Judge Kimball Strikes SCO's Jury Trial Demand

watchingeyes writes "In a ruling on various pre-trial motions in limine and other, similar motions in the SCO vs Novell case, Judge Kimball today issued a ruling striking SCO's demand for a jury trial, ruling that Novell's claims seek equitable, and not legal relief. In addition, he denied SCO's request for entry of judgment that would allow them to appeal his ruling on the UNIX copyrights and Novell's waiver rights, ruling that if SCO wants to appeal any of his rulings, it can do them all at once after trial. He also granted Novell's request to voluntarily dismiss its own breach of contract claim, denied SCO's motion to exclude press coverage and evidence from the IBM case, granted Novell's motion in limine preventing SCO from contesting his summary judgment ruling at trial, granted Novell's second motion in limine preventing SCO from arguing that SCOsource licenses that license SVRx only incidentally aren't SVRx licenses, denied another SCO motion in limine which improperly asked the Judge to issue rulings on contractual issues and denied Novell's final motion in limine which sought to prevent SCO from contesting Novell's apportionment of royalties analysis. Looks like SCO will be facing a trial in-front of a judge which has already ruled against them numerous times."

Comments

Interpretation

[inode_buddha]

Interpretation: SCO screwed themselves. If one has been following the case all along, this should be no surprise.

Re:Interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

Shorter interpretation: M-M-M-M-Monster Kill!!

Re:Interpretation

[UnixUnix]

Regardless, it is the attorneys' job to bring Motions, even of marginal merit, in the course of "vigorously representing their clients", or a semblance thereof. And it is the Judge's job to dispose of them. I remember back when SCO provided a decent PC-based version of UNIX... handy for introducing the latter to people, training them...and converting some into lifelong enemies of the Evil Empire, ha! On the other hand, it is not adopters of Novell Linux but rather non-converts currently using the Evil Empire Operating Systems who provide me with a seemingly endless stream of service calls, cries for help, and the occasional scream of anguish. Ah, MS. Thank you, thank you.

Re:Interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember back when SCO provided a decent PC-based version of UNIX
It was DIFFERENT SCO.
It was a company from Santa Cruz, California called "The Santa Cruz Operation". When their Unix business started to go downhill they sold it to Caldera - a company from Utah. The same Caldera that purchased DR-DOS and won Millions in a lawsuit from Microsoft.

After selling Unix business to Caldera The Santa Cruz Operation renamed itself to Tarantella and later on Caldera renamed itself to The SCO Group, Inc. and started suing its customers, former customers, business partners and former business partners.

... and now The SCO Group, Inc. is just about to become caldera again. By the time Novel and IBM lawyers are finished with them ... they will become a caldera. This time without capital C. Just a big smoking caldera at the place where SCO has its headquarters.

Re:Interpretation

[AJWM]

I remember back when SCO provided a decent PC-based version of UNIX..

You're probably thinking of the Santa Cruz Operation, not these bozos at Caldera doing business as The SCO Group, after they bought Santa Cruz's Unix business and Santa Cruz changed its name to Tarantella.

SCOG (The SCO Group aka Caldera) has deliberately blurred this distinction all along.

Re:Interpretation

[UnixUnix]

Yes, it looks like they sure got me - I wasn't aware of the switcheroo. Thank you for clarifying!

Re:Interpretation

[hawk]

>I remember back when SCO provided a decent PC-based version of UNIX.

I remember further back than that :)

They dropped off a unit for us to play with at Olivetti--an XT. After waiting for minutes at the login, we all wandered off . . .

hawk

Re:Interpretation

[SenseiLeNoir]

Tarantella (the OLD SCO - Santa Cruz Operation) was acquired by Sun Microsystems in July 2005, and is now a division of Sun Microsystems.

Just to elaborate on the parent, the ORIGINAL SCO was called the Santa Cruz Operation. I will call this company SCO, and the "new" ex caldera company TSG (for The Sco Group).

SCO was formed in 1978, and in 1983 acquired the rights to Ship Microsoft Xenix (Microsoft's own version of Unix for the x86 processor). SCO ported Xenix to the 386 processor, and eventually Microsoft transferred ownership of Xenix to SCO, with an agreement that leaves Microsoft owning 25% of SCO (not sure what happened to that "investment" afterwards).

In 1989, SCO produced SCO Unix from system V version 3.2 base, and eventually added TCP/IP, as well as the SCO open desktop (Unix + X + a desktop env). They still supported Xenix.

In 1995, SCO acquired the source code for System V ver 4 from Novell, as well as the license administrator for UNIX on behalf of Novell. They also acquired Novell UNIXware. They renamed SCO Unix to "Open Unix" and kept Unixware as Unixware. They did apparently try to merge the sources into one product in 1997. They were also part of the 86open group.

In 2000/2001, SCO sold its OpenUnix, Unixware, services, (virtually its entire UNIX business) to Caledera, and renamed itself Tarantella, to focus itself on this groupware product of the same name. Caldera renamed itself to "The SCO group"

The point of this little lecture, is that Caledra DIDN'T buy out SCO, or vice versa, even though their actions may imply otherwise. Also note the "license administrator for UNIX, on behalf of NOVELL"

Also note, it was the "real" SCO who was part of monterrey, not Caldera.

Obligatory Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella,_Inc.

Now Tarantella exists as part of Sun, and its technologies, which are similar to Citrix but for unix/linux too, based on X, and other terminal services, are a part of the Sun Secure Global Desktop.

Poor, Poor SCO

[Scottoest]

SCO is an exceptional software company, and I personally feel their legal claims are on solid... ...hahahahahahaha...

Damnit, I can never get through that sentence without laughing.

Hang em out to dry, Your Honor.

- Scott

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Hatta]

I'm not one to defend SCO or anything, but is this fair? Don't they have a right to a jury trial? Can they get a fair hearing of their appeals in front of the same judge that made the rulings that they are appealing? Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see SCO crushed but I'd like to see it done fairly.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[christurkel]

It gets even better. The best outcome they can hope for is not to owe Novell $$$. Ah, being on the defensive must suck.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Orange Crush]

Don't they have a right to a jury trial?

Sure they do. They just need a case first.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[qcomp]

IANAL, but as explained in Novell's motion (and in the ruling, I suppose), the right to jury trial exists only for certain types of legal proceedings, in particular, it does not apply if it's about contracts (presumably, because it would be too difficult for laypersons to understand the intricacies involved) and if the damages asked for are equitable only (not, e.g. punitive). And Novell did drop one of its claims (and SCO moved unsuccessfully not to allow it to) to make the damages at issue fit the bill.
So I do think SCO are treated fairly here.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Kazymyr]

Don't they have a right to a jury trial?

Why, did they murder someone?

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[allthingscode]

I think they would have been allowed to have a jury trial had SCO still had something to argue about. But after all the arguments and rulings, it's now just about how much money SCO owns Novell. And Novell is just asking the judge to decide that. It's part of a judge's job to decide if there are legal matters that should go in front of a jury, and there's nothing left here.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Pad-Lok]

Why, did they murder someone?

