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SCO Having a Hard Time In Court 120

Posted by Zonk from the buy-a-helmet dept.
jamienk writes "The beginning of the end is in sight. SCO has been reprimanded for the second day in a row by a second judge in their campaign against Linux. Basically, Judge Wells ruled that SCO's vague claims of IP infringement will not be allowed to be heard in court, since it was all clearly a poor attempt at avoiding showing any evidence. Next, SCO will face compelling counterclaims against it by IBM." From the article: "At issue was whether SCO would be allowed to sneak in new allegations and evidence in its experts' reports that it failed to put on the table openly in its Final Disclosures, in effect, as IBM described it, reinventing its case at the eleventh hour. The answer today was no, it won't be allowed to do that. IBM had asked for this relief: 'Insofar as SCO's proposed expert reports exceed the Final Disclosures, they should be stricken.' More details will be arriving in a while, but assuming the early reports are accurate, we may assume that this is what the Judge has ordered." This is a follow-up to a story we discussed yesterday.
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SCO Having a Hard Time In Court More

SCO Having a Hard Time In Court

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  • the ruling should have been . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by queequeg1 ( 180099 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:24PM (#17068106)
    To paraphrase the ruling "Insofar as this proposed item exceeds anyone's tolerance for blatant dupes , it should be stricken."

  • Yup. (Score:0)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:24PM (#17068112)
    One of the greatest dupe farts of all time.
  • ... IBM put a stake through blood-sucking SCO's heart? Will there be appeals? How long can this go on?

  • Sure glad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:28PM (#17068202) Homepage Journal
    Sure glad I don't have any SCO stock.

    The end is in sight and will probably mean the dissolution of SCO assets as the company folds up and dies, since this was a last gasp ploy to hit a litigation jackpot of billions of $ from IBM, et al.

    Sad to see, as SCO was once a respectable company in Santa Cruz, CA.

    • Re:Sure glad (Score:5, Informative)

      by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:36PM (#17068350) Homepage Journal
      Sad to see, as SCO was once a respectable company in Santa Cruz, CA.


      The current SCO is a different company than the the old SCO (Santa Cruz Organization) to which you refer.

      http://www.answers.com/topic/tarantella-inc-1 [answers.com]
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella%2C_Inc [wikipedia.org].

      The new SCO is pure evil and I would not be surprised to learn that Darl McBride is a pedophile and baby eater, and that he kicks newborn puppies for fun.

      • Re:Sure glad (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:34PM (#17069472)
        I was a Caldera employee up until the acquisition of SCO. After the acquisition, SCO was used to remove most of the redundant departments at Caldera. I jumped ship when I realized SCO was taken over. Along with Ransom Love and many of my former coworkers, we saw what was happening. SCO was struggling with declining revenue and it led to an easy acquisition by Caldera. Once that happened, the old Caldera was mostly gutted and replaced by the newly acquired SCO employees. The few Caldera employees left were of the quality that you see now. With the declining revenue of the new Unix kernel and the slow decline in popularity of OpenLinux (eDesktop, eServer, etc.), it appears that those left chose to try litigation as a business model.

        Posted A/C for the obvious reason...

      • It was still bad (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:34PM (#17069476)
        While the old SCO certainly wasn't as bad as the current one, they were still bad. The Michels boys were just as crooked as they could be. For years, they didn't issue stock, until they had products and cash coming in. Instead, they just issued promises that they'd "take care of you". That they did, by issuing significantly less stock to the original employees than is normal for a startup. But they didn't care. Once they had product, they didn't need the orginal employees as much, and so they gave the original crew the shaft.

        This is also the second time that SCO has worked with Microsoft to shut down *NIX competition. Here's a link:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microport#Application s [wikipedia.org]

        Fortunately they failed, as Microport later helped the FSF put gcc on the 386 by giving them a free copy of UNIX.

        Then there was the sexual harassment which went one (resulting in two lawsuits, as reported in the Press), and the guy they drove out of business who was dumb enough to give them an exclusive - after which they deliberately refrained from selling the software or letting him out of their contract. And the CEO saying that they'd steal as much as they wanted from Linux. And more and more.

        The point is that crooked business practices has been the norm for SCO throughout its history, with few exceptions.

