SCO Files Response To Demand For Evidence 498
The Welcome Rain writes "SCO has posted its notice of compliance with the court order of December 12, which required them to produce evidence. The document itself is brief, but refers to a sixty-page supplement which lists the offending lines, and asserts that it can find more when IBM produces some of the evidence demanded of them by SCO. Millions of lines on sixty pages? How silly."
"...all non-priveleged information..." (Score:5, Interesting)
The general public still won't get to see the evidence.
By putting all 'priveleged' information in an addendum....we won't get to see the infringing code.
Go fig. Put up or shut up my arse.
Will be waiting. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:60 pages is not a million, but it's quite a chu (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, SCO hasn't shown anything credible in several tries so far. I'm betting on more of the same.
Even still, there are two points of fallback:
1. Novell contests ownership of SVR5 copyrights--SCO needs to beat Novell in court before it can succeed against an end user in a copyright infringement claim
2. The BSDi settlement questions whether SVR5 can even be protected by copyright in the first place
Wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
komi
SCO complied, sorta (Score:5, Interesting)
This means that they couldn't get all the documents because people were on vacation. Let's see: they got the court order December 5. I wonder how many developers were given a mandatory 6 month vacation on a deserted island to start December 6th?
No ruling in BSD case (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient (Score:5, Interesting)
And if I remeber the judges order was that it wouldn't allow for SCO Motion to Compel till IBMs motions were carried out. Also wouldn't the judge have to give fair amount of time after IBM gets the information for them to go over it and then provide the information that SCO requested. Because IBM has been saying that without knowing what SCO is sueing them over they couldn't provide the data that SCO wanted.
If it's anything like last time, (Score:3, Interesting)
I could be off here... (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO's statement makes it clear they are saying this is a sample only and they will cough up a little more after IBM gives what they want. Isn't this liable to piss off a judge who explicitly ordered they present everything?
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Which they cannot do. You can't file a lawsuit to use it as a fishing expedition. It is the burden of the plantiff to prove their allegations. Considering that Linux source is available, I don't see why SCaldera needs ANYTHING from IBM to "prove" their "millions of lines" allegations.
The court set the deadline and put SCaldera's discovery on hold UNTIL they showed IBM exactly what they are accused of doing. Seems to me they have not done so. The next hearing will be very interesting. At the very least, Darl and his other brother Darl will have a VERY pissed off judge on their hands...
If they piss the judge off enough, they might have their case thrown out. The judge could even dismiss "with prejustice" meaning the same charges could not be made again. A dismissal would not affect IBM's countersuit.
The judge also could allow the case to proceed, but bar SCO from introducing any additional evidence other than what they just provided... Discovery deadlines are just that... A deadline. The party so ordered MUST turn over what they are ordered to, and then some, if they want to be certain to get that evidence into the court during trial...
If SCO had a case, they should have turned over exactly what they were ORDERED to turn over. But then, as most of us suspect, they DONT have a case, but want to use the spectre of one to get rich off a "pump n dump" while receiving revenue from Microsoft to encourage the FUD machine...
Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient (Score:2, Interesting)
A far cry from millions (*raised pinky*).
QOTD:Can anyone explain this huge trade yesterday? (Score:5, Interesting)
...but why would somebody have moved >100k shares yesterday afternoon around 4pm? Check here [marketwatch.com]. That's way out of line with their typical volume...
Beautiful.
Re:QOTD:Can anyone explain this huge trade yesterd (Score:2, Interesting)
It's here [groklaw.net].
Novell going for a quick checkmate? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it's an accident that Novell released all it's correspondence with SCO this week. Novell is giving IBM a lot of ammunition in it's legal battle with SCO. In those correspondence, Novell is clearly trying to exercise its rights under its agreement with SCO and consistently sites the relevant passages in those agreements to back up its requests. SCO just dismisses every Novell request out of hand without reference to anything.
Of particular interest is Novell's assertion that derivative works belong to IBM, SGI, etc. This claim of ownership of derivative works is SCO's core argument. Without ownership of derivative works, SCO only has rights to actual code and not the methods, processes, etc.