Yea, themselves.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[jobsagoodun]

Depends

From what I can work out, they only need a jury to decide if there is a dispute about the "facts" or if Novell were asking for punative damages. It seems that for the claims made, no facts are disputed, and Novell dropped their claim for special damages. All that left are decisions about the Law, and Judge Kimball gets to do that without a jury.

The facts of the case are the contracts etc. Both sides agree on the text of those, but the interpretation is a legal one and thats down to JK.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Socguy]

I admire your commitment to the principal of justice, but don't worry, SCO's highly paid and talented team of lawyers will see to it that every legal avenue available will be exploited.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[dmartin]

This is something that has confused me before, so I will ask it again in this context. The seventh amendment states

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. I am also aware that corporations are treated much like persons, and the amount in question certainly comes to more than $20, so why are they not guaranteed the right to trial by jury if they request it?

The answers I got when I asked about this last time (it was about people) was that someone could request a jury trial for civil matters, but they would have to pay huge court expenses. One argument may by that a corporation does not have the same rights as a person. After all, the USSC has ruled that "free speechquot; and commerical speech are quite different, and commercial speech is the only type of speech a corporation is likely to be involved in. Or is it that the costs to SCO would be too high? Or is it a technical definition of the words common law that I am missing?

Any insight would be appreciated!

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[innocent_white_lamb]

the interpretation is a legal one and thats down to JK.
 
Rowling?
 
SCO Wizard School: Ok children, watch closely as I wave my magic wand and *poof* watch all of that free cash roll in!
 
  Oops.Misfire...

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[nomadic]

I am also aware that corporations are treated much like persons, and the amount in question certainly comes to more than $20, so why are they not guaranteed the right to trial by jury if they request it?

They are.

Or is it a technical definition of the words common law that I am missing?

That's the problem. There were basically two systems of jurisprudence in the English/American common-law system, law and equity. They used to be two parallel systems, with their own tribunals ("judges" handled cases at law, "chancellors" handled cases at equity), but they were sort-of-merged in both countries a while ago.

In the US judges will hear both kinds of cases, and the procedural rules are the same, but claims for certain kinds of relief (like injunctions, or specific performance)are still considered equitable, so the Constitutional right to jury trial doesn't kick in.

You can probably find a more coherent explanation than the above if you check wikipedia for an entry on equity.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[watchingeyes]

As is clearly explained in the article on Groklaw, numerous articles before it, Novell's briefs which are also linked in the article and the very ruling the article is about, if your claim is equitable in relief (ie. not seeking damages, but instead merely seeking the return of ill-gotten or wrongfully withheld gains), or is also merely seeking construction of a contract, and requires no fact-finding, as is clearly the case here, the defendant has absolutely no right to a trial by jury whatsoever.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[watchingeyes]

RTFA and quit trying to be an armchair lawyer. The reasoning is laid out quite clearly in the ruling. Numerous appelate Judge's have upheld the exact type of ruling that Kimball issued here in far less deserving circumstances.

nuff said.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[watchingeyes]

BZZT, wrong. It doesn't have anything to do with whether factual issues remain or not. There are still facts in dispute regarding the apportionment of royalties, with both sides providing opposing expert reports. Judge Kimball specificlly ruled in the summary judgment rulings that this is a question of fact, not law. The reason this is not going to a jury is that the claims seek equitable relief.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[dmartin]

I did. It mentioned common law, and I checked some wikipedia articles on it. Common law is when the rulings of a judge are essentially codified into law. I was under the (mistaken) understanding that most of the US system was under common law. I was not trying to be a lawyer, or trying to give a legal opinion. I was expressing the fact that I did not understand the law, pointed out where the possible problems were (e.g. the definition of common law) and asked for any help in what the article meant.

    It is not your job to educate me on such matters, but your rudeness is uncalled for. The first reply I got gave me an area to look into to discern the difference and help me in my understanding of the law. I can understand your response if my post had gone out and claimed that the judge was completely wrong in his ruling and that a cursory reading of the constitution told you the judge was an idiot. However, what I said was I did not understand why the seventh amendent did not apply, and asked for help with my lack of understanding.

    If you don't want to help people understand, and they are not propogating misinformation, why the need to be so rude?

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[jbengt]

"hey only need a jury to decide if there is a dispute about the "facts" or if Novell were asking for punative damages"
Almost,
They could insist on a jury if it were a matter of law, like punitive damages, but it is only matter of equity, that is, make me whole by payin what you owe. Novell dropped the punitive damages so they could avoid a jury. There still is a matter of fact in dispute, that is, how much of the Sun and MS licenses were SysV, for which SCOX must remit to Novell in full in return for a 5% fee, and how much were for other things, for which SCOX should not owe anything to Novell.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[rssrss]

"... is this fair? Don't they have a right to a jury trial?"

Amendment 7 to the US constitution (the first 10 Amendments are known as "The Bill of Rights") provides:

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, ..."

The key words in this clause are "Suits at common law". This refers to those civil legal matters that could be heard in the courts of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Amendment in 1791 under the Common Law of England, which had been retained by those courts despite the adoption of the Constitution.

The most important limitation on suits at common law is that they are, for the most part, limited to suits to obtain money damages as a redress of the wrong done. Suits to obtain court orders, such as injunctions, were not recognized under the Common Law of England, although they could be brought in the Court of Chancery (in England, the Lord Chancellor's court).

What the article above says is that: "Judge Kimball today issued a ruling striking SCO's demand for a jury trial, ruling that Novell's claims seek equitable, and not legal relief."

This is legal jargon for saying that the SCO claims are requests for a judicial order and, in 1791, would have had to have been brought in the Court of Chancery, and therefore they are not a "Suit at common law, and do not elicit the right to trial by jury.

"Can they get a fair hearing of their appeals in front of the same judge that made the rulings that they are appealing?"

The judge will not review his own rulings on appeal. They will be reviewed first by a panel of 3 judges from the United States Court of Appeals for that area. However, SCO may not appeal any rulings until after the whole trial is completed. That is the normal way things are done. In extraordinary cases that schedule can be altered. This is not one of them. SCO asked for a change in the normal schedule and according to the article above the Judge said:

"If SCO wants to appeal any of his rulings, it can do them all at once after trial."

This is absolutely the usual practice in courts in the United States.

SCO is being crushed fairly.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[FST777]

Plus probably a broker or two...

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Hatta]

Thanks for explaining it so clearly. One question, if "suits at common law" means civil cases, where is our right to a jury trial in criminal cases secured? Is it?

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

> If you don't want to help people understand, and they are not propogating misinformation, why the need to be so rude?

Because they're insecure, and have to put on superior nasty attitudes to feel good about themselves. They don't deserve your attention, and they're not worth stressing out over.

Anyway, the disconnect with the seventh amendment is that it only applies to matters of equity in federal courts. This, as most civil suits are, is a state case, and few states have the same guarantees of civil juries for equity disputes.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[SythDot]

Don't they have a right to a jury trial? No, of course not. You have a right to a jury trial in a criminal proceeding. No on has a right to a jury trial in a civil suit, and it is actually somewhat rare to have juries in a case of contract law, because it would be nearly impossible to seat a jury that could understand, and therefore render a fair decision, the intricacies of contact law.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[rssrss]

"where is our right to a jury trial in criminal cases secured?"

