The document is a routine filing concerning the timing of the trial and the discovery process. In it, Oracle says that what documents it has received from HP confirms what Oracle has been arguing since this whole thing started: That HP and Intel plan to let the Itanium processor die once it has released two more generations, something HP and Intel have both denied. “HP and Intel have a contractual commitment that Itanium will continue through the next two generations of microprocessors …”

Worse, Oracle alleges that the only reason the chip is still available at all is that “HP is paying Intel to keep it going.” It goes on: “HP has secretly contracted with Intel to keep churning out Itaniums so that HP can maintain the appearance that a dead microprocessor is still alive. The whole thing is a remake of Weekend at Bernie’s.”

Why all the trouble over so obscure a chip? Oracle says it’s all about the support fees that Intel charges. HP makes a lot of money, Oracle says, charging for service and support of its HP UX operating system, which runs on the Itanium chip; it loses money when customers move to systems running more conventional x86-based chips. As Oracle puts it in the filing: “HP achieves a far lower “attach rate” (meaning it gets few service contracts) on the operating systems like Linux that are prevalent on servers running x86 microprocessors. Thus when customers migrate to new platforms, HP loses the service contract. This is a multi-billion dollar problem for HP.” It also helps HP remain competitive with IBM and Oracle’s Sun Microsystems business, Oracle argues in a redacted passage.

“These factors led HP to craft a top-secret plan to create a false perception that Itanium still had a future,” Oracle says in the filing. “HP understands that the future prospects of IT products drive customer purchasing decisions. A buyer who knew that Intel saw no future for Itanium, and was only continuing to invest in the line pursuant to a contractual obligation, would devalue the future prospects of Itanium servers and be less inclined to buy.”

“Oracle Sun has been a victim of this, and according to HP’s documents an intended victim. So why is Oracle the defendant in this case? We now understand it is because Oracle’s decision to stop making new versions of its software for the Itanium system was devastating to HP because it undermined the rationale for paying Intel [redacted] to sustain the illusion of a long-term future for Itanium. Oracle had told too much of the truth.”

HP, whose PR team is working equally late, just sent this emailed statement:

Oracle’s latest filing is nothing more than a desperate delay tactic designed to extend the paralyzing uncertainty in the marketplace created when Oracle announced in March 2011 — in a clear breach of contract — that it would no longer support HP’s Itanium platform. The fact remains that Oracle’s decision to cut off support for Itanium was an illicit business strategy it conjured to try to force Itanium customers into buying Sun servers, and destroy choice in the marketplace. This filing is just the latest in its ongoing campaign to shore up its failing Sun server business and starve thousands of existing Itanium customers who rely on their Itanium processors for mission-critical activities.

As Oracle well knows, HP and Intel have a contractual commitment to continue to sell mission-critical Itanium processers to our customers through the next two generations of microprocessors, thus ensuring the availability of Itanium through at least the end of the decade. HP is resolved to enforcing Oracle’s commitments to HP and our shared customers and will continue to take actions to protect its customers’ best interests. It is time for Oracle to quit pursuing baseless accusations and honor its commitments to HP and to our shared customers in a timely manner.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy had no comment, saying Intel is not a party to the lawsuit, and doesn’t comment on confidential agreements it may or may not have with other companies. Intel CEO Paul Otellini has said in the past the Intel has a long-term roadmap for Itanium that goes beyond the next two generations already disclosed.

Since this whole episode first erupted in March, and escalated into a lawsuit in May, I’ve called it a very public fight about a very obscure chip. Oracle, perhaps looking for something new to fight with HP about, said it would cease developing software created for systems using Intel’s Itanium chip, arguing that it looked like it was going to be retired in the near-ish future. HP, which is the only server vendor worth mentioning that sells Itanium-based systems, was horrified, as was Intel, if for no other reason than they spent a decade or two developing it in hopes it would be the superchip of the future.

Then the future arrived, and it didn’t quite turn out that way. Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices found a way to do 64-bit computing that the marketplace liked better, Intel ultimately embraced the same method for mainstream server chips, and Itanium went on to be a specialized niche product. However, those who use it are a vocal bunch. Some of them petitioned Oracle to change its mind. It hasn’t budged.

So now you know the background. The original filing is embedded below, via Scribd. The best parts are in the first several pages. Happy reading.

Oracle Itanium Filing: “Weekend At Bernie’ss

You knew it was coming, of course.

Since the blogosphere couldn’t actually kill him off–deeply lazy and incredibly wrong in insinuating that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was dying imminently–it turned around yesterday and declared him a liar for not saying he had a “hormonal imbalance” sooner.

