decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more... 		decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.

You won't find me on Facebook

Donate

Donate Paypal

No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.

What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments

Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:23 PM EST

Well, finally, a journalist asks the right questions and does some real digging. You won't believe it until you read it, so go to Forbes this exact minute and feast your eyes on, yes, Daniel Lyons' article, because he has figured SCO out. I think they messed with the wrong guy.

And he found out that the sixth entity on SCO's subpoena list is Digeo, maker of Linux-based TV set-top boxes. Huh? I know, you were hoping it was me, but you'll have to accept it: SCO has subpoenaed a TV set-top box maker instead. Why Digeo? SCO spokesmen seem not to know. Or else the cat got their tongue or something.

Here's how the article starts out:

"The legal battle between SCO Group and IBM is taking another ugly lurch forward.

"On Nov. 11, the same day that Forbes reported that IBM had sent subpoenas to investors and analysts who supported SCO --and a day in which SCO shares suffered a 10% drop--SCO fired back, telling the court it would issue subpoenas to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux free operating system kernel, and Richard Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation."

It wasn't lost on Lyons that he had talked with SCO VP Christopher Sontag just hours before they went to get their own subpoenas and yet Sontag never breathed a word of it. Instead Sontag complained about IBM sending subpoenas to investors and analysts who supported SCO. So, why didn't he mention their own plans to do a tit-for-tat? Sontag says lamely that their lawyers hadn't yet told them what they were planning.

Right. That is exactly how the law works. Lawyers make vital decisions on a case without discussing it with their clients. Not.

You really should be careful what you tell a competent journalist. They have ways of finding out the truth, if they are motivated, and if you tell them fibs, it tends to motivate:

"But the 'Who's on first?' act is tough to swallow since it turns out SCO notified IBM of its plans to seek discovery from these parties more than a month ago, on Oct. 5. And SCO told the court about its plans at 4:34 P.M. on Nov. 11, only hours after Sontag spoke to Forbes."

Lyons contacted rms and Linus and got reactions from them both, as well as Transmeta, OSDL, Novell, and Digeo. Digeo naturally hadn't a clue why they made the cut. Linus, of course, tells a joke, and Richard patiently explains his exact position, which is, in part, that the FSF isn't involved in a contract dispute between SCO and IBM, and then he adds:

"'I am concerned about long-term entrenched confusions such as referring to a version of our GNU OS as 'Linux' and thinking that our work on free software was motivated by the ideas associated with 'open source.' These confusions lead users away from the basic issue: their freedom. By comparison, the events involving SCO are transitory and almost trivial,' Stallman says."

Surprised? Really, I'd love to print the whole thing, but Forbes wouldn't like it. They are in business, after all, so hop on over and have some fun.


  


Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed | 216 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Lyons wrote that?
Authored by: stanmuffin on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:32 PM EST
Isn't this the same Dan Lyons of "What SCO wants, SCO gets" and
"Linux's Hit Men" fame? You know, the man who coined the term
"crunchies"?

Look like Mr. Lyons has finally stopped taking SCO's word at face value.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:34 PM EST
Well, at least Lyons got the GNU/Linux thing correct... It will probably bring a
tear to Stallman's eye to read such a well crafted story...


Is it just me, or did Lyons do a total 180 from pro-SCO "nearly
true" writing to fairly decent reporting? I suspect all it takes is to
see one lie from SCO, and then you start seeing all the rest...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Best line: "SCO's legal hit men"
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:39 PM EST
"SCO's legal hit men": How could leave that out of the summary?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: brenda banks on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:39 PM EST
i am not ready to buy into lyons switch
he did good this time but he still needs to be watched for a slanted angle


---
br3n

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why Digeo? Andrew Morton
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:45 PM EST
Digeo is or was the employer of Andrew Morton who moved to ODSL around the time
Linus did from Transmeta.

The funniest part is Digeo was founded by Paul Allen (yes the Microsoft Paul
Allen). I wonder if SCO even realize?

I know MS conspiracy theories are popular (although I'm not a fan), but MS also
have a whole lot of reasons why they might want to stick it to
Caldera/Canopy/Yarro/Boies - and SCO may have just given them another one.

