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There ya go.

Now we just need a judgement striking down "Thou shalt not speak badly of us," terms in EULAs, which have been used to intimidate publications into not running negative reviews.

I believe there have been cases where these clauses were struck down. Of course, if I read this groklaw article about the difference between a license and a contract correctly, an EULA can't actually prevent you from doing anything that isn't forbidden by law. If this is the case, I'm surprised nobody has tried to use this point as a defence.

These clauses tend not to be policed too heavily anyway. A lot of publishers can't afford to back down. Since they rely on their reputation, they have to fight for the right to print their honest opinion.

There is also this: IPX Online. Some mild discussion at groklaw about it midway down the page.

-Hope

Imagine the fun things they'll find!

Since many people claim that theft can only occur when a physical object is taken then how about electricity

I think a more appropriate disctinction is not one of physical-ness (is that a word?), but of, as Eben Moglen in his speech to Harvard points out, non-zero marginal cost things (i.e. houses, cds, electricity), and zero-marginal cost things (i.e. software, digital music/movies, things that don't have an associtated reproduction cost). In copying zero-marignal cost things you haven't deprived anyone of any "thing" in particular since the cost is in the initial development and not the reproduction. But, you have deprived them of the ability to sell you something. So when you copy music/movies your stealing their ability to sell you the thing you just copied. Its a little different that your examples.

There already is one... it's called Groklaw.

Well, let's see...

• DaimlerChrysler is testing the Nokia Communicator, which "runs on an operating system from Nokia-controlled Symbian, a rival to Microsoft's Windows Mobile" ... " also promoting it as an alternative for companies that do not want to use only Microsoft software."
• DaimlerChrysler Corp. is working on a Linux-based management and navigation system for its cars.
• Related company: DaimlerChrysler Services used Unix and IBM software to merge its financial systems.
• Reporters say that DaimlerChrysler did not like Microsoft's annuity licensing plan and was examining Linux.
• DC using IBM Linux for car crash simulations.
• DC is a German/US merger, as is Novell/SuSe. Affecting DC may affect SuSe in its home market
• "IBM and the German government are getting together to implement Linux as the government's computing platform of choice."
• June 17, 1999, the Financial Post, Canada, Business Group Makes Push for Software Competition (pdf)

  The Canada Europe Round Table, launched yesterday, wants governments to take the lead in using operating systems such as Linux instead of Microsoft's proprietary Windows. The group of 28 companies -- which includes Bombardier Inc., Nortel Networks Corp., Corel Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG and Ericsson AG of Sweden -- suggests "competitive systems" such as Linux should be endorsed at the next round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks. ... "CERT member Corel" ...

• "Ferrari, Volvo and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group are among the companies that have turned to IBM for systems built around Linux."
• DaimlerChrysler Services Management Awarded 'Best Service' for Progress-Based Application With SonicMQ Integration: Award-winner Uses Progress(R) OpenEdge(TM) (Both Progress and SonicMQ can run on Unix/Linux)
• MySQL has acquired full commercial rights to develop and market future releases of SAP DB, of which there are roughly 5,000 customer installations. SAP DB users include Intel, DaimlerChrysler, Braun, Bayer, Colgate, Yamaha and Toyota South Africa. MySQL and SAP are also developing a future MySQL enterprise database that uses both MySQL and MaxDB.
• DC has been a user of MS products (2003)

AutoZone...

• SCO had claimed that IBM interfered with a contract (which SCO has not provided) and helped AutoZone migrate from SCO software to Linux. But there already is evidence that AutoZone used no SCO software after the change and its own employees did the change. The same statement also indicates that SCO drove AutoZone away, not that IBM interfered. The Red Hat distribution and support was chosen.
• AutoZone is using Wincor Nixdorf Linux store/POS tools.
  Wincor Nixdorf customers:

  * AutoZone * Books-

There's been a whole host of developments in the ongoing SCO saga over the past couple of days. SCO have now filed law suits against Autozone and DaimlerChrysler on the same day as announcing growing operating losses. Despite securing a deal to license their IP with ev1servers, SCOsource only generated an income of $20,000 for the quarter. Today it has been revealed that Computer Associates, Questar Corp. and manufacturer Leggett & Platt Inc have all joined the ranks of SCO source licensees. Over at the Nasdaq the publicity stunts are beginning to wane thin with investors who sent SCO shares plummeting by almost 14% yesterday. In the courtroom, SCO was yesterday given 45 days to identify all specific lines of code they allege IBM put into Linux from AIX or Dynix; identify and provide with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to.

