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The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 02:19 AM EDT

Maureen O'Gara on October 4 "reported" that IBM was "smacked up side the head by the District Court for Eastern Michigan for 'gross negligence' in the way it repeatedly swore - under oath - that source code sought as part of court-ordered discovery by Compuware, which is suing IBM for software piracy - flat out didn't exist - only to be found - IBM lawyers said - 'in a closet' in Australia after discovery had closed and the case was about to be heard."

Then yesterday, she added this:

"Makes one wonders whether IBM looked in that closet in Australia where it said a few weeks ago it just happened to stumble over the source code - the source code it swore - literally swore in court for two years - didn't exist - the code that it was supposed to produce during the court-ordered discovery phase of the suit that Compuware brought against IBM for, well, for stealing its source code.

"IBM only managed to find the code after discovery had closed and the trial was about to start, a situation that it got its ears boxed for by the District Court for Eastern Michigan, which called its behavior 'gross negligence.'"

Makes one wonders, indeed. Well, as usual with Ms. O'Gara, it pays to be from Missouri. I have found the court documents, and as you will see, she doesn't tell the story quite the way it happened.

First, the court directly told IBM's attorney that it knew he would not lie to the court, so Ms. O'Gara's implication that the court did not believe IBM's account of what happened is not true. The court did criticize an IBM employee, who it said should have looked harder for the code. It said this employee was negligent, not IBM and not IBM's lawyers. The judge in no way indicated that IBM's lawyers were playing games. On the contrary. And he refused to order the sanctions that Compuware had asked for, saying they were too severe under the circumstances.

The circumstances are this: some early work on the code was done on a mainframe in Sydney, Australia. Later, everything was moved to a system in Perth, which is about as far away from Sydney as New York is from San Francisco. No one involved took any steps to preserve that early code, because it wasn't needed any more. Then the mainframe in Sydney was taken down and not used any more. The developers in Perth, once the lawsuit was filed, didn't think they had that pre-release early code. As a matter of fact, they didn't have it. As it turned out, someone in Sydney had put a backup on a tape with a lot of other things on it as well and stuck it in a closet there. Not knowing about the code backup, the Perth employee testified that they had no code to produce.

IBM found the backup code eventually, restored the tape, and voluntarily brought it forward in July. By the way, IBM says that the code proves Compuware has no case, so they logically might have wished to bring it forth sooner. Compuware asked the court to punish IBM by not allowing it to be used at trial, among other things, which is what I would expect a lawyer to ask for if code turns up that ruins his case. The judge said no, that IBM didn't deserve such severe sanctions. Sound like an ear boxing to you?

How do I know all this? Because I learned how to read. Instead of writing about cases off the top of my head or just parroting what some party to a case might say, I go and look. Now, I don't expect you to take what I say as necessarily being true either. Court documents are available to the public. We only need to go find them. So, since you are adults and can read and make up your own minds, here are the raw materials:

Here, for the lazy, is what the judge actually said in the hearing to IBM's attorney, Mr. Rafferty:

Judge: The costs for those re-depositions and for the expert to re-analyze that code is going to be born by IBM. I'm not willing -- Mr. Rafferty, I believe -- I have no reason to believe that you would lie to this Court.

I do think though, Mr. Turner clearly dropped the ball. I do think it's negligence, gross negligence probably. I think the sanction is pretty severe since -- would be rather severe that's being asked for though, under the circumstances if there's other remedies that I can fashion in this case for them to be able to prepare and that's what I'm doing in this case.

Let me tell you though, IBM better do -- if there's any other materials out there, I'm not going to be in this type of mood next time. Because there's no reason at this late of a date for Mr. Turner not to have found that material. And for him to say that it didn't exist, I find that somewhat outrageous. I'm bothered by that, very bothered by that.

IBM is going to pay the cost for this motion. They're going to pay the cost for the re-depositions of those experts and for the cost of the analysis on it. All right?

That's on page 19 of the transcript. I encourage you to read the entire transcript though, and then ask yourself: when you back up data on your computer, putting on CDs or floppies whatever you don't use any more and then removing it from the computer and putting it away on a regular basis in a drawer somewhere, do you find it easy to retrieve a particular file a couple of years later? That's just you, one person, in one location, with one computer. The judge, in my opinion, underestimated how hard it is to keep track of anything once it is no longer on the computer in a company as large as IBM.

You might also enjoy to read the judge's first words to the Compuware attorney, Daniel Johnson, because he doesn't sound so enamored of them either:

"Is every motion I get from you guys labeled emergency?"

And here is what the judge did *not* order, despite Compuware's pleas:

2. Plaintiff [Compuware]'s Motion for default judgment relating to Compuware's First Claim for Relief for Copyright Infringement and Second Claim for Relief for Trade Secret Misappropriation is DENIED.

