Judge To SCO — Quit Whining 156
chiark writes, "Back in June, the magistrate judge presiding over SCO vs IBM gutted SCO's claims, as discussed on Slashdot. SCO cried 'foul,' appealed to the District Judge, and today that judge has ruled against SCO, succinctly and concisely affirming every point of the original damning judgement. Also included in this ruling is the news that the Novell vs. SCO trial will go first: 'After deciding the pending dispositive motions in this case, and after deciding the dispositive motions in Novell, which should be fully briefed in May 2007, the court will set a trial date for any remaining claims in this action.' It's notable that the judge conducted the review using a more exhaustive standard than required out of an 'abundance of caution,' and still found against SCO." As Groklaw asks and answers: "What does it mean? It means SCO is toast."
What net for SCO? (Score:3, Insightful)
Novell going first not a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There may not be a trial (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And the Downward Spiral Begins (Score:4, Insightful)
Your goose is downright cooked, SCO.
I'd truly love to believe this about their goose being cooked (and props to cacepi for correctly using "your" and not "you're"), but experience tells me otherwise. Why? Neither investors nor stock brokers/analysts understand technology or the law. SCOX will most likely hang on until the September 2007 trial. I'd love to be wrong, but until SCOX starts trading at under a dollar a share and facing potential delisting action, I see the stock surviving through next year. You have to love broker talk where despite the "dangerous risk/reward rating" they are advising people to neither buy more of the stock nor to sell what they have. That's what "hold" means.
SCOX has lost 25 cents at the time of writing. Unless it plummets today or tomorrow, I think unfortunately it's going to be around for a while. It's still trading at over $2 a share.
Re:Groklaw's Being Just A Bit Immature (Score:1, Insightful)
no, i'm not going to post a link; you can do the searching yourself. in fact, i'll post this anonymously, just so people can't say i'm karma whoring.
Re:that's what he said? (Score:5, Insightful)
I once tried to explain the SCO case to someone. They thought I was BSing them. The case is simply so screwed up from pretty much any rational (and non-scamming) perspective that even if Slashdot were neutral, it should stand up and say, "HEY! This is messed up". Sometimes I worry we get so caught up in NPOV and neutrality that we forget that there is objective truth, and the objective truth is that SCO is making dozens of claims it can't back up, to the judge's annoyance.
Re:that's what he said? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would paraphrase that last part as "quit whining". SCO has repeatedly claimed that the court has not provided them with either a) enough time, b) enough leeway in deposition, and c) enough clarity in its orders. That was basically SCO's defense in this motion; that they did all they could given the information that they had from the court. The court has now told them that their defense in this motion doesn't hold water and worse, that they should know it. How else would you paraphrase that?
I realize that was a crude paraphrasing, but a more neutral/appropriate headline might make this a more reputable site.
What is neutral about this? SCO just got their butts whipped by the court, again, as they should have. News itself is rarely objective, and Slashdot has never pretended to be an objective news source. This isn't about providing balanced reporting on the SCO case. This is about SCO being in the wrong, and the court - for the second time - bitch-slapping them for being in the wrong and for knowing they were in the wrong and wasting everybody's time and energy on this case.
Re:There may not be a trial (Score:4, Insightful)
There is also the distinct possibility that SCO and BSF (their lawyers) will be punished for bringing a case before the court that has zero merit. It is a frivolous case and lawyers can be debarred for that kind of conduct.
That is an outcome I would very much like to see (disbarrment of the lawyers). The lawyers involved should be disbarred and they should be charged and found guilty of felony conspiracy (as well as the corporate officers of SCO). They should never again be allowed to hold any position of public trust, not in the law, not as bank tellers, not even as a call center customer service representatives. The law firm should be broken up, its offices razed, and the rubble should be sown with salt.
If lawyers in this country were required to live up to their responsibilities as Officers of the Court, we would all be better off. This case is proving to be such an egregious abuse of the legal system that action must be taken against the lawyers involved, since to allow them to walk away would shatter the foundation of the rule of law beyond this society's ability to repair it. That would mean it would become necessary for many of America's people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with others and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them. Thank you Mr Jefferson. No one in two hundred thirty years has said that better than you did.
The law was never intended to be a club that you can use in an attempt to extort money from IBM or any other company or person. The law is intended to be a set of rules that is supposed to provide some measure of fairness in the dealings we have with one another. Officers of the Court have a responsibility to uphold that concept of law; those that attempt to make a mockery of the law by participating in a sham like this one should never again be trusted in any measure. Let them earn a living as day laborers for the rest of their miserable years.
</rant>
Re:What net for SCO? (Score:3, Insightful)
This lawsuit is nothing more than a proxy pr campaign on behalf of Microsoft [com.com] against Linux. For the bargain price of 16.6 million and another $50 million investment that Microsoft help arrange [com.com], Microsoft has allowed SCO to be a PR thorn in Linux's side for several years now.
The investors have gotten exactly what they wanted in the first place, not by winning, not by securing SCO's corporate future as a legitamite business. Just by fighting the battle for this long and keeping IBM wrapped up in court and keeping Linux in the news with the allegation that is is a potential intellectual property infringer and a risk to business, SCO's real investor has gotten exactly what they wanted without exposing Microsoft directly.
Now that SCO has nearly run out of steam, you hear rumblings from Microsoft itself about the Intellectual property allegations against Linux. It is clearly their strategy to sow fear uncertainty and doubt (FUD) as much as possible in advance of Windows Vista coming out.
It is hardly a conspiracy theory when the money changing hands and the strategy have been made so clear. SCO is a shell of a company, being used in a shell game.
Counterclaims... (Score:3, Insightful)
- lied publicly about IBM's behaviour
- violated the GPL, including for IBM's GPL-ed code
- violated the Lanham act
etc.Re:Wow....look at that stock chart (Score:3, Insightful)
(I am not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet!)
Re:that's what he said? (Score:3, Insightful)
News should always be neutral. Editorials can contain any amount of opinion the author wants. Neither of them should knowingly contain factually incorrect information.
Re:that's what he said? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The admistration said today that flatulence is caused by an evil faerie named Mortimer, however some critics disagree!"
Objective means fact-checking, and reporting what is true. Neutral means echoing every opinion and statement that is fed to you, regardless of the source, in order to treat all standpoints and arguments as equally valid. Neutral is a horrible thing for news to be.
That being said, slashdot can't be called an prime example of neutrality or objectivity.