IBM won a tactical victory Friday in a legal battle with SCO Group when a judge ordered SCO to show within 30 days the Linux software to which it believes it has rights and to point out where it believes IBM is infringing.
But SCO also said it will open a new copyright infringement claim in its legal attack. In a hearing in Salt Lake City, Federal Judge Dale A. Kimball required SCO to produce two key batches of information IBM had sought in the case. In one batch, called Interrogatory No. 12, IBM sought "all source code and other material in Linux...to which plaintiff (SCO) has rights; and the nature of plaintiff's rights." In the second, Interrogatory No. 13, Big Blue sought a detailed description of how SCO believes IBM has infringed SCO's rights and whether SCO ever distributed the source code described in Interrogatory No. 12. The information IBM sought is at the heart of the case, a bold lawsuit SCO began in March that alleges IBM moved technology from Unix to Linux against the terms of its contract with SCO, violating trade secrets in the process.
SCO is seeking $3 billion from Big Blue, and is also trying to compel Linux-using corporations to license SCO's Unix. The judge's decision is one of the first moves in a case that will affect not just IBM but also other computing giants including Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, SAP and Dell that have embraced Linux. IBM in August countersued with four patent violation claims and a defense that charges SCO with violating the terms of the General Public License (GPL) that governs Linux. In the spring, when SCO first said Unix code had been copied into Linux, Chief Executive Darl McBride told CNET News.com, "We will be happy to show the evidence we have at the appropriate time in a court setting," but thus far the company hasn't done so.
News source: C|Net News.com
But SCO also said it will open a new copyright infringement claim in its legal attack. In a hearing in Salt Lake City, Federal Judge Dale A. Kimball required SCO to produce two key batches of information IBM had sought in the case. In one batch, called Interrogatory No. 12, IBM sought "all source code and other material in Linux...to which plaintiff (SCO) has rights; and the nature of plaintiff's rights." In the second, Interrogatory No. 13, Big Blue sought a detailed description of how SCO believes IBM has infringed SCO's rights and whether SCO ever distributed the source code described in Interrogatory No. 12. The information IBM sought is at the heart of the case, a bold lawsuit SCO began in March that alleges IBM moved technology from Unix to Linux against the terms of its contract with SCO, violating trade secrets in the process.
SCO is seeking $3 billion from Big Blue, and is also trying to compel Linux-using corporations to license SCO's Unix. The judge's decision is one of the first moves in a case that will affect not just IBM but also other computing giants including Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, SAP and Dell that have embraced Linux. IBM in August countersued with four patent violation claims and a defense that charges SCO with violating the terms of the General Public License (GPL) that governs Linux. In the spring, when SCO first said Unix code had been copied into Linux, Chief Executive Darl McBride told CNET News.com, "We will be happy to show the evidence we have at the appropriate time in a court setting," but thus far the company hasn't done so.
News source: C|Net News.com
What's New in This Release:
· + Import of Outlook Express address items (Windows Address Book)
· + IMAP Fine-Tune option to disable message flag refreshing each time a folder selected (to save time and bandwidth in case of single client and single user access)
· - 0001618 A dot character was added to the outgoing attached files without extension
· - 0001821 HTML-to-Plain routine was converting the title tagged text as a part of plain text content
· - A dot was always added to the name of an attached file without an extension
· - An extra attachment was created due to move attachments between folders when attachments were stored separately
· - Deletion settings were not used for purging from the Folder Maintenance Centre
· - IMAP messages were not refreshed when their flags were changed by a concurrent user
· - It was not possible to define a folder for alternative deletion if ordinary deletion was not using any non-Trash folder
· - PGP v7+ key server search loop (Beta)
· - Recipient addresses weren't imported from Outlook 2000.
· - Selected IMAP folder was not refreshed on new messages arrival
· - A lot of cosmetic bugs
There were initially some doubts, and people began to wonder is SCO really did have some evidence to support its outrageous claims, but thankfully they have done so much so badly over the past few weeks, and Groklaw have discovered HUGE great flaws in SCO's argument. SCO will get thrashed - it should be entertaining to show an example of what happens when you try and take on IBM in court.