Anyway, here's the Morton moving link

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5459090567.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:48 PM EST

It's rather interesting that SCO subpoena'd Linus, RMS, and Digeo, but not
Alan Cox or Andrew Morton. Of course, serving Alan with a subpoena might not
look good to the judge sitting on the Red Hat case, but whither Andrew?

Anyway, I got the feeling from Dan's last article that he was beginning to
change his approach to SCO, and this article confirms it in spades.

A couple of months ago, in a Slashdot discussion, one contributor was shocked by
Dan's articles and said something like "Wait, I *know* Dan Lyons, and
this doesn't sound like the guy I know." Well, he gets in touch with a
common friend of theirs, who reports that it is indeed the same Dan, and that
Dan has a penchant for stirring the waters by taking contradictory positions on
occasion. Sort of like the journalistic equivalent of trolling.

Anyway, this incident is the basis for my belief that some of Dan's friends
argued/educated him into a better understanding of the issues we all have with
SCO. The fact that Sontag didn't come clean with him about the upcoming
subpoenas probably set off a bullshit detector that was already ticking
dangerously close to red. Which explains the cold, clean, reportorial anger that
suffuses this piece.

Anyway, I like to think this shows that even the some of the most ostentatiously
biased reporters can, given enough infomation and education, change their point
of view.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:52 PM EST
Ok brains folks. But why a linux embedded device maker??

[ Reply to This | # ]

We'll see how chummy SCOG & Lyons are
Authored by: skidrash on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:53 PM EST
at Lyons' next article,

AND,

If SCOG calls on Lyons in the conference call, and what his question will be if
he's called.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: JMonroy on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:56 PM EST
Wow... I wonder if this had anything to do with the negative feedback Forbes has been getting regarding Lyons. I, for one, submitted a mild complaint a couple of weeks back about Lyons and his poorly researched articles.

Is it me, or does he sound a bit miffed at SCO???

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 04:57 PM EST
Why Digeo? SCO spokesmen seem not to know.

It was another screw up. The lawyers heard the last two words of something Darl said ("I hope they don't subpoena Didio!"), and thought is was "Subpoena Digeo!".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Wells will preside on 12/5
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:01 PM EST
I was disappointed to see it clarified in the docket on Monday that the 12/5
hearing will be before Judge Wells, who was only authorized by Judge Kimball to
determine "nondispositive pretrial matters" (see Kimball's 9/10
order). I had thought Kimball himself was going to be there.





What does "nondispositive" mean? What sort of things can Wells do
and not do? Can she throw out some of SCO's claims? If not, and she decides
that no real decision on the discovery matters can be made without ruling on
whether SCO's claims are proper, does that mean she asks Kimball to hold his
own hearing?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Magazine
Authored by: whoever57 on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:01 PM EST
I'm afraid I have never been able to take Forbes' seriously, but then the
first time I heard of it was on a tourist trail in Morrocco.

We visited a house that was described by the locals as "Mr.
Forbes-Magazine's house". The guides thought that "Magazine"
was part of his name!

It was a nice house with a stunning view!

---
-----
For a few laughs, see the scosource.com website

[ Reply to This | # ]

RMS on the Stand... ?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:13 PM EST
Based on the snippet of RMS preaching the gospel of GNU....

I can't help but wonder if it would be a good thing to have him testify. He
certainly fits the profile of the insideous monster SCO makes of OSS. Trying to
steal profits from innocent unsuspecting capitalists Corporations by producing
software that does the same thing that theirs does and then ... children close
you eyes... GIVING it away! (for a second I thought I was describing
micro$oft, but they try to charge you for it later)His views lean a little far
left for my comfort levels, but I guess it was his spirit of jihad that we have
to thank for GNU, the GPL, and the FSF ever having come to be.

Still, I think in terms of testimony, if SCO's lawyers could get him really
going, juror Joe Sixpack would find him pretty hard to swallow. I cringe at the
prospect.

Joshua Clayton

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: kevin lyda on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:19 PM EST
"never attribute to malice what can be attributed to laziness."

methinks mr. lyons started out by getting easy, spoon-fed quotes from sco. but
then they screwed him by not giving him an exclusive - the subpeonas - hours
before they issued them. so now he's pissed that he was a) used and b) denied
a juicy exclusive.

i think the above is a fair theory as to his motivations.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Jude on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:19 PM EST
I sent a little email to Mr. Lyons on the 11th. I wonder if he read it? Here
it is:

---

Dear Mr. Lyons,

I think that SCO would have a much stronger position if they
would produce some credible evidence to back up their claims.
They have yet to do so publicly, and they appear to be having
trouble satisfying their obligation to deliver such evidence
to IBM in the discovery phase of the case.