Constitution of the United States of America -- Article. III. Section. 2. * * *

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury;

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[orclevegam]

Plus probably a broker or two...

Closer to assisted suicide than murder.

Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that after all of this legal nonsense is done, that Novell does the right thing and frees the SVRx source code. Ideally, they'd one-up Sun, and release it under a BSD-style license. That way, code can be incorporated into the *BSD projects, as well as Linux. It wouldn't just be a donation of technology to the open source community, but it would also be an excellent donation to computer historians. SVRx has played a very important role in the history of UNIX, and to make that history freely available to all would be a very regal thing for Novell to do.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[dosius]

Isn't Solaris a SVR4?

-uso.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Solaris was derived from SVR4. But that was between 1988 and 1990! There was a lot of development to both the Solaris and UnixWare branches during the past 18 years. So it's quite likely that what Sun released as OpenSolaris is radically different than what Novell could potentially release.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

UnixWare is hardly archaic. It brings to the PC many of the enterprise-grade features that AIX, HP-UX, and Tru64 offer. These are features that even Linux still doesn't support.

You'd be surprised at the prominent role that UnixWare plays in many of the largest organizations in the world. It powers the POS systems of a number of businesses, some of which you've probably visited in the past week. So while Linux gets all of the media hype, it's back-end, enterprise-grade systems like UnixWare, HP-UX and AIX that do much of the real work.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[rucs_hack]

What next a box with 256 bytes of ram and toggles on the front so you can enter code manually bit by bit?

You mean an Altair? Oh hell yes I'd like one. I tried to buy one back in the day, but couldn't get enough cash together.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[tomhudson]

"It powers the POS systems of a number of businesses, some of which you've probably visited in the past week"

I've been boycotting McDonalds since before the start of this millenium, when the WERE running their POS on SCO.

If you can point us all to a list of SCO customers, I'm sure we'd all like to take a shot at making a pitch to switch them to something - anything - else. SCO's loss is our gain.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[tomhudson]

I wanted the heathkit with the 4004.

Instead, ended up years a few later with some CoCos.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been boycotting McDonalds since before the start of this millenium, when the WERE running their POS on SCO.

If you want to boycott McDonalds do so for the right reason, such as their foods are killing people. They put soy and other allergens (such as glutens, etc.) in their patties without warning customers. I wouldn't boycott them because they are running a system they purchased from old SCO, which although was indirectly spawned from Microsoft, was not evil like new SCO is.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I've been boycotting McDonalds since 1974, for the simple reason that their advertising was obnoxious. They could serve nothing but organic salads from now on and I still won't spend my money there.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Ronald McDonald touch you on your peepee?

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[tomhudson]

I started boycotting McDonalds the day they came out with McDonalds Pizza. I never tried one, because I felt it was unfair competition (and also because I think their advertising was and is directed improperly at little kids).

Hope that's a "right enough" reason for you :-)

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[watchingeyes]

I dislike McDonald's and refuse to eat there, but I think saying that them offering pizza is unfair competition is a tad bit ridiculous.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Ritchie70]

Where does McDonald's have pizza? I know they tested with it years ago but didn't know any were currently selling it.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[Ritchie70]

AFAIK, McDonald's POS system (ie, the cash registers) doesn't use SCO Unix, never has, never will.

Their back office system has used SCO (originally Xenix, currently OpenServer) since some time in the mid 1980's. This is the system the stores use for cash management, personnel, inventory and sales tracking, reporting and analysis.

I know some folks who work in McD IS and they're highly concerned about SCO, want to get off of SCO, and joke that after the lawsuit McD should just buy SCOX, but it's a major task to port a 20-year application that's evolved dramatically over those two decades to a new platform.

Re:Will Novell free the SVRx source code?

[tomhudson]

I wouldn't know if they still do anywhere, but when I make a decision to boycott something, I stick with it. I don't think I'm missing out on anything (except maybe a heart attack) by boycotting McDonalds.

SCO - the Monty Python Black Knight

[tjstork]

"Aye, you chopped my legal arm off! No big deal! Have at you!"

"Aye, you chopped my legal legs off! No big deal! I can still hop! Have at you!"

english not good enough

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

since english is not my primary language, can someone help me with all the legalese ?

is this another nail on SCO's coffin, or several of them at the same time ?

Re:english not good enough

[rah1420]

since english is not my primary language

Heh. I don't think that even most people whose primary language is English could understand that. Especially since most legalese is Latin.

I believe this is several nails, however.

Re:english not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary read like the judge had crossed an AK-47 with a common nailgun and was shooting at SCO's coffin.

Talk about pwned.

Re:english not good enough

[Crypto Gnome]

America may have many things wrong with it, but in this case (pun intended) it's very nice to see a sitting judge wield a powered nail-gun with such accuracy.

Re:english not good enough

[cccM.I.A]

No, this is final polish to the coffin before transporting it to the burial ground. The nails are of course all hammered in at this stage.

Re:english not good enough

[morgan_greywolf]

In limine means 'at the threshold'. It's a type of motion that's filed right before a trial is set to start, usually to have the judge rule on which evidence to include or exclude.

For those not understanding what's going on: Kimball ruled that the copyrights on UNIX System V don't belong to SCO, they belong to Novell, because the Asset Purchase Agreement, signed between Novell and Santa Cruz never transferred the copyrights, just the business. Santa Cruz was to collect UNIX royalties for SVR5 for Novell and keep a portion for themselves in exchange. The SCO Group stopped paying Novell for UNIX sometime ago, and Novell wants its money.

Now if SCO doesn't own the UNIX copyrights, then how can they sue IBM? The answer is, they can't, especially since Novell told them they can't. Now SCO wants to appeal this decision before the Novell trial is over so they can still sue IBM. And they want any evidence from the IBM trial to not be used in the Novell trial (they filed a similar motion in the IBM trial). And Kimball said "No, and no."

In short: SCO is screwed. After Novell is through with them, if anything is left, IBM will launch its Lanham Act claims against SCO and there will be a smokin' hole in Linden, Utah, where SCO HQ used to be.

Re:english not good enough

[advocate_one]

In short: SCO is screwed. After Novell is through with them, if anything is left, IBM will launch its Lanham Act claims against SCO and there will be a smokin' hole in Linden, Utah, where SCO HQ used to be.

I want to see them go and pierce the "corporate veil" and go after the source of the money SCO used to bankroll the lawsui^H^H^H^H^H^Hscam... I want to know who the real "PIPE Fairy" is... we all suspect Microsoft, but I want to see hard evidence that can be used against Microsoft.

Re:english not good enough

[Aim Here]

"motion in limine" == a motion before a trial regarding what evidence is allowed to be shown to a jury

"equitable relief" == court-ordered restitution of property, as opposed to fines and punishments. Suing someone to enforce a contract they signed or pay back money they owe you is equitable relief, as opposed to suing them for punitive damages, which is a legal matter. The relevancy here is that equitable matters don't warrant a jury trial, whereas legal ones do.