        It's far more honest to say that the original SCO was rotten too; just not as rotten as the current version.

      • Re:Sure glad (Score:1)

        by MadMidnightBomber ( 894759 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:17PM (#17070274)
        Worse than that, he sells SCO OpenServer.

      • Re:Sure glad (Score:2)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday December 01, 2006 @07:05PM (#17074448) Homepage Journal

        The current SCO is a different company than the the old SCO (Santa Cruz Organization) to which you refer.

        This I knew. They used to host free tech talks on a regular basis in their offices over near Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz. It was there I learned about Java Server Pages from Jason Hunter, who wrote the first book O'Reilly published on the subject (called the Tea Kettle cover.)

        I knew a few people who worked there and at least one who had aspirations to go there just before things started to go sour, that whole Tarantella and Caldera's involvement.

  • Who has a clear timeline? (Score:1)

    by gumpish ( 682245 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:28PM (#17068206) Journal
    What I think is sorely missing is a page where interested persons can go to see what the next deadline in the case is and what various known future deadlines are.

    I'm constantly reading about assorted developments, but I can't find any place (groklaw included) that provides a clear up-to-date summary of "Where SCO vs. IBM is RIGHT NOW". I've seen the SCO Scorecard, but it's not lucid enough to be grokked in a reasonably short amount of time.

    I guess what I'm getting at is that I (like many I imagine) am tired of this debacle dragging on indefinitely and would like to know WHEN we can expect hard deadlines to elapse and this mess either get to a trial or get thrown out.

    • Re:Who has a clear timeline? (Score:4, Informative)

      by venicebeach ( 702856 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:35PM (#17068334) Homepage Journal
      Part of this week's ruling was that the IBM-SCO case will not be heard until Novell vs SCO is taken care of. So the trial date for IBM/SCO has not been set yet:
      It appears that judicial economy and the interests of all the parties will be best served by trying the Novell case-set to begin on September 17, 2007-prior to the instant action. After deciding the pending dispositive motions in this case, and after deciding the dispositive motions in Novell, which should be fully briefed in May 2007, the court will set a trial date for any remaining claims in this action. The pending dispositive motions will be heard on the following dates: Thursday, March 1, 2007 (3:00pm-5:00pm); Monday, March 5, 2007 (2:30pm-5:00pm); and Wednesday, March 7, 2007 (2:30pm-5:00pm). The parties are directed to submit a proposal by no later than January 12, 2007, setting forth the most efficient sequence for hearing the motions, with both parties having equal time on each motion.

    • Re:Who has a clear timeline? (Score:2)

      by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:39PM (#17071888)
      === What I think is sorely missing is a page where interested persons can go to see what the next deadline in the case is and what various known future deadlines are. ===
      Here is the page you ask for [scofacts.org], although Al has not yet updated it with the schedule changes implicit in the last two rulings.

      Lot of other good stuff on his site as well.

      sPh

  • You got some SCO on your face (Score:4, Funny)

    by straponego ( 521991 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:32PM (#17068290)
    Too bad IBM can't realistically go after SCO's backers (MS, Sun)... but as long as SCO is vaporized and the scum who ran the scam have all their assets seized, I'll be content. Prison time would be appropriate given the damage they did and attempted to do to honest programmers and the economy in general, but... probably best to just end the whole farce and move on.

    What do you mean, vindictive?

    • Re:You got some SCO on your face (Score:2)

      by Dan Ost ( 415913 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:23PM (#17069292)
      Do you know of any reason why IBM can't go for SCO's backers?

      I know there's been lots of speculation about IBM being able to pierce the corporate
      veil, and some of that speculation includes IBM being able to take this fight to
      SCO's backers.

      Until we know what IBM knows, it's really hard to make a strong argument either way.

    • Re:You got some SCO on your face (Score:2)

      by KZigurs ( 638781 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @09:57PM (#17076682)
      SUN???

    • Yes and no (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@nOsPaM.yahoo.com> on Sunday December 03, 2006 @12:35AM (#17086418) Homepage Journal
      Yes, they probably can't go after SCO's backers directly. However, there is hope that there may be incriminating evidence which can be seized and preserved until saner times in politics. Once Microsoft is back on trial in the US for anti-trust violations, then any evidence held in SCO's archives indicating Microsoft was paying heavies to "hit" the opposition -- or even if such evidence were to find its way into European hands -- then you can safely bet the bank on that evidence being extremely influential. Doubly in the US, as essentially the US judges are being used as weapons for antitrust violation purposes, and the US court system can't be seen to be promoting such conduct.


