Darl McBride Takes the Stand In Novell v. SCO 138
UnknowingFool writes "Everyone's favorite CEO Darl McBride took the stand on Wednesday April 30 in Novell v. SCO. Chris Brown has posted his account on Groklaw of the 2nd day of trial. The first day's account can be found here. To refresh your memory in this ongoing case, Judge Kimball has already ruled that Novell owns the copyrights to Unix and has practically dismissed all of SCO's claims. This portion of the trial is about Novell's counterclaims that SCO never paid them the money from the Sun and MS deals. What is to be determined in this trial is how much of the money from the deals were for Unix licensing (SVRx) and how much were for SCO's server technology (Unixware)."
(Read on for the rest, below.)
UnknowingFool continues:
"Reading the account, it seems that the SCO folks are currently trying to delicately separate Unixware and SVRx. However Novell's lawyers are quickly pointing out in the past where SCO made no distinction between SVRx and Unixware in their literature or press releases. In day 1's account, SCO's tree picture shows Unix as SCO IP (Unix).
Also SCO's position is that it owes Novell nothing because the deals to MS and Sun were Unixware deals and not SCOSource deals (the much despised Linux licensing program) or SVRx deals. Novell points out fatal flaws in SCO's arguments. Sun wanted the ability to open source some of their Solaris code (which became OpenSolaris). Solaris and Unixware both branched from SVR4 so they would need permission from the owner of SVRx copyrights, not the Unixware owner. That owner is Novell. The MS deal is a little different in that MS wanted Unixware rights AND rights to legacy Unix (SVRx).
The best part of the cross-examination was Darl refusing to admit that the MS and Sun deals were not SCOSource, but Novell showing SCO's financial statements (10Q) where both deals were listed under SCOSource and not Unixware revenue."
I'm Pretty Sure He Committed Perjury (Score:2)
... many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers ... We have evidence System V is in Linux ... When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on 'How to Program UNIX' but when you go to the Linux section and look for 'How to Program Linux' you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist. Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them].
This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and did not correspond with what SCO Senior Vice President Chrs Sontag just finished testifying earlier that day.
Also, as to his book remark, he didn't [amazon.com] look very hard [amazon.com]!
Mmmmmm, that's some good perjury!
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An interesting comment from Groklaw:
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I'm sure most of us would love to see McBride behind bars (I know I would), but I'm afraid it probably won't happen. In our plutocracy no rich, powerful man goes to prison unless a richer, more powerful man wants him there.
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-sigh-
We can only hope.
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Why would you ever wish prison rape on anyone?
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I'm not saying that I want him to *literally* get screwed. Metaphorically, sure. It's about time he and the other greedy, souless suits at SCO receive a taste of what they dished out in their vicious, deceitful battle against Linux and the software industry in general. "We can only hope" they see prison time, because I think these
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I thought the whole point of the pump'n'dump was to dump after pumping.
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But is he really all that rich now? I'm assuming most of his money was probably tied into company stock that's worth less than toilet paper at this point.
Though I disagree about the "plutocracy" statement Darl could have unloaded a lot of stock before the company tanked.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
I disagree about the "plutocracy" statement
Disagree all you want, there sure aren't many examples of it happening. True, in extreme cases rich people do go to jail, but it takes almost overwhelming evidence for it to happen. Like videotape of OJ actually stabbing Nicole -might- have been sufficient. Phil Specter, Robert Blake... There are others. And even when they do occasionally get convicted of something, they typically don't serve the same type of hard time that the great unwashed do. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are far less comm
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True, in extreme cases rich people do go to jail, but it takes almost overwhelming evidence for it to happen.
That's how it's supposed to be, for a criminal trial it requires the jury to believe beyond a reasonable doubt to vote guilty. Only in civil cases does "guilty" only require guilty based on a preponderance of evidence. That's why OJ won the criminal case but lost the civil case. As Thomas Jefferson [baseballmusings.com] said, "Better one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be condemned."
Falcon
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When all is said and done most male slashdotters will qualify as richer and more powerful than McBride.
Let's make this thing happen !
I'm pretty sure (Score:1)
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BLAST (Score:1)
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They all got a lot of options, so if by some miracle they can win this thing they should do well.
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IBM wants to see McBride in jail. It would be a lovely show of force and the danger of messing with Big Blue in Big Blue's back yard.
So from your view point I would say McBride is looking at some hard time.
I on the other hand would bet he is just an idiot that listened to other idiots and believed every word he said.
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Even though Bill Gates lives in Washington state, he has more pull with my Senators and Congressmen than I, an Illinois resident and voter, do.
And if a monied bigwig from IBM does in fact want McBride in
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But I would bet that their are more than a few big wigs at IBM, and maybe even Intel, and AMD that would like to see it as well.
