Slashdot Mirror

There is a new article on Groklaw which says that the facts in the Forbes article are incorrect. The Groklaw article says:

First, SCO has not filed a motion for sanctions for spoliation. That's the way to get an issue regarding missing evidence properly before a judge. It has not happened. I checked Pacer.

Second, SCO didn't file any motions in March of 2006, sealed or otherwise, despite Forbes "reporting" that SCO filed the allegations as part of a sealed motion that month ("Hatch, SCO's attorney, says SCO learned about the destruction of code when it took depositions from IBM programmers. This is the first time SCO has made the allegation in public, though Hatch says the claim was part of a motion SCO filed in March 2006, which has remained sealed.").

Well, I don't know who got it wrong, Hatch or Forbes, but that's just not true. I note for the record that it was not Boies Schiller who did the interview.

The Groklaw webpage also says:

Those are two facts that any reporter could have and should have checked prior to publishing a story implying either was true. They could have just looked on the Docket on Pacer. If they don't know how, they could have asked me. Just because you get a call from SCO, it doesn't mean you publish as is, without even checking the facts. If you don't want to check Pacer, just look on the IBM Timeline page Groklaw provides as an educational service to the public, and look for yourself. This is all just a media event, as far as I can see, in SCO's primary case, the one it is trying in the court of public opinion.

There is a new article on Groklaw which says that the facts in the Forbes article are incorrect. The Groklaw article says:

First, SCO has not filed a motion for sanctions for spoliation. That's the way to get an issue regarding missing evidence properly before a judge. It has not happened. I checked Pacer.

Second, SCO didn't file any motions in March of 2006, sealed or otherwise, despite Forbes "reporting" that SCO filed the allegations as part of a sealed motion that month ("Hatch, SCO's attorney, says SCO learned about the destruction of code when it took depositions from IBM programmers. This is the first time SCO has made the allegation in public, though Hatch says the claim was part of a motion SCO filed in March 2006, which has remained sealed.").

Well, I don't know who got it wrong, Hatch or Forbes, but that's just not true. I note for the record that it was not Boies Schiller who did the interview.

The Groklaw webpage also says:

Those are two facts that any reporter could have and should have checked prior to publishing a story implying either was true. They could have just looked on the Docket on Pacer. If they don't know how, they could have asked me. Just because you get a call from SCO, it doesn't mean you publish as is, without even checking the facts. If you don't want to check Pacer, just look on the IBM Timeline page Groklaw provides as an educational service to the public, and look for yourself. This is all just a media event, as far as I can see, in SCO's primary case, the one it is trying in the court of public opinion.

SCO Has *Not* Brought a Motion for Sanctions Against IBM for Spoliation of Evidence
Saturday, July 22 2006 @ 11:13 AM EDT

First, SCO has not filed a motion for sanctions for spoliation. That's the way to get an issue regarding missing evidence properly before a judge. It has not happened. I checked Pacer.

Second, SCO didn't file any motions in March of 2006, sealed or otherwise, despite Forbes "reporting" that SCO filed the allegations as part of a sealed motion that month ("Hatch, SCO's attorney, says SCO learned about the destruction of code when it took depositions from IBM programmers. This is the first time SCO has made the allegation in public, though Hatch says the claim was part of a motion SCO filed in March 2006, which has remained sealed."). Well, I don't know who got it wrong, Hatch or Forbes, but that's just not true.

. . .

As I understood it, and as I believe AT&T Technologies intended it at the time, Section 2.01 did not in any way expand the scope of the software agreement to restrict our licensees' use, export, disclosure or transfer of their own original code, even if such code was contained in a modification or derivative work of UNIX System V. The purpose of the software agreement was to protect AT&T Technologies' UNIX System V source code, and was never meant to encumber our licensees' own work.

17. Some of our licensees sought further clarification that they, not AT&T Technologies, owned and controlled the modifications and derivative works prepared by or for them. We invariably provided this requested clarification (both orally and in writing) when asked, because it was in keeping with our original intent with respect to all of our licensees under the standard software agreement.