3. Plaintiff's Motion for preclusion of File Manager pre-Version 1 code or any evidence of the contents of the development thereof is DENIED. Plaintiff's request for a jury instruction relating to the absence of File Manager pre-Version 1 code is DENIED.

4. Plaintiff's Motion for an order enjoining the sale, licensing, marketing, installation or other distribution of IBM's File Manager is DENIED.

This all happened in September, by the way. And now Compuware is complaining that the judge didn't sanction IBM. So which is it? They got smacked upside the head or they got off light? Here's what Compuware says in its motion, which will be heard, I believe, in November:

"Merely awarding the minimal costs (such as court reporter and copy charges) caused by IBM's discovery abuse, while forcing Compuware to pay the other expenses of the additional expert analysis and fact and expert discovery, would only compound the serious prejudice to Compuware and reward IBM for its discovery abuses. . . . and the Order should be modified to require IBM to pay all of Compuware's expenses caused by IBM's misconduct, including attorneys' and expert fees related to the motion, and attorneys' and expert fees for the additional fact discovery, expert discovery and expert analysis made necessary by IBM's failure obey the Court's orders.

I think I may safely say that having to pay for the court reporter is not exactly being smacked upside the head. Why is Compuware putting out press releases about it almost a month later? You tell me. Ms. O'Gara says it is warming the cockles of SCO's heart, or some such, but I believe I may safely say that can't be correct, since I've seen no evidence that SCO has a heart. Anyway, now you know the rest of the story.

Now, why would Ms. O'Gara keep writing about this case in connection with SCO? Perhaps it gives us a hint that we should look a bit closer for some connection? Why, knock me over with a feather. The lawyers for Compuware include two familiar figures. One is Daniel Johnson, who appears in the transcript, and who worked with David Boies on the Napster case. Another, listed on the court documents, is Stuart Meyer, and they are both with Fenwick and West. My, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? It should. He's been interviewed often enough about the SCO case, including this one entitled "SCO and Linux: The Legal Rights and Wrongs", without happening to mention that he is also representing a client suing IBM for copyright infringement. He also worked on the Napster case. Small world.

So, just at the very point in time that SCO is trying to persuade the judge and the world that IBM is trying to hide something in discovery, up pops this Compuware story, spin and all, all about IBM allegedly being grossly negligent and playing games in discovery.

What a coincidence.

Except that isn't what happened at all, not by my reading of the transcript. I encourage you to read it for yourselves, and the next time an impartial expert shows up with an opinion on the SCO case, ask yourself if there might be an angle. Do some research. Then make up your mind.

Here are some more links on Fenwick and West and another example of Mr. Meyer on SCO:

Assuming that SCO's claims have merit, where does the liability lie? Is it with the companies that distribute Linux software, the hardware makers like HP and IBM that sell Linux with their gear, or is it with customers who run Linux?

"Potentially, it could lie with a number of different parties. Under intellectual property laws, you can be liable if you are either a direct infringer or if you either induce someone else to infringe or do something that contributes to infringement by someone else. The answer could be 'all of the above,' theoretically.

Would companies have to have known that they were infringing to be liable?

"Not necessarily. There is also a knot in some areas of intellectual property that you can be infringing and have 'innocence of heart.' In patent law, for example, you cannot even know that a patent exists--and just by coincidence come up with a similar invention and be held liable for infringement. In copyright law, you have to actually copy the work, but it could be (akin to) copying a song you had heard before. George Harrison found that out the hard way.

Most people in the open-source community downplay the SCO suit as frivolous. Do you take it seriously?

"It's important to take any allegations of intellectual property infringement or misappropriation seriously. What that means is that you can't just rely on some offhand comment about it not being serious and move on. You really do have to have somebody look into it and decide for your own company what the ramifications are." "Many times, I run into people who say I can't believe someone has a patent on this or that. A couple of years later, they wind up in court. Don't read an article and decide based on that that something's not worth your time. It's very dangerous to declare something frivolous, because strange things happen in court. You have to be prepared for those."

Oooh. Scary stuff, huh? I dare say anyone reading those words might be inspired to run right out and buy a SCOsource license, just to be on the safe side.

And here are several more news accounts of the Compuware story, ones that at least let IBM comment about what it calls Compuware's "misrepresentations".

Sometimes people criticize Groklaw for having a point of view. At least you don't have to do 3 hours of research to find it. I tell you clearly what Groklaw stands for. If the other folks did the same and were up-front about their position, I think it would be a better world.


  


The Truth About Compuware v. IBM | 485 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here please
Authored by: paul_cooke on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 04:19 AM EDT
n/t

---
Use Linux - Computer power for the people: Down with cybercrud...

