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The Courts Government Caldera IBM Software News Linux

IBM Ordered to Show More Code to SCO 376

editingwhiz writes "Bob Mims of the Salt Lake Tribune has the scoop straight from the courthouse steps: 'A federal magistrate has handed a partial victory to Utah's SCO Group, ordering computer giant IBM to turn over more of its Linux operating system-related program codes. U.S. Magistrate Brooke Wells' ruling, released just minutes after Salt Lake City's federal courthouse closed Wednesday, came in the Lindon software company's contractual suit stemming from Big Blue's alleged distribution of Linux applications purportedly tainted with SCO's proprietary Unix code.' If at all possible, SCO's going to be even more insufferable now -- it has a glimmer of hope."
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IBM Ordered to Show More Code to SCO

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    There's no way SCO is going to be able to analyze all this code before they go bankrupt.
    • by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:40PM (#11420628) Journal
      I kinda agree with the AC, SCO is just getting a little more time before they will have to pony up some information.

      btw- Magistrate != Judge
      I'm not sure Judge Kimball would have agreed to SCO's motion, but I'll give the Magistrate credit for this zinger:

      To the extent possible the parties are to agree upon the 3000 designated individuals. However, based on the record before the court it appears that IBM has better access to information regarding who made the most changes or significant contributions to AIX and Dynix. Therefore, IBM is to file an affidavit detailing the process by which the 3000 were chosen.
      Once again by requiring this, the court seeks to circumvent the rote objection by SCO alleging that they did not get enough information.
  • ... because as fishing trips go, there's one hell of an expedition being organised by SCO.

    PS : Didn't SCO claim that they had print outs of all the copied code, that they could show anyone who signed an NDA? Why do they need to search any more of IBM's codebase.
  • by Mongo222 ( 612547 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:30PM (#11420481)
    How can you turn over "even more" of something that's already open sourced?
    • Re:Even more code? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DjReagan ( 143826 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:33PM (#11420539)
      Because the code they're being ordered to turn over is for AIX and Dynix, which isn't Open-Sourced.
      • Re:Even more code? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anarchofascist ( 4820 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:56PM (#11420849) Homepage Journal
        IBM had already handed over all of AIX and Dynix. SCOG/Caldera's lawyers have the source code to every version of AIX and Dynix ever released.

        NOW SCOG/Caldera's lawyers have told the judge - "nope we can't find any infringements here, we need more" and the judge has ruled that they can have every version of AIX and Dynix which ever existed in version control including all notes made by anyone who worked on the project.

        This is just another delay... in part because IBM's defence was that producing all the version controlled source was too hard and would take to long. Now they have to work hard and take long or get branded as liars. They'll probably just run through source control, and for ever single commit they will burn a stack of source code CDs. I expect that will run to a few truckloads of CDs which SCO/Caldera will then decide will take years to sift through... and blah blah blah the glacial US legal process drags on until SCO runs out of money.

        But never fear! Even if there is code there which ended up in Linux, they don't have a prayer. IBM owns a developers license to Unix (bought from AT&T) to modify Unix and sell it as its own product AIX. SCO (which bought the license rights) says the license also says that new code IBM has added to Unix to produce AIX cannot also be donated to Linux, but that's just plain nuts. If they write B and insert it into A, how can the license agreements with A prevent you from adding the same code to your own product C?

        • but that's just plain nuts. If they write B and insert it into A, how can the license agreements with A prevent you from adding the same code to your own product C?

          Licences are strane things boyo. I once heared of a licence that extended to all derived works. So if I licenced product A under this licence, and created derived product B from it, and put code I had written for product B into product C, the C would have to be licenced the same as product A.

          I bet you've heared of this licence yourself. It's ca

          • Re:Even more code? (Score:5, Informative)

            by jeffasselin ( 566598 ) <cormacolinde@gma ... com minus author> on Thursday January 20, 2005 @01:37PM (#11421375) Journal
            No, quite wrong.

            If you yourself wrote product A and B, you can relicence your code for product C any way you want.

            OTOH, if *I* take code from your product A to make product D, then yes product D has to be GPL.
          • Re:Even more code? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by ultranova ( 717540 )

            Licences are strane things boyo. I once heared of a licence that extended to all derived works. So if I licenced product A under this licence, and created derived product B from it, and put code I had written for product B into product C, the C would have to be licenced the same as product A.

            I bet you've heared of this licence yourself. It's called the GPL.

            No. You own the copyright to whatever code you wrote, and can do what you please with it. However, you cannot take code belonging to someone else, l

  • Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:30PM (#11420484)


    Doesn't SCO know about kernel.org?