"waiver" == A formal way of stating that you, or someone acting on your behalf, will not enforce one of your (or their) rights. In this case, Novell issued a waiver on behalf of SCO over whatever it was that SCO was suing IBM over (Normally you can't waive someone else's rights like this, but SCO signed a contract that allowed Novell to do just that)

"dismiss" == to throw a court claim out and not hear it.

"summary judgment" == A judgement on a claim instead of an actual trial, because there was no disputed evidence to hear, so the Judge could rule on it immediately.

It's bad for SCO, this ruling; it doesn't get to bamboozle a fresh naïve jury but instead gets one of the two judges they've been irritating for the past 4 years, so that's it's next-to-last hope for a favourable ruling out the window. The only ray of hope is that it might be able to use some new evidence out to show that whatever Microsoft and Sun paid for wasn't the stuff that Novell was recently ruled to have owned. But it'll be fighting against it's own public statements and anything it's said in other courtrooms, so it's chances are slimmer than slim...

Re:english not good enough

[Quila]

It means they're just about ready to lower the coffin into the grave. SCO was hoping to have a jury they can confuse, but now the case will be tried in front of a judge who knows their tricks and can't be fooled.

Re:english not good enough

[Orange Crush]

Santa Cruz was to collect UNIX royalties for SVR5 for Novell and keep a portion for themselves

My understanding as that they were to collect UNIX royalties for Novell and hand them all to Novell *then* Novell would pay them their cut. (Which of course they never did, so Novell is demanding *all* royalties ever collected by SCO.)

Re:english not good enough

[jbengt]

"Now if SCO doesn't own the UNIX copyrights, then how can they sue IBM?"

Actually they can, and might, still sue IBM over breach of contract. They have waffled back and forth in the IBM case over whether they were suing about copyright or contract issues. Lately they've been saying that the IBM suit is about contracts. Unfortunately most of the breach of contract they're alleging have to do with copyrights and trade secrets, which will be much harder to sue over if Novell owns the copyrights.

Don't be suprised if they ask for a delay in the IBM case while they appeal the Novell case.

Re:english not good enough

[JPriest]

Even if not the "off books" shenanigans it could be said that MSFT gave SCO a great deal of money for their own UNIX license (UNIX services for windows etc.). Now it may be ruled that Novell is entitled to all of that money, not that collecting it from a bankrupt company (SCO) will be easy.

Re:english not good enough

[optimus2861]

It's bad for SCO, this ruling; it doesn't get to bamboozle a fresh naïve jury but instead gets one of the two judges they've been irritating for the past 4 years, so that's it's next-to-last hope for a favourable ruling out the window.

Worse than that; remember that Judge Kimball is presiding over both the SCO/Novell and SCO/IBM cases. So SCO can't even try to pull a, "This is what the Novell judge really meant," bamboozle on the IBM judge, as they've tried to do with the Autozone and Red Hat cases in the past.

Re:english not good enough

[morgan_greywolf]

No, no. See, the thing is when Caldera first aquired the Unix business from Santa Cruz, they were paying royalties to Novell. SCO is try to claim that they thought the APA transferred the copyrights, but if it did, then why were they paying royalties to Novell?

Re:english not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Except another part of the ruling was that Novell does indeed have the right to require SCO to waive any and all provisions of those contracts, and Novell did in fact do so. It would seem little would be left of the IBM case as well, given that.

Re:english not good enough

[ozmanjusri]

You're joking, I hope?

SCO has been allowed to cause uncountable damage to Linux and an equivalent benefit to Microsoft for the past three years.

That's thirty billion dollars of income for Microsoft, protected from competition in part by FUD generated by SCO. They have NEVER had a credible case, but they have been allowed to slander the closest competition Microsoft has for three years. Only now does it look like they'll be forced to stop the slander.

And their punishment? We don't know yet, but it looks like it'll be no worse than shutting down the company and allowing the perpetrators to take their ill-gotten gains elsewhere.

You call that justice? I call it a travesty.

Re:english not good enough

[GIL_Dude]

10 penny nails? (Or 10d as some call them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)#US_pe nny_sizes). Sounds about right, and is probably all that SCO has left anyway.

Re:english not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

> America may have many things wrong with it,...

Please name for us a country that doesn't. Shall we conduct a poll of their citizens to see if they agree with you?

And, how would you compare the many things "wrong" with America with the many things "right" with America?

Re:english not good enough

[AJWM]

I think the coffin is already nailed shut. This is throwing dirt on it.

Re:english not good enough

[watchingeyes]

Let's put it this way. Novell and SCO collectively filed 8 pre-trial motions. Novell won 7, SCO won 1. These are for a trial that has already largely been decided against SCO at the summary judgment stage. SCO's only hope was to dazzle a jury into believing their claims, and that is gone now. In other words, they are downright fucked.

IBM is still pushing Kimball for rulings on their summary judgment motions. I expect those before the start of trial, so that IBM can be vindicated and Novell can finish SCO off, almost completely wiping these 2 cases off the docket.

After that, it will go to appeals (although SCO will have to post a bond when they lose, so this might not even happen), which will be MUCH less friendly towards SCO's...... unique legal theories.

Re:english not good enough

[watchingeyes]

That's what the contract SAID. In-fact, to make things simpler, SCO would just pay themselves the money on behalf of Novell, which Novell did not have a problem with, as long as the money was properly accounted for. Actually saved Novell money that way, cause the job of apportionment was left to SCO.

Re:english not good enough

[watchingeyes]

SCO AND NOVELL cited close to 10 cases where, in-fact, copyrights had transferred to a party that continued to pay royalties. In-fact, this is how record labels generally function if I'm not mistaken. However, when a contract like the APA specifically states that all copyrights are excluded, then this is clearly not the case.

Re:english not good enough

[watchingeyes]

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/6_12 _03_n-scoandibm.pdf

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_1 0_03_n-sco_ibm.pdf

Judge Kimball has ruled these waivers were valid. In-fact, SCO's contract claims were hurt MORE by the ruling than the copyright ones, cause SCO can still claim infringement over code they own (although they haven't presented any).

Re:english not good enough

[watchingeyes]

Oh give me a break. Customers stopped caring about SCO years ago, and Microsoft's sales have gone up since. Saying that all of Microsoft's revenue is attributable to SCO, every last dime, is downright ridiculous. I know this is Slashdot, but quit being a fanboy idiot. IBM and Novell are big boys, they can defend themselves. SCO's case against Linux itself imploded long ago.

Re:english not good enough

[someone1234]

This is more like a coffin lid made of lead :)

Re:english not good enough

[jbengt]

That's a different contract.

Re:english not good enough

[jbengt]

I don't believe that either of those are about the project montery contract. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
Well, it probably doesn't matter, anyway, since SCOX may soon be bamkrupt, and in bankrupcy, SCOX will probably be quickly forced to settle.

Re:english not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Every country has many things wrong with it.

The Islamic countries are particularly fucked up.

Re:english not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

> SCO has been allowed to cause uncountable damage to Linux and an equivalent benefit to Microsoft for the past three years.

