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SCO Asks Court To Reconsider IBM's Dismissal
VE3OGG writes "The SCO Group — the litigation firm currently in dispute with, among many, IBM, over supposed copyright infringing code in Unix — has quietly asked the courts to reconsider IBM's request to toss the case out. SCO argued that the court's November decision was procedurally and substantially flawed and they say 'the rules of procedure do not support such a result under the circumstances of this case.' If allowed to reopen the case, the SCO Group argues, that new evidence would present itself through the deposition of several IBM programmers who had previously been interviewed."
as news for nerds that is one week old is still news...
According to both the article and Groklaw, it's not so much that Judge Kimball threw out SCO's case as it is that he affirmed Magistrate Judge Wells' order that threw out the claims that SCO couldn't or wouldn't substantiate. That does indeed include most of SCO's claims, but it's not true that the whole case was dismissed. SCO does have a few claims remaining, and IBM has multiple counterclaims. Nevertheless, SCO's goose is completely cooked, and we're now just waiting for IBM to finish them off.
Groklaw now has up a redacted version of IBM's reply memo to SCO's motion, which lays out numerous reasons why SCO is yet again full of what my grandfather called "condensed canal water".
They presented these items as evidence, but when the items were rightly challenged (basically, SCOG didn't supply file, version and line information that the judge ordered of code/methods they accused IBM of misusing), they changed their story (as they are accustomed to) and told the judge the items were claims.
If you take a good look at SCOG's filings, you can see that they cherry-pick those parts of the evidence and declarations that seem to support their claim, often quoting incomplete paragraphs of contracts and correspondence, and using parts of declarations out of context.
It's just plain lies, dressed up to enable SCOG to present them without sanction.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Their plan (as admitted in interviews) was to withhold "evidence" to the last moment to prevent IBM from preparing a good defence. This is unfair and not allowed of course, which is part of the reason some of their "evidence" was thrown out.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
According to both the article and Groklaw, it's not so much that Judge Kimball threw out SCO's case as it is that he affirmed Magistrate Judge Wells' order that threw out the claims that SCO couldn't or wouldn't substantiate.
There is a still a problem with the terminology in the above. Judge Wells did not throw out claims (a legal term). She did not throw out evidence. She threw out allegations of IBM wrongdoing that were inadequately substantiated. Judge Kimball affirmed the ruling.
Contrary to SCO's latest filings and attempts to obfuscate the issue, all of the claims (Causes of action) are intact. They still have about a hundred allegations in play. Most of these allegations are still redacted from the general public but indications are that they are quite weak.
> ...the litigation firm currently in dispute with, among many, IBM, over
> supposed copyright infringing code in Unix...
Incorrect. It's a contract case. The only copyright infringement claim The SCO Group is making has to do with IBM continuing to distribute AIX after TSG supposedly terminated IBM's irrevocable, perpetual, fully paid up SysV license.
> -- has quietly asked the courts to reconsider IBM's request to toss the case
> out.
Incorrect again. They have asked the court to reconsider its decision to toss most of TSG's evidence.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This reads like SCO want the court to throw the case out, or that the court has thrown the case out, and SCO wants the court to reconsider. When, in fact, all that has happened is a sizeable portion of their case has been thrown out, not the case in it's entirety.
Any documents in a court case can be sealed from the general public on request of the parties, to avoid revealing trade secrets, embarrasing stuff, and so on. Then a redacted form of the document is normally made available, minus whatever they don't want you to see.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
That's why IBM never settles - never.