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Were there any Sun statements made against Linux?

Were there any Sun statements made against Linux?

Although I posted a counterargument on Groklaw, this is unlikely to fly, because of legal precedents. The examples I can think of are IBM v Compaq with respect to their clean room BIOS clone, and Apple v Microsoft over "look and feel" issues. In addition, Unix is a POSIX standard to which Linux aims to be compliant; it does not try and be compliant with SCO (or anyone elses) version of Unix.

The technical copyright arena runs a little different from the story writing arena.

Note that although the cases are scheduled to end up in front of a jury, only issues of fact will end up there. If IBM gets various claims made by SCO dismissed on points of law before they end up in front of a jury, a judge will be cleaning SCOs clock before 12 people get to possibly mess it up.

Must not give him ideas.

Still it took him three weeks to find it.

Here ya go. Darl Quotes from 2002-08-15 to present: DarlMcBride

Some excerpts:

I heard about Linux and Mosaic at the same time. The thing that captured me more at the time was the browser, to be honest, because I'd never seen one before. What impressed me about Linux was Open Source.--Darl

We are more committed to Linux than ever before.

"We do have concerns about our intellectual property in general...

"SCO is in the enviable position of owning the UNIX operating system... ...we're not talking about insignificant amounts of code...

"IBM has taken our valuable trade secrets and given them away to Linux...

Everyone just says we're a company going out of business...

We're either right or we're not...

Who's making money off Linux?

"That's like saying, 'show us the fingerprints on the gun so you can rub them off.'"

SCO has already shown the code to several reporters and analysts and continues to do so.

We're talking about line-by-line code copying. That includes not just the function but the exact, word-for-word lines of code.

"When you look inside in the code base and you see line-by-line copy of [SCO's Unix] System V code...

Everything is exactly the same except they have stripped off the copyright notices and pretended it was just Linux code. There could not be a more straightforward case on the Linux side.

If all of the infringing code were removed today, Linux would have little multiprocessor code left and would be totally ineffective for enterprise use,... ...some of it coming straight from our source tree. So yes there are direct line-by-line codes.

"I wasn't brought in to have warm fuzzies with Slashdot," he said. "I was brought in to increase shareholder value.


LMAO

Here's a worthy reference site

Groklaw does delete "troll" posts however. There's no secret about it.

There was an interesting discussion here, where PJ said in so many words "We don't want our beliefs challenged" ... but the whole thread was apparently deleted :(

Groklaw is a wonderful site full of very detailed information and informed discussion. It is also run by Linux Zealots hell-bent on their point of view. (see any non-Legal story), and Linux Zealots tend define anything that doesn't fit their worldview as "trolling".

Agreed, really well written. From IBM's counterclaims:

SCO undertook to create fear, uncertainty and doubt in the marketplace in regard to SCO's rights in and to that [Unix] technology.

This has to be the first time I've seen jargon actually fit concisely and neatly into a legal text!

Go IBM...

In light of that fact that SCO has dropped it's trade secrets claim over a month ago, I think this is much more important than you are saying.

I wish IBM would fight them in court, win, and countersue for further damages to prove the point.

They are countersuing for damages, and not just lawyer fees. See the ammended counterclaims at groklaw.

For those of you who (like me) regularly check groklaw for updates and news, they've got a cut down headlines-only page.

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page= Headlines

That page puts less stress on their server, so if you'd like to help reduce their bandwidth costs...

who after this will claim they own UNIX?

1. The Open Group still owns UNIX (titled "Backgrounder on the UNIX System and SCO / IBM legal action");
   
2. The SCO Group (TSG) owns UnixWare and its other derivative products, and
   
3. judging (IANAL) from the TSG v Novell court documents, Novell owns the copyrights to Unix System V and never transferred them to (old) SCO.

If you accept the above, and if you consider as well that Novell has told TSG early on that TSG is wrong about the copyrights, and that IBM knew Novell was doing this, you also know why IBM didn't buy out TSG.

That would make the answer to the more appropriate question who will claim to own Unix System V as simple as this: Novell.

And as pointed out in the replies to the groklaw story, IBM asked for the same declaratory judgment on Sept. 25, 2003 in their "Amended Counterclaims Against SCO". See item 154 in the thirteenth counterclaim here.

Don't forget (as noted when this story broke last time), SCO can still sue their own customers if they want! :P

I guess not always. But it seems like it sure should have been in this case, and if the settlement had that loophole then shame on Univention's lawyers for letting that slip.

