SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery (Groklaw) [LWN.net]

Groklaw covers some of SCO's moves in its case against IBM. SCO presented a Motion to Compel Discovery and Memorandum in Support of its Motion to Compel. " SCO says it needs all versions back to 1985 "in order to analyze the ways in which AIX has changed and the ways in which its structures, methods and information based on UNIX have evolved. The evidence adduced from this discovery is likely to identify evidence of infringement and/or contract violations by IBM by improper contributions of such items to Linux.""

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SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 12, 2004 22:55 UTC (Mon) by lenster (guest, #13833) [Link]

Please note that this motion to compel discovery is from November, before IBM won its own motion to compel discovery. GRoklaw is publishing documents related to the case so that Groklaw can be a complete source of information regarding this case.

That said, it's interesting to see how SCO spends a lot of time trying to get IBM on a technicality. IANAL, but that doesn't seem to be saying much about the strength of their argument if they are trying to get IBM on a technicality.

SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 12, 2004 23:08 UTC (Mon) by rjamestaylor (guest, #339) [Link]

Not only did they spend time on a technicality but it was done in vigorous defense against IBM's 2nd motion to compell. After the judge granted IBM's motion SCO spun it as IBM winning the "coin toss" and intimating that it was really insignificant; the fact that SCO hammered IBM so hard on a tiny technicality betrays their desparation.

IBM 1 - SCO 0

Not today!

Posted Jan 12, 2004 23:12 UTC (Mon) by vblum (subscriber, #1151) [Link]

Hold it. hold it. AFAIK, both groklaw postings are part of an ongoing series of plain-text publications (i.e. now searchable) of any previously submitted court documents of both sides. Thus, both motions are really dated Nov. 4, and by no means new. Both motions are still relevant, though, since they were stayed in the December hearing and will only be addressed in the Jan 23 hearing (on the condition that SCO has completed their part of discovery).

There is, however, an interesting bit of SCO news of today that lwn has not reported - eweek carries an article on Novell to offer indemnfication for their Linux customers (allegedly to be announced tomorrow).

SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 0:03 UTC (Tue) by jre (guest, #2807) [Link]

lenster and vblum are correct -- the SCO motion and memorandum are both dated Nov. 4th. As noted, the documents were converted to text as part of the Groklaw army's campaign to make all SCO legal material searchable. To follow the events in sequence, go to the previous Groklaw story and read how IBM dealt with SCO's pettifoggery.

I'll be interested to read the story noted by vblum. Indemnification seems generally to be a Bad Idea, since it supplies SCO with a target of opportunity. But Novell should be on to SCO's MO if anyone is. It will be fun to see how this plays out.

SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 0:15 UTC (Tue) by vblum (subscriber, #1151) [Link]

Here is the link:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1434396,00.asp

Let's see if it comes true ...

(Incidentally, indemnification might be a good idea in this case since Novell is acquiring SUSE, and SCO probably has pretty stringent contracts with SUSE on UnitedLinux. So any Novell customer sued by SCO would be passed through to Novell would be passed on to SUSE would be passed on to ... he he he SCO :-) har har. The real risk is that someone else than SCO might sue for very different reasons at some point, and possibly on better grounds than SCO, say patents. So, Novell better word their offer carefully.)