SCO claims that anyone can view the evidence if they sign a
non-disclosure agreement, but the NDA does not provide any
exclusions for prior knowledge. People who are very familiar
with Linux code won't sign the NDA because doing so could
result in their being enjoined from ever doing Linux work
again. The result is that few (if any) of the people who
signed the NDA were really qualified to judge the quality of
SCO's evidence.

You might argue that anyone can view two segments of code and
see if they are similar, however this proves nothing. Anyone
can put the same information on two pieces of paper. I could
print a copy of one of your articles from the Forbes website,
then turn around and accuse you of infringing my copyright on
the text. An ignorant observer might compare my printout to
your article and agree that they are the same, but that would
not prove my claim. I'd have to show that I had a copyright on
that text in the first place, and also that my text and it's
copyright registration predated your article. Even if I had
all of those things, my claim would still fail if someone could
show that the same article text had been previously published
elsewhere.

In short, I think SCO's claims have not yet been subject to
proper scrutiny. I am disappointed that so many journalists
and analysts seem willing to accept SCO's scanty presentation
at face value. I am even more disappointed that investors seem
willing to risk real money with so little hard proof, particularly
so soon after the dotcom stock bubble fiasco.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Funny detail
Authored by: Dark on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:32 PM EST
To the right of that Forbes article is a box offering "Email
Alerts". If you look at it closely, you'll see that McBride and Sontag
are people, while Linus and RMS are topics.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:32 PM EST
Look at the side of the article in the "Sponsored Links" box. I
just refreshed six times and keep on seeing:

SCO Sales Service Support • www.scosales.com
Your Premier Source for SCO Sales, Technical Support & Consulting

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: AdamBaker on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:34 PM EST
I'll take my guess at what has happened. At first the evidence that we were trying to present that SCO had no case just seemed too incredible to believe. We believed it because we wanted SCO to have no case so we bothered to look out the evidence but others just couldn't believe a company as big as SCO could be so stupid.

Now SCO have kept posturing and telling half truths to the point that even those who don't want to believe SCO have no case are turning against them.

I suspect that right now Mr Lyons is looking around for further evidence of what SCO might have been failing to reveal. What do we want to mention if he happens to look here? My first thoughts would be the bit in Amendment X that says IBMs code is its own and the bit in the asset purchase agreement that says Novell can instruct SCO not to terminate IBMs license (which we know they have done).

Here are the local copies of Amendment X and the Asset purchase agreement for the benefit of any journalists who may be passing.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why Digeo and Transmeta?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:36 PM EST
The only rationales I can come up with for Digeo and Transmeta is that Digeo
uses Linux and Transmeta employed a bunch of the Linux kernel crowd, including
Linus.

Doesn't make much sense in light of the actual case, but then SCO and their
Lawyers have been acting like they've been taking acid hits or something like
it...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Groklaw's hit woman.
Authored by: gumout on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:37 PM EST
Methinks Groklaw's article "IBM's Subpoenas to Analysts and Investors:
Why? Why? Why?" authored by Groklaw's hit woman
Pamela Jones has more to do with Daniel Lyon's change of heart
than does Chris Sontag's perfidy.

---
"If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to
be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to
be sent up." --- Rush Limbaugh

[ Reply to This | # ]

McDonalds make contingency plans
Authored by: AdamBaker on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 05:45 PM EST
If you read this (machine translated German) article it seems that McDonalds are making their contingency plans in case they can't keep using OpenServer - guess what OS they have chosen.

