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Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 06:21 PM EDT

Here is the Declaration of Joan Thomas in Support of IBM's Motion to Strike the Declaration of Christopher Sontag. She is the unfortunate IBM employee who would be in charge of arranging to fulfill SCO's discovery request regarding the CMVC system, should the court make it obligatory to turn over every version of AIX and Dynix since the founding of the world, plus comments, notes, post-its, whatever.

Like Randall Davis, Ms. Thomas also explains to the court that Christopher Sontag gets it all wrong. Davis focused on code. Thomas speaks about the CMVC system and how it works. It doesn't work, she says, the way Sontag says it does. Paragraph 7, for example, indicates that he has confused a diagram of AIX code turned over to SCO by IBM in discovery with how the CMVC system works. She corrects his error. His declaration is full of factual errors, she says, and he obviously hasn't any personal knowledge of the system. It's important to get that on the record, because IBM is moving to strike his declaration on a number of grounds, one being that his declaration is not based on personal knowledge. To put in a declaration, it has to be either that you are an expert qualified to give an opinion, or you can be anyone testifying to what you personally know to be a fact. IBM has challenged him on both scores.

There is an earlier declaration by Joan Thomas, and we have a copy of that as well. It has been scanned and I'll put it up tomorrow.

*************************

SNELL & WILMER L.L.P.
Alan L. Sullivan (3152)
Todd M. Shaughnessy (6651)
Amy F. Sorenson (8947)
[address, phone, fax]

CRAVATH, SWAINE & MOORE LLP
Evan R. Chesler (admitted pro hac vice)
David R. Marriott (7572)
[address, phone, fax]

Attorneys for Defendant/Counterclaim-Plaintiff
International Business Machines Corporation

************************

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH

THE SCO GROUP, INC.

Plaintiff/Counterclaim-Defendant,

v.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION,

Defendant/Counterclaim-Plaintiff
DECLARATION OF JOAN THOMAS IN SUPPORT OF IBM’S MOTION TO STRIKE THE DECLARATION OF CHRISTOPHER SONTAG

Civil No. 2:03CV0294 DAK

Honorable Dale A. Kimball

Magistrate Judge Brooke C. Wells

I, Joan Thomas, declare as follows:

1. I am employed by International Business Machines Corporation ("IBM"), as Program Director, AIX and HPC Program Management and pSeries Software Development Operations.

2. This declaration is submitted in connection with the lawsuit brought by The SCO Group, Inc. ("SCO") against IBM, entitled The SCO Group, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation, Civil No. 2:03CV-0294 DAK (D. Utah 2003). I make this declaration based upon personal knowledge.

3. I am familiar with IBM's CMVC system and with how source code and other materials related to the AIX operating system are stored and organized on CMVC. I have worked with AIX and CMVC for 2 years. Persons working under my direct supervision would be the ones burdened with the task of extracting from CMVC the AIX source code sought by SCO.

4. I have read SCO's Declaration of Christopher Sontag in Support of SCO's Reply Memorandum Regarding Discovery (the "Sontag Declaration").

5. The Sontag Declaration contains numerous factual errors. Since it is clear to me, from reading the Sontag Declaration, that Mr. Sontag does not have any personal knowledge of IBM's CMVC system, or of the time and effort involved in collecting and producing the information sought by SCO, I will not attempt to itemize and correct all of the errors made in the Sontag Declaration. I will, however, address and correct one flawed assumption that underlies Mr. Sontag's proposed method of collecting the SCCS source code files form CMVC.

6. Mr. Sontag incorrectly claims that IBM's CMVC system is organized in a way that allows IBM to utilize a "top-down" approach of collecting source code for the AIX operating system. Paragraphs 15 through 30 of the Sontag Declaration are all based on Mr. Sontag's erroneous assumption that CMVC is organized in a way similar to that depicted by Figure 1 of the Sontag Declaration. In fact, CMVC's directory hierarchy is completely different than that posited by Mr. Sontag, and a "top-down" approach to collecting information from CMVC would actually be more time-consuming than the process I outlined in my earlier declaration, dated June 23, 2004.

7. Figure 1 of the Sontag Declaration depicts the directory hierarchy of the AIX releases that have been produced in discovery by IBM. Figure 1 is not, however, an accurate depiction of any portion of the CMVC directory hierarchy.

8. Contrary to Mr. Sontag's assumption, there is no top-level directory in CMVC that contains the word "AIX", from which we could extract all AIX source, and only AIX source from that directory and its subdirectories. The vast majority of the AIX-related directories and files on CMVC, in fact, do not even contain the word "AIX" in their names.