Even better, IBM doesn't have to show anything before SCO shows their stuff and IBM's AIX stuff is limited to things that they have already offered to show. Read PJ's take on this. JoAnn

It doesn't say that exactly, the 45 day deadline is for IBM turning over their source and for SCO to fully comply with the Dec 12th court order.

As I understand it, this doesn't end the discovery phase, so they could still amend the lines of infringing code. The trial is going to be dragged out for quite awhile yet. This is just one step, remember SCO has already complied fully with the Dec 12th order once.

As per usual, Groklaw has the full treatment.

Basically, the court ruled SCO must put up within 45 days, while IBM must also give AIX (but not all versions) to SCO.

This is of course bad for SCO, who claims they need IBM to provide AIX before they can identify what is infringing. As IBM most likely won't be handing over AIX in the next 44 days or so, obviously SCO will not be able to comply.

It's a cute judgement, since it is fair to both parties while being devastating to SCO at the ame time.

It'll be interesting to see if they will play the 'we need the AIX code!' card again for the third hearing running.

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer
--
(end of Mr. Greer's comments)

______
For thosw who haven't been following groklaw, Suplemental no. 8 refers to SCO's Supplemental Response to Interrogatory Number 8, in IBM's Exhibit 1, (disclosure) where they accused IBM of nefarious dealings with AugoZone because they thought that the switch over went too cleanly
(yeah.. I'm serious... IBM could make a commercial about this one).

IBM finally successfully induced Autozone to cease using the SCO software and to use Linux with IBM's version of UNIX. . . . . .

Upon information and belief, Autozone

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer
--
(end of Mr. Greer's comments)

______
For thosw who haven't been following groklaw, Suplemental no. 8 refers to SCO's Supplemental Response to Interrogatory Number 8, in IBM's Exhibit 1, (disclosure) where they accused IBM of nefarious dealings with AugoZone because they thought that the switch over went too cleanly
(yeah.. I'm serious... IBM could make a commercial about this one).

IBM finally successfully induced Autozone to cease using the SCO software and to use Linux with IBM's version of UNIX. . . . . .

Upon information and belief, Autozone

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer
--
(end of Mr. Greer's comments)

______
For thosw who haven't been following groklaw, Suplemental no. 8 refers to SCO's Supplemental Response to Interrogatory Number 8, in IBM's Exhibit 1, (disclosure) where they accused IBM of nefarious dealings with AugoZone because they thought that the switch over went too cleanly
(yeah.. I'm serious... IBM could make a commercial about this one).

IBM finally successfully induced Autozone to cease using the SCO software and to use Linux with IBM's version of UNIX. . . . . .

Upon information and belief, Autozone

Umm, when is Slashdot going to post something about SCO suing DaimlerChrysler? I submitted it over 2 hrs ago but sigh...

GrokLaw's page says "The GrokLaw site is under a DoS attack. We're waiting till the attack is over.\nWe don't know who's behind the attacs."

I have a feeling they just don't understand the slashdot effect. Then again they apparently can't speak English so well...

Or SCO is lying.

Read the comment from the AutoZone program manager. His comment was posted on Feb 18'th i.e. before the lawsuit.

Excerpt

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

In case you do not know who Mr Greer is, read his comment on Groklaw. Summery: He was the AutoZone transisition manager and states that SCO is full of crap

These are questions that have been asked here before; they're logical.

The simple answer is: SCO doesn't have a case, and it knows it. This is not an actual attempt to prove something in court, since it'd need to prove that

1. there is code in Linux that actually "belonged" to it
2. running a binary has something to do with the original source code
3. being a mere customer somehow makes you a party to the "crime"

What SCO is hoping is that AutoZone will simply settle, setting a precedent for other defendents, and creating what Darl obviously promised the SCOX Board: a new "revenue stream." SCO is now in the Lawsuit Business -- and it didn't actually have to do anything to get there.

