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The latest twist in the lawsuit is revealed in a recent CNET interview of Darl McBride: "The System 5 source code, that is really the area that gives us incredible rights, because it includes the control rights on the derivative works that branch off from that trunk. " It is SCO's position that JFS and RCU are derivative of System V.

Opponents of the GNU General Public License perpetuate the misconception that it is somehow viral. In fact, it is copyright law itself that is viral. Quoting from IP in a Nutshell:

A copyright owner has the right to exclude all others from creating works based on his own. ... The statutory definition of a "derivative work" is extremeley comprehensive, including such things as translations, arrangements, dramatizations, fictionalizations, films, recordings, abridgments, condensations, "or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted."

I'm reposting this, since the previous posting was to an article that was pretty dead already .

From McBride interview at ZDNet:

How did Microsoft's agreement to pay you for Unix rights happen?

Darl: In the Microsoft case, they saw an opportunity. We originally approached them and said we're on a new licensing path; we have this intellectual property that we've started approaching vendors about. IBM is one we approached; Microsoft was another. We had about four big vendors in the last quarter that we talked with. With two of them, we signed deals. The other we're still talking with, and IBM we reached an impasse.

To me it feels like they are still talking with HP, and Sun decided to pay up to take a stab at linux (in the back, I might as well say). Or is there any other interpretation? Was anyone surprised at how quick Sun was to advertise that they are in the clear?

Also, SCO has said that Sun is the only company that is clear of all the violations. Even M$ is less clear.

I hope someone brings this up in an interview with Scott, so he can explicitly deny this if it is untrue.

You missed this gem from the FTC then? http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1015517.html?tag=nl

Felt like saying this close to the top of the article... From here:


How did Microsoft's agreement to pay you for Unix rights happen?
Darl: In the Microsoft case, they saw an opportunity. We originally approached them and said we're on a new licensing path; we have this intellectual property that we've started approaching vendors about. IBM is one we approached; Microsoft was another. We had about four big vendors in the last quarter that we talked with. With two of them, we signed deals. The other we're still talking with, and IBM we reached an impasse.

To me it feels like they are still talking with HP, and Sun decided to pay up to take a stab at linux (in the back, I might as well say). Or is there any other interpretation? Was anyone surprised at how quick Sun was to advertise that they are in the clear?

Boy, these Sun people don't seem like such friends of ours after all.

SCO have amended their complaint against IBM: - They now want $3bn
- Blames Linus for letting proprietary stuff into Linux
- Complains Open Source "can be used for encryption, scientific research and weapons research" in Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya
- Says IBM copied RCU
- Sequent added to the complaint

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017965.html

Umm, didn't Boies once work as IBM's defense atty in the federal antitrust case against IBM back in the 70's - 80's?

Now he's representing IBM's opponent? Doesn't that constitute an "Attorney Conflict Of Interest"? If he loses for SCO, then SCO can sue Boies for attorney malpractice.

Attorneys have been disbarred for failure to excuse themselves from counsel in COI cases.

They can demand their own code be returned or destroyed which would leave gaps in the AIX source, but there's nothing at all to stop IBM from continuing to support the existing AIX installed base. IBM may be prohibited from selling any more AIX, but the existing copies will continue to exist.

As SCO hinted at going after another "major hardware manufacturer" - it might very well be SGI now that you mention it. Articel here.

I haven't seen this posted before. In a news.com article, IBM's alleged violations are listed:

Specifically, the transferred code includes the Journaled File System (JFS), extensions to make Linux work on a multiprocessor server employing the non-uniform memory access (NUMA) technique, Sontag said. In addition, he said read-copy update (RCU) for relieving some memory bottlenecks on multiprocessor servers, was transferred.

First, I am not a lawyer, so I am probably wrong about this.

Check out this quote from this CNET article, from SCO's CEO McBride:

'The System 5 source code, that is really the area that gives us incredible rights, because it includes the control rights on the derivative works that branch off from that trunk.'