Hell I think even Microsoft would think twice about taking on IBM.
its the microsoft sheeps, shallow argument that some how this whould discredit them!
if you have nothing more, good day
Gee maybe it could have something to do with Microsoft investing tons of cash into SCO only a few short months before this whole fiasco began. Maybe that looks odd on the surface, and even more so after you dig into it.
Why would SCO do this?, Microsoft we know they would do this if they could with seeing how threaten they are by Linux, Microsoft knows they can't attack Linux directly like SCO does as that could pretty much destroy Microsoft as a company, Microsoft have got to make it seem that they have no link to it at all, thats where SCO comes in to it, but boy if a link with Microsoft and SCO is discovered, Microsoft will be in deep s*it.
Lets see in the near future if theres more companies doing the same thing like SCO is doing and Microsoft put a lot of cash into that company, do that one time too many and they'll likely get found out, so I hope Microsoft keeps doing what they are doing to Linux, Microsoft will gain in the short term but will lose in the long term as less and less people wont trust and believe in Microsoft.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend", I guess. However, the facts may never be fully known, and people will have their opinions.
Whats funny is all this is actually helping Linux out by advertising it.
To say the least the two companies have had a longstanding business relationship. Now with the $50 Million "undisclosed technology" license Microsoft made with SCO, you can start to see the conspiracy theories circulate...
If it all were true it would be at least the second time Microsoft has done battle with IBM over operating system technology.
And, please, let's not bring this to personal attacks. Phil merely stated his opinion and suspicions. There was no need for the comments that followed....
The law would annhilate them if it was unearthed that they were involved.
from newsforge.
Linus is really pi**ed out of this world!
I can only hope that SCO fails to satisfy the court it's claim against IBM and that IBM
countersues SCO.
Maybe because it has been a circus...
Darl McBride: "IBM used our source code! SUE! SUE!"
IBM: "No, we didn't..."
Darl McBride: "Yes you did and we have proof!"
IBM: "So where is it? Show us!"
Darl McBride: "We don't have to show you anything! You violated the contract and you know it!"
Judge: "Fork over the evidence."
Darl McBride: "Well, um uh... er... we will when the time is appropriate in a court room setting..."
Judge: "That's now. Where is it?"
Darl McBride: (to self): "Crap... um... (to SCO employees) go find something suspicious! Quick!"
I can't wait to see what they come up with. Wasn't a bit of the code already released to which Linus Torvolds already said was a common piece of code that was found everywhere from Linux Basics books to beginners code snippets?
Darl reminds me of the Grinch. Perhaps one day he'll wake up and realize that GPL and free Linux are helping propel technology in new directions and making more possible than ever before.
"...and his heart grew 2 sizes too big..."
Not likely, but I'll keep an eye on this one for sure. Go IBM!
Not Likely. There's TOO much "muscle" against SCO. IBM, HP, Dell, and many, MANY others can and WILL take steps to ensure that by the time it's all over, SCO will be lucky if they are even remembered two years from now...
...It's also called "Sleeping with the fishies".
The only real way I see is for someone to build a capable, stable OS at a reasonable price.
However, you can look at BSD, and see that something more is still required... Perhaps good PR? Some nice ads on the tv?
Linux will win because Linux will bombard us left right and centre by big companies, governments and god knows what, it's getting a lot of big backing and thats only going to continue.
The ads for Linux in the future could very well go like the Intel ones go, where they are advertised on pretty much all computer ads.
This is like Cisco refusing to release the changes they made to their router software that was openly based on GPL'd software - and crying foul because the FSF is suing them - they save hundreds of thousands of dollars by using GPL'd code, and then refuse to honor the GPL stating it would kill their business. At the heart of the whole SCO issue isn't Microsoft trying to kill Linux, it's SCO trying to kill the GPL. McBride has already argued that the GPL isn't "constitutional" because it isn't commercially viable (since when is copyright designed to protect commercial viability - furthermore if I choose to share my copyrighted material with a million people - as long as I clearly maintain strict usage guidelines, doesn't mean that megabucks corp can use my copyrighted material and profit from it, just because I wasn't profitting)
Since I'm an avid Windows user, and supporter of Microsoft, I wasn sure and wanted to tell my friends about this article.
Saying something about a penguin and linus to a windows hardcore web design team might not make since.
John
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