Yeah, that's the problem: uncountable. It's hard to sue for an uncountable amount.

Red Hat on the other hand, is bringing suit under the Lanham act for this kind of damages. That's a criminal statute too, though they're only chasing the civil side. Yep, after Novell and IBM are through, Red Hat is next in line to take a chunk out of SCO. Assuming there's a SCO anymore by then.

So let's put it this way: the last company that publicly slandered Linux turned into a smoking hole into the ground. I call that justice.

Re:english not good enough

[watchingeyes]

SCO's hand-waving about having the right to sue over monteray is meaningless. SCO is not a party to the monteray contract, and Santa Cruz never assigned it to them. The contract had a specific provision that Santa Cruz had to seek IBM's approval before assigning the contract to a third party, so they went behind IBM's back, assigned the contract, and then notified IBM afterwards. IBM sent a letter a couple of days later terminating the contract (and neither Santa Cruz nor Caldera/SCO ever disputed IBM's rights to do this, as the contract was very specific that IBM had the right to do this).

All the letters between Santa Cruz, Caldera and IBM re: this are somewhere on Groklaw, good luck finding them :-P If I remember correctly, IBM did include them in their summary judgment motions, however, those motions included over 500 attachments.

The only other thing SCO says helps them is that they own derivative versions of Unixware after 1995. This isn't entirely correct either. Novell, since they were receiving significant Unixware royalties on top of SVRx royalties, continued to commit development resources to Unixware all the way into 1998, 3 years after the signing of the APA, in order to ensure that it remained viable and also due to a partnership between Novell, HP and Santa Cruz. IBM also contributed code to Unixware that they would own the copyrights to. It isn't clear whether much of today's Unixware even belongs to SCO, as it has been left to stagnate for a while and a lot of the development work between 1995-1998 still continued to be done by others.

In addition, SCO never claimed Linux infringed on Unixware, only SVRx. It wasn't until the ruling last month, over 4 years after filing suit against IBM, that they began claiming that Linux contains Unixware code. Both IBM and Novell state that SCO hasn't provided a single line of code post-1995 that they think Linux infringes on.

SCO is toast.

Waste, nothing but waste

[schwit1]

Does this epitomize the drag lawyers and the legal system place on the US? This and the overly complex tax system have no redeeming value in the US economy or am I missing something?

Re:Waste, nothing but waste

[Adult film producer]

i wouldnt' worry too much about all of this. After the USD collapses and sinks to the bottom of the sea this whole game by SCO, the RIAA, and all these other companies that depend on "intellectual capital" will evaporate. The USD closed under 80 today, bernanke will not cut rates (but I hope he will just to sink the dollar even further).. inflation that the u.s. consumer has never seen is on the horizon and cannot be stopped. The games these CEO's want to play are over with.. it was fun, but time has run out.

Re:Waste, nothing but waste

[beamin]

Oh, absolutely. Lawyers themselves should be outlawed. That way, nobody would ever be able to have the assistance of a learned professional when it came to petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.

Re:Waste, nothing but waste

[geminidomino]

Nor would they need them. No lawyers=no stupid dirty lawyer tricks. Just plain straight up statement of complaint, counter-complaint.

Re:Waste, nothing but waste

[jimicus]

What would happen eventually is various ifs, buts and maybes would have to be added to the system. There are thousands of corner cases in real life which it's really very hard to nail down.

So if you found yourself in court, you'd probably want to find someone who had experience with this kind of thing to advise you. Sooner or later a group of these people would get together, maybe form a professional body and set up exams necessary to become a member - and you'd be back where you are today.

*Yawn*

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

SCO v. IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Linux users worldwide, etc got old years ago. It's all about Microsoft v. The Civilized World now! Get with the times Slashdot!

One-armed man

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO should have blamed everything on a one-armed man; Kimball would have been much more sympathetic.

Re:One-armed man

[ntrfug]

I thought it was *Kimball* who blamed the one-armed man?

Re:One-armed man

[Eponymous Bastard]

I doubt it. He's probably been hearing that joke all his life. Bringin it up again is not going to get you on his good side.

Re:One-armed man

[dbIII]

I thought Kimball had the lens?

Re:One-armed man

[phoenixwade]

I thought it was *Kimball* who blamed the one-armed man? He did, that was the point.... If SCOx Blamed the same guy that Kimball did, then the two would have common ground finger pointing...

Re:One-armed man

[Watson Ladd]

The fugative came out in 1993. I doubt that's all of Judge Kimball's life.

Re:One-armed man

[geminidomino]

Err, no. The movie was based on a early-to-mid 60's TV show. 50 years is plenty of time to be "most of his life"

NO! FUCK!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is BAD! Not "haha." My stock portfolio is RUINED! I invested my life savings in SCOX stock hoping it would fly after they won the suit against IBM. I even looked at the Stochastic graph and the candles! I was SURE! This REALLY hurts the case! FUCK! I think my stock is already dropping. And my broker won't give stock certificates! :(

When is someone going to jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the beginning this has seemed to me to be a 'pump and dump'.

Does anyone know if the SEC is watching this?

No!

[Skapare]

Hang em out to dry, Your Honor.

Isn't there some EPA regulation against this?

and in other weekend news

[Anonymous Coward]

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Maybe the most important remaining issue

[Anonymous Coward]

One question that will be settled at trial is apportionment. That is, how much of the money paid by Microsoft and Sun belongs to Novell. The judge has clearly said that some of the money belongs to Novell. The best SCO can do is argue that it is a very small amount.

SCO's problem is that they basically told the SEC that all the money belongs to Novell. SCO tried to have that evidence excluded but failed.

It is likely that Novell will get more than 50% of the money. The judge will grant a constructive trust. SCO will be immediately bankrupt. The trustee will march in and kick the current SCO management out. The trustee will agree to anything the creditors (IBM, Novell mainly) tell him. The cases will end immediately.

AllParadox, a retired lawyer who has been following the case closely, predicts that Judge K. will issue an order sanctioning SCO's lawyers. Some of them could end up being disbarred. It will serve them right. This case has been an incredible misuse of the courts.

Re:Maybe the most important remaining issue

[keraneuology]

AllParadox, a retired lawyer who has been following the case closely, predicts that Judge K. will issue an order sanctioning SCO's lawyers. Some of them could end up being disbarred . It will serve them right. This case has been an incredible misuse of the courts.

One can only hope, but this is very unlikely. The legal system is loathe to expel their own - when judge Susan Chrzanowski was caught having an affair with a defense attorney who was a) pleading cases before her b) given a virtual monopoly on court-appointed indigent cases, c) murdered his wife the day after having yet another sexual rendezvous with the judge and the judge was caught in several lies regarding her involvement her only punishment was 17 months paid "vacation" (they called it a suspension, but she collected around $200,000 and full benefits), six months unpaid leave, and instead of being disbarred was allowed to return to the bench. Retired state justice Charles Levin who oversaw Susan's review originally ruled that she had done nothing whatsoever that merited punishment.