It says they started using Linux in 1999 but I suspect the deal with Suse has been pulled together since the SCO issue started. I'm assuming that Germany is their selected pilot area for doing this, the one place SCO can't easily take revenge. As they currently have the same OpenServer configuration everywhere I can't imagine Germany would be allowed to do their own thing if it wasn't intended as a trial of something they were considering worldwide.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Unmitegated gall!
Authored by: gumout on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 06:23 PM EST
After Groklaw's pundit PJ had the unmitigated gall to quote

"As part and parcel of the scheme alleged herein, certain of the
underwriters named as Defendants herein also improperly utilized their analysts,
who, unbeknownst to investors, were compromised by conflicts of interest, to
artificially inflate or maintain the price of Caldera stock by issuing favorable
recommendations in analyst reports."

which was then spread all over the internet, would you want to appear, as a
"senior analyst", too cozy with SCO when the bottom falls out of
the pump n' dump?"

Watch for some other "senior analyst" rats to desert as the SCO ship
sinks. Most of these "senior analysts" knew that SCO was scamming,
but PJ's research article has spread to much sunshine in the rodent arena.


---
"If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to
be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to
be sent up." --- Rush Limbaugh

[ Reply to This | # ]

more Subpoena news - new SCO and DiDio quotes
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 06:41 PM EST
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,87108,00.html


http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32140.html

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22684.html

SCO seem to have an additional/new spokesman in two of the articles, although
our old friend Blake appears in the other

In short, SCO quotes can be summarized:

SCO subpoenas = good

IBM subpoenas = bad / intimidation

[ Reply to This | # ]

Dan Lyons "only gets ONE thing" about the SCO case
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 06:45 PM EST
As pointed out on the Yahoo! message board, Lyons appears to have finally pulled
away from the SCO teat regarding that company's actions in the IBM dispute.
However, the article does not give any indication that he has changed his tune
regarding "GPL, FSF, open source, Linux."

I considered posting a link, but the immoderation of the Yahoo posting argues
against it. If you are really interested, it is post #61079 by
"darlmclied"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Doesn't matter
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 07:01 PM EST
IANAL but IMHO SCO better come up with some specific evidence to support their
claims, or their case ain't going to survive till trial.

If SCO are facing the countersuit only by that point, I'm doubtful they'd
still have much of a pulse, let alone any reason to call RMS. In fact, if SCO's
claims run out of steam, I'd assume some of IBM's counterclaims almost
automatically succeed (some, but not all are mirrors).

Anyway if SCO call RMS at that point, it's going to strengthen not weaken
IBM's case - i.e. he turns up as this hippy guy who wants to give away free
stuff that he and other contributors wrote, and supports IBM's claims that SCO
wrongfully tried to steal 'em for their own use.

And yes, RMS rubs me up the wrong way too. Not as much as ESR though.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: gumout on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 07:02 PM EST
Too interesting to ignore. Maybe someone can fill in some material.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3743431680.html

Nov. 18, 2002

OS News reports on the coming launch of a new Linux-based TV personal video
recorder (PVR) from Digeo, the company recently acquired by Microsoft co-founder
Paul Allen. Eugenia Loli-Queru writes . . .

"A few months ago Paul Allen's Digeo company acquired Moxi, who at the
time was working on a TiVo-like PVR Linux-based solution, also named Moxi. Many
expected that the co-founder of Microsoft would modify the product to use
WindowsCE, but instead the Moxi has continued to be developed with Linux. In
fact, Digeo seems really happy with the popular open source kernel . . ."


---
"If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to
be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to
be sent up." --- Rush Limbaugh

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's subpoena used to counter negative stock pressure from IBM's subpoena?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 07:20 PM EST
?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Scalding legal criticism.
Authored by: gumout on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 07:28 PM EST
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20031113_chander.html


"The Federal Trade Commission has the authority to call SCO to account for
its claims. State attorneys general, who are charged with protecting against
deceptive trade practices, might inquire into SCO's claims. New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer, fresh from his campaign to improve the honesty of the
securities markets, might lead such an inquiry. Bill Lockyer of California (home
to Silicon Valley) and Roy Cooper of North Carolina (home to Red Hat) might also
lead an investigation. And in examining these claims, the FTC and attorneys
general should draw upon the community of programmers worldwide, who offer an
amazing brain trust of public interested experts."