I suspect Novell is hoping that IBM may be able to short circuit the entire process. If IBM can show that SCO is violating the agreement with Novell and that SCO's ownership is in dispute, SCO may not even have standing with the court to bring the lawsuit. In other words, SCO's suit could be dismissed until it has established clear ownership of the copyrights it claims IBM is violating.
SCO would then have to file a lawsuit against Novell. In the interim, SCO's stock price would freefall to nothing and it would not have the money to continue its fight. Novell could probably reclaim all the UNIX rights it supposedly sold if SCO is forced out of business.
Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope the 23rd is an open hearing with a transcript, its going to be real funny.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
They must have a reason to pretend this however. Most likely they just want to slow down Linux development/acceptance to buy their good friends at microsoft some time. If such a scenario were true, you would expect them to stay fuzzy about details, take as much time as they can, draw as much media attention as possible, etc..
Re:60 pages is not a million, but it's quite a chu (Score:2, Interesting)
Will the judge nail them for this?
Re:Wait... (Score:2, Interesting)
The court order had a little clause that said if SCO couldn't find all of the evidence, they had to document their efforts to obtain it. In the notice, SCO says that it couldn't obtain some things because of "the holidays."
SCO is claiming that they can't present all of their evidence, in the lawsuit they filed, because they've been on vacation.
Re:No ruling in BSD case (Score:5, Interesting)
The point (Score:3, Interesting)
Statistics had nothing to do with it. The point of the slashblurb was that whatever is in those 60 pages, it is quite certainly far, far less material than SCO previously claimed-- to their stockholders no less-- they had proof of.
They were trying to call SCO on previous deception, not attempt to belittle the size of code solely based on a comparison to the kernel at large.
Does Dell Support Linux? (Score:1, Interesting)
some please post this in Slash dot
Re:hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
If SCO wins and manages to keep the court evidence sealed, things are bad for Linux in general. They can simply go around and demand liscense fees from anybody using Linux, without ever telling anyone exactly what it is they're paying for, and the Linux community would be more or less helpless to remove the offending code short of re-writing anything in the kernal whose origin can't be totally nailed down.
Of course, this is fairly unlikely. But just because a million geeks keep shouting "Show us the code and we'll remove it!" doesn't mean we'll ever find out what it is. In fact, it is in SCO's best interest that nobody EVER see the code, and I'm sure they'll do what they can to keep it that way.
Re:I could be off here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, this is liable to piss of the judge, especially considering that the judge has shown a small amount of pissed offedness with SCO already.
I refer you to the following quotes from the transcript of the December 5, 2003 discovery hearing:
Or, how about this one:
Millions of lines. (Score:3, Interesting)
402,398 lines of:
402,398 lines of: ************/
921,765 lines of:
921,765 lines of:
etc...
Re:Sounds like they won't meet the Judge's thresho (Score:3, Interesting)
(It would probably be "without prejudice" though - the contention is that there's insufficient evidence to back the claim, and this is the first time the claim is brought up, albeit ad nauseam.)
Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, I'm referring to actual court case with actual plaintiffs who think they actually have an actual case of actual infringement of actual property by an actual defendant, not a sham case used as a springboard for a publicity campaign with the goal of stock market manipulation.
Re:Are we going to learn our lessons, or what? (Score:3, Interesting)
If a case is successfully defended or especially if it gets thrown out, it would be stupid to do anything differently. If you win the case, that means that what you've been doing is fine. If anything, changing your behavior in response to winning a case means that the precedent will be less useful if you get dragged into court again.
Re:Sounds like they won't meet the Judge's thresho (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, Judge Wells is only the Magistrate, I don't think she can dismiss the case (but I'm not certain), but she can probably sanction SCO, dismiss claims, disallow evidence, and generally make it very uncomfortable for SCO. And of course, her judgements will have a lot of weight with the trial judge.
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:supplement? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah yes, Grocklaw [groklaw.net] has it and some explanations of how it might be fought. But until it is broken it is unlikely that we will get access to the actual evidence.