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT here please
Authored by: paul_cooke on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 04:22 AM EDT
with proper links as per this example given below:

<a href="www.example.com/example.htm">example link</a>

please post items containing links using the html mode and
preview your posts before commiting. You can't edit after
posting, and you can only delete posts if you are logged
in.

---
Use Linux - Computer power for the people: Down with cybercrud...

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: entre on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 04:39 AM EDT
This article could not be more plainly spoken or logically constructed. We are
tought to read and do our homework but it is clearly shown now that is not
happening, at least by reporters. READ, THINK, UNDERSTAND REPEAT IF NECESSARY.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why we keep coming back...
Authored by: tleps on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:00 AM EDT
Fantastic research P.J.,

Is it any wonder we all keep coming back? Where else do all the puzzle pieces
ever get put together so well and so often!

What a wonderfully informative bit of info! There was a post on here a while
back that had caught my attention…if I remember correctly the poster was by an
“anonymous” (like that would be a surprise…), and also an “employee of one of
the involved companies”. I had actually pulled down & read the pdf’s of the
filings… had also noticed that this story seemed to keep getting mentioned in
the same places that tend to focus on the IBM-SCO case… Guess now we all know
why :)! I had been thinking it was sorta strange – law suits in the computer
world are not exactly rare, and one case rarely intertwines with another in the
press unless they are extensions of each other.

I’d like to hear what Allparadox thinks of all these “interesting” connections.
His insightfulness has always been a joy to read too, and this would seem to be
every bit as much of a "what are they thinking??" kind of action as
reading the sealed docs in court. (as a previous "officer of the
Court" his respect for the system & it's expectations on those who work
for it have made me smile many times. He would most likely have been one of the
many attorneys who I came to greatly respect, if not always agree with. A few
stories back there was a great discussion about this, and for those who aren't
sure why the thought of PLANNING to read a sealed doc is so hard for us to
accept I'll give you a real world example of how serious most of us take that -
I haven't worked for the court in 8 years...two years prior to leaving I was
involved in a rather convoluted case that was placed under seal to the point
were you had to go ask the judge for the file even if you were the assigned
Probation Officer - I still don't feel at liberty to speak about anything
involving the sealed stuff, and it's ten years ago!! It's just not something
you consider doing as an "Officer of the Court", even when you aren't
one anymore!).

Thomas

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:05 AM EDT
Revisionist history sucks. HAN FIRED FIRST!!!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Conspiracy therory related comments here:
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:17 AM EDT
...SCO

...Microsoft

...some venture capital investors (MS side)

...those that don't like GPL or Linux (or don't know that
Linux has a special Linus Torvalds Preamble that frees
correctly written apps from the Linux GPL's "derived
from"language - meaning that other licenses can be used
for applications that run on Linux)

...pipe investors

...pro-software patent crowd

...banks that profit by holding onto billions of MS cash

...?


[ Reply to This | # ]

Let's compare
Authored by: Jude on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 06:18 AM EDT
Maureen O'Gara's October 22nd story on Linuxworld ran three days after the
October 19th hearing. She had 2 full business days that she could have used to
check her facts.

PJ first got wind of O'Gara's fantasy on Saturday afternoon, and managed to
research the situation and write an article that posted at 2:19 AM the next day
(Sunday). The research behind PJ's article is superior to Ms. O'Gara's by
orders of magnitude, despite the difficult time at which it was done.

So, who is the more credible journalist?




[ Reply to This | # ]

WOW did IBM get off Light!: Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 07:17 AM EDT
WOW did IBM get off Light!: Compuware v. IBM

I see how difficult it is to ABSOLUTELY confirm no information exists in a case like this...but
I think to be fair you have to say IBM got off light.

---
Linux used ideas from MINIX
MINIX|UNIX
UNIX|MULTICS
MULTICS|CTSS
CTSS|FMS
In science, all work is based on what came before it.
Andy Tanenbaum, 6June04

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why I follow Groklaw
Authored by: SmyTTor on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 07:40 AM EDT
This article is why I follow Groklaw.

The character exhibited by Pamela Jones and others is why I follow Groklaw.

The pursuit of substantiated truths is why I follow Groklaw.


I am not a fan of and did not follow the legal system nor do I enjoy anything
related to the meretriciousness of big business. Politics is another area that
just did not garner all that much of my attention. However, these things do have
an impact on my largest interests- science and technology. I did not go to
college to learn legal tactics, journalistic investigation, business strategies,
or how to effectively address political issues. Thus, I have gone out of my way
to educate myself in these often ignored areas to better understand the impacts
they could and are having on my interests and myself. I am an average person;
this self-education is done on top of trying to deal with a career, family, and
the constraints of time. If I can make the effort, as many of the people
associated with Groklaw are doing, to more accurately obtain information in
order to seek out truths, why can’t the individuals or organizations that are
supposedly professional and have greater time and resources do at least a
comparable job? Lethargy? Money/greed? Lethargy? Corruption? Intimidation?

