SCO has been seeking more time for its Unix intellectual property case against IBM, while IBM strives to end the case quickly. The SCO Group Inc. and IBM are locked in a blizzard of claim and counterclaim paperwork in the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. Matters reached a climax Wednesday as the court heard arguments on four motions.
IBM Pushes for End to SCO’s Case
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Why would you file suit against someone and not even have your evidence together? Sounds like they’re scrambling.
SCO is asking for IBM’s source code for its AIX and Dynix (Unix or Unix-like) OSs, because they say they’ll be able to trace how that code (which they contend was taken from AT&T Unix) evolved to become code that IBM eventually contributed to Linux.
IBM says, on the other hand, that if a comparison of SCO’s Unix with the publicly available Linux code doesn’t show any infringing similarity, then regardless whether IBM used any AT&T code in AIX or Dynix, it’s evolved so far from the original that by now it no longer infringes any AT&T/SCO copyright.
So SCO says they need to look at AIX/Dynix to help prove infringement, and IBM says all SCO has to do is compare their own code with Linux.
If SCO wins, IBM must turn over AIX/Dynix code and SCO must have a reasonable time to look at it before IBM’s motion to get rid of SCO’s copyright claims can be ruled on by the judge.
If IBM wins, SCO will get little if any more time (since SCO could have been looking at Linux for a long time, and in fact SCO has said they were) before the court rules on IBM’s motion to get rid of the copyright claims.
wrong,
IBM has already turned over code. SCO is asking for everything sense the dawn of time incldung notes.
-Nex6
here:
http://www.groklaw.net/
-Nex6
IBM already gave The SCO Group all released versions of AIX and Dynix. The SCO Group is asking for ALL records from the configuration management systems. This size would be absurdly large, a burden on IBM, and SCO would ask for more delay. And nothing that they could find would matter under the law.
Copyright is about distribution. The only code that matters is what shipped. IBM owns what it wrote. SCO owns what it wrote (or bought, and that’s also in dispute). Distribution of SCO code modified by IBM requires permission of both. Code that doesn’t contain any of SCO’s code is none of SCO’s business, no matter how often that they claim to own other people’s work.
SCO has not found any protected SCO code in Linux. No one has stolen any SCO code. Frankly, no one wants SCO’s code. That’s why Project Monterey folded.
SCO is asking for IBM’s source code for its AIX and Dynix (Unix or Unix-like) OSs, because they say they’ll be able to trace how that code (which they contend was taken from AT&T Unix) evolved to become code that IBM eventually contributed to Linux.
But SCO said last year that they could prove Linux contained their IP. Now they are saying they need time, and need to see what IBM has, in order to discover if the code is there.
I think this is about over.
I think this is about over.
Yes, logic was already abandoned a long time ago. But the lawsuit will go on.
I don’t want to imagine how it is like to fight a prior arts case against a patent if you have evidence that your program was first.
Has the US courts gone too insane that they can’t see that SCO is trying to pull a fast one? Or has the judge got something under the table from SCO to let this idiotic argument and this imbecile case drag so long? I think US has lost all sense of reasoning and the entire thought process is screwed.Welcome to U S A. …. the land where law and courts are a mockery and the govt and the judges are ruled by the powerful corporations.
Nothing new here. Dickens’ novel “Bleak House” (1853) centres on a court case that has been running for decades.
It’s all work for the lawyers.
Yep, never said IBM hadn’t already turned over bushels of stuff. SCO says they need more. Also, yes, SCO execs (though not their lawyers) have been proclaiming long and loud they already have mountains of evidence more than sufficient to prove infringement, and that certainly does seem a mite inconsistent with what their lawyers are asking for now.
But these types of arguments are fairly typical and ordinary. The more interesting legal issue to me, and therefore the one I posted about, is the ‘derivative works’ one, where SCO is saying essentially if you can trace it back to AT&T it infringes, and IBM is saying that if it’s so far removed from any AT&T code you can’t tell just by looking at the ultimate result (the Linux code) that it’s copied, then it’s not infringing.
SCO doesn’t have a case. Its already more than obvious they don’t. Just sit back, enjoy your cola, and wait till its over. In the meanwhile, ignore anything SCO says. They’ve lost any credibility they had regarding this case with their schizophrenic behaviour. IMO discussing it is just a distraction from more serious work to be done.
Ah, IBM would be considered the powerful corporation here, not SCO. So no, the courts have not gone mad.
I’m hoping they take their own sweet time, and do it right. I would hate for a repeat of the justice departments ‘victory’, overturned on appeals because the judge in that case was too hasty and emotional.
Have some patience, it’ll work out. IBM will win, and SCO will be left with nothing. No case, no customers, no remaining cash. Nothing.
sco does not have anything, if they did they would have presented it by now, i believe sco are just lackeys for msft paid to harass IBM and others that implement Linux…
it is possible that someone could write the exact same code but not have looked at the original code. you could say in any of these sort of cases that you didnt copy the code but you wrote the same code so your program would do the same thing. like some lines of wine would be the same as windows because you are trying to clone it. so ibm have a easy defence to any sco claim.