Editor’s Note: First, a fairly straighforward report of the
discovery order from Magistrate Wells…
“IBM’s plea for less paperwork worked, with Magistrate Judge
Brooke Wells this week deferring 97 percent of the documentation
required from a previous ruling.“In January, the judge ruled IBM must hand over all applicable
documents from the 3,000 programmers who played the biggest part in
developing the AIX and Dynix operating systems.“IBM subsequently filed a motion for reconsideration, saying
‘the parties did not fully brief, nor did the court fully
understand,’ the burden of producing documents on 3,000
people…”
…Groklaw, of course, has its own take on the order
(including a copy of the actual document). It also mentions
something that apparently Her Honor missed in her reiteration to
IBM to turn over all non-public contributions they made to the
Linux kernel: there aren’t any non-public contributions to
the kernel. That’s what the GPL is for…
“Judge Wells has issued her Order regarding the IBM Motion for
Reconsideration. She has acknowledged that she was not fully
informed before. Don’t you admire that? I do. So she rules that
IBM’s motion for reconsideration is properly before her on the
issue of burden.“So, for now, IBM does not have to turn over the files of the
3,000 individuals who have contributed the most to AIX and Dynix.
That is deferred. They have to turn over for 100 individuals in 90
days, and then SCO can ask for more details if they want to. It’s a
much more balanced order…”
…Groklaw didn’t spend a lot of time on the why behind the
move for a reduced developer discovery (to let SCO has just a bit
of the data first and then leaving it open for them to get more
specific in their discovery later on should they find anything).
Instead, the article cheerfully spent time blasting coverage from
one Maureen O’Gara…
“The federal court in Utah hearing the $5 billion SCO v IBM case
has told IBM that it has 75 days to turn over to SCO ALL non-public
information relating to its Linux contributions, a year-old order
IBM has been trying duck.“The caps and double underlining of the word ALL belong to
Magistrate Brooke Wells and were used in her ruling Wednesday on
IBM’s motion asking her to reconsider her massive discovery order
of January 18. They leave one to speculate on her attitude towards
IBM’s discovery delays…”
…Well, you can’t fault Groklaw for having their fun,
especially with that article. Again, for those of you just
joining, ALL contributions to the Linux kernel are public,
so this order adds up to what we call “bupkis.” Meanwhile, over in
Judge Kimball’s courtroom…
“Utah’s SCO Group, claiming it can show IBM copied 200,000 lines
of its Unix code into the freely distributed Linux operating
system, wants a federal judge to amend its lawsuit a third
time.“The Lindon software company, which is suing the world’s largest
computer company for $5 billion, also asked U.S. District Judge
Dale Kimball on Thursday to order IBM Chief Executive Samuel
Palmisano to submit to deposition questioning about the alleged
code theft…”
…with, finally, an eyewitness account of the hearing
proceedings over at Groklaw…
“Chris Brown went to the hearing today, and he has just now
returned. It sounds from his report that everything went really
well. SCO, he says, tried again to read from confidential email,
but IBM’s David Marriott brought it to Judge Kimball’s attention
and it was brought to a halt. Can you believe these guys? Anyhow,
from what Chris writes, I get the impression that SCO’s chances are
not so good for being able to amend the complaint again. I wasn’t
there, though, so I can’t stand on any dime on that. See what you
think….”
…I hope you enjoyed this journey to the land of spin, and
leave you to sort out the impact of yesterday’s events for
yourselves. -BKP
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
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