And while the letter tells the court that the parties agreed to drop the three IBM patent counterclaims, it doesn't explain why -- that SCO is making so little money that a patent infringement action is pointless in terms of any damages and that IBM made the offer to try to move the case along. SCO was asking for 25 more depositions at that point, saying it needed 65, based on the counterclaims in large part. So IBM made the offer, and so SCO got only 10 more depositions, as did IBM. There is also no mention that while SCO lost its motion, IBM voluntarily offered documents from the files of 20 developers.

Inexplicably, there is also no mention of IBM's Motion to Compel the Production of Privilege Log Documents, which it won. There is also no mention of SCO filing by the interim and final deadline its list of allegedly infringed material and no mention of the subpoenas on the SCO accountants, or that SCO asked for a protective order. And the letter is silent about SCO's Objection to Judge Wells' Order of October 12, 2005 and how Judge Kimball shot that down.

I gather no one at Red Hat is expecting this boulder lodged in the mud in Delaware to start moving any time soon, so it doesn't much matter what they write at this point. But the contrast with the typical SCO spin on their ball is marked.

On the Novell case, the letter mentions the scheduling order, but doesn't mention that the parties have to conference with Judge Kimball to see how the two cases will interface. I would think that would be important information for the Red Hat judge, but what do I know? But just in case it's a matter of running out of time, I hope the parties feel free to use the Groklaw Archives, which are listed by date, most recent first, so it's easy to see what happened in the past quarter.

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

[Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor letterhead]

December 27, 2005

BY ELECTRONIC FILING

The Honorable Sue L. Robinson
Chief Judge
United States District Court
[address]

Re: Red Hat, Inc. v. SCO Group, Inc.
Civil Action No. 03-772-SLR

Dear Chief Judge Robinson:

Pursuant to the Court's April 6, 2004 Order requesting a quarterly report on the status of various related litigation matters, Red Hat, Inc. ("Red Hat") submits this letter as an update to its previous letter, dated September 29, 2005. Although Red Hat is not a party to these other related cases, Red Hat offers the following summary based upon publicly available information.

1. SCO Group, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corp.

By an order dated August 10, 2005, the parties stipulated to the dismissal of IBM's eleventh, twelfth, and thirteen counterclaims, all of which alleged patent infringement. The court also ruled on three discovery motions filed by SCO in an order dated October 23, 2005 as follows: (1) ruling was postponed pending the filing of new motions on SCO's motion to compel discovery seeking documents from certain IBM executives and Board members; (2) SCO's motion to compel discovery relating to IBM's Linux contribution activities was denied; and (3) the number of allowable depositions was increased to ten per side.

2. SCO Group, Inc. v. AutoZone, Inc.

Since the filing of our last letter to the Court, no significant activity has occurred in this case.

3. SCO v. Novell, Inc.

On December 6, 2005, the Court issued a scheduling order, setting the following dates: fact discovery due by November 1, 2006; expert discovery due by January 12, 2007; and all dispositive motions due by January 26, 2007. A jury trial has been set for June 25, 2007. Otherwise, there has been no significant activity in this case since the filing of our previous update letter.

Respectfully submitted,

___[signature]___
Josy W. Ingersoll (No. 1088)

JWI:cg

cc: Clerk of the Court (by CM/ECF and hand delivery)
Jack B. Blumenfeld, Esquire (by electronic filing/e-mail)
Mark J. Heise, Esquire (by e-mail)
Stephen N. Zack, Esquire (by e-mail)
Mark G. Matuschak, Esquire (by e-mail)
Michelle D. Miller, Esquire (by e-mail)