SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com) [LWN.net]

News.com reports that SCO has sent out a new set of subpoenas. "Those include Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stewart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta." It sure would be fun to be able to watch while SCO's lawyers try to depose RMS...

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SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 12, 2003 21:42 UTC (Wed) by jre (guest, #2807) [Link] (6 responses)

I about fell out of my chair when I read this:

"SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests. "

This is, apparently, quite true. In fact, IBM referred to it as well, in footnote #5 of their Memorandum in Support of its 2nd Motion to Compel. You can find a detailed report here. Why, you may ask, is Blake Stowell so proud of the delivery of a million pages of documents, when IBM seems so upset about it? It's simple, actually, once you understand that IBM, quite reasonably, asked for a copy of the source code SCO claims was purloined, and SCO replied by supplying IBM with ...
a million freaking pages of printout!

SCO's audacity was breathtaking in claiming that this was a responsive answer to IBM's request. It is the equivalent of paying your tax bill in pennies, just as a protest! IBM was just as amused as the IRS would be.

And then ... and then ... Blake Stowell lets on that SCO has been faithfully delivering on its discovery obligations, because it had "provided about a million pages of documents."!!!!

AAARGGH! Heart attack!! This is the big one! I'm coming, Elizabeth!

a million freaking pages of printout!

Posted Nov 12, 2003 22:56 UTC (Wed) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

With luck, IBM will end up releasing a good OCR for GNU/Linux.

OTOH, I hope some `Save the tree' ONG will sue SCO for tree slaughtering.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 13, 2003 2:41 UTC (Thu) by gups (guest, #14053) [Link] (1 responses)

"It is the equivalent of paying your tax bill in pennies, ..."

I assume in that case the total value of those pennies is equal to the amount you're suppose to pay for tax. That, however, doesn't accurately reflect what SCO did. IBM asked for specific files and lines in which the alleged infringements occur. In return, SCO indiscriminately printed a million pages of the Linux kernel code without any kind of specifications whatsoever. Worse yet, SCO said that each of these printed files may or may not contain the alleged infringements.

So, what SCO did was more like paying tax in genuine pennies mixed with replica pennies, and saying it's IRS's job to sort them out.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 13, 2003 2:50 UTC (Thu) by adamruth (guest, #12380) [Link]

More like only replica pennies.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 13, 2003 5:38 UTC (Thu) by aet (guest, #5307) [Link]

Actually that one million pages are not even a printout. They are "scanned images of a paper printout of the source code for a number of its Unix product", according to groklaw.net.

A million pages

Posted Nov 15, 2003 18:32 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

This is nothing new. People have been resisting discovery like this forever. This form of responding to a subpoena was covered in my Evidence I class. The ruling in the case was that you have to provide an index when you provide a truckload of documents. "The information you demanded is in there somewhere" is not sufficient.

A million pages

Posted Nov 18, 2003 20:11 UTC (Tue) by jre (guest, #2807) [Link]

Of course.
I didn't make my point terribly clear, but it is this:
SCO's mischief goes beyond the fairly common act of supplying a gazillion documents, chaff along with wheat, and furnishing the unhappy recipient with the minimum cross-referencing mandated by the court. Rather, SCO is guilty of deliberately converting the information into an awkward medium solely to obscure it.
What is the natural state of code? In electronic form, right? Do software engineers work primarily with paper printouts? No. Did SCO do its famous "spectral analysis" using acres of green-and-white perf sheet? I doubt it.
If you sued me for improperly using words and music from your song, and demanded in discovery that I provide a copy of my version, I could supply you with ten banker's boxes containing a printout of the .wav file in hexadecimal. But I think the court might not look kindly on it.

Sir Richard of GNU.

Posted Nov 12, 2003 21:49 UTC (Wed) by freeio (guest, #9622) [Link] (4 responses)

Getting RMS directly involved in this is not a bright move on SCOX' part. Sir Richard of GNU is bound to be a more formidable opponent than they can possibly imagine, since he is the FSF point man.

I should think that he and Prof. Moglen should be grimly smiling about now. The place is Utah. The time is now. The GPL will now be defended.

Sir Richard of GNU.

Posted Nov 12, 2003 22:05 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (3 responses)

Actually I am guessing that they are going to use it as a point of how kookie these OpenSource people are and how they cant be taken seriously. Their lawyers are probably hoping for a wild-haired, prophet in robes wearing a disk platter on his head. [While RMS has shown up like that.. I have also seen him quite dressed up..] Or they will grill him on his Communistic views and try to paint Free Software as the Red Menace ...

In any case, I am thinking that anything from these depositions will not be used in the cases, but will be in Sun and Microsoft marketing for years to come (with little astericks saying "Actual Court Testimony"

Sir Richard of GNU.

Posted Nov 12, 2003 23:06 UTC (Wed) by del (guest, #380) [Link] (2 responses)

Since IANAL I hope that some lawyer could shed some light on whether SCO
has to provide any justification for whom they issue subpoenas. Dr.
Stallman does not do any kernel development on linux, nor does he work in
the employ of any linux related enterprise or IBM. How can he provide
any relevant information to a contract dispute between SCO and IBM?

I hope that there is a process available to prevent this waste of Dr.
Stallman's valuable time.