Another interesting point, too. According to the Groklaw article about the settlement, the per-offense fine is only about 10,000 euros. That's not a lot, really; just a tiny extra bit of marketing budget for the FUD machine. Is that really all the teeth the settlement has?

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200403301 84527522

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5182078.html

And here is their description of their claim against Daimler Chrysler:

"On or about March 3, 2004, we brought suit against DaimlerChrysler Corporation for its alleged violations of its UNIX software agreement with us. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that DaimlerChrysler breached its UNIX software agreement with us by failing to certify its compliance with the UNIX software agreement as required by us by January 31, 2004. The lawsuit, filed in Oakland County Circuit Court in the State of Michigan, requests the court to issue orders declaring that DaimlerChrysler has violated the certification requirements of its UNIX software agreement, permanently enjoin DaimlerChrysler from further violations of the UNIX software agreement, issue a mandatory injunction requiring DaimlerChrysler to remedy the effects of its past violations of the UNIX software agreement and award us damages in amount to be determined at trial together with costs, attorneys' fees and any such other or different relief that the Court may deem to be equitable and just."

As you can see, this has nothing to do with ABI files or copyright infringement either. It's all about a license and whether they should have sent back audit info or not. If Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center are in any danger, these two cases don't show it.

I know that this is slashdot, but I would like to substantiate my statements. Otherwise, I would be doing nothing but rumormongering, and I do have evidence to back my claims.

I believe that it's common knowledge that SCO's disputes with IBM and Novell both hinge largely upon the various contracts between the parties. In fact, you can read the claims and counter claims in both cases at Groklaw. What many don't seem to realize that both DaimlerChrystler and Autozone had contractual relations with SCO. This only goes to show you that SCO apparently is unwilling to try any case at this juncture which rests only upon the merits of their IP claims...

Speaking of which, you can find corroboration here on Groklaw, because I do not expect you to just take my word for it.

I know that this is slashdot, but I would like to substantiate my statements. Otherwise, I would be doing nothing but rumormongering, and I do have evidence to back my claims.

I believe that it's common knowledge that SCO's disputes with IBM and Novell both hinge largely upon the various contracts between the parties. In fact, you can read the claims and counter claims in both cases at Groklaw. What many don't seem to realize that both DaimlerChrystler and Autozone had contractual relations with SCO. This only goes to show you that SCO apparently is unwilling to try any case at this juncture which rests only upon the merits of their IP claims...

Speaking of which, you can find corroboration here on Groklaw, because I do not expect you to just take my word for it.

Well, that word "absolution" contains another word that's equally important: "solution." What's he doing to try and actually solve this problem?

Mr. Marsh: A very good solution would be to (a) demand your money back for that high-priced toilet paper that SCO calls "IP licenses," and (b) sue them for fraud and/or extortion. If you want some background to show that what SCO is doing to you is indeed fraud and/or extortion, this is a good place to start.

Until then, no amount of whining you do about how you "regret" the deal will convince anyone to grant you absolution. That's not to say that absolution is impossible; you just have to do the right thing first.

True. SCO has been known to sink pretty low (read my sig/journal...). This only reinforces the fact that being one of SCO's customers puts you at more risk than anything else.

If you read the lawsuits, thus far, they have only sued people they had business deals with, and even then their main causes of action stem from the contracts they've had with these other businesses. I'm sure that that's not the message SCO intends to send, but they're very good at shooting themselves in the foot...

In the mean time, here's this same story at Groklaw.

The original post was obviously a troll, but there's actually more of a parallel here than most realize. The code that SCO claims was stolen from them (specifically, the Unix ABI) was actually contributed to Linux by SCO under the GPL, which the full knowledge and blessing of SCO management. SCO now claims the code was stolen. SCO is obviously smoking a very interesting variety of crack, but it's concievable that Sun may someday get ahold of that same crack and claim infringement.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N is putting its weight behind personal computers that run the Linux operating system, the No. 1 personal computer and computer printer maker said on Wednesday."

Linux is not an operating system. It's the kernel for an operating system. With the SCO Group, it does get worse of course: they think they own "the Unix operating system", as they have called whatever ancient software they allege they own in countless court documents.

According to this Baystar Trigger it's 8.46 for 20 days. Yesterday was day two under the Bay Star Trigger price.

