Posted on 02/07/2004 11:18:39 AM PST by cc2k
U.S. Magistrate Brooke Wells met for nearly 30 minutes in chambers Friday with attorneys for Utah's SCO Group and IBM, hoping to keep their open-court debate simple and to the point.
But when arguments ended shortly before noon, nearly 90 minutes later, Wells acknowledged she would need time to unravel competing motions related to SCO's claims that its proprietary Unix operating system was illegally incorporated into the Linux OS.
Noting the "complicated" nature of the issues, Wells told her tiny, standing-room-only courtroom that she would forgo the usual quick oral ruling in such cases in favor of issuing written rulings "within a week."
SCO seeks up to $50 billion in damages from IBM in a federal suit alleging Big Blue violated its Unix contract with the Lindon-based software company. SCO, which recently added patent violations to its list of allegations, contends IBM illegally dropped Unix code into Linux via contributions from IBM's own AIX and Dynix products.
The suit, along with SCO's subsequent global campaign to license corporate Linux users under the perceived threat of potential litigation, has enraged the pro-Linux "open source" community, a loosely knit network of programmers and free software developers.
Several DoS (denial of service) attacks over the past year, including one borne by the MyDoom.A virus that knocked out SCO's Web site last weekend, have had the company pointing the finger at open-source extremists. Open-sourcers, meantime, have blamed spammers or even SCO itself for the DoS attacks.
On Dec. 12, Wells ordered SCO to provide specific lines of code to prove its claims. IBM was dissatisfied with the response and sought additional data; on Jan. 23, the judge extended SCO's time to comply with the order until Friday's hearing.
SCO's latest responses also fell short, IBM attorney David Marriott argued on Friday, asking Wells to once more order the Utah company to provide "full, complete and detailed" evidence to back its allegations.
"SCO has not complied, your honor," Marriott declared. "They have not provided all the documents requested. . . . We want to know the location of the 17 lines of code [SCO has thus far provided to IBM]. We want to know, exactly, what it is in Linux they believe they have rights to."
Mark Heise, representing SCO, insisted the company has "exhaustively detailed the improper contributions IBM made to Linux." But to provide the "line by line" evidence IBM is now demanding, he said, would require Big Blue to released AIX and Dynix code -- as SCO has requested in its own discovery motion.
Wells interrupted: "The requirement of the court is that you provide those source codes; this is about your response to the order."
Heise insisted, however, that without IBM's compliance, "it is literally impossible" for SCO to itself provide direct proof of the Unix-to-AIX/Dynix-to-Linux continuum it argues exists.
"We're at an impasse and we can't be at an impasse and have this case remain at a standstill," Wells responded. "You've made your point -- I'm just not certain I agree."
IBM's Marriott, arguing against SCO's own request for complete AIX/Dynix programming details, said it was an unreasonable burden on his clients to demand "millions and millions of lines of source code" to determine whether the 17 lines SCO has cited are indeed in Linux.
"Contributions to Linux are public," Marriott said. "All they have to do is get on the Internet."
Heise countered that "not everything they have put into Linux is public," and that pointing SCO to the Internet did not amount to "complete disclosure" it seeks from IBM.
bmims@sltrib.com
Oh good. Name calling. I like that, especially when I'm about to squash you like a bug.
OK, here is an article announcing the cancellation of Project Monterey. Note the date: Aug 18, 2000.
Here is an article announcing the completion of Caldera's acquisition of Santa Cruz Operation's software business. Note the date: May 7, 2001.
Here is another one. Also dated May 7, 2001, this appears to be Caldera's Business Wire press release announcing the deal.
I claim that the combination of these articles backs up my statement that the cancellation of Project Monterey was public knowledge months before Caldera signed on the dotted line to purchase the UNIX business of the Santa Cruz Operation. They therefore had ample opportunity to assess whether the purchase was still a good idea, and to adjust the price to reflect the cancellation. It also means that Caldera was never a party to Project Monterey, and that any claim by them -- or you -- that they were in any way harmed by the cancellation, is a lie.
I extend my remarks to repeat my assertion that you tried to mislead people about this by claiming that the company now known as The SCO Group, Inc. had something to do with Project Monterey. They did not. The project was canncelled nine months before they purchased the UNIX properties.
You were lying about this, and then you tried to blow your way past it by offering us "proof by louder lying." And then you had the nerve to top that off by calling me "ratboy." It would seem that the more aggressive you get about claiming to be truthful, the more certain it is that you are lying. It really is just disgusting.
I think you are denying the obvious other possibility: that you are lying through your teeth. Absolutely nothing you say can be trusted. You'll say anything. I personally have documented a half-dozen blatant lies from you, just tonight.