18. For example, Paragraph A.2 of the IBM Side Letter, with which I am familiar because I negotiated it, clarifies the standard provision as follows:

        Regarding Section 2.01, we agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for [IBM] are owned by [IBM]. However, ownership of any portion or portions of SOFTWARE PRODUCTS included in any such modifications or derivative work remains with [AT&T Technologies].

This clarification (and those like it that we provided to other licensees) did not represent a change to the standard software agreement. It merely spelled out what AT&T Technologies had always intended -- that AT&T Technologies did not assert any right to control the use and disclosure of modifications and derivative works prepared by its licensees, except to the extent of the licensed UNIX System V source code included in such modifications and derivative works.

The link to the analysis on Groklaw got munged. This reply is to post it.

Will he come out and testify?

Identifying developers is not the same as identifying infringement, whatever they testify. Nobody is going to admit to copying in court, that is self-incriminate, unless they're forced to.

Comparing source for simularity, and using some commonsense about what constitutes simularity, is really the only way to verify whether something is copied.

Just look at the current SCO circus to see how complicated this "he said/she said" argument can get.

---

Commercial software bigots - a dying breed.

.. or watch out MS.Astroturfers on board ..

"The reason the fine is less than what had been threatened in the press"

Can you provide any citation from the commision to a reduction in fine for good behavour. There is a December reference to a $2m per day from the Commision. Which if my arithmetic is correct, is one million less then the current fine.

"Microsoft met with the EU Trustee Neil Barrett, who "clarified the requirements for the documents"."

Microsoft were compelled to 'meet' Barrett as they failed to comply with its ruling. What he actually said was the documents were "totally unfit for its intended purpose".

You put that as if MS was the concerned party somehow trying to play honest broker to the nasty Commision. In fact MS were compelled to 'meet' Neil Barrett after they first tried to have him removed. You see the Commision is a legally conviened body in judgement of Microsofts' misconduct. It's not as if the guilty party gets to 'meet' the Judge and 'clarify' things for him.

"Barrett also provided Microsoft with "aggressive series of deadlines" for providing the documentation in accordance with the clarified requirements."

So its the Commision who's at fault for not clarifying requirments. Instead of what is really happening, MS wilfully ignoring the instruction to open the protocols to third party developers.

"Since that time, Microsoft has been working overtime to provide the documentation,"

If they are complient why are they being fined $357m and a further $3m euros per day?

"Microsoft has met all milestones in the "series of deadlines" laid down by Barret"

If they are complient why are they being fined $357m and a further $3m euros per day?

"the EU knows that Microsoft provided the new documentation in good faith, and they'll just work with Microsoft to address any further deficiencies."

If Microsoft provided the new documentation in good faith why are they being fined $3 million per day.

Why does the Commision need to 'work with Microsoft'? Did Leona Helmsley get to 'work' with the Judge when she was caught cheeting on taxes?

In real life, are you a PR hack for Microsoft?

Is slashdot becoming totally overrun with MS.Astroturfers?

As usual, PJ over at Groklaw has interesting information and insight into this latest from Microsoft.

It never ceases to amaze me that some people still want to believe that MS is 'now' trying to do the right thing.

But most people will just stick with the standard that Microsoft as default. Once enough people are using their standard it will become THE standard (they hope).

For a full in-depth article on the announcment see Groklaw
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200607060 64747376

I mean, I don't understand all this necessity of creating an "open document" standard. Especially when it comes down to politicians deciding which should be a ubiquitous document format.

To my knowledge, its never been a problem for a software company A to read and support documents from software company B, and vice versa. In fact, when it comes to word processing documents, which are largely text based (in a binary format), the problem is moot. Sure, you may not get some advanced formatting features specific to an individual package, but at least you can get the meat and potatoes of the document.

Unless you go to extraordinary lengths to encrypt a document so that only your application and read and write to it, I don't understand what all the hubbub is about.