Based on this, I believe SCO is not necessarily claiming that IBM copied code from Sys V, they are claiming that IBM copied code from AIX into Linux, and further they are claiming the rights to the 'derivative' (AIX)! More importantly, the code SCO is claiming was copied may not have been in Sys V at all, it could have been added to AIX solely by IBM. If SCO's claim that they own the rights to derivative works, then any change, including additional functions or even new files or API would be owned by SCO, even if IBM added the code themselves.

IBM better check their licensing agreement, if they don't own all of the rights to the derivative (AIX) then SCO may be justified. I can't believe anyone, especially IBM would ever sign an agreement that would not give them 100% of the rights to a derivative work.

here

The above link

Here's a clip where Scott McNealy mentioned that Sun had already paid a large pile of money for the rights to use System V in Solaris.

1) Aim shotgun at foot
2) Pull trigger
3) ???
4) PROFIT!!!

IBM got its start providing IT services to the US Census beureau over 100 years ago. Today it is tightly integrated into the business and government fabric of nations around the world. IBM hires the best and brightest MBA and Law school grads every year into their corporate ranks. With that combination of inteligence and connectivity, IBM is not a force you want to fight directly.

Beginning this year, IBM has appointed a new Chairman. Mr. Palmisano has a history of supporting Linux.

This is all the motivation IBM needs to finish migrating its non-x86 platforms all the way over to Linux and completely dumping that antiquated "Unix" stuff.

I see a lot of job opportunities for Linux hackers opening up at IBM shortly. Especially for people with both Linux and IBM mainframe or PPC experience.

Read this. It basically says that SCO doesn't like IBM backing Linux...

SCO said that the termination of the AIX license means that all IBM Unix customers also have no license to use the software. "This termination not only applies to new business by IBM, but also existing copies of AIX that are installed at all customer sites. All of it has to be destroyed," Sontag said.

My understanding is that SCO is claming that IBM has to DESTROY all copies of AIX and return or destroy all copies of UNIX source code.
This also applies to IBM's customers that USE AIX. They are supposed to destroy and stop using their copy of AIX.
At least that is according to this article on Cnet: CNet Article

There's a widespread perception SCO is doing this to make a quick buck because your core business hasn't panned out. What's your response?

We are taking these actions to protect our property. It's a little bit as if you have a jewelry store and you have some very valuable diamonds in it, and one day you wake up and realize people are walking into your store and taking the diamonds and not paying on the way out. Now we are stepping up and saying, "Hold on, you've got to go through this cash register first."

hehe..

"IBM! Sue! ooogla-boogla!" - Darl MeatHead

... And in this news.com.com.com... story, there is a quote from SCO claiming "This termination not only applies to new business by IBM, but also existing copies of AIX that are installed at all customer sites. All of it has to be destroyed."
That is something I have not heard SCO claim before. I was under the impression that they wanted to cut off future sales, but all past sales too? The insanity never ends at SCO.

While I hate to attack somebody personally, doesn't this guy just look like a tool?!

News.com article

From: News.com

"In 1995, Novell sold SCO Unix copyrights and contracts with many large companies, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Compaq Computer. Though those licenses lay largely dormant for years,SCO decided that they could be a source of revenue that could bolster the struggling company's fortunes after its failure to make a business of selling Linux."

1. Old Dusty Contracts
2. ???
3. Profit

-renard

Sorry,

CNET story

I just read an interview with Darl McBride on CNet where McBride admits they filed the suit against IBM and then sent their teams of programmers through the code to find similarities. I find this to be rather glaring evidence of extortion, rather than protection of IP rights.

If SCO was really concerned with their Unix licence rather than their failing business, they should have investigate first, and then filed suit if action was needed. Darl saw the leverage negative publicity might bring and decided to exploit it. No matter how victimized he tries to sound, he did things backward and it will bite him in the end.

Here you go, computers designed by Microsoft not to run Linux.

At the time, Dalzell was serving on a three-judge panel that rejected the absurd Communications Decency Act as a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of free expression.

