Here's the Videotaped Deposition of Bob Celmer [PDF], attached as an exhibit, Exhibit A, to SCO's Report Regarding Discovery in SCO v. AutoZone, as text. Our thanks to Laomedon for the transcript.
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEVADA
THE SCO GROUP, INC.,
A DELAWARE CORPORATION,
Plaintiff,
VS.
AUTOZONE, INC.,
A NEVADA
CORPORATION,
Defendant.
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Civil Action File No.
CV-S-04-0237-RCJ-LRL |
VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITION OF BOB CELMER
MAY 9, 2005
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The videotaped deposition of BOB CELMER, taken on behalf of the
Plaintiff, pursuant to Notice, on May 9, 2005, beginning at
approximately 9:00 a.m., in the law offices of Baker, Donelson, Bearman
& Caldwell, [Address] Tennessee.
This deposition is taken in accordance with the terms and provisions
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
All forms and formalities are waived, and objections alone as to
relevancy, materiality and competency are reserved, to be presented at
or before the hearing. Objections as to the form of the question must
be made at the time of the taking of the deposition. The signature of
the witness is not waived.
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- APPEARANCES -
For Plaintiff: DAVID STONE, ESQ.
CHRIS IANNICELLI, ESQ.
Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP
Attorneys at Law
[Address, phone]
KEVIN McBRIDE, ESQ.
[Address, phone]
RYAN TIBBITTS, ESQ.
SCO General Counsel
[Address, phone]
For Defendant: DOUGLAS J. STEWART, ESQ.
Alston & Bird, LLP
Attorneys at Law
[Address, phone]
Also present: REBECCA W. BALLOU, ESQ.
JOHN DUBOIS
WILL SMITH, VIDEO SPECIALIST
COURT REPORTING FIRM: ALPHA REPORTING CORPORATION
Korian Neal, NPR, CCR
[Address, phone]
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INDEX
Witness (BOB CELMER) -- Page
Direct Examination by Mr. Stone . . . . .
06
EXHIBITS
No. Description Page
32
Notice to Take Deposition. . . . . . . . . .
07
33
Response to Interrogatories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
32
34
E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . .
48
35
Response to Supplemental Interrogatory. . . . . . . . . . . 56
36 Supplemental Information. . . . . . . . .
68
37
USB Hard Drive Information . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
38 Groklaw Posting . . . . . . . . . .
153
COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE . . . . . . . . 163
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VIDEO SPECIALIST: Today is May 9th, 2005, 9:05. Location is Baker,
Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, [address]
Tennessee. My name is Will Smith, certified video specialist with Alpha
Legal Productions, located in [address].
This case is entitled The SCO Group, Inc. versus AutoZone, Inc. Our
deponent today is Mr. Bob Celmer. This video deposition is requested by
the plaintiff's counsel, Mr. David Stone. Will counsel and all present
please identify themselves for the record at this time.
MR. STONE: David Stone and Chris Iannicelli from Boies, Schiller
& Flexner for the plaintiff, SCO Group.
MR. McBRIDE: Kevin McBride for the plaintiff.
MR. TIBBITTS: Ryan Tibbitts, general counsel, and John DuBois, both
from the SCO Group.
MR. STEWART: David Stewart and Doug Bridges, Alston & Bird for
the defendant, AutoZone.
MS. BALLOU: Rebecca Ballou from AutoZone.
MR. CELMER: Bob Celmer, senior technology advisor for AutoZone.
VIDEO SPECIALIST: The deponent may now
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be sworn in by Ms. Korian Neal of Alpha Reporting Corporation.
BOB CELMER,
having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. STONE
Q. Good morning, Mr. Celmer, How are you?
A. Good. How are you?
Q. I don't need to tell you my name because I already told you my
name. So we'll cross that off my list. You're here today for a
deposition. Have you ever been deposed before?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. Okay. So you're familiar with how depositions proceed, that I'm
going to ask you questions, you're going to answer the questions. From
time to time, your counsel may object, and you still must answer the
question unless he instructs you not to answer the question. You
understand that?
A. Right.
Q. You also understand that you're here under all the oaths of pains
and penalties of perjury that would apply if you were testifying in
court.
A. Right.
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(WHEREUPON, A DOCUMENT WAS MARKED AS EXHIBIT NO. 32, AND IS HERETO
ATTACHED.)
Q. Mr. Celmer, I'm going to show you what's been marked as Celmer
Exhibit 32, which is a letter from myself to Mr. Stewart along with a
notice for a 30(b)(6) deposition, ask you if you've ever seen that
before today.
A. Yes.
Q. And you had an opportunity to review it before you are appearing
here today?
A. Yes.
MR. STONE: And I understand, Mr. Stewart, that the defendant has
filed certain objections to this notice, and I'm not meaning to ignore
those objections by not referring to them or marking them. I just don't
happen to have them here. But you know, I understand you have your
objections, and you'll raise them at the appropriate time.