My hope: IBM lends some of its lawyers to AutoZone so that it can actually defend itself and perhaps even counter-sue. That'd stuff a fat cork in SCO's pipe.

Also, it's been mentioned many times here that SCO's tactics may be illegal under the US RICO Act (used to prosecute racketeers like the Mafia).

If you want more insight (perhaps better-informed insight than what you're getting from me :), check out Groklaw.

Maybe they figured it out after they read the RedHat press releases and then when AutoZone stopped sending them checks for OpenServer licenses?

AutoZone Chooses Red Hat Services to Support Linux-Based Chain-Wide Intranet Applications

and read this

I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. ...

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

I am just a little curious about your statement:

I used to work for Autozone, and I can tell you that they used to run UNIX for all of their parts lookup terminals, and they switched to LINUX. And I can almost guarantee you that code that they wrote in-house (under UNIX, that probably used some of SCO's code) was copied over to the LINUX operating system.

Because you follow up with this:

And I'm torn, because I hate SCO for this lawsuit stuff, but being a former (and still disgruntled, after 5 years) employee of AutoZone, I'm not sure who I want to lose.

Now, if you ceased to be an employee of AutoZone 5 years ago, and the Linux migration didnt START until only 4 years ago (Accroding to Red Hat) How exactly can you almost guarantee anything?

Just a sticking point, I know, but we have already seen commnentary from the guy who STARTED the Migration at AutoZone and from the guy who came in as he was leaving and helped complete the Migration at Autozone (admittedly it was posted anonymously) and neither account confirms what you are saying here...

so I am left to infer that you are A: as you said, a disgruntled ex-employee who just cant let it go, or B: someone with legit information but no proof other than "I said vs He Said", or C: someone with a story that has as many holes in it as SCOs entire fullisade of lawsuits.

I am just a little curious about your statement:

I used to work for Autozone, and I can tell you that they used to run UNIX for all of their parts lookup terminals, and they switched to LINUX. And I can almost guarantee you that code that they wrote in-house (under UNIX, that probably used some of SCO's code) was copied over to the LINUX operating system.

Because you follow up with this:

And I'm torn, because I hate SCO for this lawsuit stuff, but being a former (and still disgruntled, after 5 years) employee of AutoZone, I'm not sure who I want to lose.

Now, if you ceased to be an employee of AutoZone 5 years ago, and the Linux migration didnt START until only 4 years ago (Accroding to Red Hat) How exactly can you almost guarantee anything?

Just a sticking point, I know, but we have already seen commnentary from the guy who STARTED the Migration at AutoZone and from the guy who came in as he was leaving and helped complete the Migration at Autozone (admittedly it was posted anonymously) and neither account confirms what you are saying here...

so I am left to infer that you are A: as you said, a disgruntled ex-employee who just cant let it go, or B: someone with legit information but no proof other than "I said vs He Said", or C: someone with a story that has as many holes in it as SCOs entire fullisade of lawsuits.

To have merit, SCO's "belief" that AutoZone copied their shared libs to Linux would need to be proven true.

But it is indeed not true. AutoZone did not use SCO's shared libraries. So not only is the case not really about companies simply using Linux being at risk, but the wrongdoing AutoZone is accused of is merely speculation on SCO's part.

But this case should be a wake-up call for anyone who has actually copied SCO's shared libs.... to either replace them with the GPL's alternative, or do a true port and make a clean break away from anything remoting having to do with compatibility with OpenServer and UnixWare.

This comment on GrokLaw speaks for itself:

Supplemental No. 8: AutoZone claims are false
Authored by: jbgreer on Wednesday, February 18 2004 @ 10:00 AM EST

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer

It's mentioned in the IBM lawsuit:

Autozone switched from SCO to Linux. Is well known. The core of this issue is that SCO claims that they were using SCO shared libraries even after switching to Linux.

They had to do something to keep their stock from tanking on the financial results, I guess. Now IBM and RedHat lawyers will have more to work on.

