Stay Lifted, Novell Vs. SCO Can Go Forward
A number of readers suggest we check out Groklaw, where PJ is reporting that a bankruptcy judge has granted Novell's request to lift the stay so that its trial against SCO can proceed in Utah. The judge concluded that Judge Kimball is the best one to decide how much SCO owes Novell, and that SCO cannot make any "reorganization" plans — including any "fire sale" of assets — until it knows this figure.
"The system works..... it works slowly, it costs huge amounts of money, but it does work......"
Three simple reasons to say "the system" does NOT work:
Justice my arse! If the software industry worked as slowly as justice, and as expensively, we'd be using a $5,000 abacus instead of a computer.
Think of it - there's still all the BS appeals. Justice isn't looking all that appealing now, is it, unless you, like justice, are blind AND slow.
Kevin Smith on Prince
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
You don't need any evidence to file a lawsuit. There's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the most important ones is that often it's the defendant who has got the evidence. That's particularly true in employment discrimination cases for example. If the courts required evidence just to file, a lot of people wouldn't get their day in court and the justice system wouldn't function as intended.
I'm not going to defend SCO by any measure, but they would probably say that they didn't have any evidence because Novell was hiding it all. And that they need discovery to get the incriminating emails, meeting agendas, testimony from employees, etc. So there's a lot of discovery for you.
The whole process sounds very odd and wasteful from the outside, but there is a legit reason for the way things work. A cheaper alternative is arbitration, which we all agree to whenever we click "I accept." So maybe that will change soon, but I don't necessarily think that will be to consumers' benefit.