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Microsoft

Caldera vs. Microsoft Court Documents To Be Shredded 350

Posted by CmdrTaco from the conspiracy-theory-much dept.
Geste writes "As now being reported in this brief story and on my local (Seattle) NPR affiliate, 3 million court documents from Caldera's unfair competition suit against Microsoft are to be shredded in Utah. The timing relative to Microsoft's recent licensing of SCO Unix IP is undoubtedly a complete coincidence. "
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Caldera vs. Microsoft Court Documents To Be Shredded More

Caldera vs. Microsoft Court Documents To Be Shredded

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  • The AARD code story is immortal. (Score:5, Informative)

    by vegetablespork ( 575101 ) <vegetablespork@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:45PM (#6011092) Homepage
    And available here [ddj.com].

    • Andrew is a shill. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @10:10PM (#6012904) Homepage Journal
      Qouth the nonsense you linked too:

      I've often had to publicly defend Microsoft against what I felt were acts of scapegoating from whining competitors (including Novell, Borland, Lotus, and Wordperfect), complaints which remind me of the way some Americans like to blame Japan for what are ultimately our own domestic problems.

      Funny how the US Government later decided that M$ did indeed engage is such practices. Andy and DDJ should be ashamed of that article.

      Let's see how the US government saw things [usdoj.gov]. The jucky bits about DRDOS have been dug up by others. Have a look at M$ email for yourself [kickassgear.com]. It was orchestrated from the start to crush an admitedly superior technology, included abouse of Microsoft's own custormers and malicious PR. Anyone who says differently has been proven a fool.

      The destruction of court records is evil because it burries evidence of wrongdoing by a convicted monopolist that has yet to be punished and is proceeding as if nothing at all had happened. These letters may be published elsewhere, but they need to be preserved in context if an objective history is to be written. There's no telling what goodies the Caldera folks dug up before they became M$'s next shill. Evidence of Microsoft's concerted effort to eliminate free software is going to be lost.

      • I disagree. Sure, he says: Whether in spite or because of the books Undocumented DOS and Undocumented Windows, I've often had to publicly defend Microsoft against what I felt were acts of scapegoating from whining competitors (including Novell, Borland, Lotus, and Wordperfect), complaints which remind me of the way some Americans like to blame Japan for what are ultimately our own domestic problems.

        But, he also makes that statement in a section of the article named "Maybe It's a Bug?" (good grief! It's

  • Toilet paper... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ryants ( 310088 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:46PM (#6011103)
    The company that is storing the reams of documents from the Microsoft case has been hired to shred the papers -- then they'll be made into toilet paper.
    This joke practically writes itself.

  • How ironic... (Score:4, Funny)

    by VCAGuy ( 660954 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:47PM (#6011109)
    Most of it is then made into toilet paper.

    How ironic indeed...any word on which manufacturer will get the pulp (I want to get me some of that!)

  • Why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xeth ( 614132 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:47PM (#6011112) Journal
    ...Is it even legal to destroy cour documents? To save space? Couldn't they digitize them? This just seems like a way to hide information, and information like this could hardly have a good reason to be hidden.

    • Re:Why... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jdray ( 645332 )
      In the case of civil suits, I suspect that only judgements and relevant information (in summary) is kept, because, in civil suits, once the judgement happens, it rarely matters later why it happened.

      In the case of suits that are being dropped, no court would care.

    • Re:Why... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShmuelP ( 5675 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:32PM (#6011459)
      According to the article, they are being scanned in, and are only being destroyed one digitized.
    • Well...for one reason, digitizing court documents leaves open the risk of alteration. As with digital photos.

      Yes, they can be timestamped, hashed, whatever...but the legal system hasn't caught up to current technology. Law procedures change verrrry slowly.

      And besides, the final decision is the only one that really matters.

      • Re:Why... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Purple Library Guy ( 660870 )
        Paper documents can be altered too. They call them "forgeries", like the one about Iraq buying uranium from Africa. Arguably, the legal system hasn't caught up to centuruies-old technology . . .

  • Now I'll wonder... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jdray ( 645332 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:48PM (#6011116) Homepage Journal
    Now I'll wonder, every time I use the john, if this piece of paper once made Microsoft embrace Unix...

    (okay, so I'm stretching things just a little)

  • Ollie North (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <thguorw.wodahs>> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:48PM (#6011117) Homepage Journal
    And just this morning I was asking myself, what's Fawn Hall up to these days?

  • Well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:48PM (#6011120)
    it should make for a more comfortable wiping experience than the Windows 95 cd I currently use. Not as satisfying though.