9. As stated in my June 23, 2004 declaration (at paragraphs 7-9), determining which components in CMVC are part of the AIX operating system is a time-consuming process that requires that engineers intimately knowledgeable about the AIX operating system and about CMVC engage in a time-consuming, multi-step process to extract the source code files that are part of the AIX operating system from the tens of thousands of other source code files that are not part of the operating system. Moreover, because of the way those files are organized in CMVC, the "top-down" approach described by Mr. Sontag in his declaration would be of no use.

10. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed: August 4, 2004

Austin, Texas

___[signature of Joan Thomas]______
Joan Thomas


CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on the [4th] day of August, 2004, a true and correct copy of the foregoing was hand delivered to the following:

Brent O. Hatch
Mark F. James
HATCH, JAMES & DODGE, P.C.
[address]

and was sent by U.S. Mail, postage prepaid, to the following:

Stephen N. Zack
Mark J. Heise
BOIES, SCHILLER & FLEXNER LLP
[address]

Robert Silver
BOIES, SCHILLER & FLEXNER LLP
[address]

_____[signature]______
Amy F. Sorenson


  


Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text | 187 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
errors and correctoins here
Authored by: bliss on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 07:17 PM EDT


'rreading' is customarily speled with an odd number of
the letter 'r'.


---
Information becomes fragmented, knowledge does not. What causes fragmentation in
information is scholasticism - Ramitani

[ Reply to This | # ]

trolling, astroturfing, irrelevancies go here
Authored by: bliss on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 07:19 PM EDT



---
Information becomes fragmented, knowledge does not. What causes fragmentation in
information is scholasticism - Ramitani

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Authored by: ltaber on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 07:25 PM EDT
Item #4 needs a closing )

4. I have read SCO's Declaration of Christopher Sontage in Support of SCO's
Reply Memorandum Regarding Discovery (the "Sontag Declaration".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas
Authored by: Griffin3 on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 07:26 PM EDT
I know these are largely what most of us readers would consider "lawyerly
details", but SCO sure didn't seem to make ANY attempt to provide
credentials for it's people's depositions. Isn't this sort of lack of attention
on the same level as turning in your college term paper written long-hand on
spiral notebook paper with the chads still hanging on the edge?

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT Links and Comments
Authored by: NastyGuns on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 07:42 PM EDT

Please put OT links and comments here.

---
NastyGuns,
"If I'm not here, I've gone out to find myself. If I return before I get back, please keep me here." Unknown.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sontags credentials
Authored by: QTlurker on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 07:44 PM EDT
1) He his highly paid -- $500,000 + per yahoo
2) He has read the CMVC system public web pages. (google "IBM CMVC")

What more do you want?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Authored by: blacklight on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 08:20 PM EDT
"His [Chris Sontag] declaration is full of factual errors, she [Joan
Thomas] says, and he obviously hasn't any personal knowledge of the
system"

One could probably deduce that the Sontag has no knowledge of the system if one
accepts that his declaration is full of factual errors - There is an inexorable
logic to that.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Authored by: Philip Stephens on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 08:35 PM EDT
If CMVC is based upon SCCS, then I'm not really surprised that it may be
difficult to determine which files are part (or were part) of AIX and Dynix. I
remember using SCCS in a previous job, and it had no built-in facilities for
identifying which files were part of a given project, and what versions of those
files were part of a given release. Instead, the company I was working for had
to develop scripts on top of SCCS for managing all of those details. If I had
wanted to identify files that had been part of a project but no longer were, or
identify versions of files that led up to a given release, it would have been
very time consuming, because none of the scripts that had been developed could
automate that task. I would imagine CMVC was similiarly designed to sit on top
of SCCS and provide only a limited set of mechanisms for managing projects and
releases.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I still don't get it....
Authored by: kberrien on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 08:53 PM EDT
Ok, I am an IT professional, but not in anyway a developer, I just admin the
stuff. With that said.

I can understand it to be very difficult to exhume possible additions, or
inter-generational code for each version of AIX/Dynix. I would call this
"working code" which may never been saved perhaps...

But I would think that the source used for a final build would be set aside
someplace, seperate. Say I release AIX 9.0. Then I update it to 9.2 and
release it. I certainly would want the EXACT code for 9.0 to modify, then
rebuild 9.2, right? I wouldn't say, dig into a code management system for all
the code for 9.0, then make changes, then build 9.2, add the updated source to
the code mngt system and file it in a way I COULDN'T collect it easily to build
9.3 or 9.4???? That doesn't make sense.

What would the point of such a system be then anyways? Maybe if it were
organized by code function maybe, say memory routines, file systems, etc. But
if you ever had to recompile a new build, what? you have to search high &
low to get "back" to the earlier version with which to modify?

