SCO Ordered to Produce Evidence 693
harmless_mammal and others wrote in with news from the SCO-IBM hearing in Utah today - apparently the judge has ordered SCO to respond to IBM's discovery requests within 30 days. IBM is asking SCO to tell IBM precisely what code it is alleging is infringing, and to date SCO has failed to show any evidence whatsoever. Some reports from the hearing are at Groklaw, which is already slow under the load. If SCO continues to fail to produce the evidence they've claimed they have, the judge will likely be very displeased, perhaps dismissing the lawsuit entirely.
Finally... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like even the lawyers have left SCO for dead.
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Where the lawyers were. (Score:5, Funny)
They were all out selling stock as fast as they can!
Re:Finally... (Score:3, Informative)
Let's hope so. SCO needs to go off into the sunset and never be heard from again. If you own SCO stock, I'd advise dumping and running now. Or perhaps shorting the stock.
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Informative)
Which would be very wise -- the news wires don't appear to have this info yet. SCOX is down only 1.44% currently, while the facts of these decisions should mean a much harsher fall off. (Note, I don't have access to the "insider" wires, which typically have stuff long, long before it makes it to the general press).
Or perhaps shorting the stock.
Looks like you'd be joining the party... back in June/July under 5% of SCOX was shorted. According to Yahoo! Finances, they're up to 1.62M shares shorted (as of 10-Nov-03), which is slightly over 21% now. More impressive is that last month there were only 926K shares shorted -- a 75% increase in the number of shares shorted. Looks like there's some serious players who want to short it.
Note - there's still no option market on SCOX. They're not big enough or heavily traded enough. Don't expect there to be one either. Unless, for some ungodly reason, SCO actually wins.
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a lawyer but I know a couple federal judges pretty well. They're fairly patient, up to the point they think someone is not being entirely forthcoming. For some reason they get a real chip on their shoulder about that. If the judges I know are any guide, this was a really stern warning. Made all the more ominous by the time factor. 30 days in a case of this scope is a message in itself.
If the intent is to stall, the SCO team should have planned to have something to turn in that will take time to analyze. Because if they don't have something pretty compelling ready in 30 days, they're in some deep shit. I wouldn't want to gamble on getting more time, either. Smart people would fold right here, so there's no fear of SCO doing that.
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Finally... (Score:4, Interesting)
I did not know that SCO printed so many pages
and handed them to court; for I remeber
SCO complaining in court that they could
not provide evidence for *their* claims because
(seriously) the "evidence" are so many
and plentiful they
buy ink for the printer. I'm glad they found
the money.
Not necessarily. (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO needs a MAJOR smackdown if we're ever going to shut them up good.
It'll be too late... (Score:4, Interesting)
If SCO doesn't have some substantial for this judge by the deadline, I'm predicting this gets tossed out and the SCO drama will collapse under it's own weight. The only thing that'll prop up the SCO price is all the people selling it short rushing to buy stock to make their huge returns.
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
What's in it for SCO? They can only dismiss their own suit, not IBM's countersuit. Dismissing their own suit would be pretty damned close to admitting culpability in IBM's countersuit. Okay, their company is on its way to destruction anyway but I think they'll choose for a long drawn out death, not a quick one.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Funny)
And they're sure making their time.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if that's true, or at least if it's true in the sense that you mean it. Part of the defensive value of IBM's suit is from making an example of SCO. IBM wants to prove to anyone else who might be thinking of launching a nuisance suit that it's a really, really bad idea. If the result is just a draw, or even a small win in IBM's favor (like SCO agreeing to pay legal fees) then there isn't sufficient example. If, OTOH, the final result is smoking craters where SCO, Canopy, et. al. used to be, it sends the much stronger message that suing IBM is a good way to lose everything.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:4, Funny)
Well, duh! According to SCO, RH is a bunch of pirates. What else do pirates do?
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, that's the way the cookie crumbles in the business world. If IBM decides that the cost of bringing Darl and company down exceeds the value of doing so, they won't do it. Justice, fairness, heck, even the law don't always apply in business decisions. If IBM doesn't think it's a good investment, IBM probably won't push it. They have a business stake in Linux, not an emotional one like a lot of us do.
Of course, if there happens to be an issue of criminal wrong-doing here, that could be a whole different story that doesn't involve IBM's decisions at all.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
A warning to the others is ample reason for IBM to grind them into the dust.
