Report Claims SCO Intends to Charge IBM with Fraud 377
An anonymous reader writes "Now it gets interesting. According to this report, it looks as if SCO is preparing to accuse IBM of fraud, and has even opened up a web site to counter the runaway success of Groklaw. SCO's expensive attorneys Boies and Silver are apparently going to file a motion asking the court to unseal most of the documents that are currently under seal, in the hope that certain of IBM's e-mails will be seen by the outside world to tell a story about AIX, Dynix, and Project Monterey that implicates IBM in, well to be blunt, fraud. Groklaw is certain to have its own distinct view about this latest development of course."
Can't treally blame them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
Money (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Money (Score:5, Insightful)
So we'll see two bankruptcies in Utah one day.
Re:arent the US.A judges embarrassed by now? (Score:4, Insightful)
U.S. judges often give a seen-by-them-to-be-losing side LOTS of room to maneuver to avoid giving valid grounds for an appeal. A successful appeal is a professional 'you screwed up' opinion, and judges don't like that on their resume'.
Re:arent the US.A judges embarrassed by now? (Score:2, Insightful)
And, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the more deliberation and time that is allowed the plaintiff in the case, the less likely an appeals court will even hear the case if judgement is declared against the plaintiff.
Having said that: the US is in desperate need of tort reform, specifically in the area of class-action lawsuits, as well as some kind of deterrent to filing frivolous lawsuits/claims.
So this is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well done. I'll sure they'll keep giving voice to such trash as long as they make money on it.
Re:Money (Score:5, Insightful)
>Where is SCO getting all this money to pay lawyers?
By defrauding investors into believing SCOX had a solid case, when in fact they didn't. Lying through their teeth about "owning UNIX", lying about the pedigree of Linux, lying about everything.
Behind closed doors they pitched this as an "investment opportunity". They probably showed the investors the Berkley Packet Filter code, maybe some standard headers (elf.h, etc). "Look! This is a slam dunk! And there are millions of lines more of that in linux!"
Oh, they really sold this "Linux Lottery" good.
Re:SCO is commiting Fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be ideal to have a karma system for companies who want to sue. You get some accusation points, but if the outcome of the trials determines accusations to be false, the company wouldn't get more points for a long time.
So the damage a "bad" company can do is limited.
I've seen a similar system used in a web site, wish I recalled the url...
Fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really. So IBM develops a product and promptly decides to kill it in favor of a new product they would rather persue. Apparently, SCO believes IBM was supposed to have had a brain wipe before moving onto their next project. Didn't SCO wind up with a copy of AIX-on-Itanium that they could have run with? This is fraud? I'm thinking that SCO was looking forward to merely riding along while IBM did all the difficult work of developing Monterey into a usable product. When the cache of IBM's name was no longer associated with Monterey, SCO finds they don't have the ability to make the new OS a standard. And then Darl comes along years later to cry foul.
And, so would it be fraud, I guess, to use the fairly common practice of Company A buying competitor B's software product and then raising the license fees to levels that effectively kill it off in favor of Company A's product. Or lifting the guts of B's (now A's) software and incorporating it into Company A's product. Then leaving Company B's former customers with a product that they are unable to use on newer releases of operating systems (as Company A has no intention of keeping it up to date) and leaving them no alternative but to use Company A's product (which they never wanted in the first place).
This happens all the time. The only difference is that most of the time it's the end-users of the software that get the short end of the stick. In Monterey's case, there weren't any users to get screwed. Only a corporation. But corporations have lawyers, end-users don't.
Re:Can't treally blame them... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's capitalism for you.
SCO continues to fail... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're going down in flames in every court they're fighting a legal battle, and they somehow think public opinion is either:
- going to change in their favor
- going to matter at all after Lindon Utah is reduced to a smoking crater, salted, and plowed under
just because people get to read some emails from IBM that (in SCO's opinion) kinda look bad.Actually, the way SCO's research has been going, they've totally misunderstood the meaning of the emails and as soon as they're made public SCO will have made complete and utter fools of themselves, once again...
t_t_b
Re:Money (Score:2, Insightful)
More bluster from SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:arent the US.A judges embarrassed by now? (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the real problem - if SCO had attacked a smaller company that couldn't afford to defend itself they might have won by default years ago.
There is no justice when the difference between winning and losing is the amount of money you can spend on lawyers.
Re:SCO is commiting Fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
Please Open Your Eyes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's Boies Schiller (Score:1, Insightful)
Methinks you need to read Groklaw a bit more, and get a re-education on the quality of SCO's legal efforts so far.
Cliff Notes summary: not nearly good enough.
Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Go to a bookshop, and pick-up a book on running a small business, and read the chapter on going to court...
There is a reason why public faith in the legal system is at an all time low.
Re:SCO is commiting Fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't treally blame them... (Score:2, Insightful)
It makes yourself look like an ass and brings no credibility to the anti-SCO supporters.
And to the child post below, the same relies to religion as well.
Re:Insult + Injury - And their website sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
And I think I speak for all slashdot users when I say that when I heard about this supposed counter-site, the first thing I felt was a deep urge somethin' powerful to go over there, troll and /. their website into oblivion. That's a nice illustration of their ideal business model: SCO pontificates to the community, and the community can't respond. Captive audience, or vendor lock-in, whatever.
SCO'S next lawsuit will have a pretty good chance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If our judges weren't bought and sold (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cheerleading Against SCO (Score:4, Insightful)
However, if SCO does win a legal claim, I'm sure it'll be documented and discussed.
However, as of right now, no one seems to have enough information to conclude that any of SCO's claims are on solid ground. That's likely why the public's opinion is about 98 to 2 against SCO. If SCO had produced and released some solid evidence, then I'm sure opinion here would change significantly.
The courts are where cases are decided, not on slashdot. If you want to read the pro-SCO comments, feel free to look at the "0" and "-1" posts, and moderate them up if you think they're fair. I will too. but not here, cause I already posted and am ineligable to moderate here and now.
Re:Can't treally blame them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please Open Your Eyes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cheerleading Against SCO (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all Groklaw mainly just reports on the court documents, you can read them and draw your conclusions just as PJ does and draws hers.
Secondly if you can find anything, anything at all which leads you to believe SCO may have a genuine case and might win it then please post here and we can discuss it, the fact that as yet no one on
You'll notice that most reports in the media now are simply reporting what SCO said and no positive comments on SCO except for journalists like Maureen who write opinions based on a seriously flawed analysis of what ever it is that has happened they are reporting on.
It seems like you are not classing Maureen O Gara's comments as a sensibly balanced opposite point of view yet she and her ilk are the only people painting SCO's chances in a positive light which is in itself an interesting comment on the case.
Re:Cheerleading Against SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cheerleading Against SCO (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, SCO has not helped itself by issuing numerous public statements [groklaw.net] that contradict their representations in court [groklaw.net].
As far as Groklaw goes, as a lawyer I cannot emphasize enough how innovative and unique that website is. Sure, Pamela Jones has a distinct bias, but at least you know up front where she stands so you can evaluate her opinions accordingly. The real value of that site is the sheer comprehensiveness of the public statements and filings organized in its database. A resource like that would cost someone tens (or possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars to compile privately, and yet here it is offered to the public for free. It's like open source litigation, and I hope that Groklaw or sites like it continue in the future for other legal/political/social issues (software patents anyone?).
I think that these stories on SCO are so one-sided because after more than a year on this story, it has been thoroughly exposed to the point of ridicule. It's sort of the way that the public responds to other types of lawsuits that seem frivolous [power-of-attorneys.com] at first glance; it's possible that a seemingly frivolous lawsuit may have have merit, but that doesn't stop the public from being highly sceptical.
SCO's problem is that they decided (highly unwisely from a litigation viewpoint) to spin their action in the press. This is completely contrary to standard practice when it comes to lawsuits ("No comment, the matter is before the courts"). All of their ill-informed, contradictory and bombastic press quotes are coming back to haunt them, as you can be sure that IBM will use any prior inconsistent statement to cross-examine and impeach their evidence now.
Re:Cheerleading Against SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
But...Groklaw doesn't just provide slanted analysis. The legal documents--filings, affidavits, memos, motions, as many as they can get their hands on--are all scanned and available online.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I have read many of the legal filings. By and large, the comments of PJ are on the money, and don't misrepresent the contents of the documents. The comments are laced with heavy doses of schadenfreude, but I think they are factually correct.
If you want entirely unbiased coverage of the trial, then you can't rely on anybody's analysis and coverage. You have to read the documents for yourself. PJ has, bless her heart, actually provided them on Groklaw. Providing access to primary sources is a damn sight more open and honest than what most other news commentators give....
Re:Can't treally blame them... (Score:3, Insightful)
I will say though that if he has kids under the age of 18, then they should not be held accountable, but if they are 18+ and still benefitting from daddy's frivolities, then they are complicitous as well.
Re:I get it (Score:3, Insightful)
They then go to the appeals court and try to claim that they were prevented from carrying out essential discovery and see if they can tie the case up in discovery for the next five years.