Am I right, besides that SCO actually doesn't need AIX code to prove anything (I
& IBM don't buy the derivative argument) is IBM arguing the difficulty of
gathering ALL further AIX code, or all inter-release/development versions? And
certainly the inter-release code would have to be scrutanized if it were
actually AIX, and applicable to the discovery criteria.

[ Reply to This | # ]

IBM speaks half-truth, and that's disappointing
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 09:07 PM EDT
IBM's claims that they can't easily isolate AIX files by directly querying CMVC are disappointing. One of the main goals of CMVC is to be able to reproduce historical product builds, by recreating the exact set of input files used to build the historical products. This obviously includes source code.

The Thomas declaration says it would be difficult to determine which files belong to AIX by querying CMVC. Given that IBM's total build system can reproduce historical builds, there must be another layer, not technically part of CMVC, which knows which files belong to a given AIX release. At best, Thomas is telling the literal truth about CMVC, but failing to discuss how the prospective problem might actually be solved by engineers.

It seems likely that inter-release revisions & logs could also be extracted from CMVC, once the source file names in each re-buildable release are determined. This wouldn't be 100% exhaustive (for example, if a file was renamed several times between releases), but the vast majority of what SCO demands could probably be produced in a releatively short time.

Even though SCO's discovery demands are unwarranted, it is disapointing to see IBM play SCO's game of telling selective truth. It can only prejudice the public (and the court) against IBM.

Honesty is always the best policy.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forest lost amongst trees
Authored by: QTlurker on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 09:34 PM EDT
Summary -- some commenters seem to be unaware that IBM has already produced all
the source code they were required.

1. IIRC IBM has already produced every release of AIX/Dynix.
2. IIRC this is all Judge Wells required of them.
3. Now SCO apparently wants every iteration of every AIX file, whether part of
a release or not, changelogs, etc.

IBM claims that #1 is more than adequate, and #3 is unnecessary.
IBM also claims that CMVC is not geared for a request like #3.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 10:33 PM EDT
I am sure I must be wrong but SCO-X is claiming they wanted IBM to get the AIX
code now.
I read the earlier statment they needed "high level" access to CMVC,
in other words they needed the right to "deep dive" and fish around in
stuff not remotely connected to AIX.
<tinfoil hat>
I wonder if giving SCO-X those rights would have aided the release of Longhorn?
</tinfoil hat>

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Authored by: oldgreybeard on Saturday, August 28 2004 @ 10:52 PM EDT
Well I see that the PHBs and various numbdroids are in play.

All Ms Thomas had to say was that the system does not work as Mr. Sontag so
described. That basiclly rebutts _everything_ Sontag said dealing with a system
he has no experience with.

One does not have to use a single source to rebutt what Sontag said. Just one
quailified one that says he hasn't a clue will do.

Now a lot of you fine folk are trying to draw upon your knowledge about system
_a_ to state what system _b_ does. It doesn't work that way.

I've used several source control systems and there were tons of information that
they never saw.

I could regen a complete functional system valid for production for each and
every day that the system ran provided I fed the system log to a program that
pulled the timestamps for the execution of each module (such a program never
existed).

But that isn't the same as pulling each version of each file that ever existed.

Different universes, different systems.

[ Reply to This | # ]

What if IBM gave SCO all the code?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 01:24 AM EDT
Let's just play a little "What if".

What if IBM spent the effort - pulled engineers and programmers off their jobs and gave SCO what they asked for?

It would be a huge victory for SCO!

When you can make your enemy waste time doing useless tasks, depleting his resources, making him angry, sullen, upset, complaining "When is this lawsuit going to go away?"...you are doing damage.

Now if IBM did cave in and gave SCO it's billions and billions lines of code (sorry Mr. Sagan), what's the top then things SCO will do next? (sorry Mr. Letterman).

10. IBM is holding something back.

9. Now we really need more time to digest this information and if IBM thought it was important enough to provide it, we do not want to insult this court's and the defendant's/counter-claim plaintiff's efforts by not doing a thorough and careful analysis of every period, semi-colon and ampersand in this material. BTW, this simple request will require an overlength memo.

8. IBM did not provide the material in a format that we need to analyze it - we require either a z9000 mainframe or a Xeon W2K3 server running the CMVC software.

7. Now that we have the code, we need to depose all of the programmers to insure that they actually put the code into the system in the first place.

6. We didn't find anything, but this case was never about the code, it's about the contract.

5. We now require that IBM do extensive prior art research on all of its patents and pay to have them invalidated so that we can defend ourselves from their counter-claims.

4. While you are getting that code, could you pick up a gallon of milk, some potato chips and some salami?

3. We don't have a warehouse big enough to store the material you sent us - please use a smaller font (like .0001 pointsize).