If it were just about this case IBM would have just bought them outright since odds are that would have been much cheaper than this drawn out legal battle.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody else pointed out an additional dimension, which is that IBM feels that its integrity has been impugned. A key part of SCO's suit is that IBM has failed to live up to its contractual obligations. That's a big deal in business, because nobody will want to deal with you if they don't believe that you'll hold up your side of the bargain. IBM clearly has a very strong business reason to want their reputation cleared, which is a driving factor behind the Lanham Act violation countersuit. I sincerely doubt that they would accept any deal that didn't clear up that issue unequivocally.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
> If IBM doesn't think it's a good investment, IBM probably won't push it.
I completely agree, but it might be in IBM's best interest to discourage future lawsuits of this sort. I don't think they'd keep the countersuit out of revenge, I think they'd keep it so this sort of thing is less likely to happen in the future. I suppose it could be a double-edged sword if the GPL is ruled against, however. Even if the future lawsuit wasn't again them, they do have enough of a stake to want to prevent future FUD.
We don't need another SCO.
An even better reason. (Score:4, Interesting)
When IBM gets the judgement against SCO, all that will be left are the legal contracts with other companies.
It wouldn't hurt IBM to have all those license agreements. That way they could pretty much ensure that nothing like this would ever happen again.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
In this case, the lack of discovery seems to directly interfere with the defendant's ability to, well, defend, so I have been wondering how the case could be allowed to proceed without discovery.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
Your scenario, however, is much more likely. Particularly given the claims to date.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Informative)
Well, this being federal court, the most common punishment for refusal to comply with discovery after an order compelling is to assess financial sanctions against the offending party's counsel[*]. I hope Boies et al really DID get millions up-front in addition to their 20% stake in any buy-out or settlement
[*] The theory being that it is an attorney's duty, to the court, to assure that his client plays by the rule.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, they didn't.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft has a Findings of Fact (They are effectively a Monopoly and they used the position to leverage themselves into another market and crush a competitor...), they have a Findings of Law (Microsoft is guilty of violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act...), and they have a Remedy that has been accepted by half of the States involved in the case and the DOJ.
I'd say that it's a piss-poor comparison to what IBM did in their Anti-Trust suit.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:4, Interesting)
1. GPL has never been involved in a court case, so some buisnesses see it as unproven (nevermind that very very few eulas have either and most have been to extreme.)
2. What happens to the next piddling little company running out of money that may have something that they can BS into making it look like it's a big deal? This is another reason why IBM should squish them, so that they won't have to deal with it for quite a while. Litigation is expensive, and if you spend more on one case to prevent many others, then it does get cheaper in the long run, and IBM has *at times* been able to look to the long run.
3. Litigation is expensive, and SCO made IBM do most of the research already... does IBM's legal department want to look like they just wasted $$? In most businesses, that isn't a good thing for the department.
4. I know some people at IBM have got to be emotional over this. So throw back in the we are pissed at sco part. :)
5. If they win, given that IBM registers it's copyrights (please please tell me if I am wrong) it isn't just 150,000$ (if sco won, because sco didn't register the copyrights). The winnings could definately help defray some of the cost of Litigation, and if you were IBM would you object to twacking one of M$'s cronies, and getting some M$ funneled money?
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. GPL has never been involved in a court case, so some buisnesses see it as unproven
IBM is not "some businesses" nor would IBM waste it's legal resources looking into matters that concern "some businesses".
2. What happens to the next piddling little company running out of money that may have something that they can BS into making it look like it's a big deal?
Huh? In no way could the countersuit set a precedent that "piddling little companies" should automatically lose to IBM. Each case of copyright infringement must be examined individually. Precedent plays no part.
3. Litigation is expensive, and SCO made IBM do most of the research already... does IBM's legal department want to look like they just wasted $$? In most businesses, that isn't a good thing for the department.
The amount of money already spent is completely irrelevant. IBM must weigh the remaining costs against the projected benefits of crushing SCO vs settling. Given that pursuing this in court will be very expensive (research is just one of many costs) and that crushing SCO doesn't benefit IBM any more than settling, I think the choice is easy. And the research money is certainly not "wasted" if it leads to SCO's law suit being dismissed.
4. I know some people at IBM have got to be emotional over this. So throw back in the we are pissed at sco part. :)
Since when did lawyers make important monetary decisions based on their emotions? Or the emotions of Linux advocates? Not likely.