Of course, Apple (AAPL) has also played along in this bizarre game, along with its defenders, who have all tried to pretend nothing is wrong with a man who clearly looks like he has had the stuffing knocked out of him because of his long-running health issues.

Still, the worst offender, of course, was the original story in Gizmodo by Jesus Diaz last week about Jobs’s keynote pullout from Macworld, using a single source for the report that Jobs was doomed.

In it, Diaz went well over the top by using this one source as confirmation that Jobs was “declining rapidly” and “it may be even worse than we imagined” and, quoting the source directly, “Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs. letting the hype destroy Apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.”

That sounds pretty bad to me. Inevitable, of course, always means taxes or death and dying. As in pancreatic cancer returning. As in start cuing the pallbearers. Get Marcus Welby, M.D., stat!

As it turned out, it was also a bit of a premature diagnosis by someone not a doctor but playing one on the Web, as Jobs countered the rumors with his own news yesterday in a terse letter that ended with the back of his hand to crepe-hangers like Diaz and his specious source:

“So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.”

So it’s done, right?

Sadly, no, it is not.

Not satisfied to be utterly wrong about relaying on a rotten source and posting it with a screaming headline and declaring someone on death’s door and then finding that perhaps he had a breath or two still in him–remind me never to tell Nick Denton I am feeling nauseous or I will be on my way to the morgue pronto–Gizmodo tried to twist its original story into a shape even the the malleable corpse in “Weekend at Bernies” could not get into, and got it wrong a second time yesterday.

Under the new title, “Steve Jobs Skips Macworld Because of His Health,” the new post started: “Looks like our source was partly right: Jobs’ condition was the a reason for his Macworld no-show.”

Except Jobs did not ever say that in his letter, except to note: “A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.”

Does the mean he quit Macworld because of that alone?

I have no idea and neither does Gizmodo, which seems to still have done no actual reporting on this issue it makes such a big deal of. Instead, the post whips up implied guilt without a shred of real reporting.

It could be true, it could be false. But Diaz does not help us, except to just ask us to take his say-so. It’s profoundly simplistic and reeks of an agenda.

More importantly, here’s the problem with portraying the Macworld withdrawal as so cut and dried: At all corporations I have ever covered, big decisions are nearly always a complex mix of emotion and business and chaos.

To wit: It is well known Apple hates Macworld, and having to introduce a fabulous new product at a weird time too.

My guess–and that is all it is–as to what seems plausible: Apple had no wow products to show. Execs have wanted out for a while. Jobs felt lousy and wanted to try to get better. A confluence of events seems more likely than one big Apple plot.

But it did not stop Gizmodo from declaring it so, by egregiously reading into Jobs’s letter, as if it were tea leaves and Diaz was that wacky divination professor from “Harry Potter.”

As Hermione Granger said of her: Rubbish.

Then, worse, Diaz goes for the full pretzel, noting about the Jobs letter:

“What does this mean? First and foremost, that his health is not declining rapidly now, as our source affirmed. Thank god for that. Like I said in the original article, I hoped our source was wrong about this point, and they were. The source’s information was probably from earlier in the year.”

What? Earlier this year? Probably? This is a whole new kind of backpedaling.

Actually, when you boil it down to the really important issue, it was posting the information about Jobs being on his deathbed that was wrong, and no amount of fobbing off blame on the source can fix that.

All this could have been solved if Apple were more forthcoming, of course, but this is akin to wishing for a miracle cure.

Apple should be, obviously, although the company is also well-known for its secretive behavior, which continues to surprise people covering it, despite it being business as usual for almost its entire history.

And, as the Gizmodo follow piece does correctly point out, the Jobs-Is-Fine-and-Dandy reporting done by CNBC’s Jim Goldman (and clearly fed by Apple) also went too far in the other direction and oddly ignored the obvious signs of some kind of health issue.

And Goldman’s own claim later that he was sort-of right was just as silly. Neither he or Diaz seems to be.

Jobs is not well as Goldman claimed, but neither is he dying as Diaz said (Sorry, Jesus, I mean your source said, although you talked to that source, used the info, typed it in and let it fly.)

Now, as the professional mourners disperse, it remains to be seen how much longer this will go on. My guess is for a while, since the obsession with Jobs’s health seems infinite in its creepiness.

(I know the drill, it’s only mentioned constantly because it is all about Jobs’s value to the stock, and that is the reason for the intense attention still, even though even Martians have gotten the message about his troubled pancreas. Right.)

But here is one thing I do know for sure: In a letter he was forced to write, Jobs seem to have declared yesterday firmly that he still has a life.

Now, everyone else should get a life too and move on.