You've hit on exactly the problems that ofice suites like OpenOffice.org and KOffice, etc. run into when trying to import or export Word files. You're right that there's nothing stopping anyone from supporting one format or another... However, as an example, Microsoft changes the format of Word files with every version of Office, adding and removing features and changing the binary signature of the file. This requires more effort spent at every new release, reverse-engineering the file format and hopefully finding that one critical detail that defines this text is bold.

Lets put it this way. If Microsoft comes out with an "open standard" and the OSS community comes out with an "open standard", whats the big deal? This means that Microsoft products will be able to natively support OSS document standards, and the OSS community will support Microsoft standards. Its not like either community needs to reverse-engineer the document format, both communities are making their standards open and thus, easily supported by 3rd parties.

Microsoft has come out with an "open standard". OpenXML. They're pushing it through ECMA with the hope that it will become an ISO standard. They were a bit slow in the motions, as OpenDocument has already become an ISO standard: ISO/IED 26300.

The problem is that Microsoft's definition for their XML document standard is so complex and over-engineered, and its licensing so damn confusing, that it's impossible to know whether your implementation of an OpenXML reader or writer is actually legal. The license requires that the implementation be complete, and the definition for that term is so vague as to make it unclear if a conforming implementation will even work along side Microsoft's Word.

On the other hand, OpenDocument is clear enough that it's easy to see whether a conforming implementation is complete, as it's guaranteed to be compatible with any other implementation.

And Microsoft has stated that they will not implement or distribute an ODF plugin for Word. Ever.

What I find laughable is the idea that a government has to support ONE standard. I mean, does it really make a hill of beans difference for politicians? Whether your a politician that support the OSS community, or swears by retail software companies (depends where most of your campaign monies came from or didn't come from), the applications your going to use will be able to support either or standards.

Wrong. Settling on one standard ensures total compatiblility across all platforms and in all circumstances. This means that one computer in a Mac OS X office will be able to exchange documents seamlessly with a Linux computer in another office and those two legacy Windows boxes in another. Seamlessly being the key word.

Because Microsoft has comitted to not supporting ODF, this creates a bit of friction in that suddenly there is guaranteed incompatibility between Microsoft's Word and any other office suite that supp

Just thought that you guys might wanna know that Microsoft has came up with an article on removing WGA.

seems in the first case, the teeth grew yesterday (SCO vs IBM)
Citation:

Disclaimer: I don't know much about XML

Because ODF is XML-based, there are fast standard techniques to verify whether a given document is 100% ODF compliant or not.
This would mean that a lot less "cheating" is possible than with a difficult-to-implement binary format.

To be fair, the same would hold for Office Open XML (that's what Microsoft calls their format -- i wonder why), so if that also becomes a standard you'd be able to choose :-)
On groklaw I read a discussion on the legal and technical merits of both:
(DISCLAIMER: its written by people from the OpenDocument fellowship, so it's understandably biased towards ODF)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511251 44611543

And this is what I could find on validation on the W3 consortium website (as I said, I don't know anything about XML):
http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/#concepts-schemaC onstraints

Groklaw did it with pizza.

"The OpenDocument Foundation has notified the Massachusetts ITD that we have completed testing on an ODF Plugin for all versions of MS Office dating back to MS Office 97. The ODF Plugin installs on the file menu as a natural and transparent part of the open, save, and save as sequences. As far as end users and other application add-ons are concerned, ODF plugin renders ODF documents as if it were native to MS Office.

The testing has been extensive and thorough. As far as we can tell there isn't a problem, even with Accessibility add ons, which as you know is a major concern for Massachusetts."

There's an analysis of the tool's EULA over at Groklaw. Amazingly enough, the tool isn't CC, as far as I can tell.

"...when, as in this case, Congress has not altered the traditional contours of copyright protection, further First Amendment scrutiny is unnecessary."

By implication, this means laws that do alter the "contours" can be challenged constitutionally. I'm thinking DMCA, esp. anticircumvention... which goes beyond the prohibition of copying and denies mere access to works, as pointed out in a good chapter of a very mediocre book: Protecting Ideas by David L. Hudson.

right enough.

