Darl McBride Takes the Stand In Novell v. SCO

UnknowingFool writes "Everyone's favorite CEO Darl McBride took the stand on Wednesday April 30 in Novell v. SCO. Chris Brown has posted his account on Groklaw of the 2nd day of trial. The first day's account can be found here. To refresh your memory in this ongoing case, Judge Kimball has already ruled that Novell owns the copyrights to Unix and has practically dismissed all of SCO's claims. This portion of the trial is about Novell's counterclaims that SCO never paid them the money from the Sun and MS deals. What is to be determined in this trial is how much of the money from the deals were for Unix licensing (SVRx) and how much were for SCO's server technology (Unixware)." (Read on for the rest, below.)

UnknowingFool continues:

"Reading the account, it seems that the SCO folks are currently trying to delicately separate Unixware and SVRx. However Novell's lawyers are quickly pointing out in the past where SCO made no distinction between SVRx and Unixware in their literature or press releases. In day 1's account, SCO's tree picture shows Unix as SCO IP (Unix).

Also SCO's position is that it owes Novell nothing because the deals to MS and Sun were Unixware deals and not SCOSource deals (the much despised Linux licensing program) or SVRx deals. Novell points out fatal flaws in SCO's arguments. Sun wanted the ability to open source some of their Solaris code (which became OpenSolaris). Solaris and Unixware both branched from SVR4 so they would need permission from the owner of SVRx copyrights, not the Unixware owner. That owner is Novell. The MS deal is a little different in that MS wanted Unixware rights AND rights to legacy Unix (SVRx).

The best part of the cross-examination was Darl refusing to admit that the MS and Sun deals were not SCOSource, but Novell showing SCO's financial statements (10Q) where both deals were listed under SCOSource and not Unixware revenue."

I'm Pretty Sure He Committed Perjury

[eldavojohn (898314)]

I have (via Ars Technica) some interesting comments from his testimony [arstechnica.com] yesterday. He stated (under oath):

... many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers ... We have evidence System V is in Linux ... When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on 'How to Program UNIX' but when you go to the Linux section and look for 'How to Program Linux' you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist. Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them].

This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and did not correspond with what SCO Senior Vice President Chrs Sontag just finished testifying earlier that day.

Also, as to his book remark, he didn't [amazon.com] look very hard [amazon.com]!

Mmmmmm, that's some good perjury!

Re:

[Uncle Focker (1277658)]

This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and did not correspond with what SCO Senior Vice President Chrs Sontag just finished testifying earlier that day.

Wait... you're going to claim that Darl McBride is a liar?!?!? I'm totally shocked!

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

Mmmmmm, that's some good perjury!

I'm sure most of us would love to see McBride behind bars (I know I would), but I'm afraid it probably won't happen. In our plutocracy no rich, powerful man goes to prison unless a richer, more powerful man wants him there.

Re:

[Uncle Focker (1277658)]

But is he really all that rich now? I'm assuming most of his money was probably tied into company stock that's worth less than toilet paper at this point.

Re:

[DaveInAustin (549058)]

Actually, Darl managed to sell [korgwal.com] quite a few shares between the time the lawsuit was announced and when the stock tanked. That is, during the time when he was telling the press about the "rocket scientists" who found the "millions of lines of code".

Re:

[Simon80 (874052)]

I would assume that he sold some of the stock before it went down the tubes, unless he's just stupid.

Re:

[Sloppy (14984)]

I'm assuming most of his money was probably tied into company stock that's worth less than toilet paper at this point.

I thought the whole point of the pump'n'dump was to dump after pumping.

• 1. Announce lawsuit leading people to speculate SCO will get a big judgement or license fees. Price goes up.
• 2. Sell SCO stock.
• 3. Profit.
• 4. SCO loses and stock price falls, but this no longer concerns you.

Re:

[garett_spencley (193892)]

In our plutocracy no rich, powerful man goes to prison unless a richer, more powerful man wants him there.

When all is said and done most male slashdotters will qualify as richer and more powerful than McBride.

Let's make this thing happen !

Re:

[LWATCDR (28044)]

Well I don't think this is a plutocracy but if you want to take it from that point of view fine.
IBM wants to see McBride in jail. It would be a lovely show of force and the danger of messing with Big Blue in Big Blue's back yard.
So from your view point I would say McBride is looking at some hard time.
I on the other hand would bet he is just an idiot that listened to other idiots and believed every word he said.

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

The reason I consider it a plutocracy is because if you have enough money, you can "contribute" to both major party candidates, and whichever one loses won't matter to you because the winning politician will now be beholden to you. A big enough campaign bribe and you can get any legislation you want passed.

