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.

Comments

the ruling should have been . . .

[queequeg1]

To paraphrase the ruling "Insofar as this proposed item exceeds anyone's tolerance for blatant dupes , it should be stricken."

You got some SCO on your face

[straponego]

Too bad IBM can't realistically go after SCO's backers (MS, Sun)... but as long as SCO is vaporized and the scum who ran the scam have all their assets seized, I'll be content. Prison time would be appropriate given the damage they did and attempted to do to honest programmers and the economy in general, but... probably best to just end the whole farce and move on.

What do you mean, vindictive?

Re:Who has a clear timeline?

[venicebeach]

Part of this week's ruling was that the IBM-SCO case will not be heard until Novell vs SCO is taken care of. So the trial date for IBM/SCO has not been set yet:

It appears that judicial economy and the interests of all the parties will be best served by trying the Novell case-set to begin on September 17, 2007-prior to the instant action. After deciding the pending dispositive motions in this case, and after deciding the dispositive motions in Novell, which should be fully briefed in May 2007, the court will set a trial date for any remaining claims in this action. The pending dispositive motions will be heard on the following dates: Thursday, March 1, 2007 (3:00pm-5:00pm); Monday, March 5, 2007 (2:30pm-5:00pm); and Wednesday, March 7, 2007 (2:30pm-5:00pm). The parties are directed to submit a proposal by no later than January 12, 2007, setting forth the most efficient sequence for hearing the motions, with both parties having equal time on each motion.

Re:Sure glad

[kimvette]

Sad to see, as SCO was once a respectable company in Santa Cruz, CA.

The current SCO is a different company than the the old SCO (Santa Cruz Organization) to which you refer.

http://www.answers.com/topic/tarantella-inc-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella%2C_Inc.

The new SCO is pure evil and I would not be surprised to learn that Darl McBride is a pedophile and baby eater, and that he kicks newborn puppies for fun.

OT: Cheap Laugh

[Nighttime]

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.

Re:Three's the charm!

[mean pun]

This is a great story! Let's see it posted three times to slashdot! Everybody submit the story from a different angle!

By a strange coincidence, you're the third one to say this, and your angle is indeed different from the other ones. Unfortunately, all of you have overlooked the juicy bit of this news item, buried deeply in the /. text:

SCO has been reprimanded for the second day in a row by a second judge in their campaign against Linux.

If one SCO disaster is newsworthy, two disasters in as many days surely is also newsworthy.

So much for connecting to Slashdot at Lunchtime

[StressGuy]

...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.

Re:Er, dupe?

[KokorHekkus]

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.

Re:Er, dupe?

[psykocrime]

Not a dupe. There really have been two distinct SCO stories in the last 24 hours or so.

Re:So, when do we finally get to watch...

[Basehart]

I hope SCO doen't come after me next! I tried to install Linux on a pile of dog shit a few weeks ago and am now wondering if I didn't somehow infringed on SCO's intellectual property.

Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

"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!).

SCOX down 40% today

[Animats]

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.

• "SCO Losing Case Over Linux Code" - Associated Press "Kimball gave Wells' reasoning his full support Thursday, finding that SCO had deliberately failed to show any proof of its claims."
• "SCO Gets TKO'ed" - Forbes "The judges seem to be growing frustrated with SCO. For years, the company has gone around making outlandish claims--including many to Forbes--about IBM stealing huge amounts of code from Unix. Yet SCO has never shown any evidence to back up its claims."
• "Investors Abandon SCO" "Investors fled SCO Group's stock on Friday, voting with their feet after a federal judge gutted its lawsuit against IBM. "

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.

Re:SCOX down 40% today

[Soko]

Wonder if Rob Enderle has, too.

From http://www.technewsworld.com/story/opinion/33529.h tml:

SCO has just over US$60 million in resources to sustain it while it fights IBM (NYSE: IBM) Latest News about IBM in what clearly is one of the most volatile wars in the history of technology. 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.

