IBM Motion to Limit SCO Claims Granted 195
Kalak writes "IBM's motion to limit SCO's claims to those that have specific version, file and line numbers has been granted, in part. At the end of last year, SCO made 294 allegations. IBM asked for dismissal of 198 of them due to lack of this information, 1 SCO withdrew, 1 IBM withdrew from the request, and 185 of them have been dismissed from the case. This leaves 107 of the charges are left to be addressed by means other than lack of specificity (such as public domain, BSD code, who owns it, etc.) As usual, Groklaw, has discussion, as well as the Order and an excellent chart of the history of alleged violations has been created as well."
A very thorough piece of work. (Score:5, Informative)
She uses Sandeep Gupta's (he testified for SCO) testimony to support the requirement for specificity.
She uses the fact that SCO didn't complain when it was ordered to produce specific lines of code. She also notes that SCO never asked for clarification on that point.
She is firing SCO's own testimony and actions (or lack thereof) right back in their faces.
Some posters on Groklaw and the Yahoo SCOX message board have speculated that this decision means that a couple of the counterclaims are a slam dunk. In particular, it now appears that Linux is completely clear of copyright violations wrt anything that SCO owns or says it does.
Re:Geocities? (Score:5, Informative)
Oops, here's the text (Score:3, Informative)
"identify and state with specificity the source code(s) that SCO is claiming
form the basis of their action against IBM." Even if SCO lacked the code behind
methods and concepts at this early stage, SCO could have and should have, at
least articulated which methods and concetps formed "the basis of their action
against IBM." At a minimum, SCO should have identified the code behind their
methods and conceptws in the final submission pursuant to this original order
entered in December 2003 ane Judge Kimball's order entered in July 2005.
Re:IBM- doing the right thing? (Score:4, Informative)
Don't read much into them defending themselves, if it was a few million dollars, it would be done. It was a few billion, they might be able to afford it but you're not going to get a billion dollars from them without a fight. No - even if it was a "few million" it wouldn't have ever been done, because IBM knows that once someone does it to them, others will try the same tactic.
To put it into its proper perspective - they wouldn't have done the deal even for a few thousand.
Also, in the beginning SCO was making noises in the background of "about $25 million" and IBM basically tod them to FOAD.
Key extracts from the Judge's order (Score:5, Informative)
It's worth reading the entire order from Judge Wells. However, for the benefit of those who don't enjoy reading legal documents, here's are the highlights. These are the Judge's words:
Essentially, the claims of copyright infringment in Linux based on UNIX source code just got thrown out of court. There are a few minor claims remaining, but they're minor and mostly related to old contractual issues that can only involve IBM, not third parties using Linux.
This is all still pretrial manuvering, during which the case becomes better defined. In the next phase, we have "dispositive motions", which will probably include a motion by IBM for summary judgement against SCO. Some more SCO claims will probably be thrown out at that phase.
Re:Granted IN PART (Score:5, Informative)
SCO made 294 claims.
IBM objected to 198 of the claims.
Judge Wells allowed 17 of IBM's 198 disputed claims and barred the rest.
That leaves 117 of SCO's 294 claims standing. ~66% gone.
1 really damn good read. Judge Wells's order was fantastically fun.
IBMs counterclaims will deal with that (Score:1, Informative)
SCO can dodge their own claims..but they cant dodge IBM's Counter claims
Truth nuggets (Score:3, Informative)
Of course they didn't because their whole game is to stall stall stall.
Re:Key extracts from the Judge's order (Score:5, Informative)
Essentially, the claims of copyright infringment in Linux based on UNIX source code just got thrown out of court.
No, I don't think this is correct. SCO withdrew all of their allegations of copyright infringement in one of their early amended complaints. Everything that has been left is related to their contract claims against IBM. SCO is saying that IBM should not have put stuff into Linux that it got from Unix because IBM's contract with AT&T (of whom SCO claims to be successor in interest) required IBM to keep it confidential, not because there's any actual copyright infringement.
What has happened here is that the court has thrown out many of SCO's allegations of contract violation because SCO couldn't define the allegations. Many more will undoubtedly get thrown out in summary judgements when the court determines that SCO's allegations are over Unix information (methods and concepts) that are and have been public for a long time. Then, finally, assuming SCO doesn't evaporate before then, SCO's basic theory about what the IBM/AT&T contract says will be ajudicated, at which point the rest of the complaints will be tossed, because the contract doesn't say that IBM's own code that happened to rub up against AT&T's code falls under the terms of the contract, and because AT&T explicitly clarified this point to IBM and the other licensees.
And, at some point in there, the court will get to rule on some of IBM's allegations about SCO's misconduct -- Lanham Act violations (essentially false advertising), tortious interference with business and, sweetest of all, straight up copyright infringement from SCO's distribution of IBM's code in Linux. The only permission SCO had to distribute IBM's code was the GPL, and SCO stopped providing source code after they started this lawsuit, violating the terms of the GPL and thereby rescinding the GPL-provided permission.
Not exactly. (Score:4, Informative)
At a minimum, IBM's sixth counterclaim is for breach of the GPL, which is based on copyright law.
Re:This is great (Score:4, Informative)
SUSE assigned a value over $50 million dollars to the arbitration alone. Novell is countersuing SCO for over $25 million when you include their failure to remit royalties and slander of title counterclaims. SCO currently has $28 million in assets, far short of what their legal adversaries are claiming against them for, when you add in Red Hat's claims and IBM's counterclaims. http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&cid=6
SCO is toast, plain and simple. The time for the case to merely be dismissed has come and gone, which is a GOOD THING, not a bad thing, since SCO will now have to face the consequences for their actions.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:IBM saw it for what it is. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:IBM saw it for what it is. (Score:4, Informative)