---
"If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to
be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to
be sent up." --- Rush Limbaugh

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: hombresecreto on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 07:29 PM EST
Note that Digeo has "300 patents" and licenses "intellectual
property". They are also owned by Pual Allen, Vulcan Ventures, Charter
Communications and Mayfield Partners. This may be another attmept to get back at
Motorola for the Lineo loss by Canopy Group, or it may be a friendly witness.
Can't tell yet.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Neither - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 08:16 PM EST
Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 08:03 PM EST
SCO issued the subpoenas to learn "how certain programs may have gone into Linux, and what these individuals' dealings with IBM (NYSE: IBM - news) and others may have been," SCO spokesperson Blake Stowell told NewsFactor. -- From Enterprise Linux I.T.

How does the question of "what these individuals dealings with ... others" have anything to do with the SCO v. IBM case? Now they're fishing for information to use in other cases?

Blake's gonna get SCO in trouble.

I wonder if IBM's lawyers can use this quote to squash or limit the scope of the subpoenas.

[ Reply to This | # ]

More wild speculation from Paul Murphy
Authored by: whoever57 on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 08:38 PM EST
In this article in Linuxinsider.com, Paul Murphy expounds a wild theory that IBM is somehow going to use SuSE as a Fall guy. And because SuSE somehow knew that IBM was getting ready to do this (he doesn't explain how they knew), SuSE's owners' sold the company for a knockdown price.

It completely ignores questions of how SuSE could be the fall guy and somehow more responsible in the lawsuit.

More importantly, it assumes that IBM is not going to win the lawsuits.

Just more FUD, just another reason to not trust anything published by LinuxInsider.com and Paul Murphy.

---
-----
For a few laughs, see the scosource.com website

[ Reply to This | # ]

Paul Allen Aims At Microsoft With Moxi
Authored by: NZheretic on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 10:37 PM EST
A Microsoft Digeo Connection: "Moxie was rescued on March 29 from an impending financial flameout when it was acquired by Digeo, a TV outfit owned by Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people) co-founder Paul Allen."

Read Forbes:Paul Allen Aims At Microsoft With Moxi.

Revenge?

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • No - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 10:59 PM EST
Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 13 2003 @ 11:16 PM EST
Anybody a clue what this is supposed to mean? Not that I would disagree to KILL KILL KILL The SCO Group, but on CNN? :-)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Deadline and justification - Attention PJ
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 12:03 AM EST
Justification here:

http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1006179290&fp=2&fpid=1

"We're seeking information from these individuals because of their
recognized leadership roles in the evolution of Linux," a SCO spokesman
said Thursday. "We believe that their technical views will help to
illuminate important issues related to the development of Linux and the validity
of the GPL."


Deadline for some or all subpoenas appears to be Nov 21

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1382089,00.asp

"In any case, the subpoenaed parties will have until Nov. 21 to produce
the documents requested by Lindon, Utah-based SCO. If they do not comply, they
could be held in contempt of court."

Eweek article is dated Nov 13 and also says: "For example, Novell,
according to Kevan Barney, senior manager of public relations, still hasn't
received a copy of the subpoena."


I therefore suspect the deadline is 7 days


You have to wonder about SCO's rush considering they have been planning this
since 5 October according to SCO and press reports.

IANAL, but I have to wonder if this could apply:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule45.htm

(3) (A) On timely motion, the court by which a subpoena was issued shall quash
or modify the subpoena if it

(i) fails to allow reasonable time for compliance;

[ Reply to This | # ]

I'm not surprised. DiDio next...
Authored by: amcguinn on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 02:12 AM EST
As I pointed out at the time, Lyons' earlier piece did show real research and reported the facts accurately (along with some rather odd attitudes). We can survive adverse opinions; as long as the facts are in the open our arguments stand by themselves.

I don't think that Laura DiDio is a permanent enemy either. She's more willing to believe what she's told by her friends and former colleagues than in what she's told by those people her friends say ripped them off. That may not be ideal in a journalist or analyst, but it's only human.

The question for her as her doubts grow is: do I backtrack on what I published, or do I tough it out and hope for the best?

She stopped claiming that SCO had a very good legal case a long time ago, and has planted her flag firmly in "Don't Know" territory. She's toughing it out on indemnification -- it looks like she still doesn't understand the issues there. She's retreated largely to putting the facts with an anti-Linux (rather than pro-SCO) slant. example:

even if SCO were to settle with IBM tomorrow, there could likely be copycat lawsuits filed -- that's probably true. Of course, IBM aren't going to settle with SCO tomorrow or any day, they're going to sue them into bankruptcy, for precisely that reason. But DiDio didn't say IBM would settle, because she has enough integrity (really!) not to want to get caught saying things that aren't true.