Even though Bill Gates lives in Washington state, he has more pull with my Senators and Congressmen than I, an Illinois resident and voter, do.

And if a monied bigwig from IBM does in fact want McBride in

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

You don't think that IBM has any number of shareholders who are richer and more powerful than Darl McBride?

-jcr

Re:

[Uncle Focker (1277658)]

Especially when you're stock is worth less than a roll of Charmin.

Re:

[compro01 (777531)]

unless you sold all/most of that stock when it was worth significantly more.

Re:

[Xenographic (557057)]

He was also grilled over statements in their 10-Q that were, shall we say, at odds with what he was trying to say on the stand.

Novell confronted him and he angrily accused them of calling him a liar. Their rejoinder was that he had just claimed that he told the truth on their 10-Q.

In other words, he was trapped by his own words :]

I'm surprised his pants didn't burst into flames.

Re:

[peragrin (659227)]

no but I bet there was a small oder as he got up.

Re:

[Finallyjoined!!! (1158431)]

He will probably claim that he simply "Misspoke" :-)

Re:

[Jason Levine (196982)]

He claimed that the licenses weren't SCOsource when the SEC filing said they were. He can't just say "oops. My bad. I didn't know what we were talking about." These licenses are pretty much the main section of the lawsuit. If a CEO takes the stand in a lawsuit without knowing the basic facts of the case, it's gross incompetence of a level that should be criminal. So either Darl is the world's biggest idiot of a CEO, or he perjured himself, or SCO lied in their SEC filing. I doubt that his ego will al

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

Would have been great if Novell's counsel had doubled up in laughter at that question.

-jcr

Re:

[gstoddart (321705)]

Mmmmmm, that's some good perjury!

Ah, but it's not a lie if you believe it.

See, he can be misinformed, stupid, confused, or just plain wrong ... none of which gets you convicted for perjury. He just has to believe what he's saying.

You'd have to show that he deliberately lied -- I bet any half-way decent lawyer could convince a jury that Darl doesn't really understand half of what he says, and that he's merely operating on his understanding of legal and technical briefs provided to him. Hell, half of Slashd

Re:

[UnknowingFool (672806)]

You'd have to show that he deliberately lied -- I bet any half-way decent lawyer could convince a jury that Darl doesn't really understand half of what he says, and that he's merely operating on his understanding of legal and technical briefs provided to him. Hell, half of Slashdot has spent time pointing out how clueless he is.

True, but thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as CEO he had to attest to the truthfulness of any financial statements. So as Novell pointed out, he was lying then or he's lying n

Re:I'm Pretty Sure He Committed Perjury

[ravenspear (756059)]

Mmmmmm, that's some good perjury!

Except, to prove perjury you would have to prove that he was knowingly making false statements, or in other worlds that he knew what he was talking about and just chose to say the opposite of what's true.

So basically you would have to prove that Darl is not an idiot. Good luck with that ;)

Re:

[berashith (222128)]

So now we understand the motives behind his actions for all this time. He wanted us to all scream about how stupid he is, and then submit the comments from /. as evidence that he didn't perjure himself.

My God, he is a genius.*

* this is the first step of destroying this evil plan

Her's hoping

[Hognoxious (631665)]

Here's hoping he performs better than Hans Reiser ... no, on second thoughts cancel that.

Re:

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

Here's hoping that he receives the same sentence as Hans Reiser. Cheers!

Re:

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

Here's hoping Hans Reiser charges him $699 for the idea. He can prove prior art, too.

please, Lord, make it stop!

[swschrad (312009)]

can't you just strike them down and put an end to our misery?

Re:

[LWATCDR (28044)]

That is what he is doing. Bolts from the blue and frogs are so old testament.
This way McBride will know that he did wrong the entire time he is being struck down.

Re:

[Jason Levine (196982)]

What? And have them become more powerful than we could possibly imagine? No. We won't make that mistake.

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

Misery? Our misery is over. SCO can no longer harm us. I for one don't want SCO to get a quick death at the end of a rope when the horse runs away, but a slow agonizing one as it's slowly pulled up, with SCO kicking and slowly strangling.

Besides, my popcorn isn't done popping.

Editors ...

[garett_spencley (193892)]

The section logos beside the article text, in order, read as follows:

Caldera
the Courts
Unix
Novel
Tux

All together now ... CCUNT.

I guess you couldn't really leave this one out of "the courts". Either way, well done.

Re:

[Farmer Tim (530755)]

All together now ... CCUNT.

You should really get out more often. Have you considered dating?

With a stutter like that? The ladies would laugh.

they should call it..

