IBM Subpoenas Intel Into SCO Fray

whovian writes "Since IBM was ordered by the courts to show more code, they are now reported by Groklaw to have subpoenaed Intel to show 'all communications between Intel and SCO or Canopy about IBM, Unix or Linux, all meetings with either concerning IBM, Unix or Linux, and all contracts or other business relations, past, present, or future, between Intel and SCO.' The text is available at the website."

linux on ppc

[datadriven]

I'm sure IBM would be happy if linux on ppc hardware got REAL popular

Re:IBM running scared?

[barc0001]

No. They're trying to alienate as many potential allies for SCO/Canopy by showing that they're now willing to clusterbomb subpoena just like SCO is.

On top of that, I'm sure their lawyers are very confident, they're just on a fishing expidition to see what else they can find that may be of use. Being meticulous never hurts.

Re:*sigh*

[Dorothy 86]

It will end when any of several things happen.

1. SCO doens't have/want to spend the money necessary for the proceedings to continue
2. SCO actually shows the evidence they claim they have, and it is, indeed, damning
3. SCO figures out a way to get out of this mess scott free...

But even then, the counter suits, and residual suits for damages, etc. This may be going on for a looooooooooooong time. When will it end is, indeed, a good question.

Food for thought

[Amiga Trombone]

Don't ask me what it means, because all it means to me so far is that IBM suspects or knows something we don't yet know but we will, I'm sure, eventually find out. You don't usually have to depose your best friends, though. They tell you whatever you need to know volitionally, because they want you to win, and they'll do a declaration for you. You subpoena folks who are not eager to tell you what you wish to learn, or who wish to appear so.

No, you usually don't have to depose your best friends. Which is why this action may give some insight into the real state of relations between IBM and Intel.

Now that IBM has dumped their Intel PC business, they can afford to take off the gloves, and not have to worry about making nice in the morning.

Re:IBM running scared?

[skraps]

Have you considered the possibility that they know something you don't?

Hmm, interesting...

[PaulBu]

So far the consensus here was that it is Microsoft behind the whole SCO debacle -- but what if IBM knows better (and I guess I'd bet my $10 on THEM knowing better ;-) ).

Is it a purely defensive move? Or is the the "beginning of the end" of the PC industry as we knew it?

Linux + PPC (+ IBM) might beat BSD + PPC (+ Apple) -- espcially since IBM makes the PPC part! -- and definitely beats Windows + i86, but why the hell NOW??? What do they know that I do not?

Maybe I should actually go RTFA, but I doubt it will clear things for me.

Paul B.

Re:Food for thought

[HFShadow]

Or, intel hinted to IBM that they had some juicy details, but couldn't reveal them for one legal reason or another unless IBM could get a subpoena.

Soap Opera Digest, eat your heart out.

[RealisticCanadian]

OK, So SCO starts a frivolous lawsuit to try and become a household name before it goes belly up. Now, in the crosshairs, and with far more power and finances at their disposal, IBM calls in some other top-dogs to drag this out into a dirty courtroom scrap that promises to last even longer. Stalling tactics hoping SCO runs out of money? Maybe, but more likely, like most of these software-based lawsuits, it's just to add enough confusion to the mediation to keep anyone who wasn't actually there from ever seeing the truth. And this drama all plays out for us on the daily news... lucky us. Your tax dollars hard at work. That's one expensive soap-opera.

Re:my professional, legal and technical opinion..

[cyberfunk2]

Spelling and grammer helps when attempting to disseminate a professional opinion.

Don't even dare analyze this article

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

With very few exceptions, no one who will post in this thread has any authoritative knowledge of business analysis or high-level computing industry politics. I can also predict that not a single soul who posts in this thread will have a good understanding of the legal nuances of IBM's most recent actions in the SCO case.

So please, don't waste our time with useless conjecture, predictions, and "what-if" scenarios. Because really, what's going on here is just mental masturbation. Move along.

Its about intellectual property claims that...

[3seas]

... well that aren't valid in the first placed.

It like a bunch of people have pursued some man made rules or laws that rely on the earth being flat. But now that the earth really isn't flat, these rules, these laws are having a problem holding up. A lack of integrity of the rules/laws of which so many have beeing following.

So yeah, its really not supprising the exposure of the web of distortion that has spread thru out the industry.

Imagine what it would be like to see from the POV of one having clairity of the issue. Imagine how those following and supporting such distortion would be preceived by such a POV.

Perhaps this is such a view!? [ffii.org]

Power of IBM

[a3217055]

IBM is a very big big company, they have a lot of leverage power with lawyers and with other companies. I am not following this as much as I should but it looks like IBM is pushing SCO into a corner and will use every arsenal to make a win. If IBM was going not going to win this court case they will settle. IBM will win it and it will be the end of SCO, we will then see slashdot posts about people buying SCO office furniture for $50.00 at there parking lots. IBM is a east coast company and they can leverage all the big wig lawyers to fight for them there is no way SCO can win. take care -A End result lawyers go home rich, SCO sells furniture and IBM's laptops go in to suspend using ACPI under Linux.