If cases like this don't merit any punishment from the ranks of the legal system, why would a couple of lawyers playing hardball in a case that most americans don't understand or care about be prohibited from paying more dues to the various lawyer associations?

Re:Maybe the most important remaining issue

[maz2331]

It's actually pretty simple when you think about it. The legal profession long ago abandoned the principle of "rule of law" and substituted in its place "rule of lawyer". This turned the entire judicial branch of the government into thier own money making machine.

Re:Maybe the most important remaining issue

[legirons]

"It is likely that Novell will get more than 50% of the money."

Is the number allowed to be some percentage? I thought that SCO had claimed it was "100% theirs or nothing", hence Novell being rather happy they could prove it wasn't 100% (and asking for "no new theories of apportionment to be conjured-up at the last minute, please")

Re:Maybe the most important remaining issue

[watchingeyes]

Well yes, but you see, a quick read of TFA would show you that this is the sole Novell motion denied. Oh wait, it's in the summary too. Don't you look like a fool now.

Re:Maybe the most important remaining issue

[legirons]

"Don't you look like a fool now."

Just a slow reader -- finally got to that part of the court's PDF.

justice

[SolusSD]

well the system works.. but in O(2^n) time with O(n!) cost. ugh.. DIE ALREADY.

Re:justice

[the eric conspiracy]

It's been that way for a long time. See "The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant" circa 1800 BC

Here's an example

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1506245/

The guy who prosecuted the Duke lacrosse players. Disbarred.

The SCO cases have consumed years of the court's time and have cost the other parties many millions of dollars in lawyer's fees. Their cases have zero merit. The lawyers should have know the cases had no merit. My WAG is that they will get smacked real hard.

My other WAG is that Darl gets nailed for Lanham act violations.

Re:Here's an example

[keraneuology]

Yes, Nifong was disbarred, but this is a rarity and involved a case that was front-page news across the country for months. What % of the national population knew about the Duke lacrosse incident? What % have ever heard of SCO? What % know that SCO, IBM and Novell are all in the same industry? If Nifong hadn't been disbarred then the profession would have taken a major black eye. If the attorneys involved in this case aren't disbarred, who - outside of /. readers - would know or even care?

I have my own personal feelings here - not only should the lawyers be kicked out but their masters should be personally punished. If your dog bites somebody on your command then you'd better believe that you'll face the music. If you are a corporate exec who issues the sic 'em command to your lawyer then you had better be ready to face the music. Personally.

But my personal thoughts are irrelevant, and these lawyers are likely to get nothing more than a slap on the wrist. In fact, in Michigan (and probably many other states) a lawyer is held responsible if he doesn't pursue a case to the utmost, and bringing about frivolous charges are just part of the game. How many cases are filed alleging racial discrimination where there is clearly zero evidence, let alone plausibility that it ever happened? Those lawyers are never punished for making false allegations, if the charges don't stick then all of the lawyers and judges say "oh well, no harm in trying".

Re:Here's an example

[udippel]

The SCO cases have consumed years of the court's time and have cost the other parties many millions of dollars in lawyer's fees. Their cases have zero merit. The lawyers should have know the cases had no merit

True, but the actual winner is Microsoft. They ought to be punished. They brought home tens of billions of business through the uncertainties surrounding the case. And I am positive they knew it. And I bet they encouraged it on purpose, on this purpose.
Of course, McBride must have his gooleys cut off, as well as his lawyers.
But justice this is not. Justice would be served only once Microsoft is called to duty and replenish all the funds, and stand in for the mess their lackeys have created.
Otherwise this case serves as an invitation to you to have someone else dragging your competitor through the mud, for years, without any case, sue him for hilarious damages. Without any chance for recourse, since that someone else keeps on dragging until your competitor is out of funds. All the business floating to you is your income, and in the end you wash your hands by distancing yourself from all the thunder created by that someone else.

I don't really believe all those stories painting McBride as stupid enough to gamble away SCO, his reputuation, eventually his own assests, his gooleys, until the last sen is gone. I think he was bride enough to do that based on some moral support from a place like Redmond. You don't take IBM head-on like he did, if you have some grams of brain left and don't enjoy high-level support.

Yes, cut off their gooleys !

Re:Here's an example

[wap911]

The lawyers will survive and so will management. Go read LamLaw [http://www.lamlaw.com] about "the B word". If you state "we own it".....then you are liable if you do not. Use "up information and [B]elief" then you can believe in anything whether or not it is true....go free. See it is just how you make your "word salad". Put Bleu Cheese dressing on it and no one eats, do the super creamy Ranch and they eat it up.

"Drag lawyers?"

[dpbsmith]

A momentary image of a cross-dressed Judge Kimball flashed through my right brain before my left brain could finish parsing the sentence.

Well ... your alternative is ?

[golodh]

For better or worse, the US judiciary is often the last defender of

(a) the constitution (just think of the PATRIOT act and other legal shenennigans by the current administration)

(b) individual freedom (versus the government)

(c) individual rights (versus the government and any other body that wields large amounts of power such as large corporations).

And yes, a large amount of time, care, money and attention is needed to adjudicate the conflicting claims and counterclaims. However I personally believe that it's safe to say that an impartial legal system is by and large one of the few remaining moral high grounds that the US can show to the world. Not that it's always perfect of course: the more money you can throw at it, the better your interests will be protected. But a certain minimum protection is guaranteed.

Unfortunately it is all but impossible to say what part of the care and the proceedings is "waste", and what part is "essential safeguard". And yes ... a particularly clever lawyer will know ways of "gaming the system" by complicating a case, raising far-out but still undeniable issues, and can usually secure long delays if nothing else. This costs a heap of money of course, which is why you don't usually see this sort of thing in disputes involving ordinary citizens or small corporations.

But having said this, those who feel the urge to wave their "Libertarian" flag and slag judicial procedures should realise that this regulated form of dispute resolution is what allows a modern society to exist, and that anarchy and "afghanistan-style" dispute resolution are just around the corner. This is the country that struggled its way out of "Wild West" style justice to where it is now. Remove or curtail judicial care and you'll be back there before you know.

The truth begun 43 years ago. There are liars now.

[Anonymous Coward]

UNIX = UNICS originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy.

MULTICS was started in 1964 and originally was a cooperative project led by MIT, along with General Electric and Bell Labs. Bell Labs dropped out in 1969 after Multics was not a very successful one.

IMHO, Bell Labs was the devil that ruined the MULTICS cooperative project and did put the hackers Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy to create his own UNICS project copied from the MULTICS cooperative project. They had stolen the efforts from them.

IMHO, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and General Electric were the victims and the precursors of the current OS technology. The University California is not the only university that created the OS, before was MIT.

MULTICS = Multiplexed Information and Computing Service
UNICS = Uniplexed Information and Computing System = UNIX

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_V
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics

Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy wrote UNICS but they had not rights to put their (c) symbols of copyrights. Only AT&T Bell Labs was the unique owner of unexistent copyrights until 197x's Act Law in U.S.

Re:WHAT THE FUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, trolltalk is still being crapflooded. Doesn't Taco give a shit about the bandwidth and disk-space that's getting wasted on that? What a fuckface.