The man who did the porting posted an interesting comment on that Groklaw page:

I don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer

Apparently their strategy is to sue their own former and defecting customers. This is a worst-case scenario for SCO customers. Autozone was cited in the complaint against IBM as an example of a licensed Openserver client whom had been lured away to the Linux dark side by IBM, If you know of anyone who is considering signing their company into any SCO contract of any sort, especially an "intellectual property license", THIS SHOULD SERVE AS A WARNING OF WHAT TO EXPECT. All SCO appears to be offering is a license to be sued, and here's the proof.

Jim Greer had a good comment on groklaw a few weeks ago about Autozone and the details of their linux transition.

don't know whether to be pleased or angry at SCO's assertion that IBM must have assisted AutoZone's transition to Linux due to the "precision and efficiency with which the migration occurred". You see, I was a Sr. Technical Advisor at AutoZone, where I was an employee for over 10 years. During my tenure, I participated and led in the design, development and maintenance of many of AutoZone's store systems. More importantly, I initiated AutoZone's transition to Linux and I directed the port of their existing store software base to Linux. I personally ported all of AutoZone's internal software libraries for use under Linux. I personally developed the rules by which other AutoZone developers should make changes to their code to support both Linux and SCO's OpenServer product. I believe at one point I had as many as 35 AutoZone developers performing porting work for me, much of which was trivial, given that our code did not generally rely on SCO specific features and that the more technologically sophisticated portions of our code tended to reside in our libraries. The developers were also responsible for testing their individual applications under both SCO and Linux; I supplemented this activity by performing builds of the entire AutoZone store software base on my desktop, which I had converted to Linux.

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

One should remember the Linux business environment that existed at the time the AutoZone transition began. Several vendors - the original Caldera Linux distribution company, Red Hat, and Linuxcare - were offering support for enterprise installations of Linux. In fact, Bryan Sparks, then CEO of Caldera, flew to Memphis and met with me during my evaluation of the various distribution and support offerings. I also met and talked briefly with Dave Sifry of Linuxcare during the 1999 Linux Expo. AutoZone settled on Red Hat chiefly because of my familiarity with their distribution and the ease with which AutoZone could negotiate a support agreement with them.

I must add that SCO was eventually made aware of AutoZone's transition to Linux. They responded by offering to assist AutoZone in the porting activity. By the time of their offer, AutoZone had already completed the initial porting activity and had already installed a Linux-based version of their store system in several stores.

Finally, I'll add that I was for a time a member of SCO's Customer Advisory Board. As such, I believe I have some useful insights as to why SCO lost AutoZone's and several other large accounts' business.

Regards, Jim Greer

Yet again, the facts aren't in SCO's favor. Read this comment from the former Sr Technical Advisor at AutoZone, who directed the migration and personally ported much of the code.

SCO's only arguement that AutoZone has copied their shared libs to linux is:

The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.

Once more, SCO's making a lot of noise, but the facts are clearly against them.

ups, sorry, the url morphed into something silly (don't ask me how i did that), here is the
correct link. Maybe it has the nice side effect that groklaw won't be slashdotted :-)

Here is an interesting GrokLaw post from the man at AutoZone who helped them transition from UnixWare to Linux, blowing apart most of these claims.

Bearing in mind that this post is over 2 weeks old, you'd think someone at SCO would have noticed that their claims are basically debunked.

PS : SCO quarterly losses up to $2.25 million for fiscal Q1. Ouch.

The crux of this SCO case seems to not be "Autozone are using linux, and linux contains SCO code (millions of lines or just a few .h files) therefore they're infringing IP" as their press release propaganda infer, but that:

1. Autozone used to use SCO products, and their whole system relied on them
2. Autozone converted to Linux, and IBM made them do so
3. Autozone's custom software which used to run under SCO products now run under Linux
4. They still run well and changed over efficiently, therefore they MUST still be running SCO code/shared libraries/etc with linux to do so, which is a breach of their original contract with SCO.

SCO seem to be insinuating that this is about copyright SCO code in ALL of linux, and autozone are just one of millions of linux users who are infringing, but the details of the case show this is NOT true at all. That makes it FUD. The press have been told for MONTHS that SCO are taking issue with code in linux in general, but now legal action is underway, it's in a case that takes issue with existing SCO code used in linux by a client. No damage to linux in general despite the press releases.