      Better yet, if SCO's archives have sufficient evidence of such a conspiracy (Microsoft might be careful, but Darl???) to be a case in its own right, then we're also talking the crossing of State boundaries for the commission of a crime, and assorted other big-league charges that could do some serious damage.


      Finally, back to Europe. They have not yet completely cleared Vista for Europe and if there is evidence of conspiracy to defraud consumers of choice, on the part of Microsoft, some of the mega-fines may be upgraded, additional charges may be levied, and Vista may be barred from sale by Microsoft. If this happens, it would not surprise me if Eminent Domain is used to seize Vista intellectual property in Europe, with the EU reselling the source and rights to the highest European bidder. (The US can't complain if this happens - the NSA routinely conducts industrial espionage and sells European trade secrets to American companies.)

  • Decisions, Decisions (Score:1, Funny)

    by Non-CleverNickName ( 1027234 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:34PM (#17068312)
    In 1 year, I wonder what people would rather choose to own:

    100 shares of SCO stock or 100 nude photos of Janet Reno...


    Even after you've made your decision, what the hell do you do with 100 nude photos of Janet Reno??

  • Complain about dupes all you want, but... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:35PM (#17068324)
    For people like me who have just woken up from a coma in the last few minutes, this regurgitated news is quite handy.

  • OT: Cheap Laugh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nighttime ( 231023 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @01:39PM (#17068408) Homepage Journal
    As SCO's share price seems to be plummeting a bit today, I decided to download a stock ticker for my desktop to watch the price fall in all its glory. The one I went for, CoolTick, is limited to two symbols in the trial version. Fine by me, I only want to watch SCOX. I now have scrolling across the top of my screen "SCOX v 1.25 -0.75 N/A Purchase License".

    Well, it made me chuckle anyway.

    • Yeah, the people who hoped that SCO would pull off a last-inning upset seem to have finally realized that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. SCO's stock has dropped almost precisely 50% in tha last two days.

      If I was one of the fools who still had some SCO stock left to sell, I'd probably wait a week or so for the current selling frenzy to end, and let the SCO stock painters to get back in action. I'd hope they'd be able to get the stock back up near the $2.00 range again, then I'd sell what I had left.

      Not being stupid enough to hold SCO stock, however, I'm just waiting for it to s(t)ink below $0.50 for long enough to get delisted.

  • Wow! 4SCO... (Score:2)

    by Sj0 ( 472011 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:03PM (#17068884) Journal
    CODE OR GTFO!

  • Wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:07PM (#17068984)
    "Basically, Judge Wells ruled that SCO's vague claims of IP infringement will not be allowed to be heard in court".

    This is completely wrong!

    The CLAIMS will be heard in court. However, most of the EVIDENCE (or lack of) to back those claims has been ruled inadmissable because SCO did not comply with the court's order regarding specificity (show us the code!).

  • SCOX: Down, Down, Down it goes.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:10PM (#17069020) Homepage Journal
    1:06 EST SCOX 1.21 Down 39.50%

  • Unfortunate (Score:2)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:11PM (#17069036)
    It's unfortunate that it has taken SCO so long to go down over this one. Would have been happy to see this over years ago. Thank God IBM has deep pockets, and the desire to see this through. With luck, by the time they're done even if they're given SCO as the prize, it will essentially be worthless, which is also unfortunate, but only for IBM, who deserves a better reward for fighting the good fight this time.

    • Reward (Score:2)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:43PM (#17071964) Journal
      IBM [] deserves a better reward [than the corpse of SCO] for fighting the good fight this time.

      IBM certainly deserves a reward, big time. (Good work, guys!)

      But their reward for fighting this fight (presuming they win it as it looks now) would be more than the corpse of SCO.

      Much of their business model these days is based on Linux (and other Open Source code) being unencumbered by claims such as SCO's. A win against SCO will end risk for Linux from claims based on IP from the Unix codebase. But it will also serve as a precedent-setter for all Open Source authors and users, provide a lesson on how to defend against such claims, drive a spike into future IP FUD attacks on OSS, and (perhaps most effectively) provide a TERRIBLE object lesson for all who would seek to make such claims in the future.