When it comes right down to it, you have nothing but name-calling. I'm a suit. I'm a communist. Meanwhile, almost everything you've said tonight has turned out to be false. Is this latest installment -- that you claim to be such an expert in -- also false? I say yes. I say it's another one of your lies.
No one has claimed this. Yet it is the second time you have repeated it. Why? Are you hoping to find the one guy who just walked in, and con him into thinking that other people are saying that IBM is the sole contributor to linux? That would be rotten of you, because it would be a lie.
Perhaps you are incompetent. Or worse, they make you use that Microsoft SourceSafe abortion, and you think that's what a source code control system is.
Here is what a real source code control system does. This is an IBM contribution to the 2.5 kernel... a module called vio.c for the 64-bit PowerPC chip. Yes, it is possible to get a mish-mash of all kinds of things that were added later, or by others. But it is also possible to get this... the original IBM contribution.
Now quit calling me names, admit you didn't know what you were talking about, and stop lying.
Apparently not.
Mr. Danger wears many hats, so your error may have been an innocent one.
However, your many obvious attempts to misrepresent and misinform are less easily explained away.
Because a court of law looked at the evidence and rejected SCO's demand that they do so.
Oh it's real simple, SCO thinks it can sue it's way into owning all of Linux.
Those who actually own and use Linux disagree.
Of course not. If I supported the idea that a big corporation shouldn't have rights in a court of law I'd be on the DUmpster instead of here. Maybe you should try that.
That's not IBM's problem, and puts them under no obligation to simply bend over and allow random fishing expeditions into their files.
By what passes for "logic" from you, the police would be justified in simply beating confessions out of people because the collection and examination of evidence is just too darn much work.
To be sure, it does take a bit more than a simple search for a few duplicate lines of code (as SCO discovered to its chagrin when it first presented its "evidence").
Bush2000 wrote:The SCO Group has not claimed that everything that IBM contributed to Linux was misappropriated from The SCO Group. If they make that claim, they will also have to explain the nature of The SCO Groups rights to those contributions. Until they do that, IBM will not be required to explain anything about how that code got into Linux. Without explaining how The SCO Group "owns" the code in question, the code isn't relevant to this dispute. It's up to The SCO Group (as the plaintiff) to make the case that they actually hold some rights to some code that's now in the Linux Kernel.
In other words, IBM is doing its best to withhold what it contributed to Linux. What is IBM hiding?
The SCO Group claims that they own a collection of assets (which we might call all UNIX Intellectual Property), and that this collection of assets is worth billions of dollars. Yet they seem to have no record, catalog or inventory of their own valuable assets. That's shoddy business practices. The judge is simply saying, "tell the defendant and this court exactly what you claim to own and how you came to own it and we'll go from there." The SCO Group can't do that. That's an indication of either incompetence (lack of controls on valuable assets) or fraud (they are claiming to own something that they don't rightfully own).
The problem is, in spite of their press releases and FUD, they haven't actually claimed to own any part of Linux until their new "Second amended complaint," and even that "second amended complaint" doesn't clearly explain the nature of their ownership rights in the limited amount of code they now claim rights to.
Bush2000 wrote:Firstly, The SCO Group can see everything that's in Linux. It's all publicly available.
There's an easy way to resolve the situation: Simply have IBM release all of the sources that it contributed to Linux. Do you seriously oppose that? If so, why? What's wrong with informing SCO what IBM contributed? It's "open source", right? What do you have to lose?
Secondly, it's none of The SCO Group's business what IBM contributed to Linux, except if any of IBM's contributions were intellectual property that rightfully belongs to The SCO Group.
Thirdly, If The SCO Group can't identify it's own intellectual property from the publicly available sources, what makes you think they will be able to identify it in IBM's logs?
The judge has ruled on this. The SCO Group has been ordered to identify what parts of Linux The SCO Group claims an interest in and to explain the nature of their rights to that code. If The SCO Group rightfully owns that code, and it is as valuable to The SCO Group as their lawsuit alleges, then they ought to be able to identify their own assets, and explain their ownership interest in those assets. If they can't identify their own assets and explain how they came to own them, it won't matter that IBM misappropriated those assets and contributed them to Linux. If The SCO Group can't prove that they own the assets in question, they can't prove any kind of loss from IBM's actions. Knowing what IBM contributed really shouldn't matter to The SCO Group. If they really own something as valuable as they claim, they ought to be able to keep track of it and identify it in publicly available source code.
Some questions for you. Do you work as a developer? Or do you work for a company that develops software for distribution or sale? Would your company turn over all of your source code to a third party that claims you stole some code from them, but they can't say exactly what code has been stolen?
The truth is that The SCO Group has gotten much more than they would ordinarily get with the thin case they have made so far. Because the misappropriated code was allegedly put into an open source project, they already have all the source code where the misappropriated code is alleged to be now (because all of the source code for Linux is publicly available).
*frown*
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.