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TSCOG is up against The MOFOs at the moment (Novell), the Nazgul will be fighting over the rendered scraps left after "The Boys" get done.
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Is there something on backup media?
Something of interest to cold war historians?
Something of interest to security experts?
Or is it all a known known?
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Novell confronted him and he angrily accused them of calling him a liar. Their rejoinder was that he had just claimed that he told the truth on their 10-Q.
In other words, he was trapped by his own words
I'm surprised his pants didn't burst into flames.
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>So either Darl is the world's biggest idiot of a CEO, or he perjured himself, or SCO lied in their SEC filing.
I assume you are not using this as the logical OR. Clearly, any two, or more likely, all three could be true.
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So either Darl is the world's biggest idiot of a CEO, or he perjured himself, or SCO lied in their SEC filing.
The The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 [wikipedia.org] requires the CEO, in this case Darl, sign that all accounting the corporation files is truthful so 2 and 3 are the same.
FalconRe: (Score:1, Insightful)
This guy is in way over his head.
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Ah, but it's not a lie if you believe it.
... none of which gets you convicted for perjury. He just has to believe what he's saying.
See, he can be misinformed, stupid, confused, or just plain wrong
You'd have to show that he deliberately lied -- I bet any half-way decent lawyer could convince a jury that Darl doesn't really understand half of what he says, and that he's merely operating on his understanding of legal and technical briefs provided to him. Hell, half of Slashd
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True, but thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as CEO he had to attest to the truthfulness of any financial statements. So as Novell pointed out, he was lying then or he's lying n
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Ah, but it's not a lie if you believe it.
See, he can be misinformed, stupid, confused, or just plain wrong ... none of which gets you convicted for perjury. He just has to believe what he's saying.
However he said "When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on 'How to Program UNIX' but when you go to the Linux section and look for 'How to Program Linux' you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist" which would seem to indicate he has been to bookstores lately. I kno
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Cite: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050715-5099.html [arstechnica.com]
I doubt anyone could prove he didn't know, whereas there's plenty of people now who *do* know. Shit, Chris Sontag himself testified before Darl and said he never saw evidence of UNIX in Linux that he could recall. And what does Darl say?
Sorry, Darl m
Re:I'm Pretty Sure He Committed Perjury (Score:4, Funny)
Except, to prove perjury you would have to prove that he was knowingly making false statements, or in other worlds that he knew what he was talking about and just chose to say the opposite of what's true.
So basically you would have to prove that Darl is not an idiot. Good luck with that
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My God, he is a genius.*
* this is the first step of destroying this evil plan
Her's hoping (Score:5, Funny)
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Here's hoping that he receives the same sentence as Hans Reiser. Cheers!
Hans Reiser has not been sentenced yet. That happens on July 9 [mercurynews.com].
My hope for true justice includes someone claiming rights to everything Daryl owns, requiring him to spend huge amounts of money defending his assets in court. I'd say someone should take credit for something Daryl created, but it's pretty clear that he isn't likely to create anything worth claiming rights to.
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please, Lord, make it stop! (Score:2)
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This way McBride will know that he did wrong the entire time he is being struck down.
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Besides, my popcorn isn't done popping.
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Its entertaining watching Darl McBride perjure himself and SCO fail to make evan a defensive case after the fact they lost.
I think we can all see Novell getting money, but the dance for the money is going to be awfully fun, watching SCO's talentless lawyers trying to convince the judge that when they said red, they meant blue.
Editors ... (Score:3, Funny)
Caldera
the Courts
Unix
Novel
Tux
All together now
I guess you couldn't really leave this one out of "the courts". Either way, well done.
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You should really get out more often. Have you considered dating?
With a stutter like that? The ladies would laugh.
they should call it.. (Score:3, Funny)
Some sort of fact checking mechanism... (Score:2)
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No they can't.
+1 funny (Score:2)
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That's slander. You'll be hearing from my lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, soon.
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Yes.
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Of course I have; I'm a judge.
Re:Some sort of fact checking mechanism... (Score:4, Funny)
+1 funny (Score:1)
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This is why I like the Daily Show versus regular news. Regular news broadcasts a quote from a politician: "I've always
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On that note, I might add a Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] story on Adam Chodikoff, the guy behind the Daily Show who apparently manages to track down all those clips of politicians saying contradictory things. IMHO, the Daily Show would be scathing but ultimately harmless satire (like the Onion) without this factor. With it, it becomes something politicians actually have to be afraid of.
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>This is why I like the Daily Show versus regular news. Regular news broadcasts a quote from a politician: "I've always been against foo!"