Unless SCO files suit against the Free Software Foundation, I personally
do not see any justification for any subpoena issued by SCO for Dr.
Stallman. Can he bill them for wasting his time?

David

Sir Richard of GNU.

Posted Nov 12, 2003 23:56 UTC (Wed) by LogicG8 (guest, #11076) [Link]

They may be using him as an expert witness
with reguards to the GPL license.
I think I remember him being involved with
that some how.

Having paid attention to groklaw and lwn
for a while, I see nothing but ruin for
SCO in the future. I suspect that their
motive for calling Linus and RMS is just
for the publicity.

Sir Richard of GNU.

Posted Nov 13, 2003 14:40 UTC (Thu) by gleef (guest, #1004) [Link]

I too am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that SCO really doesn't need much justification to serve a potential witness with a subpoena. However, the intellegent response to a subpoena is generally:

Say nothing; give them no information right away
Consult a lawyer immediately
The lawyer will review the subpoena and case, and determine if, and how much, of the subpoena is valid and what, if any, information you should supply.

Fortunately, RMS has a friend who is a lawyer (Eben Moglen) who is likely to do this work for him on the cheap (actually, I'm surprised Moglen wasn't subpoenaed himself, he had a big hand in the wording of GPL v2, IIRC).

Basically, my understanding is a litigant can subpoena almost anyone, for almost anything. If the witness replies, the litigant is happy, if not, then the legal battles regarding what evidence and whose depositions are allowed takes place. So it's (almost) legit for a litigant to use subpoenas as a fishing expedition, hoping they get something they otherwise might not be entitled to.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 12, 2003 22:01 UTC (Wed) by StevenCole (guest, #3068) [Link]

It sure would be fun to be able to watch while SCO's lawyers try to depose RMS...

Please state your full name.
Richard Math-YOU! Stallman
I'm sorry, could we have that middle name again?

Maybe he'll wear his power tie.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 12, 2003 22:02 UTC (Wed) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Why John Horsley?

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 12, 2003 22:26 UTC (Wed) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link] (1 responses)

I was amused to read Stowell whining that

"They [IBM] are trying to coerce and intimidate".

Apparently they think that tactic is their IP also. :)

Stealing their valuable IP

Posted Nov 13, 2003 7:39 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Dear sir,

In the future, please precede the acronym IP with "valuable" when you are talking about SCO's. So, it should read:

Apparently they think that tactic is their valuable IP also.

Otherwise, you are patently trying to depreciate SCO's valuable IP and you might be served with a lawsuit. (In certain circumstances, "my preciousss" will also do.)

Respectfully,

Tongue In Cheek.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 12, 2003 22:40 UTC (Wed) by rankincj (guest, #4865) [Link] (1 responses)

Sounds like "Tit for Tat" to me. Not a very imaginative strategy. I wonder what they're hoping to gain? More delay as various people arrange travel plans????

tit for tat

Posted Nov 12, 2003 23:09 UTC (Wed) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link]

yes - tit for that - that's the point. because their subpoenae are vacuous, it infers IBM's are as well.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 12, 2003 23:56 UTC (Wed) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

I see why they would want to question Linus. Maybe he will finally tell them which of SCO's
IP was misappropiated into the kernel by IBM (since IBM refused to tell them right away).
Then they can finally answer IBM's interrogatories.

Time for Linus to act?

Posted Nov 13, 2003 0:18 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (1 responses)

I understand when scum like SCO go after deep pockets of IBM. Dragging Linus into the whole thing is a true low point, even for them. Let's hope Linus brings a copyright infringement suit against SCO soon. They have to be pulled back in line for this shameless act.

Bojan

Time for Linus to act?

Posted Nov 13, 2003 8:46 UTC (Thu) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

Linus most probably will never sue anyone anywhere. He was not born in the US, it's not his way of doing things.

IBM otoh could score some community points here by paying for the attorneys fees for these innocent civilians that SCO is trying to drag into their already nasty fight. After all, they have already gotten help from the community in analyzing SCO PowerPoint slides (and breaking their innovative symbol-font-encryption ;-).

henrik

Bill Gates should be subpoenaed

Posted Nov 13, 2003 0:31 UTC (Thu) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link]

To find out the exact role Microsoft has behind the SCO suit.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 13, 2003 5:46 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] (2 responses)

I cannot wait to see the transcript of what happens when SCO's lawyers
say the words "Linux operating system" to RMS.

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 13, 2003 13:12 UTC (Thu) by ctg (guest, #3459) [Link] (1 responses)

Surely he'll just refuse to answer any questions that include the terms "open source" or "Linux"

SCO, IBM battle heats up (News.com)

Posted Nov 13, 2003 21:49 UTC (Thu) by jre (guest, #2807) [Link]

Every question using the terms "Open Source" or "Linux" incorrectly, or referring in any way to "intellectual property" will simply be answered by a rendition of the free software song.

Hey -- war is ugly.

Join us now...

Posted Nov 14, 2003 12:56 UTC (Fri) by sean.hunter (guest, #7920) [Link]

I can imagine it now...

SCO LAWYER: "So Mr Stallman, I believe you have written a song. I wonder if you could sing it for us."