[pak9rabid (1011935)]

..UnixWars Episode V..Novell Strikes Back.

Some sort of fact checking mechanism...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518)]

I'm not exactly sure how best to implement it; but it seems to me that more of our public social processes need a formal mechanism whereby blatantly factually incorrect statements can be challenged and amended. In situations like courtrooms, political debates, news shows, and whatnot, people can and do just say things that are trivially, demonstrably wrong all the time. Sometimes, their opponents call them on it; but that ends up degenerating into a game of "he said-she said". Surely it wouldn't be that har

Re:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

In situations like courtrooms, political debates, news shows, and whatnot, people can and do just say things that are trivially, demonstrably wrong all the time.

No they can't.

+1 funny

[Hatta (162192)]

I'm sure this is meant to be taken ironically.

Re:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Are you saying my statement was trivially and demonstrably false?

That's slander. You'll be hearing from my lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, soon.

Re:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Really? Found those WMDs yet?

Yes.

Re:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

You haven't been to court.

Of course I have; I'm a judge.

Re:Some sort of fact checking mechanism...

[AltGrendel (175092)]

We can issue everyone in the court one of those little suction cup guns and put color coded flags on the end of the cup. When you shoot the person on the stand with the gun, you have to present irrefutable proof that they are wrong in what they said. If that person gets too many hits, they are asked to stand down.

Re:

[Simon80 (874052)]

Finding the clip of them saying something is hard in realtime, though I guess if the questions are prepared beforehand, then the clip can also be found beforehand. There's a Daily Show where a clip is actually played showing that happening to Mitt Romney during an interview, it was fun to watch.

Re:

[Jason Levine (196982)]

This sort of moderation wouldn't be suitable for matters of opinion or debate; but there are really a lot of things that are knowable with a high degree of confidence, particularly given our access to vast databases and recordings of past events:
Politician: "I never said "foo", I said "bar".
Moderator: "This clip is from our interview three weeks ago"*plays clip of Politician saying "foo".

This is why I like the Daily Show versus regular news. Regular news broadcasts a quote from a politician: "I've always

Re:

[hardburn (141468)]

On that note, I might add a Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] story on Adam Chodikoff, the guy behind the Daily Show who apparently manages to track down all those clips of politicians saying contradictory things. IMHO, the Daily Show would be scathing but ultimately harmless satire (like the Onion) without this factor. With it, it becomes something politicians actually have to be afraid of.

Court TV?

[multisync (218450)]

Does anyone know if the trial is being broadcast anywhere? If it is, torrents would sure be appreciated.

Re:

[oahazmatt (868057)]

I don't even think Court TV is still around. Last I heard it was TruTV and had primarily shows like "Cops" and "Worlds _____iest _____".

Re:

[barzok (26681)]

Well, she is wearing the world's shortiest skirt.

OS Rustling?

[Sfing_ter (99478)]

By God, we hangs OS Rustlers around these here parts. Someone git us a rope and we can commence with the hangin'!!!

Perhaps the judge will find it in his heart to jail this Team-Killing FuckTard, or at least fine him all his assets. Truthfully he is as bad as any spammer.

I Thought...

[Odin_Tiger (585113)]

I thought that this was all over with. Or was that just some other aspect of it?

Re:I Thought...

[Jason Levine (196982)]

The part where they determined whether or not (and how much) SCO owned Unix is over. Now that it has been determined that Novell owns the copyrights, the questions are:

1. Did SCO sell Unix licenses and keep money that should have gone to Novell?
2. If so, how much of this does SCO owe Novell?

The main sales in this trial are the Microsoft and Sun ones. There's something like $20 million that SCO might owe Novell. (Money that SCO doesn't have even if they sold every last chair in the office.)

SCO insists, however, that the licenses weren't SCOsource licenses and thus weren't ones that Novell would be owed money for. Darl testified to this on the stand. However, SCO's own SEC filing insists that the money was SCOsource. So either SCO lied in an SEC filing or Darl perjured himself. Either way, Darl and SCO have only the barest shreds of a case left. (Unfortunately for them, that "barest shred" relies on the past few years of case history vanishing magically.)

So...

[eno2001 (527078)]

...who's a cocksmoking teabagger now Darl?

Re:

[Xtifr (1323)]

You're close, but you're overlooking one detail. The minute the judge in Utah uttered the word "conversion [law.com]", SCO went rushing off to the bankruptcy court as fast as they could scuttle in the hopes of more delay. Novell isn't going to get in line as a debtor. They are, basically, the victims of theft; the money in question was never SCO's to begin with. The resulting scenario will probably play out fairly close to the way you described, except that repaying Novell is going to be a much higher priority th