5. If they win, given that IBM registers it's copyrights (please please tell me if I am wrong)
You are wrong.
The winnings could definately help defray some of the cost of Litigation
Let's speculate here. SCO has used shady legal shenanigans for years to pump up it's stock. All large purchases it has made have been mostly in stock. It's executives are being paid because dumbass investors believe their lies and buy their stock. Within about 0.002 nanoseconds of SCO losing their case against IBM every investor in the world will realize that SCO has no source of income, no product worth buying, and insufficient cash reserves. All of SCO's "wealth" will vaporize as their stock plummets. At this point any award against SCO is worthless because they won't have any money to hand over to IBM. So, why exactly does that seem like a worthwhile pursuit from IBM's perspective? (Hint: it doesn't.)
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
True enough, but they may determine that the cost of litigating SCO into the ground is worth making it crystal clear that they don't put up with this kind of thing. A quick settlement, while not as expensive right now, wouldn't entirely close the book on 'is Linux a safe choice for my business?' Seeing as Linux is big business for IBM, they may decide to go for the easy kill now and avoid problems from someone else later...
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Greasy Pink Pancakes (Score:4, Informative)
As for IBM's lawyers, I don't know the details of IBM's internal structure, but generally speaking in-house counsel handle thinks like transactions and reviewing licensing agreements. Big-time litigation is contracted out to firms that specialize in litigation. You may be thinking that IBM is probably involved in enough litigation to justify hiring its own trial lawyers, but think about how many jurisdictions they would have to be licensed in to be worthwhile (it's very unusual for lawyers to be licensed in more than a couple states -- bar exams just aren't that fun, not to mention the yearly continuing education requirements for each state). I do know some details about another behemoth business entity, Wal-Mart, and its legal department handles contracts and real estate, and that's pretty much it.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
IBM stands accused by SCO of breaching a contract between the two and divulging priviledged information or methods to others by contributing code to Linux.
IBM has as customers the governments of just about every country in the world that can afford to invest in IT. IBM provides solutions to hospitals, research centers, and buisnesses all who deal in sensitive or proprietary information. IBM can not have people going around saying that IBM broke a contract, especially by not treating sensitive data or methods correctly. IBM must, as a buisness priority, have SCOs claims declared completely baseless.
Which, cheerfully enough, means that IBM can't settle for anything less than the complete dismantling of SCOs claims, which will be quickly followed by the destruction of SCO by IBM's counter claims.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I do, because there is no other explanation for SCO's actions.
If SCO had any proof at all, they would have disclosed it, because hiding it provides no benefit, and has many drawbacks - not the least of which is the fact that witholding it permanently destroys any chance they had at benefiting from their case. (ie. they might win, but they will get nothing from it.)
By witholding the alleged copyright infringements, they are declaring that the value of the alleged code is exactly $0 (under the Doctrine of Laches). So the absolute best case scenario is that they can now get is that they win on all counts, and all they get is the judge saying Linus (et al) has 90 days to remove the infringing code. (Which is what they would have got at the beginning, only without having to spend millions of dollars on a lawsuit.)
There is no way that any lawyer would miss this. The only explanation for SCO not disclosing the evidence is that they don't have any.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
The courts are seldom presented with cases as completely devoid of merit as this one.
I certainly wonder if the judge will dismiss the case out of hand if SCO turns up next to nothing yet again in 30 days time. I don't expect an outright refusal, I expect a second game of hunt the copyright violation. But I also doubt that the judge is going to allow SCO to simply slide until the next 30 days ad infinitum.
Instead I think that the court will start with remedies like a fine and sharply reduce the scope of the case, if sco will not reduce the number of claims the court will. It happens all the time in complex cases, if you claim the defendant engaged in malpractice on 10,000 occasions the judge will tell you to pick five specific instances and the case will proceed from there. If you won't choose the five instances the judge will choose for you. If you loose on those five instances you loose the whole case.
Courts are real sticklers for deadlines in cases like this where they suspect one side is manipulating the system. The appeals courts have no sympathy either. Court dockets are overcrowded enough as it is.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. One other thing occurred to me. It is unusual to see a case dissmissed entirely. But it is very common, pretty much usual to see a court strike out several claims prior to trial.