I think her journey hasn't finished yet.

[ Reply to This | # ]

NO ONE has written about this
Authored by: skidrash on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 02:36 AM EST
subpoenas for developers who have not been reasonably implicated in ANY
wrongdoing?

AND THEIR EMPLOYERS?

Can you say "chilling effect?"

Can you say "If you employ people who do open source, even if on their
free time, you may be getting a subpoena?"

Can you say "opening a new front on the FUD war against all open
source" ?

BOY OH BOY. MS is getting their money's worth from SCOG.
Could these guys get any scummier?

[ Reply to This | # ]

OSDL To Provide Legal Counsel For Linus Torvalds and Stuart Cohen
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 04:32 AM EST

Siicon News is reporting that OSDL will be paying for legal counsel for Linus
Torvalds and Stuart Cohen. Cohen is the CEO for OSDL. We all know who Linus is.

Here is the link:

http://www.silicon.com/software/os/0,39024651,39116895,00.htm

I assume they will provide counsel for Andrew Morton as well, should he find
himself in a similiar position.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO Stock jumps
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 05:50 AM EST
Sco's stock has jumped by 5.5% since the subpeona announcement, so it seems
that the glamourous reveals and shiny glitter works with the markets.

Anyone scared by this?

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • SCO Stock jumps - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 11:26 AM EST
    • SCO Stock jumps - Authored by: PM on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 12:43 PM EST
    • SCO Stock jumps - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 03:38 PM EST
  • SCO Stock jumps - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 17 2003 @ 01:04 PM EST
Linuxshow discussion of the case
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 06:04 AM EST
You can find it here (MP3 download of about 10Mb - be quick before the link gets overwritten but this week's show). Start listening about 17 minutes in. Groklaw gets mentioned at lot and the view of everyone is that it is *the* site for info on this case. They also give a good view on why the markets have been reacting to the SCO PR so positively.

PJ, you might want to make this a headline story!

Ken

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 06:50 AM EST
theregister on SCO. Seems to be getting much of it from Groklaw

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33986.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: brenda banks on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 08:43 AM EST
http://www.aterwynne.com/

maybe?
br3n

---
br3n

[ Reply to This | # ]

Linux lab hires lawyers for Torvalds
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 10:44 AM EST
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5107419.html?tag=nefd_top

From News.com:

The Open Source Development Lab will pay its law firm to represent Linus
Torvalds, the Linux operating system founder and leader who this week was
subpoenaed in connection with a $3 billion suit against IBM.

BigTex

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: SteveS on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 11:22 AM EST
Is it me, or are we starting to see more level headed reporting. Heres another report:
Motley fool after stating that the $50 mil was a well protected invesment, this was stated:
"But common stockholders -- essentially betting on a lawsuit -- enjoy no such protection."
Is that a ship I see leaving port?
Steve S

[ Reply to This | # ]

Deutsche Bank Profile
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 11:35 AM EST
Came across this today, a free profile of Deutsche Bank:

http://www.idexec.com/product/CompanyProfileOfTheWeek.asp?Req=New

http://tinyurl.com/v0dg

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 04:36 PM EST
I hope Linus gets called up as a witness. His interviews are always so cool. It
would be great to see him use his verbal judo on the SCO lawyers -- you know,
like turn their questions back against them. It could be really hilarious.

Judge (to SCO lawyers): Are you sure you want to continue with this witness? You
seem to be losing ground faster than gaining it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Forbes' Dan Lyons Finds Out Plenty About SCO, Including the 6th Party Subpoenaed
Authored by: tazer on Friday, November 14 2003 @ 07:51 PM EST
Well, if it were ever discovered that there was inappropriate code in the Linux
kernel that appeared to come from IBM, IBM could always use the 'teleportation
defense':

http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/

I swear your honor, we had a freak accident in our teleportation lab that
accidentally fused these 2 code bases together!

Entirely plausible.

[ Reply to This | # ]
Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details ) 		Site layout based on Woodlands theme by Bryan Bell.
Groklaw logo by John Crowley.
News Picks logo by Ted Thompson.
Powered By GeekLog
Created this page in 0.05 seconds