What SCO is probably trying to do (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO believes that their license with IBM entitles SCO to ownership of all code IBM develops and puts in products licensed to IBM by SCO. SCO believes some of that code IBM has put in AIX and/or Dynix/ptx was also put in Linux. So SCO's claim is "We don't know what code is ours, but we know IBM put it in Linux". Of course that can't account for any code IBM took from BSD and put in AIX and/or Dynix/ptx (which is in compliance with the BSD license), which SCO cannot possibly own, and which could also be in Linux, and might no longer even be in BSD. It also cannot account for any code IBM acquired from any other parties who may have approved putting it in AIX, Dynix/pts, or Linux.
Re:Files and line numbers may be sufficient (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's where specificity comes into play. I can say that you are infringing on my code in 3600 of your files, but that won't be very specfic. If you are showing line ranges, that's fine, but you still have to describe what exactly is wrong with those lines. That description is what should make the bulk of the document, not the line numbers themselves.
Well the SEC is supposed to care about this stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
If you really wanted to you could probably force a court ruling by buying some SCO stock and then suing them when the stock drops if you really believe that SCO violated SEC rules in its SEC filings. But I guess as long as you don't blatantly lie, a court might find that your SEC filings were ok.
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
In Australia, at least, that would land SCOG in very, very hot water (being Australian and by extension, not from the US, I don't know what the law provides for there). Claiming ownership -- and license fees -- on something you don't provably own is misrepresentation, and will see you up against the various state Offices of Fair Trading and/or the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission quicker than you can say "pay me." You can ask for donations and/or provide a service in return for payment, but you can't go around claiming rights to stuff for no material or immaterial benefit of any kind, much less threatening (veiled or otherwise) legal action if payment isn't forthcoming.
I'm still waiting for SCO Australia to try it on here. They're welcome to use me as a guinea-pig; I'd be only too happy to send a copy of all correspondence to the ACCC.
Re:SCaldera seems REALLY desperate... (Score:2, Interesting)
"salt the earth" means to plough salt into the soil so that nothing will grow there. This was one form of "scorched earth" policy - it's too hard to keep the land once it's been taken, so just render it unusable. Talk to any farmer about what the effects of soil salinity are on crops and flocks.
I sincerely hope that IBM would never "salt the earth" in any way shape or form.
Perhaps a better phrase would have been, "IBM is going to stomp all over them and scatter their bloody remains to the corners of the Earth."
Not that any SCO employee actually has blood - that would imply that they have souls, too.
Re:SCaldera seems REALLY desperate... (Score:5, Interesting)
IF SCaldera and it's executives from Darl on down are doing what we THINK they are doing (and so far evidence does not contradict it) they are guilty of some very serious crimes. If the SEC permits companies to get away with these things, then they prove that NOTHING was learned from Enron.
SCO at the very least is misleading investors. It's SEC filings do NOT include ANY risk statements involving Redhat and IBM's counterclaims, and nothing concerning Novell's allegations involving their license agreement.
Novell could go to court at any time and possibly get SCaldera's assets seized to pay them the 95% they were owed from the Darlgeld Microsoft and Sun paid!
Not to mention, their current stock price is SOLEY the result of what is likely a frivilous lawsuit, and insiders have been excercising PENNY stock options and making TENS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS on the backs of people who BUY these shares.
The fact that so many execs have options for SCO stock DRASTICALLY below the current price suggests to me that this whole scheme was premeditated...
don't go into a gunfight with a baseball bat (Score:1, Interesting)
SCO made a positive claim - if they made a claim without knowing that it was true, they are potentially guilty of libel. In order to bring the case, they should have some evidence of violations - that would then justify the time and expense of looking at other pieces of code for evidence. Depositions aren't useful without the code they refer to ("I know IBM gave out code, but I don't remember what it is" or "We know IBM gave the code in (routine X) to someone else" isn't going to hold water). They need an airtight (or nearly so) case for the initial claims to justify looking for further infringement. SCO's say-so won't work, particularly after stretching the judge's patience with their actions.
If SCO doesn't have conclusive proof of some violation, then they are in a gunfight with the Mob and carrying a baseball bat. An easy way to get killed.