Enjoy your crow dinner, Rob. For desert is Humble Pie.

Soko

Re:SCOX down 40% today

[jimfrost]

Back when Enderle was writing a lot of pro-SCO articles I corresponded with him a few times on it. He was convinced that SCO would win largely because they could put themselves in front of a jury as the little guy being beaten up by the big guy.

I completely disagreed; at the time, it seemed clear to me that SCO's entire case rested on an interpretation of the contract that amounted to SCO owning all the code that IBM wrote independently. I don't think juries generally like the idea of someone using vague contractual language to grab others' work, especially seeing as SCO didn't even do the original work.

I also argued that it was unlikely SCO had anything to show, given that they'd already been reprimanded for missing discovery deadlines; now I am not a lawyer but my impression is that ignoring the judge's orders repeatedly is not good for your case. And indeed, that seems to be what has caught them out. Enderle told me he'd been privy to some of the stuff they were going to show the court, but my guess is that he didn't understand what they were showing him well enough to realize they were blowing smoke.

I am convinced that SCO figured IBM would just pay them to go away, everyone would make a quick buck, and that would be that; it would probably have been cheaper than this protracted court battle. But IBM thinks longer term. Having put up this kind of fight, do you think anyone else will ever sue them over Linux IP? This fight will make Linux largely lawsuit-proof.

It will be interesting to see what Enderle says about this decision, if anything. SCO clearly hoodwinked him. But as wrong as he was, he wasn't alone.

One cloud on this silver lining

[hellfire]

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.

Compare Lyons from 2003 and 2006

[Dr. Manhattan]

"SCO Gets TKO'ed" - Forbes "The judges seem to be growing frustrated with SCO. For years, the company has gone around making outlandish claims--including many to Forbes--about IBM stealing huge amounts of code from Unix. Yet SCO has never shown any evidence to back up its claims."

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.

Right after the MS-Novel deal .. coincidence ?

[MrData]

Hmm lets see:

• SCO gets bitch-slapped by two Judges for legal shenanigans.(As MS has been in virtually every leagal case it has been in, especially the Anti-Trust Case).
• Just a couple of weeks earlier, MS and Novell join up to make a business deal that is so bad, even those involved with the deal can't explain it from a legal or business standpoint (which would be about the time that the SCO lawyers knew they were about to be taken to the wood shed ).

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:

• Microsoft is an investor in Baystar Capital Managment who has invested at least 50 mil in SCO before the lawsuit (google for it if you don't believe me). Even worse, Lawrence R. Goldfarb, one of the investors in Baystart said MS promised to indemnify Baystar's investment from losses to to the suit.
• SCO's lawer is David Boies, the same lawyer who defended MS in its Anti-Trust suit against the US (and who was also repeatedly repremanded for legal malfeasance).

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

Re:So can someone answer something for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is NO "new material".

What SCO tried to sneak in after the close of the discovery phase was "expert" witness reports that broadened the scope of the original claims, to which IBM objected and Judge Kimball ruled on (in IBM's favor) yesterday.

What Judge Kimball correctly recognized was that trying to nail down SCO's claims was like trying to hit a moving target. The evidence that Judge Wells disallowed was ingeneously called "claims" by SCO in order to get past the fact (ie., evidence) discovery deadline.

If SCO has any new real evidence, they will have to ask for a new trial, not an appeal. Judge Kimball is working his hardest (de novo review) to make sure that there can be no appeal.

Even if SCO lasts that long.

Re:What makes you think he's being hypocritical?

[Dr. Manhattan]

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.

Except that now Lyons specifically states that SCO never produced any evidence. And even then the "noisy fanatics" (his words) were producing evidence that SCO was flat wrong.

Now he just sort of mumbles, "Gee, SCO was just flapping gums" without actually acknowledging that he was a prominent FUD disseminator himself, and they didn't - even then - back up their claims, to him or anyone else. I'd think at least a small apology would be in order.