As SCO say...
Upon information and belief, Autozone's new Linux based software implemented by IBM featured SCO's shared libraries which had been stripped out of SCO's UNIX based OpenServer by IBM and embedded inside Autozone's Linux implementation in order to continue to allow the continued operation of Autozone's legacy applications. The basis for SCO's belief is the precision and efficiency with which the migration to Linux occurred, which suggests the use of shared libraries to run legacy applications on Linux. Among other things, this was a breach of the Autozone OpenServer License Agreement for use of SCO software beyond the scope of the license.

They claim IBM made moves to shift Autozone away from Linux, when SCO originally attempted to move autozone to linux themselves

They also claim that SCO shared libraries MUST be being used, because of the efficiency with which this changeover occurred. They don't get it, that they're not indispensible, and Autozone's systems did not rely largely on SCO specific features according to the guy who converted autozone's systems, who posted as such on groklaw here. The relevant parts of his post are:

As to the claim that SCO's shared libraries were a necessary part of the port: false. No SCO libraries were involved in the porting activity.

As to the claim that IBM induced us to transition to Linux: false. It was, in fact, SCO's activities that 'greased the skids' and allowed the business case for using Linux to be made more easily. That is a story long in the telling; perhaps I'll share it another day.

I bet SCO keep insisting this is a generic copyright/linux issue, as they infer by claiming "AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights." and don't stress that it's a unique situation with regards to claims an existing customer switched to linux all too easily so must have both used linux and used SCO code in ways they weren't allowed to under their old contract

SCO is appearing like a jealous partner who just can't bear the thought that they're not the entire world to their clients, and are playing the stalking game, and running around town spreading rumours about infidelity. Nothing more, nothing less.

This story is a pretty obvious example of this kind of thing. It's basically a report dated mid February on an article from Bloomberg about a huge upswing of spam in January in which there is the line "As much as 15 percent came from home PCs infected with computer viruses such as the MyDoom worm, said D. K. Matai, chairman of Mi2g, a computer-security consulting firm based in London, citing reports from law-enforcement authorities and discussions with companies.". Fair enough, but take a look at how PJ spins that, bearing in mind the allegations that SCO was making about MyDoom: "I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. MyDoom was programmed to send spam, and it is.", and also: "Will Darl apologize for leaping to ugly conclusions before all the facts were in?"

Err, no. This was mid-February, remember, and at this stage MyDoom was still spreading and had not yet gone dormant and entered zombie only mode. (As an aside, I have yet to receive a *single* spam from an IP that sent me a copy of MyDoom.) Also, the report was about an upswing in spam for January, so how could MyDoom account for that anyway, given that it wasn't even released until the end of that month? Clearly the writer was just using MyDoom as an example since it was in the news and people were talking about it, so what was that about research and jumping to conclusions again?

I still find Groklaw to be a valuable reference site, and there is certainly a hell of a lot of effort by PJ in bringing all that together, so kudos to her for that. Editorially however, many of her posts have slowly sunk to the kind of thing I'd expect to see from Slashdot; blinkered SCO bashing without any attempt to see what the other side's take might be interspersed with the occasional +5 post. Sure, Groklaw is catering to the site's primary readership demographic, but I think it's prudent to read Groklaw with an open mind an a pinch of salt.

I generally dont spend a lot of time reading parodies, but this one was good. I highly recommend it *after* watching the Darl interview video, posted on news.com front page today. Look for it on the right side of the page.

Who's up first

Higly entertaining content.

I bet one of them is AutoZone. SCO is pissed that AutoZone switched from SCO Unix to Linux, and claims that couldn't have been done without violating their IP. The meat of their argument is on groklaw here (Supplemental #8), and if you scroll down you can see some AutoZone employees refute the argument. Search for the comment by 'jbgreer'.

It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.

The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.

The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.

The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.

So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html [harvard.edu]

The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733

The McBrides, jointly -- I feel sometimes as though I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie of some sort with them [laughter] -- the McBrides have failed to distinguish adequately between dicta and holding.

I do not like Eldred against Ashcroft. I think it was wrongly decided. I filed a brief in it, amicus curiae, and I assisted my friend and colleague Larry Lessig in the presentation of the main arguments which did not, regrettably, succeed.

