SCO has filed its Reply Memorandum in Further Support of Its Renewed Motion to Compel [PDF]. This gives us a hint as to what SCO will be saying at the hearing tomorrow. They ask the Court to consider sanctions against IBM for something SCO thinks is implied in Daniel Frye's Declaration. *Implied.* Sanctions for an implication, as interpreted by SCO, those ethical giants. I think UserFriendly characterized SCO's lawyers best. Here's what Illiad hears when SCO's legal team stands up to speak: Your Honor, on behalf of my client, The SCO Group, I'd like to move that we engfeh the wubbly umple borpy. I'd rephrase it slightly: Your Honor, on behalf of my client, The SCO Group, I'd like to move that we engfeh and sanction IBM forthwith due to IBM's shockingly outrageous wubbly umple, and we humbly submit you consider the wisdom of the following course of action: OFF WITH THEIR BORPY HEADS. Yadda yadda. So, look for that tomorrow, if you are planning to attend. Why such silliness, aside from the hope that it might just work, discovery rules being as liberal as they are? I expect so that IBM won't get anywhere, SCO hopes, when it inevitably points out that in discovery, you are supposed to tell them what they have done, and in this case, IBM is still waiting to find out what code is allegedly infringed. That makes it a bit hard to know what is and what isn't relevant in discovery, which puts IBM at a disadvantage, as IBM repeatedly points out in the attached Exhibit B, a letter from IBM to SCO, dated September 15, 2003,listing IBM's objections to SCO's Interrogatories. It begins on page 27 of the PDF. SCO's answer to that objection, if truthful, would be: We want you at a disadvantage. So just go on a fishing expedition. If it's in any way related to Linux, hand it over. We'll tell you later what this is all about, after we figure it all out ourselves. If we can't find anything in this round of discovery, we'll come up with a new cause of action or theory of the case, based on something we are shocked, shocked to find in discovery already obtained. This is Alice in Wonderland discovery rules. You give us everything you have and we don't have to tell you one thing. And since any corporation will make at least one tiny mistake over a period of 30 years, we'll get to pore over everything you give us looking for that little mistake, and if we find it -- Ta Dah! Our case!
In short, gamesmanship. Delay, delay, delay. The same old SCO song, sung in the key of feigned indignation. As UserFriendly says, SCO says "Boo". Again. Here's a reminder of what motions will be argued tomorrow. Update: Groklaw's Fogey has some poetry to offer the judge, with apologies to Lewis Carroll: Beware the Jabber-Wookiees, Judge!
The claims that fly, the pleas that clash!
Beware their Barratry, and shun
Their mendacious Balderdash!
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