      IBM (and all of Open Source) will have the corpse of SCO to haul out an rattle whenever someone starts making noises about IP.

      Now that won't STOP such claims - especially well funded ones. (I expect the next shoe to fall might be Microsoft directly bringing up patent infringement claims.) But a win here will go a long way toward consolidating the legal status of OSS.

  • SCOX down 40% today (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:30PM (#17069420) Homepage

    SCO's stock went into a screaming dive [yahoo.com] today. It's down 40% today on heavy trading, about 20x the normal volume. The mainstream business press has picked up the story, and, this time, there's no ambiguity.

    • "SCO Losing Case Over Linux Code" - Associated Press [yahoo.com] "Kimball gave Wells' reasoning his full support Thursday, finding that SCO had deliberately failed to show any proof of its claims."
    • "SCO Gets TKO'ed" - Forbes [forbes.com] "The judges seem to be growing frustrated with SCO. For years, the company has gone around making outlandish claims--including many to Forbes--about IBM stealing huge amounts of code from Unix. Yet SCO has never shown any evidence to back up its claims."
    • "Investors Abandon SCO" [forbes.com] "Investors fled SCO Group's stock on Friday, voting with their feet after a federal judge gutted its lawsuit against IBM. "

    Forbes seems to have really had it with SCO. Much of SCO's early FUD appeared in Forbes articles, which now makes Forbes look bad.

    • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:4, Informative)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:58PM (#17069886) Homepage
      Wonder if Rob Enderle has, too.

      From http://www.technewsworld.com/story/opinion/33529.h tml [technewsworld.com]:

      SCO has just over US$60 million in resources to sustain it while it fights IBM (NYSE: IBM) Latest News about IBM in what clearly is one of the most volatile wars in the history of technology. What has been very interesting is that SCO publicly has been given almost no chance of winning, while privately the company has convinced several folks, including me, that it has a strong chance.

      Enjoy your crow dinner, Rob. For desert is Humble Pie.

      Soko

      • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jimfrost ( 58153 ) * <jimf@frostbytes.com> on Friday December 01, 2006 @05:52PM (#17073226) Homepage
        Back when Enderle was writing a lot of pro-SCO articles I corresponded with him a few times on it. He was convinced that SCO would win largely because they could put themselves in front of a jury as the little guy being beaten up by the big guy.

        I completely disagreed; at the time, it seemed clear to me that SCO's entire case rested on an interpretation of the contract that amounted to SCO owning all the code that IBM wrote independently. I don't think juries generally like the idea of someone using vague contractual language to grab others' work, especially seeing as SCO didn't even do the original work.

        I also argued that it was unlikely SCO had anything to show, given that they'd already been reprimanded for missing discovery deadlines; now I am not a lawyer but my impression is that ignoring the judge's orders repeatedly is not good for your case. And indeed, that seems to be what has caught them out. Enderle told me he'd been privy to some of the stuff they were going to show the court, but my guess is that he didn't understand what they were showing him well enough to realize they were blowing smoke.

        I am convinced that SCO figured IBM would just pay them to go away, everyone would make a quick buck, and that would be that; it would probably have been cheaper than this protracted court battle. But IBM thinks longer term. Having put up this kind of fight, do you think anyone else will ever sue them over Linux IP? This fight will make Linux largely lawsuit-proof.

        It will be interesting to see what Enderle says about this decision, if anything. SCO clearly hoodwinked him. But as wrong as he was, he wasn't alone.

        • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:3, Interesting)

          by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) * on Friday December 01, 2006 @10:53PM (#17077052) Homepage Journal

          I am convinced that SCO figured IBM would just pay them to go away, everyone would make a quick buck, and that would be that; it would probably have been cheaper than this protracted court battle. But IBM thinks longer term. Having put up this kind of fight, do you think anyone else will ever sue them over Linux IP? This fight will make Linux largely lawsuit-proof. [emphasis added]

          I couldn't agree with you more.