Leaving it to government, business, and media to maintain their own oversight
doesn’t seem to be working. It seems it is time for ordinary people to become
more involved in the workings of the world around them. I don’t know the answer,
exactly, to why it is that those entrusted with finding truths are not doing
their jobs, but like Groklaw, I’m willing to do the work to find out.

And that’s why I follow Groklaw.




---
Smy...

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review

[ Reply to This | # ]

Bravo PJ
Authored by: ewe2 on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 08:12 AM EDT
Now I just overlooked that paragraph of FUD because I took it as such. But you
looked closer and did the research. That's great paralegal journalism (it's a
new career :).

It also opened a chink of light into that fascinating darkness called the
question of Microsoft's involvement with SCO. I'm sensing a pattern here, which
is to attack IBM's credibility regardless of the facts. MS has always felt
threatened by IBM, always wanting to beat the mentor. IBM plus linux is too big
a threat for them to ignore. I'm not suggesting any big conspiracy theory, but
who ultimately benefits? After all, Microsoft and Compuware are partners. And
Compuware share the same lawyers with SCO. I guess that just sort of happened.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Hey, Maureen, that lump on your head needs some ice.
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 10:21 AM EDT
You've been used and abused.

Now go home and learn that a reporter actually verifies sources and doesn't
regurgitate verbatim spin.

Nice job, PJ!

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 10:57 AM EDT
This is a new world we live in where spin is king. At this point spin can be
even more important than fact! Just look at politics; look how the republicans
have made a science of gaming the system. Plant FUD, control media, block
opponent's moves, make a new "truth." Unfortunately it works in the
real world, for many reasons including the inability and unwillingness of the
general public to critically analyze the facts. Unfortunately their success is
serving as an example for the democrats who are catching on and beginning to use
similar tactics so what the US gets will be will have nothing to do with the
images fed them. Let us hope the straight player IBM can empower the judges to
see through the cloud of nonsense and see the underlying truth and rule
appropriately.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Is Maureen a reincarnation of Laura Didio?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 11:07 AM EDT
If not- where is the missing link between these two individuals?

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 11:28 AM EDT
There's isn't any "truth" about anything on
this site It's just a yellow journalism
smear campiagn of SCO. From what I
know about aureen O'Gara Merkey is one
of her close friends, and so are a lot
of other powerful folks around the
industry. GrokLaw can expect her to
dissect every story posted the paint you
people on a true light like the cockroaches
you are.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Anybody emailed Ina Fried?
Authored by: skidrash on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 11:39 AM EDT
Of the 2 Meyer interviews linked the Information Week one had nothing REALLY
objectionable.

One of the authors has a blog.
<a
href="http://blog.informationweek.com/windows/">Foley</a>

The article that really needs to be revisited is the other one.
<a
href="http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020481,39116731,00.htm"&
gt;Ina Fried</a>

I could not find the author's email.

Perhaps if someone know her email they could send a link to this groklaw page
& ask whether Meyer ever told Fried of his distant connection (relevant
anti-IBM conflict of interest)

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 11:41 AM EDT
PJ's editorializing - which I don't always agree with but that's my prerogative,
is based on her constant, careful, systematic search for the truth. Any threat
of libel from anyone, and that includes sleazeballs like Jeff Merkey, has to be
an empty threat, because the courts have repeatedly ruled that a finding a libel
requires that the accused has been shown to have exhibited a reckless disregard
for the truth - In order words, it is just not enougfh to show that a journalist
was dead wrong about the facts: it has also to be shown that the journalist in
question showed a reckless disregard for the facts. And that's not bloody likely
on groklaw where incorrect facts and legal interpretations from any source,
including PJ, are swiftly pointed out. In other words, groklaw has a built-in
self-correcting mechanism that makes successfully suing for libel even less
likely. If SCOG thought it could successfully sue groklaw for libel, SCOG would
have done it long ago.

[ Reply to This | # ]

...serous questions which can no longer be explained away by a lack of competence...
Authored by: NZheretic on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 12:23 PM EDT
From a March Blog
The SCO Group has entered into a series of essentially inherently flawed lawsuits and fraudulent license claims against users of the Linux operating system. Since 1994, Caldera International and the Santa Cruz Operation have been accepting, profiting from and distributing software developed by hundreds of independent developers under the terms of the GPL and LGPL license. The SCO Group has failed to put forward any sustainable legal theory why it should not abide by the terms of the GPL license. Detailed investigation into other facts and evidence which regularly conflict with the SCO Group's various legal claims, filing, press and public statements, raises serous questions which can no longer be explained away by a lack of competence in either the SCO Group's CEOs or the SCO Group's legal representation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Asking for redress from Ms. O'Gara
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 12:28 PM EDT
Have you considered writing to Ms. O'Gara to ask for an explanation
for what she writes and to ask for some sort of public redress for
these misrepresentations that you've pointed out?