Dalzell recognized that the U.S. government's true fear of the Internet was not indecency or obscenity, but hypothetical worries about how "too much speech occurs in that medium." Dalzell and eventually the Supreme Court realized that the best way to foster the soon-to-be spectacular growth of the Internet was to reduce government regulation--not to increase it.

document.write(' ');

Unfortunately, Europeans still haven't quite figured that out. The Council of Europe--an influential quasi-governmental body that drafts conventions and treaties--is meeting on Monday to finalize a proposal that veers in exactly the opposite direction. (It boasts 45 member states in Europe, with the United States, Canada, Japan and Mexico participating as non-voting members. Its budget is about $200 million a year, paid for by member governments.)

The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or "blogs"), must offer a "right of reply" to those who have been criticized by a person or organization.

With clinical precision, the council's bureaucracy had decided exactly what would be required. Some excerpts from its proposal:

"The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours."

Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. "It may be considered sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it" from the spot of the original mention.

"So long as the contested information is available online, the reply should be attached to it, for example through a clearly visible link."

Long replies are fine. "There should be flexibility regarding the length of the reply, since there are (fewer) capacity limits for content than (there are) in off-line media."

While the Council of Europe is very influential and its proposals have a tendency to become law, that outcome is not guaranteed.


It's pretty zany to imagine that just about every form of online publishing, from full-time news organizations to occasional bloggers to moderated chat rooms, would be covered. But it's no accident. A January 2003 draft envisioned regulating only "professional on-line media." Two months later, a March 2003 draft dropped the word "professional" and intentionally covered all "online media" of any type.

Pall

Well if anything you can't fault VFX with the story. But yes each prequel had over 2000 VFX shots. You have to read the article though, last film Weta did about 800 VFX shots and for this they are doing upwards of 1200. As their technology matures (Massive, muscle dynamics, subsurface scattering) you can even throw more things at to the VFX.

It certainly is a big setup, they are adding 1,176 new processors to what they already had (which was stated in an article some time ago). Probably ILM and Imageworks have a bit more though. The article says that they have the largets Intel deployment, but places like ILM and Imageworks, besides their Intel/Linux machine still have quite bit of SGI hardware around. An article on the SGI websitye a couple years back stated ILM had an 800 CPU Origin 2000 machine, and around 500 O2s. Since then a lot of the TDs, animators and compositors have gotten Dell Linux workstations and several of them keep the 2 machines side by side (the O2 and the Dell). ILM and Pixar also recently added to their renderfarm via RackSaver:

Pixar switches from Sun to Intel
Racksaver testimonials
AMD debuts server processor, readies 'Barton'
SGI Powers 5 Summer films

It certainly is nice that New Line is paying for this though. I'm sure other studios are envious ;-).

Linux software companies could also become SCO targets. "Do we have potential issues with Red Hat, SuSE and other commercial Linux distributors--yes, we might," Sontag said, adding that chances for negotiating with such companies appear to be slim.

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Google community when IDC confirmed that Google market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all web searches. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Google has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Google is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by Yahoo's failure to renew its exclusive deal with Google.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Google's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Google faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Google because Google is dying. Things are looking very bad for Google. As many of us are already aware, Google continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Google search is the most endangered of them all, having lost most of its core affiliates. The sudden and unpleasant departures of Yahoo and AOL only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Google is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Google.com founder Sergey Brin states that there are 7000 users of Google. How many users of Verity are there? Let's see. The number of Google versus Verity posts on USENET is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Verity users. AskJeeves posts on USENET are about half of the volume of Verity posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Inktomi. A recent article put Teoma at about 80 percent of the search engine market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Google users. This is consistent with the number of Google USENET posts.

Due to the troubles of Google News, abysmal sales and so on, Google is going out of business and will probably be taken over by idealab! who operate another troubled search engine. Now Inktomi is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Google has steadily declined in market share. Google is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Google is to survive at all it will be among search engine dilettante dabblers. Google continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical p

Ya, go ahead, call him up... Explain to him how Apple's new browser is is based on WebCore, which is open source (as is a majority of the OS X). Be sure to explain that this has nothing to do with Microsoft's decision to stop development of standalone versions versions of IE for its own OS. If he asks... This decision had nothing to do with this either.