2. Your honor, the material that IBM provided contains the equivalent of the Library of Congress, Google's cache and WayBack machine archives - IOW - a million monkeys typing randomly for a million years. We submit that it is statistically impossible for there NOT to be at least one like of infringing code and it is IBM's burden of proof to say otherwise.

...and the number one thing that SCO will do once they get this code????

1. What's that URL for Comparator again?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Quite a few astroturfers in this topic.
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 05:01 AM EDT
You can spot them but the general form of their posts - they go something like
this:

"I know SCO doesn't have a strong case, but IBM should show their
code".

Please note astroturfers:

(1) IBM has already provided discovery to SCO of all code that IBM were required
to, and

(2) To make a case SCO must uncover code in Linux that is substantially similar
to SysV code, AIX code is irrelevant.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaration of Joan Thomas -- PDF and as text
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 06:52 AM EDT
I'm also somewhat skeptical on this point. I don't have any detailed knowledge
of the system IBM uses or even of SCCS.

A lot would depend on the layout and nature of the repository, but the fact is
that engineers and programmers must be able to access the full history of
changes for each file that is managed.

Compiling this information could be tough though. First you'd have identify the
files that you wanted to include. This would be very very difficult as I
understand it. The problems are generally with files that are created and/or
removed.

It is not uncommon for entire folders to be retired as their functionality is
reimplemented elsewhere.

Potentially there could be thousands and thousands of extra files that only
existed in between versions or in obscure branches. Features that were developed
as proof of concept, or were redesigned out of existence, discarded as of no
real benefit etc etc etc.

Then for each file you'd have to track each branch and each version and generate
them with all the requisite comments.

That tools for doing at least the latter parts of this process don't already
exist is highly suspect to my mind. I doubt the process is efficient, or
entirely automated but with per file versioning it should be possible to do.
Assuming you could identify all the files in question.

I believe that is what IBM is asserting. That they can't easily identify all the
relevant files.

SCO should have been more specific. They would have to be desperate to require
all AIX code, instead of just that relating to features or possibly authors
which they believe to relevant. (Putting aside their disputed interpretation of
the contract.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

IBM CMVC information
Authored by: heretic on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 09:20 AM EDT

IBM has a wonderful repository of something they call Redbooks, (Redbooks Home Page), which contain a lot of informal information about IBM products. These redbooks are often written by IBM technical experts and IBM customer technical experts. Some of the books are product architecture oriented (very technical) and some are more of the how-to-do type level (reasonably easy to understand).

The redbooks are available for download (as PDF files), or for online viewing (HTML files). You can also buy the redbooks on CD set, like for example all redbooks related to such-and-such a product.

Among all these redbooks are a couple that deals with IBM CMVC. Specifically there is one Redbook that might be of interest in regards to the discussion taking place here; the Looking at CMVC from the Customer Perspective. Allthough dated, (it was written in 1995, and the data is from 1994), it tells about the history, development, architecture, rationale for and usage of CMVC. Already at that time the main CMVC repository was huge, and I cannot imagine it is any smaller now (See Chapter 5. Use of CMVC on Very Large-Scale Basis).

heretic

[ Reply to This | # ]

JOB ONE
Authored by: BrentRBrian on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 10:11 AM EDT
SONTAG SUGGESTED A METHOD FOR USING IBM SOURCE CONTROL for producing old version
of AIX.

NOBODY has suggested that IBM's source control system is not capable of
performing the task, they suggest that SONTAG'S METHOD (AND THEREFORE HIS
TESTIMONY) IS NOT VALID.

The objective is to invalidate testimony, not to correct it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

version control
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 11:25 AM EDT
Assuming that AIX branches like *BSD and their versioning system is something like CVS, they might have the same setup and limitations.

As the OS is developed, it has various branch points (1.x, 2.x, etc). It may also have errata releases and what-not (1.1, 1.2, etc). Those typically get "tagged" so that they can be retrieved later on. The "tags" are easy to recover, and probably correspond to what IBM has already released.

When retrieving the source out of CVS, you tend to get the exact tag you asked for or the most recent version of the files in that branch. My impression of what SCO wants is every single iteration of every single file.

IMHO, the only way to make sense of that source tree is in a CVS environment. What SCO probably wants is to latch onto certain key IBM files and, using every possible iteration of the source code, prove that files that end up looking quite different are similar via the phone-chain logic (where each step only changes a small portion and is thus similar, although by the end everything may be totally different from the original).

[ Reply to This | # ]

One wonders...
Authored by: GLJason on Sunday, August 29 2004 @ 02:59 PM EDT
One must wonder how IBM was able to produce "about 232" versions for SCO
already. They must have had an army searching through all the files in version
control to find the ones that are AIX. Gee, couldn't they take those files that
they've already identified and give the history for those? I highly doubt IBM's
version control is too much of a chaotic mess to do that.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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