  • by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:30PM (#11420494)
    This is just another meaningless delay of the case. Such things are actually a victory for IBM. IBM can afford to have this drag on forever. SCO's days are numbered.
    • SCOX is going to lose, it is only a question of when.

      This is a personal win for Darl, since he will continue to get his million dollar SCO CEO salary for a little bit longer.

    • This is just another meaningless delay of the case. Such things are actually a victory for IBM. IBM can afford to have this drag on forever. SCO's days are numbered.

      No, its perfectly acceptable delay for SCO to ask IBM if they can see more of Linux code.

      WTF? I thought Linux was open source? Maybe the article meant to say AIX code.

      I would not weigh too much with this article besides this. Looking at one of their advertiser's, one of those fraudulent diploma mills, I doubt they have too much credibilit
      • "WTF? I thought Linux was open source? Maybe the article meant to say AIX code."

        Yes it did, I think that SCO were asking for any code which is connected to AIX in any way. This really isn't about Linux at all it's about SCO accusing IBM of breaking it's Unix SYS V licence by incorporating code which may be in some way derivitive from SYS V code into something else. It just so happens the something else is Linux.

        I think the judge has ordered this extra discovery largely to shut up SCO's whining that valuab
    • This is the first mention of SCO I've seen this year, I guess the whole thing is approaching failure for SCO. The fact that it's not seen as newsworthy for the most part demonstrates this.

      Bye bye SCO is all I can say, they could have made a packet selling a decent enterprise Linux but they preferred the easy route to raising share price.
    • "This is just another meaningless delay of the case. Such things are actually a victory for IBM. IBM can afford to have this drag on forever. SCO's days are numbered.

      You're not joking. Talk about a dumb move.

      Repeat after me: You do NOT try to play the waiting game against the 800 lb. gorilla who out-waited the U.S. GOVERNMENT!

  • Ummmm (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wordsmith ( 183749 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:30PM (#11420498) Homepage
    Haven't read the article yet, so I'm sure this will be cleared up in a minute when I do, but ... Turn over it's linux-related code? Isn't that what EVERYONE who distributes linux does?
    • It's not "Linux" code they are after. Please RTFA.

      "Wells refused to grant SCO complete review of all of the IBM programs it listed, but threatened to grant "unfettered access" in the future if IBM fails to provide all data - including approximately 2 billion lines of code - from its AIX and Dynix systems."

      • Re:Ummmm (Score:3, Informative)

        by arkanes ( 521690 )
        The article doesn't have all the detail - Groklaw has some more precise information. To clarify, SCO already had all the source for all released versions of AIX and Dynix, what they're getting now is (limited) access to intermediate versions of files (changesets between releases) and programmer notes.
  • by AceCaseOR ( 594637 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:31PM (#11420507) Homepage Journal
    • by metlin ( 258108 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:51PM (#11420790) Journal
      *adjusts tinfoil hat*

      You know, you're probably joking but you do have a point.

      Perhaps the whole point of this was to have an increase in SCOs stocks so that folks have the opportunity to dump and jump the ship.

      These days when laws are written by the rich and bought over by the powerful, you never know =)
      • These days when laws are written by the rich and bought over by the powerful, you never know =)

        Your comment implies there was a time when it was any other way.

        The person who has the gold has ALWAYS written the rules.
        • You've hit the nail on the head. I'm taking a class on IP Law this semester; when I brought up something about the law being equal, the professor said something along the lines of, "You have fallen for the myth of law being equal and a bringer of justice of sorts - that has never been the case. It has been to help preserve the status quo of the powerplay in the society".

          Wonder why we bother with all the equality and all that bullshit, though.
    • Umm I think it was time [yahoo.com] to sell about a year ago :P
  • by Psionicist ( 561330 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:32PM (#11420523)
    To quote Groklaw:

    Finally, it has arrived, Judge Brooke Wells' Order on SCO's Motion Re Discovery. It's annoying because she enables more delay, but other than that it is a pretty normal discovery order. SCO doesn't get access to CMVC, they do get more code and they get not all programmers' notes but some. She postpones any decision on production of documents from top managment. Keep in mind, she isn't the trier of fact. That is Judge Kimball. She is the Magistrate, so it's not her job to decide who is right or wrong. Her job is simply to make sure everybody's cards are on the table.
    • It's possible that Judge Kimball could make Judge Wells' ruling moot when/if he ever rules on IBM's Partial Summary Judgment motion. Wells has to favor SCO in that she has to consider the possibility that giving them what they want might improve their case.