Oddly enough, and I will take you through this just enough to show, oddly enough, it is the position that we were taking in Eldred against Ashcroft, which if you stick to holding rather than dicta, would be favorable to the position now being urged by Mr. McBride. What happened in Eldred against Ashcroft, as opposed to the window dressing of it, is actually bad for the argument that Mr. McBride has been presenting, whichever Mr. McBride it is. But they have not thought this through enough.

Let me show you why. The grave difficulty that SCO has with free software isn't their attack; it's the inadequacy of their defense. In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight. That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'l

This is the second announcement about an upcoming announcement today by SCO, right?
Meanwhile PJ at Groklaw is busy tearing them a new one over mentioning her in one of their propaganda blasts. Good reading. Hate to have her as one of my enemies.

The simple fact stands that they have been the only people who have chosen to support what appears to be a SCO, an apparently criminal organisation. They have been the people who have sent people to be in a press conference with SCO.

On Zdnet we can find that their CEO, "Marsh was in San Francisco on Monday with SCO Group CEO Darl McBride".

Do not just boycott EV1. Boycott anybody who remains their customer after next month. Contact anyone you know who works with EV1 and tell them you do not believe in supporting SCO extortion.

Knowingly supporting such activities is in its self bad. Buying from thieves causes theft.

Romantic is what you can get out of that money and that's a decent life with a house, a car and a family.

LOL! I can't think of anything less romantic.

The whole thing about ``free software'' is a lie. It's a dream created and made popular by people who have a keen interest in having cheap software so that they can drive down their own cost and profit more or by people who can easily demand it, because they make their money out of speaking at conferences or write books about how nice it is to have free software. At the bottom of the food chain are people like you, who are easily fooled by the ``let's make the world a better place'' rhetoric and who are so enthusiastic about technology that writing open-source - or any source for that matter - is the absolutely best imaginable way to spend their time. It doesn't matter whether you love what you are doing and consider this the hobby you want to spend 110% of your time on: It's exploitation by companies who are not at all interested in creating stuff. They want to use your stuff for free. That's why they trick you into doing it.

What's spooky is the writer's random sprinkling of the word "family" throughout the text... he is making a subliminal emotional appeal instead of making his points with evidence.

The way it's written, it could have been planted as part of a coordinated FUD-Astroturf campaign to attack free/open source software on a "populist" level. A groklaw user has summarised the lies which comprise this "strategy":

• Open source destroys the value of programmers' labor
• Programmers who code OSS are putting other programmers out of work
• Programmers should stop coding OSS and start thinking from a traditional career value perspective (they will present this as an either-or choice)
• The OSS ideologues (Stallman et al.) want all software to be free (as in beer) and you to be out of work

The gimmick here is that they're trying to radicalize the debate and to portray both sides as slippery slopes. This is a way of herding people and excluding the middle.

The middle of course is that OSS represents a way for the free market to escape from the lock-in entrapments of commercial operating systems by commoditizing the basic OS and working environment of computing. In turn, this provides an open platform on which any kind of solution (commercial, free, hybrid, etc.) can be developed without the encumberance of proprietary lock-in to a single platform.

This is the reality and the excluded middle that they don't want you to see: FOSS as a free-market response to lock-in and a mechanism for constructing an open platform on which to build new levels of business and technology.

I have added emphasis to the points which specifically refute the bullshit quoted at top.

Watch (RealMedia), Listen (Speex codec), Or just Read (HTML text) and become more informed.

It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.

The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.

The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.

The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.

So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html

The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733

The McBrides, jointly -- I feel sometimes as though I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie of some sort with them [laughter] -- the McBrides have failed to distinguish adequately between dicta and holding.

I do not like Eldred against Ashcroft. I think it was wrongly decided. I filed a brief in it, amicus curiae, and I assisted my friend and colleague Larry Lessig in the presentation of the main arguments which did not, regrettably, succeed.

Oddly enough, and I will take you through this just enough to show, oddly enough, it is the position that we were taking in Eldred against Ashcroft, which if you stick to holding rather than dicta, would be favorable to the position now being urged by Mr. McBride. What happened in Eldred against Ashcroft, as opposed to the window dressing of it, is actually bad for the argument that Mr. McBride has been presenting, whichever Mr. McBride it is. But they have not thought this through enough.