Why Novell didn't transfer the copyrights

[Animats]

For those not understanding what's going on: Kimball ruled that the copyrights on UNIX System V don't belong to SCO, they belong to Novell, because the Asset Purchase Agreement, signed between Novell and Santa Cruz never transferred the copyrights, just the business.

Right. That issue was examined during discovery. SCO wanted the copyrights transferred when they bought the UNIX business, but Novell insisted on full payment before transferring the copyrights. SCO couldn't come up with the up-front cash, so the final deal called for royalty payments over time with Novell holding the copyrights. That's a common way to structure intellectual property deals, especially if there's any possibility that the buyer might go bankrupt.

This didn't happen by accident. Novell was protecting themselves against the possibility that SCO might not pay in full and might go bankrupt. Which, right now, looks like the likely outcome.

LamLaw Quote

[tiny69]

You know you hired a dumb or fraudulent lawyer when you are only left to defend how much you owe the other party. And you brought the law suits. Or, worse yet, you paid your lawyers a huge fee to get you into serious liabilities.

End of story.

LamLaw

Why'd you make me think of HK-47?

[Xenographic]

Conjecture: SCO was denied the ability to appeal part of the ruling because they'll get to appeal the whole thing soon.
Fact: The meatbags deserve it.

The Darl McBride response

[merc]

Darl just can't keep from flapping his festering pie-hole. Up until now SCO attorneys have been fairly good at keeping him quiet and from making public statements. However it looks as though he couldn't resist doing a computerworld interview. I'm not sure what he thinks he has to gain by attempting to try his case in the courts of public opinion:

We absolutely and fundamentally believe we are right in this case, and we believe in the justice system. But we also know that things don't always happen the way they're supposed to, and we're realistic about that point.

And this gem is fascinating as well:

Let's call a spade a spade: We just took a literal pounding. We got knocked down -- there is no doubt about it. This is not a good ruling for us. But it's not the end of the line of the legal battle. In fact, there's some very encouraging things that came out of even this ruling. And we will continue to fight on those fronts.

Original article here

I can only guess that the "encouraging thing" he is speaking about has to be that Kimball ruled that they own their own derivitive works of UnixWare. However these are facts were never in question. At this point we can expect SCO to argue that the M$ and Sun licenses were SCOsource licenses and not SVR4 UNIX. Good luck with that since I believe they have made conflicting public statements about that in the past as well.

Re:The Darl McBride response

[schon]

What he said:

We absolutely and fundamentally believe we are right in this case, and we believe in the justice system. But we also know that things don't always happen the way they're supposed to, and we're realistic about that point. What he really meant:

We absolutely and fundamentally believe we could get them to sellt, and we believe in the justice system because we know that things don't always happen the way they're supposed to, and we're realistic about that point.

I wonder if Darl and pals have hopped a plane yet-

[the saltydog]

...bound for Pyongyang - I hear the weather will be enchanting there in a few months.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of criminal scam artists.

Unbelievable

[Jaxoreth]

...and denied Novell's final motion...

Novell just can't get a break, can they.

Re:Looks like SCO will be facing a trial in-front.

[watchingeyes]

Instead of trying to sound intelligent, you could read Judge Kimball's ruling which lists the 3 remaining issues for trial and why he issued this ruling :-) Not like this is an issue that requires Sherlock Holmes to figure it out, it's right there in a PDF on a free website.

SCO: Useless

[EddyPearson]

Why is it that every time I hear about SCO, they're involved in some kind of lawsuit related to Unix.

Its never "SCO Release [Product] Killer" or "SCO continues to surprise us with their innovative ideas". No, its always some frivolous Unix patent lawsuit.

SCO: Shut the fuck up and do something useful with what little money you have left.

scox not hurt - justice not served

[walterbyrd]

Scox was as good as dead before the scam. In fact, scox still has a higher market cap now than before the scam. Scox had never been profitable before the scam, they were losing money every quarter. Scox had no hope of turning that around. Since the scam, scox execs and lawyers have made a ton of money.

Msft's objective was to put a legal cloud over linux, and that was probably accomplished as well. Msft's other objective was to send this message to any company that might be thinking about contributing to Linux: "anybody who contributes to linux will be punished with a $100 million lawsuit, and five years in court."

Scox got away with outright lying to the SEC *many* times. Numerous public lies, extortion, mail fraud, barratry, vexatious abuse of the legal system, securities fraud, and more. Scam planned to go bankrupt all along, it's the only way the scam would make sense. As always, msft got away with the scam as well.

All this "lawsuit" amounts to nothing more than a msft PR stunt. This lawsuit is about 1% of msft's on-going fud campaign. Msft paid some scammer hillbillies from Utah to file bogus claims against ibm (not even a linux distributor) just to slime linux.

All of this "scox screwed themselves" cheerleading is laughable.

Sorry.

Re:scox not hurt - justice not served

[Anonymous Coward]

Msft's objective was to put a legal cloud over linux, and that was probably accomplished as well.

I work on a multi-billion pound project that has a lot of embedded Linux in it. I've been updating our management on the SCO case since the outset. The general view is ``why are you bothering us with this, clearly IBM will in the limit just buy SCO, or their lawyers will pound them to dust''. I've not met anyone in any senior management role who thinks otherwise.

How many nails in the coffin does this make now?

[Chas]

Or have they finished with the nails and just started welding the lid shut?

Lawyers don't get a free ride

[Anonymous Coward]

People seem to believe that lawyers get a free ride. It isn't true.
A lawyer who gets caught breaking the law or violating the Bar's
regulations will be punished. The thing is that lawyers, being
lawyers, are adept at staying out of trouble even if by only a
hair. Boies is particularly notorious for skating near the edge.

The California Bar uses most of its budget to discipline/disbar/etc. lawyers.
http://www.courthousenews.com/editorials/Policzer/ policzer140.htm

Here's an abuse of process case:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/family_law/2006/0 4/case_law_develo_35.html

A little casual googling will find you thousands of lawyers who have been
punished/suspended/disbarred. BTW, there is a difference between playing
hardball in a case that has some merit and bringing forward a case that
has no merit. Judge K. is pissed and his rulings make it clear. Take for
example his warning to SCO that they should quit trying to argue things that
he has already decided. Also consider his previous comments about the lack
of evidence they produced after an amazing amount of discovery. AllParadox
thinks there will be sanctions and he has a heck of a lot more legal experience
than either of us.

Re:Lawyers don't get a free ride

[keraneuology]

he thing is that lawyers, being lawyers, are adept at staying out of trouble even if by only a hair.

Isn't this in and of itself indicative that the system is overly complex? It is indisputable that money talks and justice is for sale. Regardless of merit, cases are (dare I say?) usually (if not usually, then at least frequently) decided by who has more money to fight?

Re:How many nails in the coffin does this make now

[Mspangler]

Lid is on, (Aug 10) check

coffin in grave (Sep 7) check

cement truck starts pouring (due Sept 17)

Nazgul pee on grave (time to be decided)

I think we are pretty much done.

why was this modded down?

[walterbyrd]

Is it just because it's something that you didn't want to hear?