          Looking ahead a little bit to what might happen at the end of the SCO debacle... IBM has put together a legal bulldozer at no small expense to improve their business climate for the next 25 - 50 years when they could have just bought out Darl with pocket change. I'm guessing that IBM is prolly now looking around to see if this bulldozer can be used to make other improvements before it is dismantled. And when I try to look at the world through IBM's eyes, I see three targets that might be worth taking a run at:

          1. Software patents. IBM has been quietly putting a number of its software patents into a kind of protective escrow situation where they cannot be directly used to generate income. My guess is that IBM is no lover of current patent law and prolly sees the whole body of existing software patents as being rather like a toxic wasteland, and the patent process being a drain on their revenues. It might make sense to use the legaldozer to do some environmental clean up in this area. There are legislative avenues that could and prolly are being pursued, but since there is this shiny yellow 40,000 horsepower engine with a big old blade on the front all warmed up and ready to go, maybe attempting some change through the judicial system would be worthwhile.
          2. EULAs and the FUD that surrounds them. I don't believe IBM is using EULAs any more (if they ever did) and IBM prolly sees these as detrimental to the business climate they are attempting to nurture. Perhaps the IBM legaldozer could be used to remove these unsightly fences from the landscape and return the fenced off areas to the commons where Linux and IBM offerings flourish.
          3. The whole digital copyrights arena: I'd really like to see IBM take this on, but I doubt that will happen. The other two possibilities are directly within the scope of IBM's mission and core business practices. Cleaning up the digital rights garbage pit seems like much more of a stretch.

          In any event, SCO encouraged IBM to develop a powerful legal team. I think it would make a lot of business sense for IBM to look at targets worthy of this team's attention before taking it apart.

          • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:1)

            by cloakable ( 885764 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @01:01PM (#17081106)
            You appear to have made a slight mistake -

            Software patents. IBM has been quietly putting a number of its software patents into a kind of protective escrow situation where they cannot be directly used to generate income. My guess is that IBM is no lover of current patent law and prolly sees the whole body of existing software patents as being rather like a toxic wasteland, and the patent process being a drain on their revenues. It might make sense to use the legaldozer to do some environmental clean up in this area. There are legislative avenues that could and prolly are being pursued, but since there is this shiny yellow 100,000 lawyerpower engine with a big old blade on the front all warmed up and ready to go, maybe attempting some change through the judicial system would be worthwhile.

          • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:2)

            by jschrod ( 172610 ) <jschrodNO@SPAMacm.org> on Sunday December 03, 2006 @02:01PM (#17090738) Homepage
            In any event, SCO encouraged IBM to develop a powerful legal team.
            You must be very young.

            IBM has been a legal powerhouse since many decades. Look up IBM vs. CDC, or IBM vs. Amdahl, and -- last, but not least -- US vs. IBM, the big anti-trust case that ran for a whole whopping 12 (in words: twelve!) years, from 1969 to 1982.

            • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:2)

              by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) * on Sunday December 03, 2006 @03:23PM (#17091518) Homepage Journal

              You must be very young...

              Nope, but I do try to rejuvenate my neural nets on a regular basis by thinking young and sassy thoughts, so thanks for the compliment!

              I am not naive about business operations. IBM's flocks of lawyers aren't kept in storage on the shelf in between SCO-sized lawsuits. They earn their keep doing more mundane activities. The SCO suit caused IBM to revise the priorities of the legal department for the duration. There is considerable cost in doing that kind of revision. Now that the activities related to the SCO suit are beginning to wind down, IBM can either disperse its lawyers back to the ordinary activities of quieter times, or they might look around to see if there are any other problems that this team could address before it is dissassembled. My guess is that IBM is doing the latter, since the costs associated with taking the current team apart only to put it back together in a couple of years might be avoidable by taking some actions now.

              If IBM does choose to go on a legal offensive, then I think two choice targets they might be considering are the sorry state of software patents and the absurdities of EULAs. These both pose significant problems for the healthy ecosystem business model that IBM has found to be so successful in the last decade. Th e fact that clearing up the law in either of these areas would also cause major problems for a company that has betrayed them in the past and is rabid in its adherence to a business model that promotes destruction of adversaries rather than cooperation within a community would be merely an unintended consequence.

              Thank you for this opportunity to further clarify my suggestions. I look forward to your next post-- I'll do my best to play Gracie Allen to your Geoge Burns' straight man lines.

        • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:1)

          by Dean Hougen ( 970749 ) <hougen@ou.edu> on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:58PM (#17077530) Homepage
          This fight will make Linux largely lawsuit-proof.

          So, we should be thanking SCO for bringing this suit after all?

          In other news, it turns out down has been up all along.

          Dean

    • Compare Lyons from 2003 and 2006 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dr. Manhattan ( 29720 ) <sorceror171@gmail . c om> on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:25PM (#17070434) Homepage
      "SCO Gets TKO'ed" [forbes.com] - Forbes "The judges seem to be growing frustrated with SCO. For years, the company has gone around making outlandish claims--including many to Forbes--about IBM stealing huge amounts of code from Unix. Yet SCO has never shown any evidence to back up its claims."

      Compare that article to this one from when the whole SCO fiasco was getting started [forbes.com]. Same author, you'll note - very different attitude. I love the hilarity of juxtaposing the titles of the two articles. Back then Lyons was calling Linux advocates and users "crunchies" - now he just calls them "fans" and says things like "companies... have built booming businesses around Linux."

      Not that he'll get called on the hypocrisy or anything.

      • What makes you think he's being hypocritical? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @05:35PM (#17072906) Journal
        Not that he'll get called on the hypocrisy or anything.

        What makes you think he's being hypocritical?

        The previous article was written over three years ago. At the time WE may have known (or suspected) that SCO was talking through its hat, but The Suits, and the reporters that served them, had little such knowlege.

        SCO talked a good line, while Open Source was a newcomer to business, of questionable utility, promoted by people who looked like "a bunch of socialist hippies" who didn't respect "intellectual property" and the related legal framework. Sure the OSS people SAID there was no proprietary Unix IP in Linux - deliberately or accidentally. But SCO (then repuatble) said otherwise.

        Now we've had the SCO v. IBM trial (where it's clear that the issues are VERY important for business). That has given three plus years of education (so far) to those who are following it. (This is the JOB of news article authors such as Lions, who write these pieces to convey such information to executives, who need to get it RIGHT for their own multi-billion-dollar decision-making.) And so far SCO has shown itself to be blowing smoke, while IBM has shown Linux to be on solid IP ground.

        So of COURSE the article NOW will be much different from the article THEN.

        It would have been hypocracy if Lions had written the two articles back-to-back, with the same knowlege and mindset while writing both. But the Lions of today is a more educated man on this issue than the Lions of three plus years ago. So the contrast in the articles reflects his intelligence, integrity, and honesty - not hypocracy.
        • SCO talked a good line, while Open Source was a newcomer to business, of questionable utility, promoted by people who looked like "a bunch of socialist hippies" who didn't respect "intellectual property" and the related legal framework.

          Except that now Lyons specifically states that SCO never produced any evidence. And even then the "noisy fanatics" (his words) were producing evidence that SCO was flat wrong.

          Now he just sort of mumbles, "Gee, SCO was just flapping gums" without actually acknowledging that he was a prominent FUD disseminator himself, and they didn't - even then - back up their claims, to him or anyone else. I'd think at least a small apology would be in order.

      • Re:Compare Lyons from 2003 and 2006 (Score:2)

        by rossifer ( 581396 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @07:43PM (#17075084) Journal
        Hypocrisy is simultaneously advocating one thing and acting in a manner inconsistent with what you're advocating. A position changing over time is more likely a case of simply being incorrect and learning, not hypocrisy.

        I like it when people learn, and stop making some set of incorrect assertions as a result. The ability to learn, and to change your mind as a result, is a cornerstone of maturity, and IMHO, should never be criticized.

        Now, the fact that he had to learn that SCO was lying, instead of being able to clearly understand that from the beginning should be a little embarassing, but let's hope he uses that embarassment constructively, and isn't so quick to attach his name to a press release the next time the opportunity comes up...

        Regards,
        Ross

    • Re:SCOX down 40% today (Score:2)

      by Fred_A ( 10934 ) <fred AT fredshome DOT org> on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:32PM (#17070568) Homepage
      SCO's stock went into a screaming dive today. It's down 40% today on heavy trading
      I wouldn't have thought there would be enough value left in SCO for it to lose 40%... Is what's left over still measurable with current instrumentation or are we talking quantum here ?
  • http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/01/05 51238 [slashdot.org]

    Posted today, around 4 hours or so ago. Yes, it's a dupe. Yes, there was another story regarding Judge Kimball's de novo review of Magistrate Judge Wells' earlier decision, which was upheld in its' entirety.