  • I'm in Utah, and I won't use it (Score:4, Funny)

    by dragoncortez ( 603226 ) * on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:50PM (#6011136) Journal
    How will I know if I'm buying microsoft toilet-paper? I'll just feel it in my bones. This is why I've been reading /. for so long, so that I can just feel that sort of thing. Also, if I have to sign a EULA or something before using it, I'll know.
    Plus, I'm just going to use the single-ply sheets that look like normal paper- not the double-ply, flowery, squishy toilet-paper that I'm sure will have come from microsoft. Just something to get the job done, and something that won't break. That's what I need.

  • Quite a sight... (Score:4, Funny)

    by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@NOSpAm.thcnet.net> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:50PM (#6011138) Homepage
    It is scheduled to be the single most interesting thing that has EVER happened in Utah.

    • Re:Quite a sight... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What about the Sundance Film Festival and the Salt Lake City olympics? Lots goes on in Utah besides getting married and having kids when you're 14.
      • whoah there buddy... who, in utah gets married when they're 14? if i am correct (which i am), they have to be 18 or 19 to get married in the best church ever, and they do that before they have kids.

  • Oh come on. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:51PM (#6011145)
    This story is so short on details and so filled with inuendo it really needs to be categorized as from-the-ultimate-flame-bait-department

    • Re:Oh come on. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Azureflare ( 645778 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:30PM (#6011441)
      I couldn't agree more. If people had actually READ the article, they would have seen that SUN made digital images of all the documents before they were destroyed. The documents were leftovers, and were simply being maintained by SCO up until this point, for 1500$ a month.

      I'm not denying the possibility that Microsoft and SCO might now be in secret alliance, but this story doesn't seem to give any direct evidence to support that position.

      • that SUN made digital images of all the documents

        Not quite *all*. The article stated that Sun had "pulled out 40 boxes" for their own antitrust suit.

        I wonder if the other 897 boxes had anything significant.

      • You said: If people had actually READ the article, they would have seen that SUN made digital images of all the documents before they were destroyed.

        And the article says: The company [Sun], seeking evidence that might help in its own antitrust suit against Microsoft, eventually pulled out 40 boxes of the computer giant's secret internal communications for digital imaging,
  • If you can't beat them.... BUY THEM and everyone else out so you can....

  • Ebay opportunity (Score:3, Funny)

    by swifticus ( 191301 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:54PM (#6011171)
    All those documents will be shredded, then sent to a pulp mill where they are treated to remove the ink. Most of it is then made into toilet paper.
    How long until a roll of Microsoft Document toilet paper hits ebay?

  • Uhhhhhh.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:54PM (#6011175)
    Microsoft buys Unix SCO IP from Caldera? SCO is suing IBM over Linux? Court documents relating to Caldera suing Microsoft are being shredded?

    Come on. This is too easy!

    3. Profit!

  • and in the news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bilbobuggins ( 535860 ) <bilbobuggins@@@juntjunt...com> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:05PM (#6011259)
    SCO hopes that by causing Linux users to wipe with confidential court documents they can claim Linux users had contact with secret IP and then sue their butts off!

    *ba-dum-crash*

    but seriously folks...

  • Settlement money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:09PM (#6011296)
    When I worked at Lineo (former Caldera Thin Clients, spinoff of Caldera Inc), some execs received a lot of money as a result of the settlement, and they even went on Holiday for a week in Tahiti with some of the settlement money (or was it Ray Noorda's ?). The rumor back then was that M$ paid Caldera over $110M, and probably a lot more (this wasn't disclosed as part of the settlement).

    Note that, right after the settlement, Novell proceeded to ask us 17% of the money because they still owned DR-DOS and Lineo only had a license to exploit it, or something silly like that, and even threatened to sue. I don't know if they went through with it, I got laid off before that. The attorney firm got a whole shitload of that money too.

    Anyhow, my comments about this are :

    - Ray Noorda bought DR-DOS to sue M$ and won, good for him. Fat lot of good it did to us at Lineo though.

    - Microsoft lost pocket change and watched the Linux and Novell vultures fight over it

    - The execs getting holidays while the employees who worked at proving the MS-DOS 7 / Win95 ties and getting Win95 running under DR-DOS 7.03 (essentially winning the court case) stayed at work.

    Very nice. Very nice indeed. They can shred everything, it just isn't worth remembering ...

    • Re:Settlement money (Bigger than that) (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I work with a former Caldera person myself who is in the know and from what he's hinted at, I think it was a lot more than $110 mil.

      Also, he estimates that SCO/Caldera International doesn't have a whole lot of money for their lawsuit against IBM. In other words, IBM could just bleed them dry by dragging the court case out. Unless SCO has received a large "donation" from Microsoft's licensing of Unix.

  • What is the coincidence? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:09PM (#6011297)
    I think the coincidence is that this NPR station and slashbot choose now to re-report this news item.