Face reality folks: scox was not hurt - justice was not served.

Look at the facts: scox was never profitable, scox had very little money left, and scox was gushing red ink. Scox really was as good as dead before the scam. The scam did not hurt scox. Sorry but it's true. The execs and lawyers made a ton of loot. These are all easily verifiable facts.

The scam is 4.5 years old, and it's far from over.

Why do you think that msft arranged financing? For no reason? Are you aware of msft's history?

I still have mine

[hawk]

Not an altair, but the toggles & two hex digits of display, and an 1802 processor. I had to use 2102's instead (they were a *lot* less than the 256x4 chips), so it has 2k (I think I had to order 16 instead of 8 over shipping or minimum order).

hawkk

Re:I still have mine

[rucs_hack]

then consider me jealous. Being in the uk I missed out on that period of computing. Primarily due to the potential cost, which I couldn't meet. It remains my only regret, although I am at least a computer scientist now.

I thought I had my original Sinclair zx spectrum up in the loft, but it turned out that a 'friend' had swapped it for his damaged/oft repaired one without me knowing many years ago. I got it out last year, expecting to find my well cared for spectrum, and found a ratty scratched piece of crap in its place. I found a replacement on ebay. It's not quite the same though.

Re:I still have mine

[hawk]

It seems to me that it was about $100 altogether, with the biggest chunks being the wire-wrap sockets and the $20 processor. The toggle switches were about a buck and a quarter each, and the memory chips were the same. I gasped at the price for integrated hex-digit displays, and found alternates that drove external seven segment displays. Power came from a filament transformer (before I realized that I could use a spare atari 9v 500ma supply if I left off the second bank of ram).

Actually, if you go to jameco.com, you can still find many of the pieces we used back then. 256x4 ram at a buck or two apiece, z80 and support chips from a couple of bucks a pop (if you use z80 rather than 8080, you can use a single 5v supply and a single-phase clock), 4000 and 7400 series chips (and their descendants), I'm sure that you can find a hex[adecimal] display driver (their search isn't responding right now) [if not, use 8 LEDs], toggle switches should still be a buck or two, data sheets can be downloaded, and you're ready to go.

I think there was a way to key/toggle memory into successive locations on the z80 (there was a mode for this on the 1802). Heck, if you can get your paws on an 1802 (i think they're still used for spacecraft for radiation reasons), it's a better choice for this type of project anyway.

Pull the old "Elf" articles from late 1970's Popular Electronics for the general gist of it.

hawk

Re:I still have mine

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean.. the (Super) Elf? I still have one in working order..

The Super version has a hexadecimal keyboard (on board) and a LED 7-digit display giving the adress and data information. A row of LED's give the status information. There is also a primitive "monitor" in ROM. You can use the "hardwired" way of inputting things, or use that monitor. It also has a very primitive video chip on board (from the same range as the 1802 processor)..

It was the first "real" home computer I owned. I have learned programming in machine code on that one. After that I got a Acorn Atom, BBC-B, Archimedes and at last.. a RISC-PC. Nowadays I'm using Linux on a standard system...

Oh boy, sweet memories... ;-).

Re:I still have mine

[hawk]

The Super Elf came from Quest (where I bought soem of my parts); it was based on the Popular Electronics articles (Quest also made an earlier elf kit).

Mine was noticeably different, though also derived from the articles. I did make sure to have things on the same ports, though.

Netronics (?) also made a Elf II or some such that also had a small onboard monitor.

hawk

Also . . .

[hawk]

If it's the programming of a simple system, rather than the hardware, that interests you, the video game programming board at fries, as well as some of the "postage stamp"? kits may be right up your alley.

And if you do find an 1802, grab an 1861, the crude video chip, to go with it!

hawk

Re:Also . . .

[rucs_hack]

I'm actually in the UK, so can't go to the shop you mention. We do have something similar though, called Maplins. I'll see if they have the chips you speak of.

I saw some kits there last year, and some boards and componants, but didn't think to get any at the time, it could be fun.
Programming of something small would be fun. I spend most of my time coding for research, always using clusters, and its always really complex code. It would be nice to just code for a simple system again.

Re:Also . . .

[petermgreen]

maplin suck nowadays. Thier prices are high and thier range has got shittier and shittier over the years. They still have a few kits from velleman but the huge range of maplin own brand kits is long gone :(.

For buying electronic components in the UK rapid ( http://www.rapidonline.com/ ) farnell ( http://uk.farnell.com/ ) and cpc ( http://cpc.farnell.com/ ) are your best bets. Rapid also have some kits availible mainly from velleman. (OT: they are also a good place to buy lego mindstorms stuff).

If you are going to order a lot of stuff and are prepared to wait digi-key are also a good bet. They are in the USA but provided your order is over a certain size (i think it's about £100) delivery and associated charges are included, thier prices are good and so is thier range.

Re:Also . . .

[hawk]

I just checked--jameco will ship internationally w. UPS and other methods.

I don't think that digikey comes anywhere close to the range of older parts that Jameco has.

hawk

Re:Also . . .

[rucs_hack]

thanks, I'll check it out.

Re:How many nails in the coffin does this make now

[Anonymous Coward]

... profit?

Re: Contempt For Court?---Clarification

[1mck]

Could someone clarify a question that has been nagging me for quite a while now, and that is "the lawyers for SCO have known right from the beginning that they had no claim, and they did not own the UNIX copyrights, and yet they put the courts through 4 years of this, so aren't these lawyers in contempt of court, and shouldn't criminal charges be laid against them, and at the very least have these lawyers lose their licenses?" Thanks 1mck

"Law" and "Equity" aren't the same.

[Kadin2048]

The key part of that part of the Constitution is "in Suits at common law". That's not just some grandoise, excessive verbiage. That phrase has a very specific meaning. Remember: the Constitution was written by a bunch of lawyers. They didn't say "common law" there by accident.

Contracts are not "suits at common law." Breach of contracts usually falls under "equity," rather than "law." That might seem like a pedantic distinction, but at the time the Constitution was written, IIRC they were handled by two separate courts (and may still be, in parts of the Commonwealth). It was traditional to have a "Court of Law" and a "Court of Equity," with separate judges, etc. In the U.S. we have eliminated some of the distinctions -- at least in most states, we don't have separate 'courts of equity' anymore -- but the two types of cases are still handled quite differently.

This is a case of EQUITY, and thus doesn't get a jury trial.

(OT) Re:why was this modded down?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I think somebody must have been upset that you called them "Hillbillies".

Utah is The West. Out here, we have Rednecks, not Hillbillies.

If you have trouble remembering the difference, just remember Hillbillies|Moonshine=Rednecks|Meth.

The Judge

[WeeBit]

I like the way the Judge is handling this case so far. Dotting all the "i" and crossing all the "t" When the Courts are through with SCO they wont have a leg to stand on. Which is very fitting considering that the SCO must of known all along they did not own the license in the first place. Maybe this lawsuit is all about debunking Linux and less about SCO? After all the SCO will be in someone's history book, even if it will be a very short paragraph. So what better way to be remembered.