If SCO were to release a version of Linux with their so called proprietary code removed then it could be compared, not easily, to other distros to see what code they are claiming ownership of, since it would be missing in the GPL code.

mmm... the thing is, they already did that. They were releasing Caldera Linux (with Caldera devloped code, obviously) before, this whole kerfuffle started. Even odder, they continued to do so after they brought their lawsuit against IBM. SCO, of course challenge the validity of the GPL and say that an illegal licence should not bind them. However in the Real World, they've been oddly reticent to make that claim in court. That can't last long though: If IBM don't force them to it, Novell surely will.

Over on Groklaw PJ reckons that this release is most likely a hoax. I think I'm inclined to agree. I can't see anything SCO stand to gain from this, but loads of ways they could lose.

Sorry, Guys And Gals!
Recently, on this site a fake anouncement of Caldera Open Linux X was found.

We thought it was obvious enough that it was fake. We had to learn it was not for all people reading it. So we took it down now. Apparently, also the DNS records are changed/deleted, so soon enough you won't get to this site using openlinux.org anyways.

We thought, it would not spread from Slashdot before we stop it (ie, this weekend). It was funny to follow people speculating and finding out about this site. Some people pointed out good reasons why this is hoax/parody, some bad or wrong reasons. Overall, we hope most people concluded it indeed was a parody.

Our submit to Slashdot concluded with "Is this real?" - sadly enough, Slashdot's editor wrote up a new text without any hints about this. We can't blame him, he maby was just in a hurry..

Nothing got hacked, it's just we got a previously used IP for this machine, so why not having some fun content on it? We apologize for any inconviences arised though! We didn't suspect it would be taken so serious. Some hints in the text proving this weren't read (talking about XML on a Server OS?), others were found but still taken serious. Please stop spreading this fake news, and if you know some sites who published it, please inform them to update their content. Thanks.

> It's a bet against all odds, but what have they got to lose?

SCO has nothing to lose.

It has already lost its reputation - and most of its cash reserves - and any chance of getting its user base back.

But aside from that, it is likely that this was a bogus press release - http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200606171 85813203 has information about it.

see groklaw.net http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200606171 85813203. Some of the commentors have already debunked this.

> they want to get sued for violating the GPL.

They already are; it's one of IBM's counterclaims in SCO v IBM.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200403310 43539340

The sixth counterclaim, to be precise. (Just search for "SIXTH".)

But of course, in a case like this (as opposed to the IBM case), you don't normally sue for "GPL violations"; you sue for simple copyright violation, and leave it up to the defense to raise the issue of the GPL if they think it will help (which it won't if they haven't followed its terms). Note that IBM also includes copyright violations for their code in Linux in their eighth counterclaim (which is going to be the basis of a motion for summary judgement as soon as expert testimony is complete).

If they want to get the GPL ruled unenforceable, they're going to need to find a better trick than distibuting someone else's code without that someone else's permission. 'Cause that's illegal whether or not the GPL is involved.

SCO is eager to be the only future provider of Linux Systems for the enterprise market

There are no words for this. To announce that no only that they will succeed in ripping off the community, but that they will sell it back the very code they they lovingly made through hard work, snack eating and soda drinking all through the night at a mearly 300% markup. They even generously suggest that it would be helpful to supply oneself with lubricant before purchasing a lisence from them. Wow! Thanks SCO!

The decision to reanimate the very popular OpenLinux product series was made after it is evident that certain lawsuits regarding UNIX® System intellectual property and contractual rights are to be finished soon.

Finished soon eh? Might that not have something to do with Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells Granting IBM's Motion to Expedite despite SCO's endless attempts to stall the judgements day?

SCO is eager to be the only future provider of Linux Systems for the enterprise market

There are no words for this. To announce that no only that they will succeed in ripping off the community, but that they will sell it back the very code they they lovingly made through hard work, snack eating and soda drinking all through the night at a mearly 300% markup. They even generously suggest that it would be helpful to supply oneself with lubricant before purchasing a lisence from them. Wow! Thanks SCO!

