IBM Subpoenas Microsoft! Sun! Baystar and HP!

Groklaw ^ | 02/22/06 | Pamela Jones, et al.

[Salo]

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war!

[Salo]

Pings, please.

[Paloma_55]

Translation please?

Does this mean that IBM thinks they own the rights to UNIX and are going after companies that have not licensed it properly?

[Salo]

Long story - here's the short version:

There is a company called SCO that claims it owns unix and that IBM has violated some contracts by putting unix code in linux. Both of these claims are disputed. IBM looks like it is going to claim that SCO's baseless lawsuits are meant to hinder IBM's business and are secretly being financed by IBM's major competitors, MS and Sun.

[TChris]

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war!

My understanding is that this hopes to shine a bright light on SCO's staggering hypocrisy?

Darl only thought he knew what "hardball" meant. *snicker*

[Salo]

Nick, any insights?

[stainlessbanner]

Hold on to your seats.....

[econjack]

They'd like to know about any restrictions on employees having access to UNIX source code...

This is going nowhere, since the UNIX source code has been in the public domain since UNIX System V was released by ATT (Bell Labs) back in the 1970's. Likewise, LINUX has also had the core source code available for at least two decades.

This is going to be like the IBM antitrust case that Justice brought back in the early 70's charging IBM with monopolistic practices. After almost 15 years of litigation and 18 gondola carloads of documents, IBM prevailed. Justice again tried against Microsoft and lost that one, too. Now it appears that IBM wants to play the same game.

The result will be the same: Hundreds of millions of dollars lost, tens of thousands of man-hours lost, and higher prices to you and me the consumer.

If we only had the British system where the plaintiff, if they lose, must pay legal fees and damages to the defendant if they don't prevail.

This is a very expensive, bad joke.

[Spktyr]

I'm still trying to figure out what made him think that he could take on IBM's legal department, even *with* support (overt or covert) from M$ and $un.

IBM's legal department has a front bench whose depth is measured in kilometers, and over 50 years of experience with IP law. I cannot conceive of anyone successfully taking on that crew short of a government. And even then...

[billhilly]

Good Lord man, try to get control of yourself. The children may still be up.

[Salo]

I think it goes beyond that: I think IBM is going to try and take a chunk of MS's behind for arranging financing for SCO so it could go forward with this lawsuit, which has proven, thus far, to be utterly without merit. With MS's legal issues, it could get very ugly for them if they are actually involved in trying to keep linux off the market in this manner.

[btcusn]

IBM is still pissed about the raw deal microsoft handed them over OS2. And to tell the truth, so am I!!
Jack
running Suse 10.0

[Salo]

I think IBM is still POed about DOS. :-)

[ThinkDifferent]

Does this mean that IBM thinks they own the rights to UNIX and are going after companies that have not licensed it properly?

No, it means IBM plans to crush SCO and its collaborators for their attempted fraud and extortion. Time for some popcorn...

[BallandPowder]

Add me to pings!

[TChris]

With MS's legal issues, it could get very ugly for them if they are actually involved in trying to keep linux off the market in this manner.

One can surely hope!

I am very pro-capitalism. I believe that true market competition should decide prosperity. The more M$ and others engage in subversive, rather than competitive behavior against their competitors, the more I loathe them.

[Spktyr]

IBM's about the only company in the tech industry that *could* do that, too. They're the 800-pound gorilla carrying the squad automatic weapon in terms of what their legal department and financial resources can do.

I think Microsoft is about to learn about the law of unintended consequences. This isn't a government that they can try to lobby and influence, this is a really pissed off company that's *bigger* than they are, with much deeper pockets and an axe to grind.

[Paloma_55]

I must be missing something... Fraud and extortion?

Can you give us a high level description of the problem?

SCO is "Santa Cruz Operation" right? And they sell UNIX operating systems? Did they steal the source code from IBM and give it to the other companies?

Thanks

[TSgt]

IBM is bigger than Microsoft?

[Wombat101]

Go Big Blue!

Knock all the 'toymakers' off the market and let's get back to a solution that actually works for big business: the MAINFRAME!