Afterall, according to Fuat Kircaali, founder and CEO of SYS-CON Media
which publishes Ms. O'Gara's LinuxGram, her "honest investigative
reporting, coupled with her unmatched expertise of the industry will
make this newsletter a bestseller and an indispensable source of
quality news and information." http://www.sys-con.com/2002/PR/08122002.cfm

If O'Gara is not willing to publicly retract or explain what she wrote
in her article by herself, maybe writing to Kircaali to inform him
that her reporting on this story is neither honest nor investigative
might get his attention? Her LinuxGram, which is intended "to be an
indispensable advertising and communication vehicle for the Linux
industry", does a disservice to the Linux community with this kind of
disingenuous reporting.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Honesty and criminals...
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 12:38 PM EDT

If the other folks did the same and were up-front about their position, I think it would be a better world.
It would be a better world. At least, for those of us who want to move through life without deliberately harming another. For thieves and con artists however, they don't want to come right out and say:
"Hi, I'm your friendly con artist today, if you'd kindly believe the story I'm about to spin and hand over your cash, that'd be great.".
It would deffinitely make their chosen ... "occupation" much more difficult. This is not to say SCOG is full of thieves and con artists. They may be, they may not be. This is simply an observation that there are those who deffinitely, for obvious reasons, don't want to be honest about what they are doing.

RS

[ Reply to This | # ]

Finding Truth In A Bottle & Rabble Rousers
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 01:24 PM EDT
Journalists are people just like everyone else. Each person must find
their muse for insight, inspiration, and motivation.

Good journalists, like PJ, find their muse in their relationships (e.g.,
father, mother, friends, coworkers, responsibilities). Bad journalists
find their muse in a bottle.

Good journalists, like PJ, identify and explain the truth as carefully as
a botanist would a valuable plant or a gemologist would a crystal in their
natural environments. Bad journalists blather long enough to incite and
offend most everyone without any clear truth in their words.

As an experiment, view your own world through the knowledge you
have gleaned from Groklaw. A awaking can occur based on everyday
experiences for there is so much each of us takes for granted.

Which leads me to say, "God bless you PJ!". As moths to light, we are
drawn to the truth.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 01:55 PM EDT
I'm in england, we have to put up with some truly awful journalism from our
tabloids. Terrifyingly, a lot of it is beleived too. Compared to this, the
source article for this column is quite mild, wrong yes, but mild. I do realise
that the people commenting here are (in spite of SCO's wishes to the contrary)
rather well informed, so Maureens work won't damage anyone here.
I knew some people her (england)who were so relient on the press for their
opinions on life that they were actually saying america deserved/brought 9/11 on
itself! I was horrified by this, and needless to say stopped associating with
them, but the fact is, there is a market of people who like sensationalism and
don't rate truth highly if it isn't 'interesting' (read - sensational).

That type of people don't tend to be connected with the reality of the world
anyhow, so perhaps I shouldn't have been so bothered..
I would speculate that anyone sufficiently disconnected from the case to read
and beleive her work wouldn't be a threat to the general awareness of the truth
in any case.
I would say that Maureen is perhaps engaged in a 'say anything to get my profile
up' exercise. After all, if you get noticed as rising above the crowd, the
chances of a pay rise also increase. There is, in my experience, no shortage of
places to work that don't mind a little twisted truth, if it means profit...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Troll Wars...
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 02:45 PM EDT
Zealous SCO supporters create a new genre, the Sci-Fi Documentary.

Welcome to...
TROLL WARS!!!
daaa DAAA da da da DAAAAA DA...

Episode 4: SCO Wars.
The SCO Group launches an agressive and just campaign against IP theft.
Expounding the problem to a receptive public and filing multiple lawsuits
against companies involved in the criminal conspiricy to steal what does not
belong to them.

Episode 5: GNU FUDS back.
One of the criminal conspirators, IBM, funds Groklaw, with the sole aim of
spreading lies to counter SCO's efforts. The IBM shill PJ presents one sided
information and deletes all posts that do not strictly follow the party line.

Episode 6: Return of the Ace Coder
Entirely by his own efforts, lone coder Jeff Merkey grasps the truthfullness of
SCO's complaints in one hand and with the other wrests the little good that can
be salvaged from the broken Linux Kernel to create a new untainted kernel.

Episode 1: The IP Menace
And in the begining a total misunderstanding of the sealed verdict of the BSD VS
UNIX leads to millions and millions of coders rampantly engaging in blantant IP
theft in all it's ugly and sorted forms.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clowns
A conspiracy of second rate hacks using nothing but stolen proprietary UNIX code
unleashes it's "software products" upon a naive and trusting world.

