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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."
When I was in high school, a rat got into the house. My cousin, a neighbor and I had it pinned behind a piece of furniture. I was beating it from above with a broom handle, my neighbor was wacking it from underneath with a shovel and my cousin was hitting it from the side with something else. I thought the damn thing would never die. SCO reminds me of that rat.
SCO is also asking Santa for a big red wagon and a puppy dog.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
as news for nerds that is one week old is still news...
Kimball Quoted as saying "You'll shoot your case out kid!"
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
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".
If they had some evidence they probably should have used it the first time. What were they waiting for? Christmas?
Wait, didn't the court just tell them that no, you can not introduce new evidence into a case years after discovery is over? And then tossed their case out saying they have no leg to stand on? And now they say "if only we were allowed to add this new evidence, there would be a case" ???
Are they trying to pull a Microsoft here - annoying the judge until he says something stupid and they can get him replaced? Or are they simply dumb and hard of hearing?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
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.
I don't know - What about the counterclaims? SCO may have bankrupted itself fighting this battle, but IBM still plans to rape the corpse.
Which is too bad since their twisted and distorted delusional logic would certainly support such an argument.
Fortunately, I don't think corporations can plead insanity.
I say "fortunately", because by their very raison d'etre, corporations very much exhibit antisocial PD (what people normally mean by the phrase "criminally insane"), as defined by the DSM-IV (having three or more of the following traits):
Letting corporations plead insanity would amount to giving them carte blanche to rape, pillage, murder, and burn the planet.
This is an example of the Casablanca Dilemma, which works like this.
You're in Casablanca. If you are not out of Casablanca on tommorow's flight, you're a dead man. You have your tickets, but you need Captain Renault to provide you with papers. Louis charges a thousand francs for this "service",and you can only raise five hundred.
The only way to double your money overnight is to win big a Rick's roullette tables, which would be very unlikely at an honest table -- which Rick's decidedly are not. Sometimes Rick has been known to take pity on a hard luck case, but there's no special reason for him to help you out of all the other desperate folks. You beg Rick for help, but it's no use. He's already helped one hard luck case tonight, and for some reason he is too distracted to pay attention to anything you have to say.
So you put down your bet at Rick's crooked table, knowing that you are almost certainly a walking dead man. But it's better to keep playing than to stop, and remove all doubt.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> ...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.
I'm not sure what the corporate equivalent of locking you up in a loonie bin would be.
800 hours of community service chained to Steve Balmer in the Pentagon putting together cheap office chairs from China that are missing parts.
that SCO _ever_ thought they had a chance of winning this case; that their intention from the very beginning was just to draw it out as long as possible.
As long as they do, the 800-pound puppetmaster behind the curtain can continue to get mileage out of charges that Linux is tainted by IP infringement and that Linux users may be liable for stiff damages.
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.
The article you linked to is a text version of IBM's reply to a previous SCO motion for partial summary judgment.
SCO's memorandum in support, which this belated Slashdot article is about, was filed on Dec 14th so we shouldn't expect IBM's reply to it until sometime next week.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Hey, SCO! You're supposed to submit your evidence during discovery, not several years into the case! Stop wasting our time and give up already.
www.isoHunt.com
I always found it particularly ironic that the film was made by Big Picture Media Corporation, according to their website - a subsidiary company of British Columbia Film. I think BC's Annual Report speaks volumes:
I think it's really good to see that an American Corporation has helped meet the niche needs of slashdot users, to give them some nice ideas to put in their posts, while at the same time turning a healthy profit ($4.5m) for the Canadians. Capitalism at it's best.You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.