This type of situation is rare precisely because it is a hopeless one. The courts do not like a plaintif who is apparently bringing a bogus case for extraneous reasons.
At the end of the SCO IBM case I predict a messy shareholder lawsuit against the officers of SCO in their personal capacity. Folk might like to notice that the Delaware courts have recently reversed their traditional supine approach to corporate governance.
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:3, Interesting)
>> specificity.
Would the information SCO provides IBM be public knowledge, or if they do pull 500 lines out of their ass would the specific information only be available to IBM at this time....?
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Interesting)
Against a legitimate plaintiff, that'd be the end of it.
This is SCO we're talking about. They make demonstrably false statements. Their press releases are full of self-contradictions. They haven't shown one whit of givashitness for the facts up to this point, what on earth makes you think they'll actually comply with a judge's order?
Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Moron. You've got it 100% backwards - Boise was on the DOJ teanm for that one.
The verdict was overturned, and Gates won .
The verdict was NOT overturned. Only an idiot would say that. All findings of fact that Microsft broke anti-trust law remain in effect. What was overturned was the penalty that was originally prescribed. To that extent, Gates did win, tragically.Re:Merry Christmas, Darl! (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)
darl looks better bent over a chair anyway (Score:4, Informative)
First Report from Grokker Inside Hearing: IBM Wins Both Motions to Compel Friday, December 05 2003 @ 02:30 PM EST
Our first report from a Groklaw volunteer, sam, who attended the court hearing is that IBM won both of its motions to compel and SCO's motion was set for a later date. Here is what sam is telling us, and it's subject to further information and confirmation as more news arrives. We have several attending and I'll do a followup, but this is the first word. Here is what sam is telling us:
"Just returned from the hearing.
"Needless to say there was blood all over the floor on the SCO side of the aisle none on the 'left' side.
"Judge granted both IBM motions to compel, gave SCO thirty days to comply 'with specificity' and suspended further discovery. Did not rule on the SCO motion until next hearing scheduled for Friday, Jan 23 and 10:00 am.
"SCO did say that they will be filing a complaint within days on copyright violations.
"More to come"
So it looks like they have 30 days to finally tell us what code they are talking about "with specificity". Finally.
like the little bitch that he is
Uh oh! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh oh! (Score:5, Funny)
I Love the Legal System: (Score:4, Funny)
Each side has spent bucketloads of money and all the judge could come up with so far is "Shit or get off the pot."
Fabulous.
Re:I Love the Legal System: (Score:5, Insightful)
In all likelihood, the lawyers that IBM uses are on retainer, and this hasn't really cost IBM much for legal fees. Thing is, this smear campaign has been damaging enough that once this is all said and done, IBM will be able to add libel and slander to it's complaints against Darl and his other brother Darl. All that they'd have to supply is proof of lost business or delayed business from people cancelling orders citing the SCO fiasco, and even if they're just delayed orders, IBM is a large enough company that months of inflation alone might be enough to show lost revenue.
The bitchslapping of Caldera is something that I'm looking forward to.
Coulda been worse for SCO (Score:5, Informative)
Court Costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Public...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Public...? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Public...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thing is, since this involves a third party, in the form of Linus Torvalds et al., might they be entitled to the infringing code, so that they can confirm origins and need for removal? If so, it would be extremely easy for us to determine what the infringing code is, since all we'd have to do is compare an allegedly infringing kernel with a 'clean' kernel, note the changes that are voluntary improvements, and look at the rest...
Also, Discovery is Suspended (Score:5, Informative)
Also, SCO admitted that IBM didn't put any Sys V code in Linux. They are claiming that IBM misappropriated Unixware trade secrets they learned in the Monteray project. They are also claiming that IBM had a contractual obligation to keep RCU, and NUMA technologies confidential. Expect that argument to be thoroughly demolished by IBM's crack legal team as opposed to SCO's crack-smoking legal team.
A big win for IBM in this legal chessgame.
Re:Also, Discovery is Suspended (Score:5, Funny)
Can we all line up for the great Roshambeaux? (Score:5, Funny)
If you don't watch South Park, you won't get it. IBM just claimed the right of first kick.
IBM's own discovery stayed (Score:3, Interesting)
The judge granted IBM's motions, forcing SCO to reply within 30 days, but did not rule on SCO's own motion to compel against IBM--that was postponed until Jan 24.