About the only interesting things here are that we now know they've been sending these letters to (pseudo) government organizations, and they've managed to threaten the Regents of the University of California ( thus re-igniting USL vs BSD).

It's also increasingly unlikely that they did any sort of vetting in terms of who they sent the letters to. Dead Tree SPAM.

mod parent up, i just got back from there and Groklaw did a hell of a job

Coverage and discussion at Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200403192 34017885

Here are two clear examples of hostility coming directly from Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza:

• This slashdot posting is one of several instances in which Miguel has publicly spread FUD against Portable.Net, attempting to cast a shadow of legal doubt on that project because it was started before the ECMA specs were published. According to our lawyer (Eben Moglen) what was done back then was perfectly legal, but even if that wouldn't be the case, it wouldn't matter because all the old code from back then has long been removed from the codebase anyway. These matters have been explained to Miguel, but in spite of that he has continued to spread this FUD. I think this is totally unacceptable. He also calls me and the other DotGNU coreteam members "kids", and makes other false statements that however are not so significant, hence I won't discuss them in detail.
• In response to my last proposal of collaboration, Miguel first said he's interested but when I shared some more thoughts, he responded by attacking me, calling my view "intellectual dishonesty" and "an exercise in deception". Of course Miguel is free to have his own opinions, and Mono is free to respond with "no" to proposals of collaboration, but he could have said "no" without attacking me like that.

in his speec at Harvard awhile back.

Full text here

"If you are thinking about working in the law of free software, and gosh, I hope you are, one of the things you might want to be thinking about working on is the software conservation trusts that are going to be growing up around this economy in the next five years. I'll help you make one, or you can come to work in one of mine. We're going to need to spend a lot of time doing work which is associated with trustees. We're going to be spending a lot of time making sure that things are put together and they are built well. And we are going to be doing that on behalf of a third-party insurance industry which is going to be growing up, is growing up before our very eyes now, which is learning that it really cares how the free software is assembled."

This article confirms that statement.

This is an error in the Infoworld article; PJ has addressed it in a Groklaw article where she goes on to discuss the future of Groklaw.

GPL FAQ which is posted on the FSF website

Oh, that explains it - the GPL FAQ must apparently contradict the words of the person who helped write it, and is the most vociferous in defending it (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL):

It is claimed by some, including Eben Moglen, that the GPL is a license, not a contract[3].

Oh, and right on that same page?

The actual situation is simple: if you do not agree to the terms of the GPL, you do not have permission to copy or distribute the software released under it, except through fair use, first sale or other defenses to copyright infringement. It does not mean that the rules of the GPL do not apply to you and that you may thus use the software however you like. The default is the restrictions of copyright law, not the anarchy of the public domain.

Want more? Enjoy.

The GPL is a License, Not a Contract, Which is Why the Sky Isn't Falling

Very clear, but what about the GPL? Which is it? A license or a contract? First, the name tells you what the authors intended: General Public license. It doesn't say General Public contract or even General Public license contract. So they intended it to be a license, not a contract.

Now go and actually read USC Title 17, section 109. You'll note where it says that you don't need the damned copyright holder's permission to
sell the physical object containing the copyrighted works.

There is no loophole in the GPL.

Of course there is - places where copyright law doesn't apply. Thank God it's a license and not a contract, too, otherwise you'd have to agree to it and you'd have to be legally allowed to enter into a contract.

That licence is in the form of a contract.

No, that license is in the form of a license.

common law does not allow you to transfer your ownership

Read Title 17. Go do it. Now. You can't transfer the copyright, no, of course not. But you can sell the physical object, regardless of whether or not the copyright holder gives a rat's ass.

Fool.

"The hope is that increased money in the coffers will allow the hiring of more highly skilled engineers to look at technical patents, as well as speed up the sometimes ponderous process of securing a patent. The bill has passed the house with a resounding 379-28 vote, and now goes to the Senate. Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, could this be a good thing?"

The rate at which large monopolistic software companies are applying
for software patents is astounding. There have been something
like four million software patents applied for in just the last few
years. At that rate it doesn't matter if there are hundreds of
highly skilled engineers to the payroll. They will still be
unable to give the needed time to make good judgment calls.

The only real solution is to abolish software patents altogether.
I fear that a large company of questionable character who will remain
unnamed but who's initials are "Microsoft" will try to use software
patents to destroy Linux.

Groklaw has a good article
dealing with this subject. Well worth the read if you haven't
read it already.

