IBM Denies Destroying Evidence in SCO Case

Rob writes "IBM Corp has denied claims made by SCO Group that it destroyed evidence relevant to their ongoing breach-of-contract and copyright case, maintaining that SCO has had the evidence in question in its possession since March 2005. SCO, which believes IBM breached a contract by contributing Unix code to the Linux operating system, accused IBM of destroying evidence in a July 2006 court filing, claiming that "IBM directed 'dozens' of its Linux developers within its LTC [Linux Technology Center] and at least 10 of its Linux developers outside... to delete the AIX and/or Dynix source code from their computers.""

Lawsuit that never ends

[pete.com]

This is the suit that never ends, Yes, it goes on and on, my friend Some people started it not knowing what it was, And they'll continue litigating forever just because--

Re:The Disappeared Ones

[GigsVT]

It's funny they don't seem to crop up anymore

Their bosses at MS told them to work on the Novell story spin and let the SCO thing go since everyone saw through that ruse.

I'm not joking. Astroturf is real and is happening.

Re:Ever heard of Groklaw?

[mdf356]

The Groklaw story is better because it has my name in print! My declaration is exhibit F.

Unfortunately, because it has my name in print I cannot comment on this story at all. :-(

Cheers,
Matt

Re:The Disappeared Ones

[Xisiqomelir]

It's the Rapture, man.

SCO's response

[oahazmatt]

SCO's response: "Of course they're denying it! Denying it means they have something to hide!"

The problem is

[BenSchuarmer]

All of those things would infringe on SCO's intelectual property.

SCO strategy ..

[rs232]

SCO: there is line by line copying of SCO code in Linux.
IBM: what source code.
SCO: we aren't saying and besides which you deleted the evidence.

Re:Lawsuit that never ends

[AJWM]

No, it's fair use. That song has an infinite number of verses, so the one he copied is a negligible fraction thereof.

Besides, it was a parody (also fair use), not a direct copy.

Re:Hmmm

[forgotten_my_nick]

No no no, the real fun will begin when they are investigated for what looks like an elusive pump'n'dump scheme.

Re:SCO strategy ..

[Loco Moped]

SCO: there is line by line copying of SCO code in Linux.
IBM: what source code.
SCO: we aren't saying and besides which you deleted the evidence.

You forgot one step:

Dear Mr. "Bates":
Please send next payment.
Regards,
SCO

Re:Deleting a Sandbox -- Not the Repository

[hey!]

IBM instructed developers to purge their sandboxes.

Hmm. And they say that managing developers is like herding cats...

Re:What a mess!

[powerlord]

... it could go spend that money on hurrying up 65 nm production of the Cell processor, ...

AHA! Now it all makes sense.

SCO is the reason that the PS3 is shipping in such small units and costs so much ... because it can run Linux ... right? ;)

Keep Looking!

[Greyfox]

They can't find any copied code, so the copied code must have been deleted! The absence of evedence is not the evidence of absence after all! You have your known knowns and your known unknowns, but you also have your unknown unknowns! Stuff we don't know that we don't know. The lack of copied source code is an unknown unknown! No one could have foreseen it! Perhaps the copied source code was moved to Syria prior to the lawsuit! We should sue Syria next...

Well OK, so maybe only a retarded person would try to make (or buy) that argument. We already know that the SCO legal team isn't retarded -- they're getting paid buckets of cash to drag their feet. The SCO upper mangement isn't retarded -- I'm sure they made a killing on options in the few days when SCO was trading at $20 a share after the lawsuit was announced. Then I guess the retarded people would be... the other people who invested in SCO expecting this lawsuit to go anywhere. Poor retarded people, always being taken advantage of by SCO...