SCO has to show its evidence first--the court will not allow SCO to fish for evidence of IBM's wrongdoing eight months after filing suit.
Dismissing the lawsuit entirely!?! (Score:5, Funny)
And what about /.? What are we to do without SCO? Go back to Microsoft bashing? Too easy. Troll about Natalie Portman and hot grits? Too two weeks ago, man.
And what about Groklaw? Who will /. them if not us trying to see the latest SCO foolishness!
Just stop it, right now!
Going down (Score:4, Interesting)
Once this copyright thing is dead we just have to bone up on our patent law. That is next and is the real threat. Think of this as an easy warmup. We either need IBM to use its huge patent portfolio to protect OSS or we need to get the ridiculous laws changed. Note that an IBM defense just leaves the hole open for any two bit company with some backing to come up and make a fuss, the laws have to change.
There are miles to go before we sleep.
Re:Going down (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, but there is one thing that does need to be considered. Much of what IBM has patents on is used by every OS developer under the sky. IBM has, so far, not gone after many otherwise-lucrative targets, seeming to favour making a point of knowing competitors' systems so well that they can integrate anything into them. If IBM really wanted to go after a rich company, I'm certain that Microsoft's process control stuff falls under patents that IBM holds, and IBM hasn't bothered. I suspect that they'd rather leech money of of people who need support for a badly implemented product, which IBM provides, rather than destroy the services and support market that they've made a lot of money in.
Remember, IBM is probably the oldest IT company in the world. They didn't get there from pulling a rambus-style attack on someone.
Darryl McBride (Score:5, Interesting)
Darl McBride's brother.
WTH? Did DB finally realize his client was, um, fibbing to him and that he was filing a frivolous lawsuit?
The really telling thing is whether the upcoming copyright suit against a user comes from the Boies firm or from SCO directly. If the latter, we can figure that Boies has wised up and is inching away with his cash.
The reason why McBride's brother was there. (Score:5, Funny)
Darl McBride: "No! What are you going to do about it? Huh?"
IBM: "I'll make you, you little punk."
Darl McBride: "Oh yeah? You touch me and I'll get my big brother after you."
SCOX is unstable today (Score:3, Informative)
SCO vs. The World (Score:3, Insightful)
The same brute power of the Open Source movement is at work with this lawsuit as well. Should the code ever become public, you can be assured that the source of the source will be sourced faster than you can say...uh...'source'.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Darl and Co. spin this one!
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Why do i get the feeling.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't want to see it Dismissed (Score:5, Insightful)
fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
"... which is already slow under the load" (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, guys, but I really think this is crappy. You cry about how it's hard to mirror stuff, because it would require *gasp* permission. So instead of taking a little extra time, particularly when you know that the remote server ALREADY can't handle the load, you aim tens of thousands of hits at them.
I'm sure this isn't the intention, but it is essentially a deliberate DoS.
Enough excuses, already.... the prior permission thing just doesn't work anymore. Google mirrors practically EVERYTHING and they don't have specific permission. You can live by the same rules they do.
At the VERY least, in cases where the server is already obviously choking, post a synopsis without a link.
Re:"... which is already slow under the load" (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure this isn't the intention, but it is essentially a deliberate DoS.
Ease up. GrokLaw is holding on just fine. It has been /.'ed so many times lately (37.000 hits in an average wave) it'll survive just about anything. Runs Apache on Linux, of course :)
Pamela is the right person at the right place at the right time - with the right motivation. She's holding up great as well. Probably she's the one single person to have brought in most benefit in the whole thing, she's making it obvious to all that this is a crap case in the first place :) Even the IBM legal team is quoting GrokLaw. In court, that is. Rock on!
Report (Score:5, Interesting)
What about... (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO has been spouting a bunch of garbage (as has recently been posted here on slashdot) about what the GPL means and what the people behind the free software and open source movement stand for. Will anything come of those claims by SCO? Will they be challenged? I'd like to see some libel/slander charges brought against them, or at least some defamation lawsuits.
Wrong judge to dismiss the case. (Score:5, Informative)
This judge cannot dismiss the case because this is NOT the judge that will try the case. The trial judge can take a recommendation from this judge, which is possible.
The only thing that remains is what is SCO going to produce within the next 30 days.