Let me show you why. The grave difficulty that SCO has with free software isn't their attack; it's the inadequacy of their defense. In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight. That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'll help you to get b

Damn... Always check the links.. Always.

Soak on this too. ;)

For anyone who missed the awesome Groklaw article today, it's a good one.

Couldn't they take SCO to the cleaners if/when SCO loses and this "license" is proven not to be a requirement?

The text of the contract says pretty clearly that you don't have much recourse if/when it turns out to be worthless.

Being Not A Lawyer, I can't really comment on how enforceable this clause is.

Speaking of Microsoft turning up in the background, SCO's new licensee, an ISP nobody ever heard of, can be found on Microsoft's website, held up as a case study, dated September 2003, of a company that thought they wanted to go to Linux and then switched back:

"EV1Servers.net Leading Hosted Service Provider Deploys Windows-based Hosting Solutions Faster than Linux-based Solutions "Business managers at EV1 Servers.net knew that there was a demand for a Microsoft Windows-based hosted service offering, but they did not think they could deploy Windows-based servers with the same speed or level of automation that they had achieved in their deployment of their traditional Linux-based systems. Yet with the introduction of the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting 2.0, which can take advantage of Automated Deployment Services (ADS)--a powerful new server purposing tool in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition--EV1 Servers.net is finding that it can deploy a Windows-based hosting service in less than half the time it takes to deploy a similarly configured Linux system. And they can do it with much less hands-on involvement than their Linux deployments demand."

So they need a SCO IP license to run Microsoft "solutions"? Or is this another Microsoft solution for SCO? EV1's customers aren't so happy.

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

Let me give you a concrete example. "Othello" by William Shakespeare.This is in the public domain,

What's your point? Software has several major differences from literature; it's a very different animal. The fact that it's functional as well as expressive, the fact that it's constructive rather than interpretive, the fact that it can be published and yet kept secret simultaneously -- all these are fundamental differences that make analogies with literature weak at best. I wrote a fairly complete explanation of these differences and some of their obvious implications here, if you're interested in more detail.

IMO, that's one of the biggest problems with current copyright law -- it treats computer software almost identically to literature, and that does not make sense. We really need a ground up analysis of what software is and how the public interest can best be served (to promote the progress of useful arts and sciences) and then we need to construct an appropriate legal framework that meets these goals.

The software-related changes to copyright law (and patent law) that have been made have not been made in this way, with an eye toward the public good. Instead, they've been made at the behest and in favor of particular special interests, who care mostly about increasing their profits. I don't begrudge anyone their profits, but the purpose of IP law is to establish a structure that ultimately promotes progress and the flow of material into the public domain (note the two parts there -- the order is important), and that is not what has happened.

I actually don't think that the GPL is the best way to do this, and Stallman and Moglen would probably agree with me. What the GPL is is an extraordinarily clever way of exploiting the mismatches between current, excessively powerful copyright law and the nature of software to produce a system that more effectively meets the original goals of copyright.

Eventually their copyright will run out.

Well, we can hope that copyright will run out; CTEA provides for regular congressional review and extension as necessary, so it may not. I don't think that affects the FSF's position at all, though; what they want to achieve is to have Free software available that accomplishes whatever people want to do now, and 100, 70, 50 or even 20 years is a very, very long time in software. Code that old is usually irrelevant except for historical interest.

However, the FSF has no desire to make copyright infinite in duration. You're arguing out of context. Here's what the context was: You said the FSF wanted all software to be public domain, I said that they didn't want that to be the case now, or ever. I did not say they never want any piece of software to fall into the public domain, I said they never want *all* software to be in the public domain, at least not as currently defined by law. The FSF wants new software to be protected, so that the author and copyright holder can guarantee its freedom, if he or she so chooses.

Unfortunate
Authored by: PJ on Thursday, February 26 2004 @ 06:30 PM EST
Actually, McBride was the one, I've been told, [who suggested] he speak at Harvard, not the other way around.

The General Public License ('GPL') is unenforceable, void and/or voidable, and IBM's claims based thereon, or related thereto, are barred.

He was responding to the talk given by our buddy Darl McBride Text here

I would think Eben Moglen should be a pretty well-known name by now as well, especially if you visit Groklaw at all.