    This story, as well as the one that link will take you to, are in regards to SCO getting put in their place, once again, with regards to IBM's motion for PSJ regarding the claims left following the Motion to Compel.

    Oh, and IANAL, just one of many who's followed this case over the last 3 years on Groklaw. Thanks PJ!
  • Forbes online is reporting that investors are abandoning SCO in a hurry [forbes.com]. Also, SCO stock is down 41% if you look on the Yahoo! chart [yahoo.com].

    I guess the only thing left to say is,

    Na na naa na...na na naa na...hey hey hey...goodbye...

  • The Wheels of Justice (Score:1)

    by jazman_777 ( 44742 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:57PM (#17069856) Homepage
    Grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.

  • One cloud on this silver lining (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <`deviladv' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:02PM (#17069970) Homepage
    I just hope hope hope that the people involved in this legal scam of SCOs didn't dump their stock today.

    Many posters recently pointed out that they thought this was a stock pumping scam designed to get the stock up on the possibility of getting a large settlement from IBM. Now that the chances of that happening are slimmer and slimmer, what would you bet that before these announcements, important execs at SCO dumped their stock?

    I hope not. They should burn like the Enron execs should have burned.

    • Re:One cloud on this silver lining (Score:3, Informative)

      by wrook ( 134116 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @06:02PM (#17073422) Homepage
      They don't need to dump their stock at this point in time. They never paid for it in the first place, so there isn't any loss.

      Remember that the principles involved are mostly trading "stock options". They are granted the right to buy stock at a certain price, and can then sell it for whatever the market will bear. They don't, however, *have* to pay for it at all if the stock isn't "in the money" (i.e., selling for more than the option strike price).

      No, the time to dump the stock was at 14 or 15 dollars (and there was *plenty* of dumping going on). At $2, it's hang on until the inevitable crash.

  • Scox down 50% in two days (Score:2)

    by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:15PM (#17070240)
    Today is the biggest one-day drop since the scam started.

    Scox's market cap still 4X as high as when darl started.

  • So can someone answer something for me? (Score:2)

    by smellsofbikes ( 890263 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:37PM (#17070650) Journal
    As I read it, the judge has said that SCO can't slip new evidence in because the period to submit evidence to the court has passed, so anything they find now is not admissable for this trial.

    Does this new material give them grounds for appeal or even retrial based on new material? I assume that it'll be as nonexistent new material as all their nonexistent old material was, but how does the court system deal with this? Is there a way the judge can say that they've shown bad faith and as such it can be assumed that anything new they come up with will be just as vapory, and pre-emptively bar it?

    • Re:So can someone answer something for me? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:27PM (#17071666)
      There is NO "new material".

      What SCO tried to sneak in after the close of the discovery phase was "expert" witness reports that broadened the scope of the original claims, to which IBM objected and Judge Kimball ruled on (in IBM's favor) yesterday.

      What Judge Kimball correctly recognized was that trying to nail down SCO's claims was like trying to hit a moving target. The evidence that Judge Wells disallowed was ingeneously called "claims" by SCO in order to get past the fact (ie., evidence) discovery deadline.

      If SCO has any new real evidence, they will have to ask for a new trial, not an appeal. Judge Kimball is working his hardest (de novo review) to make sure that there can be no appeal.

      Even if SCO lasts that long.

  • Right after the MS-Novel deal .. coincidence ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrData ( 130916 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:01PM (#17071196)
    Hmm lets see:

    • SCO gets bitch-slapped by two Judges for legal shenanigans.(As MS has been in virtually every leagal case it has been in, especially the Anti-Trust Case).
    • Just a couple of weeks earlier, MS and Novell join up to make a business deal that is so bad, even those involved with the deal can't explain it from a legal or business standpoint (which would be about the time that the SCO lawyers knew they were about to be taken to the wood shed ).


    Now those not in the know are thinking "so what the hell does SCO have to do with MS or Novell ?" or even worse
    "Those Slashdotters are just biased MS haters".