      I'm hoping that since Wells has likely been advising with Kimball on this that Kimball's decision will come soon on IBM's PSJ motion. I'm also hoping that goes in IBM's favor since it would pretty much kill all of SCO's other lawsuits.

      --
      Join the Pyram
  • by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:32PM (#11420524) Homepage Journal
    IANAL, far from, actually, but shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't SCO be releasing code to an independent party to determine if its copyright has been breeched? Or will they keep requesting more code and fish around for something they can 'try to claim' is a copyright violation?
    • I agree... this way all SCO has to di is say "AhHa!!"
    • Guilty until proven innocent is in _criminal_ cases. This is a civil case. Anyone can sue anybody for basically any reason. There is no innocence or guilt determined in a civil case, only liability and degree of liability.
      • Who modded parent Informative? "Guilty until proven innocent in _criminal_ cases." WTF?! That's bass-ackwards. It's "innocent until proven guilty."

        As far as suing anybody for anything, that's only partly true. Lawyers can be (figuratively) tarred an feathered for initiating a suit they know to be wrong. So, you may want to sue, but lawyers tend to have to perform a little CYA first.
    • What are they supposed to compare it too?

    • This is a fishing expedition on SCO's part. They have no idea what IBM may have done wrong, they just want to look at IBM's shit to see if they can find something. There is no guilt or innocence in this case as it is a civil matter. According to SCO this case is not about a copyright violation, it is about a contract violation.

      From all appearances, it seems that SCO is no longer trying to show that Linux contains any actual copied code. In the IBM case, SCO is desperately trying to find anything that m
  • meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kidlinux ( 2550 ) <<ten.xobecaps> <ta> <ekud>> on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:32PM (#11420533) Homepage
    Has SCO been ordered to show any code of theirs that they claim has been infringed upon?

    So IBM turns over some code, and SCO says "yep, all of that is an infringement, pay up!" How do we know otherwise?
    • They were ordered to do so twice but never did. The orders were by this same Judge Wells yet she never enforced her own order!
    • You don't.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      ..but IBM (you know, the one on trial?) has all the code they licenced from SCO. I'm sure they've did lots of comparisons and know SCO is smoking crack. I'm sure they'll let us, the courts and the world know in due time.

      Kjella
    • Re:meanwhile... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iabervon ( 1971 )
      Their theory of the law is that they own (or rather, can restrict) the code that IBM wrote. So SCO can't turn over "their" code, because they've never had it. They want to compare all of the code that IBM wrote for UNIX with the code that IBM wrote for Linux, so that they can argue that IBM's contract prohibits doing this. The judge which issued this ruling isn't supposed to rule on whether SCO's theory of the law is correct, so she can't really deny SCO's motion on the basis of it being a complete waste of
  • It's simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:34PM (#11420549)
    SCO couldn't find anything conclusive in the 900 milion lines of code they've already gotten from IBM, so they have to fishing again.

    Uhh Darl, you're fifteen minutes are up.

  • BSD...... (Score:2, Offtopic)

    So is it time to jump to BSD yet?? Just kidding..

    However those headless macs do look kinda nice for those of us that prefer/require small foot print computing.

    I don't think this means much, except that SCO buys themselves a little respite from the inevitable.
  • by Baramin ( 847271 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:35PM (#11420568) Homepage Journal
    from TFA :
    Wells refused to grant SCO complete review of all of the IBM programs it listed, but threatened to grant "unfettered access" in the future if IBM fails to provide all data - including approximately 2 billion lines of code - from its
    AIX and Dynix systems
  • by Bios_Hakr ( 68586 ) <xptical@gmEEEail.com minus threevowels> on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:35PM (#11420574)
    I'd pipe the code into a *.doc file and make the font about 48ish tahoma script.

    Then print it on standard paper.

    Hey, SCO, you might wanna bring a truck.
    • "I'd pipe the code into a *.doc file and make the font about 48ish tahoma script."

      Make sure to print the code in binary representation. Hey, the printing will denude all the forests of the western hemisphere, but it is worth it to stick it to ol' SCO.

      • Re:In BINARY (Score:3, Insightful)

        by EvilAlien ( 133134 )
        Ferget that... if we're willing to destroy the forests to stick it to SCO, we ought to be willing to march en mass to even SCO office and sack/pillage them out of existance, barbarian horde style. Leave the damn forests alone, haven't they suffered enough?
        • Customs Officer: Purpose for visiting the US

          Me: Sacking and Pillaging the SCO offices

          Customs Officer: Sorry, I think their lawyers just left with the last of the valuables. But feel free to go look for yourself...