Let's hope its more... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no trial! (Score:4, Funny)
1. Patch
2. Post to Slashdot
3. Monitor Load
4. If crash, go to 1 else
5. Profit!!
Well this may not be the end of SCO entirely (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's bring SCO to it's knees (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Create a collection of testimonials from former SCO customers who has successfully migrated away from SCO products.
3. Extensive benchmark showing inferiority of SCO Unixware.
4. Feature comparison between SCO Unixware and Linux.
5. Create a list of things Linux can do that SCO products cannot do.
6. List of hardware that Linux supports which SCO products do not.
7. Create a list of companies using SCO product and educate these companies about findings from 1 - 4.
8. Urge Free Software and Open Source developers to drop support for SCO Unixware across all softwares being developed. GNU Software (GCC, Emacs, libraries, autotools, base utils), Samba, Apache, OpenSSL, OpenOffice, XFree86, Gnome, KDE, etc.
9. Dissemination of information regarding insider trading of SCOX stock. Collection of detailed information on who is selling how much shares and when.
10. Analysis of all SEC filings by SCO especially that part about disclosure of all SCO's competitors and it's liability with investing money in SCO.
11. Create a collection documents debunking every single press releases, interviews and official statement made by SCO officials. Dissection of every sentence ever came out of Darl McBride's mouth clearly citing fallacies, misinformation, and contradictions.
12. Create a list of all patents held by SCO and then systematically try to disprove the validity of those patents by citing prior art.
13. Start a letter writing campaign to Wall Street analysts of all the findings from above. (There has to be Linux users who has connection to Wall Street folks.)
Any thought?
Re:Let's bring SCO to it's knees (Score:4, Informative)
The GCC 3.4 snapshots have a note in the root directory (README.SCO), which basically says "SCO is a bunch of jerks, and we're considering dropping support for SCO Unix".
While I've never used Unixware, by all reports it's so totally broken that I figure a) it might simplify the build magic quite a bit to drop the bitch anyway, and b) who the hell uses Unixware? Makes much more sense to support something like QNX than Unixware (I would add that a lot of GNU stuff *doesn't* support QNX). Of course that would be up to the developers of each project. But if, say, GNU tommorow said "All GNU projects will from now on explicitly not support Unixware"... well, I would be amused.
I just had lunch (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe his quote was, "He's like a Nazi propagandist, trying to convince everyone that concentration camps are for the good of the country"
Biggest victory possible for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Santa. (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you for the most excellent gift, and early to boot!
Now, if you could just see your way to also delivering my request about spammers, I will endevour to be a VERY good boy this year.
What SCO is up to (best guess) (Score:5, Interesting)
I started out thinking about all the ways that I could demolish his argument (not terribly hard), when the thought suddenly occurred to me that, in a sense, that was exactly what SCO wanted.
Let's use a little common sense on the whole SCO thing.
First off, toss out a couple of emotionally popular but rather unlikely theories:
1) Darl McBride is insane, in the medical, legally-incompetent sense of the word. If he was, the rest of SCO and the Canopy Group would have shut him down a long time ago. Similar reasoning applies for "unbelievably stupid", "totally ignorant" and similar epithets.
2) #1 is true, but for everybody in SCO and Canopy, not just Darl, which is why he's still there. Ok, c'mon. If you're that out of touch with reality, talk to your doctor about upping the dosage on the little green pills.
A common allegation is that Darl McBride is a greedy money-grubber with the morals of an advertising exec. This is probably true, but in America, at least, being greedy on behalf of your company is not only not frowned on, it is (somewhat) required by law. (There is a SEC regulation that requires all publicly-owned corporations to try and maximize the value of their stock. Since it says nothing about HOW that's to be done, the range of tactics is pretty wide. You won't find any American corporations saying "We gave away all our profits, 'cause we felt like being nice guys", though.)
SCO's basic strategy is obvious: Fire the shotgun everywhere possible, as often as possible, and see what sticks. I saw an article the other day that said the software business in 2004 was predicted to be about $230 billion. If SCO can get 1/10 of 1% of that, they'd be ecstatic.
Another characteristic that McBride has, he shares with lawyers, politicians, and most high-powered types in business: a thick skin. I very much doubt he has been bothered in the least by the various vilifications called down on him by his detractors.