The decision to reanimate the very popular OpenLinux product series was made after it is evident that certain lawsuits regarding UNIX® System intellectual property and contractual rights are to be finished soon.

Finished soon eh? Might that not have something to do with Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells Granting IBM's Motion to Expedite despite SCO's endless attempts to stall the judgements day?

I wonder if their decision to make this announcement is directly related to their ongoing lawsuit against IBM over linux? I can't believe it's entirely unrelated.

The wikipedia entry for OpenLinux describes it as "now-defunct".

"That was the old SCO, and this is the new SCO." Caldera bought their way into becoming SCO.

Actually, that is completely wrong, as was ruled by the court.

Tarantella (the original SCO) continued in business until they were bought by Sun.

SCOX is no more Tarantella than Lenovo is IBM.

But standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from "niche" open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said. The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation.

The Yankee Group made a point of stressing that the survey was not sponsored or supported by any server OS maker.

"It's good to see it discussed, so a proper balance can be found before we start seeing widespread litigation over this issue, which otherwise I am sure we will." - Groklaw

You still have the recourse of finding new legislators to start repealing these bogus "intellectual property" laws. Good luck with that. The trend in 80% of (democratic) governments is to extend the scope and length of copyright coverage even more, and to have these extensions enforceable across international boundaries through WIPO etc.

I think that this is the groklaw page you're talking about.

• timeframe - a published prior art must be dated 18mths prior to application date
• relatedness - OK it looks similar but it's not really the same thing because....
• progression - Yes A is prior art and B is prior art, but there is no prior art showing A can be linked directly to B. - IE the 'on the internet' loophole.

• you committed purjury because you have to state you know of no additional prior art when you sign the patent application.
• if the prior art would have been enough to invalidate your patent, you have committed fraud - obtaining services/goods under false pretense.
• made more work for the USPTO. If you file prior art & the reason it's not enough to invalidate your patent, the patent office will blow off the first round of protests, using that prior art, as 'reviewed and deamed insufficient' meaning "we looked at it before we gave the patent & think you're grasping at straws". Puting most of the work on the person seeking to invalidate the patent not the USPTO. On the other hand, if you don't present the prior art, they have to completely review the whole patent.

Correction: there is a plugin. And nope, Microsoft didn't invent it, so I guess it doesn't exist as far as they are concerned.

I read this article a couple of months ago that compare M$ XML and OpenDocument

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511251 44611543

For those who are too lazy to read, here's a brief summary of the main differences between the two formats:
- m$ tags are 2-3 letters long and not readble
- m$ format looks more like a dump of the binary structure, and makes no attempt to separate content and style

The author was already feeling the size argument coming for m$ format, which is nonsense because both formats are compressed anyway and a XML should be readable.. but somehow, he was not expecting the "speed" issue.

Come on. If you wish something "efficient", use a binary format. If you start having a textual XML + compression, then obviously speed is not your concern. What's your concern then? Readability, processing by third party tools. In that case separation of content and style is more important. Who cares that "stuff" is written in Helvetica 12 black. I personally prefer to know it's a "title". And so on..

As for the speed, on today's computer which are virtually 1000x faster than required for typesetting document, this is laughafable. In addition, for large documents, I know many "word" addicts who separate documents in 100pages portions or so, because it become impossible to handle...

What I think about m$ XML, is that. well. it's not that bad. Even though not really "open", it's still better than before. But comon. This was done in a "rush", to fight back open document initiative. And in that case, dumping dummily the "internal binary structure" into a XML document was making more sense for them. There's nearly no development cost involved (no reasearch whatsoever) and it could be implemented very quckly.

Then Yates come and talk about "customer experience" (cf ZDNET article).. This is laughfable.

Regarding "customer experience", when will word support a real vector image format (no WMF crap please). like let's say EPS/PS/PDF... ? I personally hate having to make a raster of my images and make the word document explode in size (when i'm FORCED to use word).