"The hope is that increased money in the coffers will allow the hiring of more highly skilled engineers to look at technical patents, as well as speed up the sometimes ponderous process of securing a patent. The bill has passed the house with a resounding 379-28 vote, and now goes to the Senate. Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, could this be a good thing?"

The rate at which large monopolistic software companies are applying
for software patents is astounding. There have been something
like four million software patents applied for in just the last few
years. At that rate it doesn't matter if there are hundreds of
highly skilled engineers to the payroll. They will still be
unable to give the needed time to make good judgment calls.

The only real solution is to abolish software patents altogether.
I fear that a large company of questionable character who will remain
unnamed but who's initials are "Microsoft" will try to use software
patents to destroy Linux.

Groklaw has a good article
dealing with this subject. Well worth the read if you haven't
read it already.

What effects, positive or negative, do you think sites like the popular Groklaw have/will have on corporate technology litigation? Do lawyers pay any attention to the research and opinions of amateurs and the general public?

[The following is from my post to this story on Groklaw.]

Okay, I'm not a lawyer, much less one who specializes in patents. I am, however, a mathematician who has done some game theory.

Basically, ALL companies are vulnerable to something I have dubbed an "IP Vampire." Whereas other businesses have products, which make them vulnerable to counter-suits over patents, an "IP Vampire" has no products. It has nothing but patents, lawyers, and enough capital to sue. It is NOT vulnerable to counter-suits, so they have only to weigh their case: license the patent, or settle. Either of these costs the business they sink their teeth into. Even defending themselves successfully costs them money. It's a no win situation for the business they bite. Enough of them can drain any company. Anyone who sponsors them is short-sighted. As long as it is legal, the competition can do this just as well as they can. For a monopoly to do this, one might think it could raise anti-trust issues, but I suspect a lawyer would have to make that arguement, and I am not one.

Microsoft is every bit as vulnerable to these as the next company. It nearly got hit for 500M thanks to Eolas. They should be glad that that patent did not have so much prior art. They cannot win them all.

If this is legal, everyone who can do this will. At some point, they will have to sponsor such suits just to stay alive (or to try to). If it's not legal, game over. I hope that someone can eventually find a way to straighten much of this out. Personally, I would end software patents for starters... software is just mathematics, and anyone who says otherwise is spouting nonsense. I do not agree that mathematics should ever be patented. We know that it is not necessary to drive mathematical innovation, after all. Ask Euclid and company. I can only wonder how much mathematical progress would have been lost if all the works of antiquity could not have been preserved... we had all too few copies of the great mathematical works to learn from for too long, after all...

But I digress. The principle behind an "IP Vampire" is simple. Defending against them is futile. I suspect that Microsoft is thus banking on the only principle of that game to their advantage--whoever has the most money, especially if they move first, wins.

But that would eliminate all competition. If our anti-trust regulators are that asleep at the switch, well... something will have to be done... I know all to well that if you don't like the rules, you have to change the game. I know a few other games to play. I would rather not play any of them, however. It is like the movie "WarGames" -- the only way to win is not to play.

In the mean time, I think that publicity will probably suffice. The more people who know why they do not want to do business with Microsoft, or anyone else who promulgates these insidious "IP Vampires" the better...

[The following is from my post to this story on Groklaw.]

Okay, I'm not a lawyer, much less one who specializes in patents. I am, however, a mathematician who has done some game theory.

Basically, ALL companies are vulnerable to something I have dubbed an "IP Vampire." Whereas other businesses have products, which make them vulnerable to counter-suits over patents, an "IP Vampire" has no products. It has nothing but patents, lawyers, and enough capital to sue. It is NOT vulnerable to counter-suits, so they have only to weigh their case: license the patent, or settle. Either of these costs the business they sink their teeth into. Even defending themselves successfully costs them money. It's a no win situation for the business they bite. Enough of them can drain any company. Anyone who sponsors them is short-sighted. As long as it is legal, the competition can do this just as well as they can. For a monopoly to do this, one might think it could raise anti-trust issues, but I suspect a lawyer would have to make that arguement, and I am not one.

Microsoft is every bit as vulnerable to these as the next company. It nearly got hit for 500M thanks to Eolas. They should be glad that that patent did not have so much prior art. They cannot win them all.