    IT'S ANOTHER FRICKIN DUPLICATE NEWS ITEM FROM OCTOBER OF LAST YEAR! [slashdot.org]

    • Re:What is the coincidence? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:21PM (#6011383) Homepage
      They just started shredding all but 40 boxes of testimony two weeks ago. The 40 boxes were subpoenad by Sun Microsystems for their antitrust lawsuit. Most of those 40 boxes have been returned and are off to the shredder.

      • So what. Businesses tend to always take a lot of time to organize and execute plans. It doesn't matter when they were shredded. The story is old news as the story about them being shredded has already been posted and commented on.
    • Look at it this way, CmdrTaco is improving. It took him 8 months to dupe this time as compared to his usual 8 minutes ;) TPF
    • seriously..

      the guy is right!

      Microsoft Legal Documents To Be Destroyed

      Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 30, @05:05PM
      from the oh-probably-just-some-unimportant-stuff dept.
      el-schwa writes "The Salt Lake Tribune has a story that talks about the old Micrsoft vs. Caldera anti-trust lawsuit. During the trial Microsoft tried unsuccessfully to get 937 boxes of controversial documents kept private. Now it appears that Caldera is no longer interested in paying for storage on the boxes, and they are scheduled t
  • The company that is storing the reams of documents from the Microsoft case has been hired to shred the papers -- then they'll be made into toilet paper.

    Woah, I gotta start reading the fine print, I had no idea that's what EULA meant.
  • First we're slated for all the high level nuclear waste, now we get Microsoft's trash too?

  • And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by skroz ( 7870 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:12PM (#6011317) Homepage
    Bill Gates' seattle home was subject to one of the most complete "TPing" operations ever conducted. Film at 11.

  • Full updated story (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:18PM (#6011367)
    Here's the full story [sltrib.com] from the Salt Lake Tribune.

  • iLoo reinstatement....this means (Score:5, Funny)

    by A_Non_Moose ( 413034 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:29PM (#6011435) Homepage Journal
    you'll need TP...or Toilet Paladium.

    Don't you want your bum to be in "secure mode" to avoid virii...errr...trojans and...eeeww..backdoors?

    I feel *SO* dirty (but that was 1/2 the point).

    .

  • Toilet paper (Score:3, Funny)

    by appler ( 672410 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:36PM (#6011483)
    I can't wait to wipe my ass with Microsoft. If anything connected to Gates was ever made into toilet paper, it would be the most useful thing Microsoft ever did. I like to use those little registration forms that come with your Windows CD-ROM, but they gave me a rash last time. And I hope monsters live under the beds of everyone at SCO.
    • i'd say the computer world as we know it today is pretty useful... there's no way we'd be this far along if apple was any more successful (and when i say not this far, i mean less far, so don't say "yeah, we'd be better off" cus you'd be wrong)

  • Toilet Paper vs Intellectual Property (Score:4, Funny)

    by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:41PM (#6011510)
    Hey! You got your TP in my IP! You got your IP in my TP! hmmm..

  • Has anyone bothered to read the article yet? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MmmmAqua ( 613624 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @05:58PM (#6011597)
    Because I just did, and a few things just leap right off the page:

    1)In October, the company persuaded U.S. District Judge Dee Benson to order their destruction.

    Because, as we all know, in October Microsoft and SCO were already in collusion to cause this big ruckus. Or maybe SCO was just tired of shelling out the cash to store the documents related to a long-finished case, and was trying to save a little money.

    2) However, just as the shredding was to begin, Sun Microsystem's attorneys halted it with a subpoena. The company, seeking evidence that might help in its own antitrust suit against Microsoft, eventually pulled out 40 boxes of the computer giant's secret internal communications for digital imaging.

    That's funny, by reading the /. post, it somehow seemed that I should find a picture in the article showing Darl McBride feeding reams of paper, all entitled "Damning Internal Documents of Antitrust Violations", into an industrial-strength shredder while Bill Gates, dressed in a Halloween Satan costume, danced in glee in the background. Funny how /. doesn't mention that some of the documents are being preserved.

    3)Meantime, the shredding and pulping of the remaining records has been under way for about two weeks.

    So, if /. thinks this is somehow important or damning to Microsoft or SCO, why wasn't this mentioned two weeks ago? Or in October, when SCO obtained permission to shred the documents?

    Look, guys, I'm all for the downfall of Microsoft and the phoenix rise of Linux (and OS X, but hey, I'm weird), but couldn't we try for maybe just a teensy bit of objectivity?

    ::adjusts asbestos underwear::
    Okay, flame away.