Episode 3: Revenge of IBM
The darkest of corporations seduces SCO's sucessor company Caldera into a one
sided contract, then after pilaging them for all they are worth leaves them
hanging in the wind, alone.

Episode 7: After having it's just complaints thrown out by a corrupt judicial
system, the husk of bankrupted SCO continues unerringly on it's single task of
striking down all the evilness and darkness spread by the sowers of lies that
support and worship Linus, by launching the ProSCO website.

Episode 8: The Great Roundup
Finally in triumph, all "Free" software is crushed, the cult-like
leaders are rounded up and jailed. Computers around the world that contain the
illegal Linux software are destroyed and all those that were seduced are sent to
rehabilitation camps.

Episode 9: Do You Use Solaris Or Windows?
Everything is good now.

And that's the SCO truth, pthhhhhhhhhhh....

[ Reply to This | # ]

LinuxWorld is Down
Authored by: Greebo on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 04:02 PM EDT
LinuxWorld appears to be down as of 10pm European time 24/10.

I get a Connection refused when attempting to connect to 62.47.3.100

Slashdot effect maybe, or do they have to shutdown to correct all of Ms O'Garas stories? Anyone want to bet her stories have been removed when they come back up?!

Greebo.

---
-----------------------------------------
Recent Linux Convert and Scared Cat Owner

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • No such luck. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 08:53 PM EDT
Meow !
Authored by: The_Pirate on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 04:07 PM EDT
PJ, do i correctly sense a certain portion of personal annoyance with ms. O'Gara
?

It seems like her spin/dishonesty/lack of research (choose to your liking)
really seems to tickle you.

Could be fun to have you two in some kind of arena - i guess the inevitable
catfight could be worth while watching ;)

Have fun, keep up the good work, and dont let the opposition get in your hair !

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Illiad At It Again :)
Authored by: Steve Martin on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:10 PM EDT

Link

-- -
"When I say something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffee, "Sports Night"

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCUM - those in search of money regardlous of the consequences
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:33 PM EDT

This is The Mad Hatter in Miami, staying at the Doral - fabulous place - glad
I'm here on the company account for some meetings as it is expensive, and
there's no way I could afford it! There's three groups sharing the facility this
weekend, Beauti Control (makeup and Spas I think - mostly very well dressed
women), The Industrial Truck Association (forklift manufacturers and suppliers,
I'm our companie's representative with the association), and the Trial Lawyers
of America....

So I'm standing outside enjoying the warm weather (it's a lot nicer than in
Toronto) when up comes this gentleman about my age, so we chat for a moment
about what our groups are doing, I find out he's with the Trial Lawyers, and of
course I ask about my favourite court case, at which point he starts telling me
about submarine patents (which he appeared to think SCO/IBM was about), and bar
code scanning.

The way he tells it someone filed a patent years ago, and kept it alive by
filing updates. Some of the updates changed the actual field that the patent
covered (which he assured me was illegal). Then this patenter started sueing
people all over the place for using bar codes, which he had supposedly
invented.

The upshot of the case is that until a court overturned the patent this guy
managed to collect over a $100,000,000.00 dollars. Of course none of it was
returnable once the patent was squashed. The lawyer I talked to said that he had
advised his client to pay - the amount they paid was less than half of what it
would have cost them to go to trial.

So some thief got away with a huge haul - if he'd tried to walk into a bank and
take it at gun point we'd jail him.

And possibly that's a problem our systems (both Canada and the USA) should
address. Theft is theft - even if the theft is carried out using a lawyer
instead of a gun, and in cases of theft the stolen goods should be returned to
the rightfull owner.

Possibly my moral background and beliefs are a weakness - I was raised a
Catholic, and became a Mormon at 30 - but I cannot see how allowing a thief to
retain his ill gotten gains is in society's best interest. What does this teach
our children?

Maybe we should have legislation that would require those who file wrongfull IP
lawsuits return any moneys from out of court settlements to the rightfull
owners, combined with mandatory jail sentences.

The Mad Hatter


[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Bystander on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:44 PM EDT
The Compuware v. IBM case seems to be another example of how greed and wishful
thinking can distort the sensibilities of otherwise smart business people.
Compuware saw a competitor develop a product that closely resembled one of their
own, decided it might have a winnable case against IBM for illegal code theft,
and initiated legal action. Up to that point, the case was quite unremarkable.

It was during the two year period during which discovery took place that
priorities seemed to have gotten lost. At the outset, Compuware's case seemed to
be bolstered by IBM's inability to produce early versions of their code that
would have shown their product was developed independently of Compuware's. Once
such code was finally produced, Compuware was forced to make a painful decision.
They could have admitted that their original assumptions about code theft were
wrong, dropped the case, and cut their losses. Or, they could have resolved to
stubbornly move forward with their unjustifiable claims, hoping to win a big
award or favorable settlement strictly on legal maneuvering.