MR. STEWART: That's fine.
Q. (BY MR. STONE) Mr. Celmer, the purpose of this deposition is to
find out facts pertaining to SCO code from an operating system called
OpenServer. Are you familiar with that operating system?
A. Yes, I am.
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Q. And you're familiar with the fact that AutoZone migrated or moved
from using that system to using a type of a Linux operating system at
some point in the past?
A. Yes.
Q. And currently, is AutoZone using Linux systems on all of its
store servers?
A. Not all of its store servers.
Q. So some of the store servers use other types of operating systems?
A. Yes.
Q. And were you involved in any way in that migration process?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Well, why don't we start out by you giving me a little bit
of your history. Start with your education. Where did you go to college?
A. I went to Southern Illinois University as an undergraduate and
was awarded my master's degree from Memphis State University here in
town.
Q. When did you graduate from Southern Illinois?
A. 1984.
Q. And when did you achieve your master's?
A. 1990.
Q. And what was your master's in?
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A. Computer science.
Q. Did you study -- when you were studying for your master's, did
you study the Linux operating system?
A. No, we didn't.
Q. Did you study the OpenServer operating system?
A. No.
Q. Did you study Unix-based operating systems?
A. Yes.
Q. When you -- well, what is the first job that you held?
A. First job I held was a lot boy on a used car lot.
Q. Okay. And when --
MR. STEWART: Do you mean first job after college?
Q. (BY MR. STONE) What was the first job after college that you held?
A. Construction laborer.
Q. Okay. And for how long did you have that job?
A. Nine or ten months, I suppose.
Q. And what's the next job that you held?
A. Security guard supervisor.
Q. Okay. And how long did you have that job?
A. Four years.
Q. So tell me what year we're in now.
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A. 1989 --
Q. Okay.
A. -- I believe is when I left that job.
Q. And what job did you hold after that job?
A. Let's see. I was a programmer for a company whose name I can't
recall right now. It was a company here in town that provided software
for credit unions. I'm sorry. I'm drawing a blank on the name of the
company right now.
Q. And so you programmed software that assisted credit unions?
A. Right.
Q. How long did you hold that job?
A. About -- less than a -- less than a year.
About six to nine months.
Q. And where did you go next?
A. Malone & Hyde, a grocery distributor.
Q. And you programmed software for them?
A. Right.
Q. Where did you go next?
A. AutoZone.
Q. And what year was that?
A. December of 1990.
Q. So the first time you joined AutoZone was in December of 1990?
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A. Right.
Q. And what was your position at that time?
A. Programmer.
Q. And did you -- what were your responsibilities as a programmer?
A. The development and maintenance of programs for our store systems.
Q. And at that time, was AutoZone using OpenServer systems?
A. No. At that time, we were using Zenix.
Q. And was Zenix a Unix-based operating system?
A. I believe Zenix is a Unix-based operating system.
Q. Do you know who you were licensing Zenix from?
A. The Santa Cruz operation.
Q. And what's the next job you held after programmer?
A. My first title change after programmer I believe was project
leader.
Q. And when was that, approximately?
A. 1993, probably.
Q. And how did your responsibilities change as a project leader from
a programmer?
A. The only real change in responsibility was the review of junior
personnel in an official capacity.
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Q. So you took on certain management responsibilities that you
didn't previously have? Is that correct?
A. That's right.
Q. Did you receive any further promotions after that time?
A. Yes.
Q. When's the next promotion you received?
A. Probably 1998 or so, I was given the title of technical fellow.
Q. And technical fellow, what were your responsibilities as a
technical fellow?
A. I really had two responsibilities as technical fellow. One is, it
was an experimental position. We wanted to find out whether it was
appropriate to create a separate technical track for the developers at
AutoZone, technical career track. And so a large part of my
responsibility was to outline duties and responsibilities at the upper
end of that track.
Other than that, I was involved with Y2K preparations, and I was
investigating a multi-dimensional database product for use in data
mining.
Q. Okay. And did you receive any further promotions after that date?
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A. No. My current title is sort of a standardization of that
technical fellow title.
Q. Okay. When is the first time that you recall that AutoZone began
using any version of the OpenServer operating system?
A. I really don't recall the year. When we migrated from Zenix to
Unix, it wasn't called OpenServer. And then with the subsequent --
subsequent release of the operating system, SCO changed the name, I
believe, to OpenServer.
Q. Okay. So for some period of time, you were using a new operating
system that was different than Zenix, and then at some point, the name
of that operating system was changed to OpenServer. Is that correct?
A. Right.
Q. Do you recall when that happened?
A. No. I'm sorry, I don't.
Q. Was it some time between 1995 and 2000?
A. I really don't remember when it was.
Q. Okay. And then at some point, AutoZone decided that it was going
to migrate again or change again the operating system it was using to
Linux. Is that correct?
A. We wanted to explore -- to investigate Linux
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