      • In the name of accessibility, it should be in Braille.
    • How about punch cards or microfilm/microfiche? I'm sure both of those would be a pain to go through.

      I'd guess that they'll have a requirement for a reasonable delivery method but thinking about making it difficult adds to the humor.
    • I did something similar but reverse in college. A College Professor who was grossly incompetent (In both Computer Science Knowledge and Teaching), wanted to teach a course in Database Theory. She wanted the CS Department to buy and install Oracle (She though Oracle was a Server Side Web Development Language, which oracle may have produced, but she wanted the database server) on a Sun Ultra 1. After explaining that this will not happen because of the Cost and complexity of oracle and none of us have the ti
  • The Yahoo Finance Board [yahoo.com], ip-wars [ip-wars.net], and Groklaw [groklaw.net] all had the story yesterday.

    sPh

  • Suspicious (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:40PM (#11420632) Homepage Journal
    This starts to look very suspicious to me. I think I will wait few months at most and demand my money back if SCO don't prove their case. I'm glad that I bought and sold SCOX on exactly optimal time, or otherwise I would feel kind of stupid for buying all of those licenses to run 140 Debian boxen in my lab, and 60 Red Hat desktops in the library. Has anyone tried to return the license yet?
  • On the Upside (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kurt Wall ( 677000 )

    Well, as much as this annoys me, Judge Wells is right. SCO gets to look at still more code, but when they still don't find anything, SCO will have nothing left to say. There's nothing there there, and this order ought to establish that fact once and for all.

  • by RichMan ( 8097 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:40PM (#11420637)
    SCO has already failed to produce any real evidence of Copyright code in Linux. Nothing produced by SCO from any of this evidence can change that. Everyone using Linux is safe.

    This request is to support SCO's weird derivative tale that despite AT&T contracts saying IBM was free to develop code, Novell waiving the rights, and testimony from various people that IBM is bound by contract such that any code that touches SCO code is still controlled by SCO.
  • 1. Sue someone for using your code.
    2. Have the judge force them to turn their proprietary code over to you.
    3. Copy their code into your programs.
    4. PROFIT!
  • by kuwan ( 443684 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:43PM (#11420679) Homepage
    You can find a transcript of the order here [ip-wars.net] on IP-Wars.net. [ip-wars.net] Groklaw has an article [groklaw.net] about the ruling.

    I think the order is outrageous personally. IBM's being ordered to produce all versions of AIX and Dynix along with notes, whitepapers, and all that fun stuff. This is going to be a mountain of code and documents considering that AIX is 20 years old.

    --
    Join the Pyramid - Free Mini Mac [freeminimacs.com]
  • Isn't all of the linux kernel code already available?

    LK
  • by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:45PM (#11420711) Homepage Journal
    and not use laymen terms like "program codes" which normal media outlets resort to, to dumb down the discussion atleast on /.?

    Thank you.

  • Okay, IBM. These fine folks at SCO, with no evidence to back them up, claim you're guilty.

    Now prove that you're not, and give them your trade secrets in the process.

    • Re:Guilty until... (Score:3, Informative)

      by ifwm ( 687373 )
      "Now prove that you're not, and give them your trade secrets in the process"

      1. This is a civil case. Guilt and innocence have nothing to do with civil cases.

      2. SCO has no access. SCO's lawyers (and the people they hire) have access, but a previous decision prohibits anyone from SCO getting a look.

      Of course now others will rant about SCO's lawyers sneaking stuff to SCO, but that's nothing but conspiratorial horseshit.

  • Anybody else hear the voice of Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) in Mallrats/Chasing Amy saying "Oh come ON!!???"
  • Could someone claim that Microsoft illegially used their code... and have a court require Microsoft to reveal the code?

    Hmm... any takers?

    This could be fun. Lets Open Source Windows!
  • by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:50PM (#11420776)
    Why would SCO need to analyse IBM's code, if the reason for the lawsuit is in the first place because SCO knows IBM infringed on SCO's code?

    I mean, in order to know there is infringement, you'd have to have already figured out what part of the code was "stolen", right?
    • by arkanes ( 521690 ) <<arkanes> <at> <gmail.com>> on Thursday January 20, 2005 @01:19PM (#11421137) Homepage
      The argument is something like this: SCO has inherited certain control rights over UNIX code. AIX and Dynix are based on UNIX. We think that IBM donated parts of AIX and Dynix to Linux that they shouldn't have. But because we don't know whats in AIX and Dynix, we need to get the source for all of those to compare to Linux and see what matches. Furthermore, because we already did this and nothing matched, we need to get all the intermediate versions of AIX/Dynix, because some programmer might have written something that never actually was released, and THAT then got copied into Linux.