I think he was a bit surprised at it when it first started, but since then, it's been more of a weapon in his arsenal than anything else. If he is not bothered by name-calling and accusations, but the other side (the open source community, in general terms) is, then the more furious the argument, the better his odds of being able to find a weak point and exploit it somehow. At the very least, he (and SCO) can point at all the ranters and ravers and claim "With enemies that act like THAT, doesn't it make sense that we're the ones in the right?" (Something along these lines may be what got the money out of Baystar.)
If you're caught up in a strong emotion, you're not entirely sane. If you're angry, all kinds of little things you would ordinarily blow off make you even angrier. If you're ecstatically happy, you can find a silver lining in a mushroom cloud.
The reason I brought up politicians, lawyers, and CEOs earlier is that they all have one thing in common. I called it a "thick skin" earlier. Another way to describe it is that they have the ability to climb out of their emotions and think rationally again about whatever the subject is. That ability is what gets them paid the big bucks.
So what I think SCO is doing with a lot of the more unbelievable claims they've made (like the attack on the GPL last night) is not to seriously convince anyone of that position, it's to stir up trouble. The more emotional the opposition gets, the better the odds that something, anything, will happen that he (they) can exploit. It goes with the shotgun approach: the more you get things stirred up, the more targets of opportunity there are.
Fortunately for IBM, they have good lawyers, who haven't been influenced in any way they shouldn't be by the public furor. They simply stuck to the facts and the law. My favorite element of what they've been saying is that it's mostly in plain English. When one side speaks English and the other sid
in terms every /.er understand (Score:4, Funny)
3 Words, SCOX investors (Score:4, Funny)
What the Linux community jacked... (Score:5, Funny)
After investing billions of dollars into researching the theft of its intellectual property, SCO produces the following source code in court:
}
According to The SCO Group's respectable CEO, Mr. Darl McBride, one million of the above lines were found in various source code files pertaining to Microsoft Windows XP, proving that the Linux community did, in fact, steal one million lines of valuable SCO intellectual property.
Mr. McBride had this to say about his discovery:
(Darl could not finish commenting because the orderlies carried him back to his padded room at this point.)Woah woah whoah (Score:5, Funny)
Come on now, this isn't Australia.
Reminds me of an old hackles strip (Score:3, Funny)
Re:come on, baybee! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The STOLEN FUNCTION (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The STOLEN FUNCTION (Score:3, Funny)
If you declare it void then the return value is going to be random garbage, which will confuse anything that expects that non-zero values indicate an error of some kind.
Re:Get a load of this (Score:5, Informative)
Well, for one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, the SCO-story whiners are starting to bug me as much as the JonKatz whiners did, before I removed him from my story preferences two years ago.
Again, if everyone is so pissed off about the SCO coverage, uncheck the "Caldera" topic in your Slashdot preferences [slashdot.org] and they'll go away (taking your much-vaunted eyeball impressions with them, for the tinfoil hats who think Slashdot is only flogging this case to get hits).
But this case is arguably more important to the Free/Open Source Software community than the Microsoft antitrust trial was, and as long as the suit progresses, and SCO shouts blatant lies about Open Source software, its advocates, and the GPL, expect
Jay (=
Parent is wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
The volume is astronomical [...]
WTF are you talking about? The volume today was pretty much nonexistant, about 2/3:rds of the average (234,629 versus the average of 323,545), though pretty normal for a friday.
It wasn't anywhere near astronomical. And also, the news came directly from the court to Groklaw via 'Sam' during the last half hour of trading or so.
No, the interesting things lie ahead of us. FUD during the weekend, possible stock-movement on Monday -- but remember, there isn't a whole lot of float on this one.
Re:4 quarters of profit. (Score:4, Interesting)
I had heard/read that as well, but I am wondering what it has to do with anything.
SCO profits are not tied to the stock price. In general (agreed, not in this case) the stock price is tied to profits. In SCOs case their stock price has always been based on something else, as they have never shown a profit until they received multimillion dollar infusions of cash from Microsoft . What is the lawsuit contributing to the bottom line that would cause Darl to want to keep this going?
Yes, without the "licensing fees" (paid by Microsoft and Sun) SCO/Caldera would have not shown any profit since day one. If the licensing fees are the only source of "profit", then the next 'quarterly profit/loss statement' (a statement of what happened LAST quarter so it doesn't matter WHEN it is submitted) is not in SCOs hands, nor IBM nor even the court - it is in Microsofts and whether they bought (already) another "option".
Again, stock price != company profit.