If this is legal, everyone who can do this will. At some point, they will have to sponsor such suits just to stay alive (or to try to). If it's not legal, game over. I hope that someone can eventually find a way to straighten much of this out. Personally, I would end software patents for starters... software is just mathematics, and anyone who says otherwise is spouting nonsense. I do not agree that mathematics should ever be patented. We know that it is not necessary to drive mathematical innovation, after all. Ask Euclid and company. I can only wonder how much mathematical progress would have been lost if all the works of antiquity could not have been preserved... we had all too few copies of the great mathematical works to learn from for too long, after all...

But I digress. The principle behind an "IP Vampire" is simple. Defending against them is futile. I suspect that Microsoft is thus banking on the only principle of that game to their advantage--whoever has the most money, especially if they move first, wins.

But that would eliminate all competition. If our anti-trust regulators are that asleep at the switch, well... something will have to be done... I know all to well that if you don't like the rules, you have to change the game. I know a few other games to play. I would rather not play any of them, however. It is like the movie "WarGames" -- the only way to win is not to play.

In the mean time, I think that publicity will probably suffice. The more people who know why they do not want to do business with Microsoft, or anyone else who promulgates these insidious "IP Vampires" the better...

Yup, PJ over at Groklaw seems to have made the same mistake.

Curses, forgot the link: Check out this article from Groklaw on March 1

Eben Moglen says :
We will say to the judge, "Judge, Mr. Defendant has used our copyrighted work, copied it, modified it and distributed it without permission. Please make him stop."

One thing that the defendant can say is, "You're right. I have no license." Defendants do not want to say that, because if they say that they lose. So defendants, when they envision to themselves what they will say in court, realize that what they will say is, "But Judge, I do have a license. It's this here document, the GNU GPL. General Public License," at which point, because I know the license reasonably well, and I'm aware in what respect he is breaking it, I will say, "Well, Judge, he had that license but he violated its terms and under Section 4 of it, when he violated its terms, it stopped working for him."

But notice that in order to survive moment one in a lawsuit over free software, it is the defendant who must wave the GPL. It is his permission, his master key to a lawsuit that lasts longer than a nanosecond.

Full text at Groklaw

AT&T newsletters are on Groklaw here and here

AT&T newsletters are on Groklaw here and here

a fool and his money are soon parted.

You knew something was wrong with this program when quotes from Laura DiDio started popping up. She seems to provide her "insight" for the truly desperate. Indeed, before this praise, it seemed like she was playing good cop/bad cop with them to get more sales for licenses. Judging from this article, I guess it worked.

They only needed to pierce the veil as long as Canopy stayed behind the scenes. The limitation of liability afforded a corporation's shareholders only covers the shareholder from responsibility for the actions of the corporation; it does not in any way protect a shareholder from liability for his or her own actions.

With this deal, Canopy commited an overt act in furtherance of SCOX's campaign to mislead the public in SCOX's anti-linux campaign when they made the UnixWare license (with the linux indeminification attached) part of the CA lawsuit settlement. SCOX then used this deal to misleadingly imply that CA had entered into a voluntary deal to license linux. I'd say this falls under IBM's Lanham Act claims[See this, start at 84.) IBM doesn't need to pierce the veil, Canopy pulled is aside themselves.

Cheers,
Craig

Come on Taco, cut the FUD out, have a look at groklaw

Read Groklaw as ever. There is more in later stories too).

If you think the SCO case is an important case for the SEC to investigate, you should contact the SEC, telling them to investigate SCO and why you think the SEC should be involved. You should reference specific points from Halloween X and/or Groklaw if you're going to make your point. Most government organizations prioritize in part by whatever wheel squeeks the loudest.

Groklaw is reporting on a Newsforge article that the FTC is investigating the apparent SCO/MS link exposed in the Halloween X document. I guess that some things are too obvious for even the Bush administration to totally ignore.
The FTC will not officially acknowledge it, but their comments made by officials indicate that the deal (possibly among others) is definitely on their radar.

It hasn't been covered yet although I've submitted the article yesterday and it is still pending but the most significant development in the SCO debacle is here, this broke on Saturday, basically Opinder Bawa, SCO's senior VP in charge of technology and development has been advocating the use of the Unix ABI with Linux and linking to a downloadable module to help SCO's ABI work on Linux, both admitting that Linux is thoroughly incompatible while encouraging what they've been implying is infringing use. This is quite stunning considering that SCO has been implausibly claiming copyright over Linux ABI headers.

And of course groklaw has news today that the SEC may be taking an active interest in the Microsoft SCO relationship on various grounds.