Network news used to be like that. In 1972 Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern were vying for the Democratic nomination. The California Democratic primary rules stated it was winner take all delegate votes. After he lost, Hube the Cube filed suit to force the delegates to be awarded proportionally. Walter Cronkite reported the story and then showed a clip of hi
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With the Slashdot Poll, you too can have your debate/court case/election decided and validated.
(careful with the Cowboy Neal option though)
After all, we are mature, informed, knowledgeable, and totally unbiased here, right? *crickets chirping* Hello?
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Moderator: "This clip is from our interview three weeks ago"*plays clip of Politician saying "foo".
I don't think interviewers often really pull this sort of thing... not for politicians or anyone.
I remember hearing an interview with Bertrand Russel (the anti-nuclear peace activist) where he was asked about his earlier support of massive pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Russia.
He flat denied ever having said such a thing.
The interviewer didn't bother to roll o
There are some FINE mechanisms already (Score:2)
There are already some fine mechanisms in place that have been tested for centuries.
In courts: Cross-examination, witnesses for the other s
bad typo (Score:2)
(GOTTA hit "preview" more often....)
Court TV? (Score:2)
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Transcripts (Score:2)
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Too bad, though, I would have loved the opportunity to watch ol' Darl Vader being grilled by Novell's lawyers.
OS Rustling? (Score:2)
Perhaps the judge will find it in his heart to jail this Team-Killing FuckTard, or at least fine him all his assets. Truthfully he is as bad as any spammer.
ObPace (Score:2)
Salt Lake City?!
Get a rope.
I Thought... (Score:2)
Re:I Thought... (Score:4, Informative)
1. Did SCO sell Unix licenses and keep money that should have gone to Novell?
2. If so, how much of this does SCO owe Novell?
The main sales in this trial are the Microsoft and Sun ones. There's something like $20 million that SCO might owe Novell. (Money that SCO doesn't have even if they sold every last chair in the office.)
SCO insists, however, that the licenses weren't SCOsource licenses and thus weren't ones that Novell would be owed money for. Darl testified to this on the stand. However, SCO's own SEC filing insists that the money was SCOsource. So either SCO lied in an SEC filing or Darl perjured himself. Either way, Darl and SCO have only the barest shreds of a case left. (Unfortunately for them, that "barest shred" relies on the past few years of case history vanishing magically.)
So... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not dead yet! (Score:1)
he may not be lying this time.. (Score:2)
Whatever, doesn't matter anyway, they are rapidly heading towards history and a fabulously lucrative book deal for PJ when she writes her history of the event.
It's Darl. Of course he's lying. (Score:2)
If you read the transcripts [groklaw.net] you'll find that the deals were all about selling rights to SVRX source code, the same thing as SCOSource. Of course Darl et al are trying to backpedal on that one, but the protests ring hollow. Of course, you're probably right about them not having to list it as a SCOSource license and that's burning them in court now, but
When will they compare it to Obama v. Hillary? (Score:2)
(By the way, I don't really hate Hillary, and I don't like Obama all that much. I preferred Edwards quite strongly, and McCain is a kind of insult to the intelligence of the voters--but look at Dubya. I'm evidently wandering--but I did think of another point of comparison. Hillary has too many negatives--rather like Darl McBride, whereas I think Obama can generate the kind of positive enthusiasm I associa
Jailtime for $CO fraudsters? (Score:1)
While the train-wreck that is Darl is becoming more amusing by the trial, $CO's tactics are just getting silly. In Ars Technica's write-up of this trial [arstechnica.com], not only do they mention some of Darl's more interesting statements (such as him saying that "Linux is a copy of UNIX"), but the author also points out that SCO's current strategy seems to be that, while it doesn't own the trademarks it claimed it did, all its blustering that led to Microsoft and Sun coughing-up licensing cash was erroneous and the license
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I'm inclined to hope that tactic works. Does it seem to anyone else like $CO's execs may be on the hook for committing fraud by selling things they didn't own? In the real world, most times you sell stuff that doesn't belong to you (like counterfeit or pirated software), you go to PRISON for your efforts. So why shouldn't Darl and his pals wind up behind bars for extorting money out of companies for licenses they didn't own the rights to sell?
Methinks that is why they are trying to play it "straight" an
It's ridiculous (Score:2)
The endgame (Score:2)
Here's how it plays out.
Tomorrow, trial ends. In a few days or weeks, Judge Kimball renders a decision, which will be some dollar amount SCO has to pay to Novell.
The payment issue goes to bankruptcy court. Novell is now the lead creditor and can strongly influence the bankruptcy process.
SCO management tries something else in bankruptcy court, and it goes nowhere. The U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee is already fed up with SCO. The trustee's representative actually said "I don't think this case can take a
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the analagy is that if you're robbed, the robber doesn't have a right to use the money they robbed from you to pay their debts.