Re:MIRROR .... FULL TEXT (sorry) (Score:5, Informative)
Friday, December 05 2003 @ 04:13 PM EST
The big news from the hearing today is that Judge Wells told SCO that they have to go first. They have to show IBM what code they are alleging is infringing. All during discovery, SCO has been telling IBM they had to show all their code first, and then SCO would identify the alleged infringements. IBM kept telling SCO in reply that they had the burden, as plaintiffs, to at least tell IBM what code was involved. Today the judge told SCO that IBM was right. SCO has 30 days to comply. IBM doesn't have to turn over anything until they do it. The judge's order will be filed Wednesday, and SCO has a month to show the code. They can't force IBM to go first. That dance is over.
Cody Hilton of Guru Labs , a Utah Linux training company, attended the hearing, and the second big piece of news is that David Boies didn't show up. Darl's brother represented SCO. His brother is Kevin McBride, the same person we noted who was involved in writing the Open Letter yesterday.
Why Boies didn't show up is hard to understand. And then again, maybe not. Brent Hatch was there and so was Darl. There was no media presence at all. Or more accurately, there was a lot of press there in the building but they were all there to cover the Olympic bribery trial , which got thrown out by the judge. Nobody in the courthouse was interested in talking to Darl today, according to my eyewitnesses, to the extent that they noticed, and they were looking.
Cody talked to him, though, after it was over. He asked him why he was there, and Darl said he just wanted to get a feel for it. Cody asked him what he thought about how it went, with IBM winning both motions. Darl said he expected it. Cody rode in the elevator with IBM's Marriott and asked him how he felt about how things went. Marriott said, "We're happy. Everything went as we'd planned. We're happy with the decision."
For IBM, it was David Marriott and Todd M. Shaughnessy. There were about 15 people there sitting in the gallery, including one woman, who rumor had it might be the patent attorney SCO hired and mentioned as possibly having a conflict of interest. But that is only a rumor.
The room was small, with maybe seats in the gallery for about 20 people, but no one was denied entrance. There were seats available.
Cody says that when the judge entered, she told them that it was her inclination to grant IBM's motions, and then she let both sides speak. First, SCO's Keven McBride spoke for about 40 minutes. The judge interrupted a few times and to Cody, it seemed like the presentation was hard to follow. Basically, he was arguing that IBM should hand over code first, so SCO could go over it and then categorize the violations as to whether they were copyright violations, trade secret, etc. Then Marriott spoke for IBM. He spoke for only 20 minutes. Cody described it as clear, crisp, easy to follow, easy to understand. He cited a case, Xerox Corp. v. International Business Machines Corp., he believes, which you can find mentioned here, in footnote 3 of IBM's Memorandum in Opposition to SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery, where the judge ruled like this:
"[3] See also Xerox Corp. v. International Business Machines Corp., 64 F.R.D. 367, 371 (S.D.N.Y., 1974) ('[Plaintiff] should be able to identify in detail the trade secrets and confidential information alleged to have been misappropriated by [defendant]. Clearly until this is done, neither the court nor the parties can know, with any degree of certainty, whether discovery is relevant or not; and it is doubtful whether [plaintiff] can undertake a meaningful discovery program'.)"
The hearing lasted an hour and a half.
Frank Sorenson was there too and he also reports similarly:
"Judge Wells came into the courtroom, and announced that she had read all the filings and the relevant case law, and it was her intention to grant IBM's Motions and postpone any further Discovery until this matter was
reOnly a deranged mind could do what Darl has done (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not bad for a company that was gasping for air as it slowly sank below the radar of relevancy.
---------------
Of course - I don't think they have a snow balls chance in hell of surviving this. As has been pointed out numerous times, any offending code will be pulled (if there actually is any). With IBM's financial strength, were it to turn out that IBM was actually liable (which I doubt very very much) then we would have the situation where IBM would probably do a hostile takeover - whatever the price.
SCO will not survive this. But they have gained a little breathing space for themselves.
This ruling IMHO has been a wonderful xmas present for Darl and his band of wanna be extortionists.
January 4 is going to come up really fast. I predict that within a couple weeks of that date - say by the 20th or so - anything that they have put forth will have been discredited. If so, this will give leave for a large number of open source authors to sue SCO on the grounds of SCO's copyright infringments.
One way to do this would probably be by way of a class action for the $3 billion SCO claimed against IBM.