Linux (as you said), but they don't benefit if they make a big deal out of the fact that they had to pay for Novell's cooperation, so they pretended to be buying protection from Novell. Novell thought $300 million was a nice chunk of cash, but they look sleezy if they admit that they were that easily bought out and cooperating with a FUD attack, so they took the money and then put a backspin on the story.
Um. Boies prosecuted Microsoft in the anti-trust trial. He didn't get reprimanded in that trial, but there are other trials where he ran afoul of ethics and was called on it.
It's a dup only in that it's TWICE in two days this has happened to SCO
Oops ...
Thanks for the fact check DannyO152. However, as you stated, my general point stands, both cases used dishonest legal practices. Furthermore, courtroom deception is a signature MS legal strategy.
IBM [] deserves a better reward [than the corpse of SCO] for fighting the good fight this time.
IBM certainly deserves a reward, big time. (Good work, guys!)
But their reward for fighting this fight (presuming they win it as it looks now) would be more than the corpse of SCO.
Much of their business model these days is based on Linux (and other Open Source code) being unencumbered by claims such as SCO's. A win against SCO will end risk for Linux from claims based on IP from the Unix codebase. But it will also serve as a precedent-setter for all Open Source authors and users, provide a lesson on how to defend against such claims, drive a spike into future IP FUD attacks on OSS, and (perhaps most effectively) provide a TERRIBLE object lesson for all who would seek to make such claims in the future.
IBM (and all of Open Source) will have the corpse of SCO to haul out an rattle whenever someone starts making noises about IP.
Now that won't STOP such claims - especially well funded ones. (I expect the next shoe to fall might be Microsoft directly bringing up patent infringement claims.) But a win here will go a long way toward consolidating the legal status of OSS.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Did it take you 3 years to work that out ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
This essentially says that, since SCO tried to sneak some evidence at the end, without going through the proper legal process before hand, that this evidence should be removed and not considered by the court/judge/jury.
In an appeals process, these documents would not show up in a new case should SCO try to sue IBM in a higher court. SCO would have to try to re-enter that testemony.
Not that he'll get called on the hypocrisy or anything.
What makes you think he's being hypocritical?
The previous article was written over three years ago. At the time WE may have known (or suspected) that SCO was talking through its hat, but The Suits, and the reporters that served them, had little such knowlege.
SCO talked a good line, while Open Source was a newcomer to business, of questionable utility, promoted by people who looked like "a bunch of socialist hippies" who didn't respect "intellectual property" and the related legal framework. Sure the OSS people SAID there was no proprietary Unix IP in Linux - deliberately or accidentally. But SCO (then repuatble) said otherwise.
Now we've had the SCO v. IBM trial (where it's clear that the issues are VERY important for business). That has given three plus years of education (so far) to those who are following it. (This is the JOB of news article authors such as Lions, who write these pieces to convey such information to executives, who need to get it RIGHT for their own multi-billion-dollar decision-making.) And so far SCO has shown itself to be blowing smoke, while IBM has shown Linux to be on solid IP ground.
So of COURSE the article NOW will be much different from the article THEN.
It would have been hypocracy if Lions had written the two articles back-to-back, with the same knowlege and mindset while writing both. But the Lions of today is a more educated man on this issue than the Lions of three plus years ago. So the contrast in the articles reflects his intelligence, integrity, and honesty - not hypocracy.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The Wheels of Justice ... Grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
Well I, for one, am willing to wait a bit if it is because they are taking that time to be sure they get it RIGHT. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Except that this article is the THIRD SCO article in two days. The event yesterday was separate; it had one article. However, this current quashing was already discussed in an article posted 6 hours before this one.
And to top it off, your underinformed post gets +5 Informative while my 100% correct one got marked Overrated.
Both the SCO lawsuit and the MS-Novell agreement are designed to cast (at least to most tech-unsavy MBA types) a huge legal cloud over Linux specifically, and FOSS in general, of which Microsoft would be the only benefactor.
And to make the reason for the timing explicit: With the SCO suit unraveling, it's time to get the next shoe ready to drop.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If it ain't broke, it needs more features!
What are you smoking? David Boies represented the prosecution against MS! He "famously took the "other side" by representing the Justice Department in the United States v. Microsoft case" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies
vsxl.com - Compare cameras like the Canon Rebel XTi vs. Nikon D80
No, no, you don't get it.
:-)
See, this is the true beginning of the DeathWatch. Expect more semi-overlapping articles...
w00t
snarkth
Looks like the last line of Steve Savitsky's song will soon come true:
(Posting rather than linking so Steve's web site doesn't get slashdotted, and the "Creative Commons License" permits it.)
High Barratry
Lyrics © 2004 Stephen Savitzky.
Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ Some rights reserved.
To the tune of: High Barbary (trad)
Of a company called S-C-O, the tale I'll briefly tell
With G-P-L, our software all is free
Who turned their hands to barratry when software wouldn't sell
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
``And are you selling Linux or old Unixware?'' said we
With GPL, our software all is free
We're the owners of all Unix come demanding of our fee!
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
You've stolen code from System V and given it away
With GPL, our software all is free
So buy licences for Linux, or we'll sue and make you pay
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
They first sued IBM over a million lines of code
With GPL, our software all is free
Though a subroutine or two from BSD was all they showed
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
Well, RedHat sued them next so they went gunning for Novell
With GPL, our software all is free
Autozone and Daimler-Chrysler soon were on their list as well
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
Then lawsuit and lawsuit we fought for many a day
With GPL, our software all is free
'Till the research done at Groklaw blew their cases clean away
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
Oh, please buy us out, the SCOundrels made their plea
With GPL, our software all is free
But the buyout that they got was in a court of bankruptcy
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
And oh, it was a sorry thing to hear them rant and roar
With GPL, our software all is free
With their options underwater as their stock sank through the floor
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
Though they started as Caldera selling Linux long ago
With GPL, our software all is free
Soon a huge volcanic crater will be all that's left of SCO
Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
Sell them to Playgirl for their next "men in politics" issue...
Click here or here.
See my small cartoon. Bye, Oliver
Better yet, if SCO's archives have sufficient evidence of such a conspiracy (Microsoft might be careful, but Darl???) to be a case in its own right, then we're also talking the crossing of State boundaries for the commission of a crime, and assorted other big-league charges that could do some serious damage.
Finally, back to Europe. They have not yet completely cleared Vista for Europe and if there is evidence of conspiracy to defraud consumers of choice, on the part of Microsoft, some of the mega-fines may be upgraded, additional charges may be levied, and Vista may be barred from sale by Microsoft. If this happens, it would not surprise me if Eminent Domain is used to seize Vista intellectual property in Europe, with the EU reselling the source and rights to the highest European bidder. (The US can't complain if this happens - the NSA routinely conducts industrial espionage and sells European trade secrets to American companies.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)