Go get em' moron!

Ya, go ahead, call him up... Explain to him how Apple's new browser is is based on WebCore, which is open source (as is a majority of the OS X). Be sure to explain that this has nothing to do with Microsoft's decision to stop development of standalone versions versions of IE for its own OS. If he asks... This decision had nothing to do with this either.

Go get em' moron!

This is not to say that proprietary software is banned in the government. The policy will shift to allow companies that use free software solutions partipate in public concurrences. And every software used by the government, regardless of its platform, should be interoperable. No government website may carry a tag "best viewed with browser x or Y". The software developed by the brazilian IRS, that today is avaliable only for Windows, will have a Linux port. Sergio Amadeu told me this policy can be summarized in one sentence: "the brazilian government will not force anyone to use proprietary or free software". That is 100% on the spirit of free software and open source.

Nowadays the use of Windows is predominant in the brazilian government, but that will change. Many governments are considering this direction, and Brazil is just another case. The government is not anti-Microsoft, is just considering a better option for the country.

As a coincidence, I am a brasilian journalist and I have wrote a story about it. On monday you can check it out in www.jb.com.br/internet (those that don't speak portuguese will have to use Babel Fish).

But he'd give the edge to SCO in the situation, not because of its interpretation of the GPL, but because of a legal principle stemming from the 1887 sale of a pregnant cow in Michigan. That case established the so-called doctrine of mutual mistake, under which a contract can be nullified if two parties--in this case SCO and a company using Linux--misapprehended the true nature of what was in the contract.

....Why RIM (research in motion's) device is being terminated could be because RIM lost a patent lawsuit against NTP. NTP is a patent holding company which claims to hold patents to "sending text data through wireless" or some such sort. NTP was awarded $23 million in damages and has sued again tripling the damages.

Is this fair ? you ask. Let me remind you about fivolous lawsuits initiated by RIM against palm and handspring because RIM claimed to hold a patent which covers attaching a keyboard to a mobile device !!. Handspring and palm decided to settle out of court, paid RIM a wad of money and "licenced" the "technology". Evidently what goes around comes around. :(.

....Why RIM (research in motion's) device is being terminated could be because RIM lost a patent lawsuit against NTP. NTP is a patent holding company which claims to hold patents to "sending text data through wireless" or some such sort. NTP was awarded $23 million in damages and has sued again tripling the damages.

Is this fair ? you ask. Let me remind you about fivolous lawsuits initiated by RIM against palm and handspring because RIM claimed to hold a patent which covers attaching a keyboard to a mobile device !!. Handspring and palm decided to settle out of court, paid RIM a wad of money and "licenced" the "technology". Evidently what goes around comes around. :(.

After all, Microsoft won't release another stand-alone browser for Windows either. They're really pushing for an operating system that let you browse the Internet instead, where perhaps the browser component of the OS might happen to be called Internet Explorer. The browser in Windows Longhorn will probably not be downloadable separately, and Microsoft will get complete freedom to do whatever they wish to do in that browser to make it necessary to upgrade to Longhorn to use certain services.

And according to this news post...

"Ironically, they also say that they can't compete with Apple, because Apple has better access to the underlying operating system."

I guess there's the proof; they can't integrate the browser into the OS on a Mac. So long, Apple.

Not that I think Mac users will suffer a huge loss. Perhaps it will even turn the tide in a positive way since webmasters will no longer have an excuse to make IE-only sites if they wish to make it run on Mac's. Sure, Mac users are in minority, but they're not in such a small minority that I would suggest any serious web developer to simply ignore them.

Gonna play devil's advocate here.
I don't believe IE will ever play friendly with web standards when you have this.

"AOL Time Warner, for its part, has just ended its browser-related legal claims against Microsoft as part of a $750 million settlement that included a seven-year free license for IE."