2030?

Follow up. Here's some XML examples from both:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511251 44611543

Uh.

Didn't Sys-con sack Maureen O'Gara (sp?) after she printed a tissue of lies about PJ from groklaw with a bunch of irrelevent accusations and misinformation?

Thought i remembered the article. Here at groklaw

What's important here is that the GPL was recognized as legal and beneficial. The judge ruled the GPL:

encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation.

If you're interested then have at these instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wallace_(plain tiff)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200603202 01540127

And no one remembered to tell Groklaw happy birthday--we're a day late, now :(

(1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury;

(2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury;

(3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and

(4) that the public interest would not be dis-served by a permanent injunction.

Pamela Jones has posted an article on Groklaw written by Theodore C. McCullough Esq that does an in-depth analysis of this case based upon many of the amicus curiae briefs. I've not read it in detail yet, but it looks highly interesting.

People choose the GPL over the BSD license because it fosters better software by keeping the codebase free and available. That is a pragmatic benefit of the GPL.

It'd be incredibly arrogant to say that these closed source drivers are no more than "improvements" to some kernel module interface code.

And even if there was a case in all of this, it'd be the case of one man's (RMS) hatred of closed source software, and it would have exactly zero to do with creating quality free code. So like I said, stop worrying about this licensing crap, and get back to worrying about writing better software.

The 'open source spirit of Linux' is that Open Source is supposed to enable people to stop worrying about this licensing crap.

Jackson's findings of fact were not overturned. They are here. Penfield's Conclusions of Law and Order are here. The findings of fact were not overturned. Both are available as .html or .pdf or wpd files (but not, interestingly, as .doc [=MS Word] files).

Penfield's remedies are here. The gutted final judgement produced by the DOJ cave-in and the Appeals court kowtowing to MS is here here. It's a mere slap on the wrist. "Pretty please, play nice, now, or at least don't get caught flagrantly breaking the law." I wonder how much $jack the DOJ and US Appeals court judges cost. Less than an hour's profits, I'd bet. Ask your MS pals.

More on this and other MS litigation over here.

Meanwhile over in the EU, Microsoft has been accused of exaggerating what is being asked for
  and the difficulty of providing it.

Xix.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c372840

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050925165302314&title=See+the+interesting+set+ of+OPPOSING+comments%2C+result+of+disinformation+c ampaign%3F&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid =361787#c362023

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c373108

Disclaimer: I've never used JAWS, I'm not disabled, and I don't use Microsoft.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c372840

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050925165302314&title=See+the+interesting+set+ of+OPPOSING+comments%2C+result+of+disinformation+c ampaign%3F&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid =361787#c362023

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c373108

Disclaimer: I've never used JAWS, I'm not disabled, and I don't use Microsoft.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c372840

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050925165302314&title=See+the+interesting+set+ of+OPPOSING+comments%2C+result+of+disinformation+c ampaign%3F&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid =361787#c362023

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c373108

Disclaimer: I've never used JAWS, I'm not disabled, and I don't use Microsoft.

This!?!?

And I read something about progress been made in an earlier story, sometime beetween that date and today, I cant find the link.
Talk about been not included in the developement process.

As I stated above, that plug-in is not currently available to the public, and is unknown (at least to me) if it has been tested for compatibility with the accessability features in Word.

According to the OpenDocument Foundation, it has been tested for compatibility with the accessibility features in Office.

See the Groklaw article.

I agree about wikipedia. Look at my second response. Here are the links in it:

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page= 20050331183622861#A4

Legal analysis of the OpenXML lcense scheme. If there have been noticable changes, please note them. Also tell me how microsoft has responded to the specific claims in this analysis.

Brian Jones's Blog

So in the changes is OpenXML GPL compatible? Can you even, from a legal viewpoint, strongly say it is LGPL compatible and how?

I don't want to be spreading FUD, so clarifications are very welcome. Just don't dismiss the facts with a FUD claim.. ;)