  • SCO lifting code from Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @06:01PM (#6011623) Homepage
    Only marginally on topic but earlier today there was a Wifi story referencing Kernel Traffic [planetmirror.com]. As I read it I saw the comment below:

    If someone have a copy of the SCO source code maybe make a Torrent file, so we can start analysing if they indeed stole something. A few nuggets will go a long way to quash the FUD from SCO. Anyone know where old SCO bug reports can be gooten?

    Quote:

    6. Possible License Violations Within The Kernel Source

    Elsewhere, Christoph Hellwig replied to the original post as well, saying:

    As somone who walked for SCO (or rather Caldera how it was called at that time) I can tell you this is utter crap. There were very people actually doing Linux kernel work then (and when the German office was closed down all those left the company) and we really had better things to do then trying to retrofit UnixWare code into the linux kenrel. Especially given that the kernel internals are so different that you'd need a big glue layer to actually make it work and you can guess how that would be ripped apart in a usual lkml review :)

    It might be more interesting to look for stolen Linux code in Unixware, I'd suggest with the support for a very well known Linux fileystem in the Linux compat addon product for UnixWare..

    Jim Nance said, "Wouldnt it be halirous if whatever code SCO is talking about when they say there is Unix code in Linux turns out to be code some SCO employee ripped out of some GPL program and stuck it into Unixware. That is actually far more likely than what they alledge."

  • Where's the Dupe? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @06:03PM (#6011638)
    CmdrTaco posting an article first just doesn't feel right...

  • try READING the article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dh003i ( 203189 ) <dh003i@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @06:38PM (#6011873) Homepage Journal
    Because most of the mindless masses can't be bothered to actually RTFA, I'll quote relevant excerpts:
    The 937 boxes of court-ordered documents

    .
    .
    .
    Sun Microsystem...seeking evidence that might help in its own antitrust suit against Microsoft, eventually pulled out 40 boxes of the computer giant's secret internal communications for digital imaging.
    In other words, not all of the legal documents are being destroyed. Most of those 937 pages of documents may just be legal thickness, with little relevant information...obviously, Sun thought so, as they only scanned in 40 of 937 boxes of documents.

    Irrelevant of the fact that SCO and MS are a bunch of lying cheating fucks, it's unreasonable to ask anyone to spend thousands of dollars to continue storing documents that are useless to them.

    You have a problem with these documents being destroyed? Get a court order to stop it, and scan in anything that you think is important. IBM may very well have cause to do so, as may the OSI. Undoubtely, the timing is obviously suspicious, but I doubt there's anything of particular value in the 897 remaining boxes of legal documents. If there is, then those interested in it should pay for the storage of the documents, not a corporation which has absolutely no use for them.

    • > The 937 boxes of court-ordered documents
      > .

      Ok everyone, sing along:

      937 boxes of court-ordered documents on the wall,
      937 boxes of court-ordered documents!

      Take one down, shred it around,

      936 boxes of court-ordered documents on the wall!

      936 boxes of court-ordered documents on the wall,
      936 boxes of court-ordered documents!

      Take one down, ***AGGGMMMPHHPHHH*** [wad of toilet paper shoved in mouth]
    • In other words, not all of the legal documents are being destroyed. Most of those 937 pages of documents may just be legal thickness, with little relevant information...obviously, Sun thought so, as they only scanned in 40 of 937 boxes of documents.

      You expect Sun to fight for free software? Nope, they only care about java and other Sun stuff.

      Irrelevant of the fact that SCO and MS are a bunch of lying cheating fucks, it's unreasonable to ask anyone to spend thousands of dollars to continue storing docu

    • Just auction it off on ebay.

      "937 boxes of documents from the SCO vs. Microsoft case; you must register this with the appropriate judge, and may not destroy it, but you can have your own little piece of Microsoft dirt! This lot contains boxes #237-244. A digitized list of the contents of each box is as follows:..."

  • sco: "hey bill, if ya help us validate our claims against IBM, we'll get rid of all these nasty documents..."
    bill: "I could crush you so fast It wouldn't be funny. Don't mock us."
    sco: "it'll help save your ass against linux in the long run...."
    bill: "where do I sign?"

    My guess is the conversation went something like that. everyone seems to have the sneaking suspicion that microsoft and SCO are in cahoots, but it's all circumstancial evidence.

    I wonder if there's another part of the story that is still hid

  • OSI's rebuttal to SCO's claim (Score:3, Interesting)

    by defile ( 1059 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @07:33PM (#6012245) Homepage Journal

    ...says that there may be some useful information in the sealed documents in the court battle between Caledera/SCO and Microsoft.

    It's interesting that this airs today.

  • Potty Humor.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tsali ( 594389 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @07:41PM (#6012284)
    Most of it is then made into toilet paper ... so does the EULA fit on one-ply or two-ply? Do you have to break the seal by peeling the sheets apart?

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