    And the answer to these thoughts my young padawan learner (or MBA) are the following facts:

    • Microsoft is an investor in Baystar Capital Managment who has invested at least 50 mil in SCO before the lawsuit (google for it if you don't believe me). Even worse, Lawrence R. Goldfarb, one of the investors in Baystart said MS promised to indemnify Baystar's investment from losses to to the suit.
    • SCO's lawer is David Boies, the same lawyer who defended MS in its Anti-Trust suit against the US (and who was also repeatedly repremanded for legal malfeasance).


    Which now leads us to the ultimate reason for why I believe these incidents are indeed related and not an accident ...
    a motive !!

    Both the SCO lawsuit and the MS-Novell agreement are designed to cast (at least to most tech-unsavy MBA types) a huge legal cloud over Linux specifically, and FOSS in general, of which Microsoft would be the only benefactor.

    Case Closed

  • Headline -- SCOX STOCKS SUX! (Score:1)

    by JohnnyDoesLinux ( 19195 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:13PM (#17071418)
    I need a break after that one.

  • Now that MS has its shiny new cross-licensing patent contract with Novell, it now has a new opening in its war on Linux. They are probably pulling back all resources from the SCO front, getting ready to exploit this new angle for a few years.

  • I think Hattie said it best (Oblig. Futurama) (Score:2)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:21PM (#17071552)
    Hattie: Millionaires, nothing! The stock's only worth three kajiggers!

  • For those who do not speak legaleaze (Score:2)

    by mkiwi ( 585287 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @05:12PM (#17072478)
    From the article description:
    "Insofar as SCO's proposed expert reports exceed the Final Disclosures, they should be stricken."


    This essentially says that, since SCO tried to sneak some evidence at the end, without going through the proper legal process before hand, that this evidence should be removed and not considered by the court/judge/jury.

    In an appeals process, these documents would not show up in a new case should SCO try to sue IBM in a higher court. SCO would have to try to re-enter that testemony.

  • Not the reports... (Score:1)

    by Deathbane27 ( 884594 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @07:34PM (#17074914)
    'Insofar as SCO's proposed expert reports exceed the Final Disclosures, they should be stricken.'
    Screw the reports, it's SCO's lawyers that should be stricken!

  • End-game for "High Barratry" (Score:2)

    by Mike Van Pelt ( 32582 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @02:39AM (#17078406)
    Looks like the last line of Steve Savitsky's song will soon come true:

    (Posting rather than linking so Steve's web site doesn't get slashdotted, and the "Creative Commons License" permits it.)

    High Barratry
    Lyrics © 2004 Stephen Savitzky.
    Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ [creativecommons.org] Some rights reserved.
    To the tune of: High Barbary (trad)

    Of a company called S-C-O, the tale I'll briefly tell
    With G-P-L, our software all is free
    Who turned their hands to barratry when software wouldn't sell
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    ``And are you selling Linux or old Unixware?'' said we
    With GPL, our software all is free
    We're the owners of all Unix come demanding of our fee!
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    You've stolen code from System V and given it away
    With GPL, our software all is free
    So buy licences for Linux, or we'll sue and make you pay
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    They first sued IBM over a million lines of code
    With GPL, our software all is free
    Though a subroutine or two from BSD was all they showed
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    Well, RedHat sued them next so they went gunning for Novell
    With GPL, our software all is free
    Autozone and Daimler-Chrysler soon were on their list as well
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    Then lawsuit and lawsuit we fought for many a day
    With GPL, our software all is free
    'Till the research done at Groklaw blew their cases clean away
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    Oh, please buy us out, the SCOundrels made their plea
    With GPL, our software all is free
    But the buyout that they got was in a court of bankruptcy
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    And oh, it was a sorry thing to hear them rant and roar
    With GPL, our software all is free
    With their options underwater as their stock sank through the floor
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry

    Though they started as Caldera selling Linux long ago
    With GPL, our software all is free
    Soon a huge volcanic crater will be all that's left of SCO
    Sailing through the legal straits of High Barratry
     

  • We need SCO (Score:1)

    by owidder ( 1034780 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @05:58PM (#17083684)
    See my small cartoon [typepad.com]. Bye, Oliver

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