      Yes, it sounds ridiculous. And note that for it to make even the semblance of sense you have to totally ignore all the public claims SCO has made about knowing that there's copied code.

      • SCO's claim that they "know" there is copied code is derived from the extaordinarily arrogant premise that there's "no possible way that a disorganized bunch of hackers developing code in their spare time could produce anything resembling an enterprise class operating system without somehow deriving from code that SCO controls" (paraphrased, but essentially that's what they said).
  • by judmarc ( 649183 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:52PM (#11420798)

    The magistrate (who is presiding over pre-trial discovery, not the trial, where a judge will be in charge) noted that the contract between SCO and IBM may well give SCO more rights to the code than copyright law does. Thus IBM might be liable to SCO for putting code in Linux that doesn't violate any copyright SCO may have. IOW, Linux would be OK, IBM would not.

    Another theory advanced by SCO that the magistrate did not dismiss out of hand is the possibility that internal IBM AIX and Dynix code changes may show a path between SCO code and Linux. IBM has been contending that if a bare comparison between Linux and SCO code shows no obvious copying, anything IBM did internally is irrelevant.

    The bizarre bit is a footnote paying tribute to New York Giants football player Mel Hein that (to mix sports metaphors) comes from way out in left field. It's also ungrammatical ("He played 15 seasons going 60 minutes a game without nearly any rest"), which I'm definitely not accustomed to seeing in Federal court orders.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      The contract isn't between SCO and IBM. It's between AT+T and IBM, and everyone at AT+T gave a deposition that says IBM gets to keep it's own code. That's in addition to the side letter AT+T sent to IBM that says IBM keeps it's own code, and the @echo newsletter that says the exact same thing.

      As for SCO's theory of copyright, well, SCO would have to own the copyright first (it doesn't, Novell does). Then, they'd have to find their so-called path, which doesn't exist. If it did, they'd have found it in t
  • For SCO, this is both a good thing and a bad thing.

    The good news is that maybe, perhaps, they'll be able to find something somewhere in a line of code and go "ah-ha! We've caught you!"

    There's just one problem: if there was something to catch, SCO would have used it by now.

    Is the code in Linux? So far, SCO's been unable to show any proof, and what "proof" they've tried to bring in (like "malloc.c" code) has been proven so wrong that they've given up trying to convince the public.

    Is it in AIX (other th
  • by agraupe ( 769778 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:54PM (#11420828) Journal
    The code ordered to be handed over was AIX, not Linux. I really don't give a crap whether SCO wins on this, because I don't use it, and, since it is commerical and closed-source, if it has copied code, IBM should be punished for it.
    • by andycat ( 139208 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @01:07PM (#11420967)
      SCO's argument is far more bizarre than that. They claim that since AIX and Dynix might have touched UNIX code once upon a time, all code ever written for AIX and Dynix since then must be covered by the contract terms of IBM's license for UNIX. Those terms talk about "methods and concepts" as protected entities. IBM used some of those allegedly protected methods and concepts when, say, they moved JFS over to OS/2, then implemented the Linux version of JFS using that as a reference. It's not about AIX. They're trying to argue that Linux inherited from OS/2 inherited from AIX touched UNIX, so (of course) they own the things in Linux.

      Their theory of derived works is totally at right angles to reality. That isn't the way it works. However, Judge Wells is not permitted to smack them down. That falls to Judge Kimball (the trial judge) and, perhaps, a jury.

      This is an annoying delay but really isn't going to change the outcome of the case.

  • Redefining victory (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @12:57PM (#11420854) Homepage
    The plantiff gets another delay and that's counted as a victory? This is the plantiff we're talking about here, the one that's supposed to have a case when the start. And it's the plantiff asking for delay after delay. This is messed up.

    If the Bushies want to do something about abusive litigation why don't they start with this case?

  • by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @01:07PM (#11420966) Homepage Journal
    Isn't SCO just asking for IBM to Open the Source for SCO to chew on? If all the OS source were Open Source, this process would be a 1-day grep affair.
  • by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @01:09PM (#11420991)
    This is the best news that scox's primary benefactor could hope for.

    This ruling will insure endless delays. Which means the legal cloud over linux will remain for years to come. All the while "independant" tech analysts like Yankee Group will be cranking out articles about the overwhelming legal risks inherent in F/OSS.

    The scox-scam is the one of the best investments msft has ever made. $50MM for all that FUD is one hullva bargin.
  • And in some back room, SCO's lawyers are rolling in the dough. "Another delay - sure..." Hey, as long as SCO pays the bills, the lawyers will do just about anything.

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

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