AOL seems just as popular on the Mac side as it is on the PC side. Either AOL bought a license for a discontinued product, or they are planning on integrating IE into their AOL client.

Just my $.02

blue

Um, basically, they are going to. This little paragraph here:
"On the Windows side, Microsoft has said that it will stop development of standalone versions of Internet Explorer, instead evolving the browser as part of future updates to the Windows OS."

That link embedded in the quote leads to Microsoft abandons standalone IE.

Of course, evolving the browser into the WinOS may or may not have significant impact on all those pages that are IE specific. All I can say for sure is that, of the 3 browsers that I use on OS X, (Safari, Netscape,Explorer) Explorer is by far the slowest and buggiest of the lot.

blue

...for Microsoft Office.

Even with Internet Explorer gone, the need for Office remains.

In that article there is the following lovely little sentence,

SCO wasn't aware of any potential infringement until CEO Darl McBride began to ask engineers to investigate how Linux could have grown so quickly.

IBM Patches for NUMA - http://www-124.ibm.com/linux/patches/?project_id=5 6

Read-Copy Update - http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking/rcupdate.html "Read-Copy Update was originally designed for DYNIX/ptx, a UNIX operating system from Sequent Computer Systems Inc., now a part of IBM."

IBM's original RCU Patch - http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking/rcu/patches/rcl ock-2.4.1-01.patch

Other kernel patches from IBM - http://www-124.ibm.com/linux/patches/?project_id=5 2

If there is any SCO code that IBM submitted to the Linux kernel, then it should be in those patches. That's if the statements by the analyst is true that SCO is claiming their code is specifically in the NUMA and RCU sections of the kernel.

There is an interesting quote in this interview from MozillaQuest Magazine back in March. http://mozillaquest.com/Linux03/ScoSource-07_Story 02.html

Oh, and something SCO/Caldera seems to have missed totally is who the contributing IBM people actually are; most (all?) of them are the people from the NUMA-Q section, which is a very recent purchase on IBM's part. No SCO code involved there, afaict.

IBM Patches for NUMA - http://www-124.ibm.com/linux/patches/?project_id=5 6

Read-Copy Update - http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking/rcupdate.html "Read-Copy Update was originally designed for DYNIX/ptx, a UNIX operating system from Sequent Computer Systems Inc., now a part of IBM."

IBM's original RCU Patch - http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking/rcu/patches/rcl ock-2.4.1-01.patch

Other kernel patches from IBM - http://www-124.ibm.com/linux/patches/?project_id=5 2

If there is any SCO code that IBM submitted to the Linux kernel, then it should be in those patches. That's if the statements by the analyst is true that SCO is claiming their code is specifically in the NUMA and RCU sections of the kernel.

There is an interesting quote in this interview from MozillaQuest Magazine back in March. http://mozillaquest.com/Linux03/ScoSource-07_Story 02.html

Oh, and something SCO/Caldera seems to have missed totally is who the contributing IBM people actually are; most (all?) of them are the people from the NUMA-Q section, which is a very recent purchase on IBM's part. No SCO code involved there, afaict.

SCO is threatening to sue yet another company...

Chris Sontag says "It would be almost impossible to separate it [SCO code in Linux] out." - so I guess he wants everybody to pay SCO royalties.

Details at http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1017267.html

funny you should mention that...sco is apparently threatening to expand their case to now include "a major hardware manufacturer". They do not say who, however. (Shocking I know). Here's the C|Net Article.
--
Please take the poll:
Who Actually Owns UNIX?

How about BitTorrent a catalyst for world peace!

News.com.com.com.com just posted this story:

Sun systems key to HBO transformation

Apple would also gain Java as an Apple supported program and language. It would help better, faster Java come to Linux and OSX. Java could be more tightly integrated into Quicktime and thus into mobile phones where Apple is implementing it's latest builds of Quicktime.

Ironically, at the same time my knewsticker told me about this article on /., I caught this article about how Sun just scored a big deal with HBO.

This should be modded off the front page.

News story

Apparently they are going to switch their software to run on Java, giving new meaning to "tape delay"...