From a moral standpoint, once Compuware realized their claims about code theft
were not justified, the case should have been dropped. Instead, they chose to
ask the judge to automatically declare them winners despite what any evidence
showed to be the truth in the matter; or failing that, to exclude the very
evidence which best revealed that truth! They wanted to be ultimately rewarded
for bringing and pursuing an unfounded claim.

From a financial standpoint, it is questionable whether the investment Compuware
is making to continue this legal action will ever pay off. One of the linked
articles mentions that Compuware spent $25 million dollars in one year on the
case, while company profits in the same period were only $34.7 million. Company
executives seem to have been blinded by the lure of getting a huge award,
ignoring the overall negative effects on company performance and the very real
possibility that the case would turn out badly for them in the end.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Official "The SCO Group" positions....9 Days and counting.
Authored by: Acrow Nimh on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 05:57 PM EDT
Main posts in this thread may only be made by senior managers or attorneys for
"The SCO Group". Main posts must use the name and position of the
poster at "The SCO Group". Main posters must post in their official
capacity at "The SCO Group".

Sub-posts will also be allowed from non-"The SCO Group" employees or
attorneys. Sub-posts from persons not connected with "The SCO Group"
must be very polite, address other posters and the main poster with the
honorific "Mr." or "Mrs." or "Ms.", as
appropriate, use correct surnames, not call names or suggest or imply unethical
or illegal conduct by "The SCO Group" or its employees or attorneys.

This thread requires an extremely high standard of conduct and even slightly
marginal posts will be deleted.

P.J. says you must be on your very best behavior.

If you want to comment on this thread, please post under "O/T"


---
Supporting Open Sauce since 1947 ;¬)

[ Reply to This | # ]

keeping unsanctioned backups
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 07:41 PM EDT
How many of us have made "unofficial backups" and not
1) disposed of them in accordance with our employer's official policy
2) neglected to tell management the backups still exist?

How many of you have kept memos, e-mail, faxes, and other paper and electronic
documents beyond the management-dictated must-purge time also. How many times
has this HURT your company? How many times has it HELPED your company?

I know I'm not the only one.


One reason why companies have and try to enforce document-shred policy is to
cover their financial rear-ends. In any large organization, some yahoo is going
to do something that, when discovered, will get the company sued. If there's a
damning paper trail, the company will probably lose. If the paper trail's been
shredded "in accordance with customary business practices" the
plaintiffs will have a harder time winning.

Think how much money the Tobacco Companies might have saved if they'd
"routinely shredded" every document a few years after it was no longer
needed, including those related to the harmful effects of tobacco? How much
would the Roman Catholic Church have saved if they shredded - or transferred to
Rome - personnel records 5 years after the priest or other employee died or left
the payroll? Ditto any other company sued for long-past transgressions.
Personally, I'm against such shredding but I understand why companies
"mandate" it by policy.

[ Reply to This | # ]

How SCO would use any positive response = 3rd party admission of copyright infringement in linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 07:51 PM EDT
Whether or not Merkey is in anyway associated with SCO/Canopy (and I have no
idea if he is or isn't), it seems highly likely that SCO is at least reading
these discussion threads.

Any code removed in response to Merkey's suggestion (I notice in one post he
requests *ALL* IBM code be removed for SCO, on the basis that *SOME* unspecified
portions of IBM code is or may-be contaminated).... anyway any code removed in
response to Merkey will likely (IMHO) be presented by SCO as a third party
admission.

If you wish to connect this to court documents, SCO's response to IBM's CC10,
among other things, seeks third party admissions of copyright infringements in
Linux

[ Reply to This | # ]

Does anyone know if O'gara was associated with PC Magazine?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 09:05 PM EDT
There were some really bad feelings between PC Mag and IBM that lasted quite a
while and I'm wondering if O'Gara was a part of that.

PC Magazine timed it's initial issue to hit the newstands at the same time IBM
shipped its first Personal Computer. Their game plan was to be the premier
authority on the new machine and the first issue was to cover the machine in
detail. Unfortunately for them, IBM at that time had a long-standing policy not
to release the content and specs of new products prior to first ship and there
were no exceptions. As a result, PC Mag got no photos of the interior of the
machine and no detailed specs for their first issue. That was a major
embarrasment for them and changed them from an IBM advocate to an IBM skeptic on
the spot.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Fresh Info. in Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 03:55 AM EDT
This story has filled in a couple of gaps in the story.

Originally I couldn't quite work out why they hadn't found this info 'on the
server' as had been reported earlier. It looked a bit suss to me.