Re:Food for thought

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

No, it's all about Monterey, a joint project between Intel, IBM, Sequent, and the Santa Cruz Operation to port UNIX to the itanium [cnn.com]

Doesn't make sense

[phorm]

There are a lot of other ways to drag the case on and further drain SCO's finances. Involving an outside entity doesn't make sense, especially since doing so via supeona isn't exactly likely to promote good relations with Intel.

I think there's a bit more to this than we've seen... but if anything when the dust is cleared it will be very interesting to look back and say "ahhhh, I understand now"

Re:*sigh*

[EricTheMad]

I doubt a buyout is even a possibility, though that's cleary what SCO wants. IBM is probably just so pissed, that they want to squish 'em like the little, insignificant bug they are.

Re:Soap Opera Digest, eat your heart out.

[Anonymous Coward]

"and arrainged for another 50 or so from baystar."

Baystar later withdrew the majority of this.

It's completely pointless

[jeroenb]

Lots of posters here seem to think that once the judge finds out who's "behind" SCO that something will happen. But why would there? Suppose they find a document where an Intel executive advises SCO to sue IBM? That's not against the law at all.

It's interesting for us to find out who's behind all of this, but not to the judge. These documents are only going to be needed because IBM thinks there's something there about licensing etc. deals. Not about helping out SCO or whatever.

A buyout would be a bad thing for IBM.

[khasim]

Then every failing company with a past contract with IBM would file a lawsuit and hope to be bought out.

In the long run, it's better for IBM to crush SCO, publicly, slowly and legally.

Not called "Wintel" for nothing ...

[quarkscat]

so you can bet that both Intel and Microsoft
would like to see SCO Group succeed in court.
Sun is pushing Sparc and AMD processors, IBM
is pushing (hard) with PPC processors, and even
HP is courting AMD processors -- all three
with their UNIX and GNU/linux.

Microsoft courted, and then dumped support
for microcomputers based upon the Alpha, MIPS,
and PPC processor. Intel's many mis-steps
with the Itanium (ia64) processor may well be
an issue that IBM would like to raise with
the court, especially as regards IBM's short
lived alliance with SCO.

IANAL, but no matter how much code IBM reveals
in court against SCO Group, SCO's main attacks
center on (1) ownership of derivative works,
and (2) legality of the GPL. Either could
seriously damage F/OSS if the case goes to SCO.

I do not have very much faith in the USA's
system of justice these days, particularly
since the DoJ let MSFT off the monopoly hook
so readily (after regime change).

Re:Hog wash!

[Heggsy]

It's also worth considering contractual obligations. If Intel has agreements which they are contractually obliged to keep confidential, I would imagine that they couldn't divulge said information to IBM even if they really wanted to.

A court order to produce such information (probably under seal) would trump the confidentiality agreement.

Also, there may be business reasons why Company A doesn't want to appear too eager to acquiesce to the demands of Company B. A subpoena will preserve the fiction that 'they made us do it'.

Mar ’99: Linux boots on Itanium™ process

[NZheretic]

See page 10 of Intel's Trillian press presentation [archive.org]:

Pre-Trillian IA-64 Linux Contributions
* Feb '98: IA-64 Linux work begins at HP
* Oct '98: HP toolchain complete
* Jan '99: Kernel boots on processor simulator at HP
* Mar '99: First Public demo of IA-64 Linux on HP simulator
* Mar '99: Linux boots on Itanium(TM) processor logic model at Intel
* Apr '99: CERN joins HP development effort for C library
* Apr '99: IA-64 Linux work begins at VA Linux Systems
* May '99: Trillian Project Founded
HP donates initial toolchain and foundation kernel source code Intel and VA Linux Systems provide platform source code

Re:A buyout would be a bad thing for IBM.

[Dan Ost]

Which might mean something if SCO had a case. There's been no indication,
however, that that is the case.

Another thing you might consider is that if MS gave more funds to SCO now,
even the mainstream media would make a big deal out of it. I don't think
MS wants that.

Re:IBM running scared?

[mcc]

It seemed to me that this started out as an extortion racket, hoping that IBM would just cough up and pay. They didn't, and now IBM is striking back by bleeding them: they have far more resources to continue this than SCO has.

This theory would make more sense if it was IBM that has been dragging this whole thing out. It hasn't. IBM's been forthright with what the court has ordered. SCO's missed quite a lot of their deadlines for producing things and seems to be doing absolutely everything they can to delay as much as possible; they keep changing their focus in the courtroom, they keep insisting they know things and then suddenly announce they need an undetermined amount of time to pronounce the things they know, they respond to every complied-with set of evidence from IBM with suddenly different and far expanded demands for evidence. They spent most of their time in court over the last year continually objecting, no matter the nature of things, that they couldn't go on because IBM had not produced a specific set of evidence that the court had repeatedly ruled IBM didn't have to produce, until finally in the last court ruling the judge finally ordered IBM to produce this, with the reason given being "to appease the rote objection by SCO".

IBM is not the one who is making this take so long.

I don't think that IBM will stop by simply winning, they will continue this until SCO is dead and in this respect, this approach makes sense:

Thing is, IBM doesn't have to stop with simply winning... they've filed a countersuit. When SCO's case against IBM ends, IBM's case against SCO will go on.