Some SCO claims hit out of the park

US Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells yesterday ruled out part of SCO's contention that SCO Unix code found its way into Linux via IBM. See pdf here.

Wells said SCO had failed to comply with court orders to give details relating to claims of infringing code deriving from IBM's AIX flavour of Unix, or from Dynix, the Unix flavour IBM acquired with the acquisition of Sequent.

"It is almost like SCO sought to hide its case until the ninth inning in hopes of gaining an unfair advantage despite being repeatedly told to put 'all evidence . . . on the table,'" Wells wrote, referring to a game in which the US often wins the 'World Series'.

Warming to the theme and mixing up the metaphors, Wells added: "SCO's arguments are akin to SCO telling IBM, 'Sorry, we are not going to tell you what you did wrong because you already know.'"

"Certainly, if an individual was stopped and accused of shoplifting after walking out of Neiman Marcus [a department store], they would expect to be eventually told what they allegedly stole. It would be absurd [to tell] the accused that, 'You know what you stole, I'm not telling,'" the magistrate wrote.

Although some watchers said the verdict is a crushing blow to SCO, others said it was only a setback and that the controversy surrounding SCO and Linux IP - over three years and counting - will rumble on. µ