The fact the mainframe was decommissioned and physically deconstructed meant
there was no electronic way of searching for the old information.

In the normal course of business backup tapes get cycled so even regular backups
of the old system could have dissappeared.

In this case it appears that someone on the decommissioning took a point-in-time
backup of the system and put the tapes away 'just-in-case'.

I have worked in offices where there are tapes stored that NO-BODY in the office
knows what the tapes are, why they are stored or who stored them. Curiosity
suggests that I have a look at the contents but 9 times out of 10 there is no
appropriate tape drive.

I could quite easily imagine a situation where, due to staff changes, a set of
tapes could be generated and then forgotten about. All conjecture but imagine
that the server is run by a services group, the electronic and physical
decommissioning is done by another group none of whom need reference the
particular development group who had already moved off that server (one of many
groups who had moved off the server). If the server and facility was
decommissioned then it is likely that staff were redeployed. Even the cupboard
may have found itself in a different location. I've had to do that, take a
cupboard load of stuff that nobody 'owned' to a new location, just-in-case
somebody started looking for it. Eventually even the reason the cupboard exists
at the new location dissappears from corporate memory.

I guess Compuware had a look at the new(old)stuff and decided the best way out
was to try for a TKO.


[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: blacklight on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 06:49 AM EDT
"Not knowing about the code backup, the Perth employee testified that they
had no code to produce."

The Perth employee had no way of knowing that some jerk in Sydney had backed up
that code and tossed that backup in the closet without telling anyone else. I
have had colleagues and subordinates do stuff behind my back, sometimes in
violations of explicit instructions.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Slot machine running linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 09:10 AM EDT
I don't know how many of you watch american casino on Discovery channel. I was
watching a episode a couple of nights
ago and they showed a segment in which they where converting
some brand new williams slot machines from dollars to quarters for a promontion.
The camera panned to the screen when the tech restored power after changing out
the hardware and what do we see......LILO Booting

[ Reply to This | # ]

LOL! Linuxworld Headline today says it all...
Authored by: Cletus the Yokel on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 11:27 AM EDT
On the Linuxworld Headline bar:

IBM Finally Comes Out of the Closet
Posted: Oct 25 2004 @ 11:00 AM Reads: 948 Feedback: 2
Author: Maureen O'Gara
Maureen, you naughty girl! Read Groklaw if you want REAL reporting:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041024021922796 (read more and
respond... )

Yes that's right at the top of their front page!

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Truth About Compuware v. IBM
Authored by: Groklaw Lurker on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 12:07 PM EDT
"...They seem to all be running around like poodles on expresso, trying to
come up with something, anything, in their favor..."

hehe, 'poodles on espresso', that rocks!

---
(GL) Groklaw Lurker
End the tyranny, abolish software patents.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: I'm having withdrawal symptoms!
Authored by: fredex on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 02:26 PM EDT
PJ: We love your site and we love what you do.

But 24 hours between postings is enough for me to start to get the shakes. I can't LIVE that long!

:^)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Backups
Authored by: lordmhoram on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 03:02 PM EDT
About 12 years ago, I was given the task of closing down a large IBM mainframe
belonging to a company in central London, and archiving the entire system and
data to magnetic tapes for permanent storage. I thought long and hard about the
problem of retrieving this data many years hence, and how it could be done.
Eventually, I devised a sort of "self-documenting" tape format, in
which it would (hopefully) be obvious to anyone scanning the tape where one user
area or application started and ended.

When I handed over the stacks of 12" tapes, I attached to them some
hardcopy documentation with my name, address and phone number. I sometimes
wonder (with just a hint of a cold sweat) what I would do if they phoned me ...

Of course, the problem of retrieving data dumped from IBM mainframes is made
infinitely more interesting by the fact that it's all in EBCDIC rather than
ASCII.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT - You won't believe this! Merkey saga gets better every mail!
Authored by: Ninguino on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 05:35 PM EDT
Merkey offline with linus

[ Reply to This | # ]

LinuxWorld Disavows Maureen O'Gara
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 08:30 PM EDT
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/46821.htm

[ Reply to This | # ]

From the Editors of LinuxWorld Magazine
Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, October 25 2004 @ 10:04 PM EDT

For everyone with Hide Anonymous turned on

"Therefore we at LinuxWorld.com (the Web site) and LinuxWorld Magazine (the print magazine), would like to make it clear that we do not approve, contract, or employ Maureen O'Gara. We have no association with Maureen O'Gara of any kind. This obviously means that we are unable to approve or veto any of the stories that Maureen O'Gara has written, irrespective of their source."

---
Linux used ideas from MINIX
MINIX|UNIX
UNIX|MULTICS
MULTICS|CTSS
CTSS|FMS
In science, all work is based on what came before it.
Andy Tanenbaum, 6June04

[ Reply to This | # ]

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