SCO Files To Amend Claims To IBM Case, Again 157
UnknowingFool writes "SCO filed a motion to allow it to change its claims against IBM. Again. A brief recap: In December 2005, SCO was supposed to finally list all claims against IBM. This was the Final Disclosure. In May 2006, SCO filed its experts reports to the court which discussed subjects beyond those in the Final Disclosure. Naturally, IBM objected and wanted to remove certain allegations. Judge Wells ruled from the bench and granted IBM's motion: SCO's experts cannot discuss subjects that were not in the Final Disclosure. Now, SCO wants to amend the December 2005 Final Disclosure to include other allegations."
The counterclaims would bankrupt whomever buys SCO (Score:2, Interesting)
Whoever bought them could never survive the judgements that'll come down against SCO.
I think what's more interesting than SCO is what'll happen to SCO's backers that put them up to this (like microsoft who raised $86 million for SCO's lawsuit)
Re:Lawyers Worth Their Weight in Dirty, Shoddy Pap (Score:5, Interesting)
SCO paid a "fixed fee" to BS&F to manage all cases through appeals, I believe it was $29M. There is also a refillable misc-costs bucket of $5M that has already been topped up twice. The misc-cost bucket sort of puts a lie to the "fixed fee" handling of the lawsuit.
In any case SCO is now facing Novell asking for a lot of cash that SCO no longer has.
Actually, it may have one advantage (Score:5, Interesting)
Resources -- At least IBM has big pants (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, SCO is floundering like a stuck pig on the end of a deep-sea fishing line. They're bleeding all over the friggin' ocean and their lawyers are sucking up the blood as fast as it's pouring out.
How soon before McBride and the boys finally run dry and succumb to their fate? Will there be any money to pay Novell for the licensing fees they are due? Will there be any money to pay IBM's legal team for this long, drawn-out court case?
Something doesn't sit right in my mind when a company can use its dying breath to unfairly inconvenience other companies. If SCO doesn't have any money left to pay its debts when the "curtain is coming down" on this case, can the judge haul off and McGwire the money from the SCO gang like candy from a pinata?
I hope so.
Re:This is all about delay (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately I did not bookmark the page and cannot find it now, but back in the day Darl had a moment of candor during an interview and when asked why he filed the suit said (paraphrasing}:
"We were approached by outside parties who asked us to use the power of our license to help monitize Linux."
In his attempt to deflect bad feelings away from SCO he . .
This wasn't merely an attempt to discredit Linux, it was an attempt to "virally infect" it with propriatary code so that it could not be freely distributed.
Who those outside parties are was never named, but you can note who jumped up to pay SCO license fees of a million or more and draw your own conclusions. There were only two and it's interesting to note as well that one of those license fees almost exactly matched SCO's legal expenses up to that time; and I'm sure that the fact that these two licensees being the two that would most benefit from a "monitized" Linux was a complete coincidence.
KFG
Re:Buyout SCO to rid us of problems (Score:5, Interesting)
The executives exercised stock options all the way up until the end of 2004. It seems they were mostly granted at between $1 and $2 and excercised for between $10 and $20, but there are some exceptions. I didn't add up all the money, but it was definitely in the multi-millions of dollars.
There are huge stock grants to a law firm (about 10 million shares), which I think is the law firm representing them (I assume for services rendered). So the absolute big winners seem to be the lawers, but the executives and Baystar seem to have made millions as well. The losers are the people who invested at anything over $4 (or the morons who sold short, not understanding that it takes *time* for a stock to fall).
As a disclaimer, I only quickly reviewed this material, so there may be errors in my summary. If you care about this stuff, I suggest you compile it properly yourself.
Re:This is damaging credibility (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason for the delay, outside of shady lawyers, is that the justices involved are bending over backwards to prevent any successful appeal of their future rulings. A successful appeal would make them look bad and hand SCO a victory it ill-deserves.
The shady lawyers, in this case, first got in because of greed, i.e., the promise of shaking down IBM for billions. Now they are mainly attempting to save their collective asses from all sorts of perils including being sued by what's left of SCO for screwing up the case. So they are gaming the system about as far as any lawyers could. It will be interesting to see if the judges don't penalize them personally for this.
Gerry
America isn't strictly a republic anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
We're a fledgling corporate oligarchy. Lobbyists and corporate interests have seen to that.
Most of the laws being passed these days concern business interests. I won't get too heavily into it but a good example is to study our DMCA and see how our original ideas of freedom of speech and expression have been "curtailed" to benefit a few businesses. Or how eminent domain was recently expanded to cover business interests, not just civic ones. Plenty of examples, and this is Slashdot so I shouldn't have to get too heavy into it.
So as things are, business controls the legal system, or at least has a gigantic influence upon it. At this point in our history it isn't so much about right and wrong, so much as it's about influence and money. Given enough influence and/or money, you can pretty much get away with anything. There are exceptions - notably the Enron guys, but give us some time. We're new at being a oligarchy. Check back in 100 years or so.
And since most of the legal machinery these days involves business interests, it's disastrous when businesses conflict. A no-brainer like this SCO case can drag on for 5 years, easily. You'd be hard pressed to find a murder trial in the USA that takes that long. Why? No corporate interest. No money is at stake, or oil drilling rights, or lucrative patents. Nothing "important" is at stake, so why waste time with it?
We used to be a government by the people and for the people, but now we're a government by the elite and for the corporations.