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More on SCO vs. IBM Lawsuit
Colin Stanners writes "SCO has held a TeleConference and put up a page with information on their lawsuit against IBM. The key phrase (from their complaint) is: 'It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM.' Their page also includes a Q&A, presentation, and exhibits, although these are mostly licensing agreements and not code." Bruce Perens had an interesting comment on the situation, more than one group is trying to organize a boycott, and Newsforge has a story based on SCO's press conference this morning. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
more than one group is trying to organize a boycott
The market has been "boycotting" SCO and it's crap for years, not like there needs to be a special effort.
"It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code"
Umm SCO is no gem in the rough. My opinion Five years ago Linux was a better choice then that of SCO.
Sounds like Penis envy to me.
Sorry, it was the dedication of thousands of programmers and millions of testers that made Linux what it is today.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
In other words SCO appears to believe that fair competition is unfair...to them anyways ;-)
It must be anti-competitive than right? heh, what a joke.
SCO -> Flames -> Crash -> Burn...bubye, don't let the door hit you on the way out...
No Comment.
The lawsuit information found from the SCOSource link is an audio recording - it'll take about 1/10th of a normal /. effect to bring that to its knees!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
you have to admit that SCO is the better platform for rapping, because SCO rhymes with "fro", "dough", and "blow".
Interesting thing... if/when this resolves itself, and it's shown that SCO's allegations are false, and Linux DID scale to those performance levels in such a short period of time, this will weigh extremely favorably on the side of the effectiveness of the open source model.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Everyone who has installed SCO (any type or version) in the last year raise your hand.
I don't think there is much of a point in boycotting a company who has clearly turned away from producting anything and now simply exists to litigate based on its IP.
-Peter
Maybe I can sue SCO for $1B when my sendmail gets hacked. SCO SUCKS!
Does SCO even care that they:
I hope IBM bitchslaps them. Litigiously speaking, of course.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
From bruce perens article:
SCO is also party to the GPL, which invalidates their patent portfolio for any of their patents that happen to have been used in a Linux system that they distributed. Under the GPL terms, if you distribute your patented practice in GPL software, you must grant a license to everyone to make use of that patent in any GPL software, for any field of use.
Would be interesting if it comes to court, if nothing else, just to see just how enforcable GPL is.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
I don't know if anyone posted this yet, but the official press release is here.
It's fairly obvious to me what this is all about; Linux is stealing UNIX marketshare, so SCO is going to do everything it possibly can to discredit it's competitior. It's typical FUD. Unfortunately for SCO, they're too late. IBM has made too much money from linux to allow a little gnat of a company like SCO push it around. Even if this lawsuit isn't thrown right out of court, it'll be proven in short order that none of the code to the linux kernel comes from SCO's IP. ipso facto, IBM can countersue SCO into oblivion.
At least, that's how I see it.
Despite millions of years of evolution, human beings, taken as a group, are still stupid, panicky animals.
What if SCO ends up being right in court?
Why would they poke the T-Rex that is IBM with a stick, unless they think they can bring it down?
We can sit around laughing or bitching or whining or moaning, but what will happen if there turns out to be code in Linux that we dont have the rights to, either by way of trade secrets or patents?
Can all the SysV and other SCO stuff be removed without killing Linux? Would a setback be weeks, months, years, or would it be the end?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"We know your develoers and they are not competant enough to do that. So obviously you ripped it off of us."
But I hope Bruce and others won't lose time pointing out the implications for people who want to participate in programs like MSFT's "shared source". They open themselves up to later lawsuits if they later develop or distribute anything technologically related, even if it isn't textually derived from the original.
It is an interesting counterpoint in case Microsoft wants to use the lawsuit in any anti-linux campaign ...
'It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM.'
So how long has this linux thing been going on, then? A mere day and a half, from the sound of things. And there aren't tens of thousands more programmers available for linux than any other O/S, are there?
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
How about someone setting up a list for Linux Hackers willing to spend time migrating SCO customers to the linux platform for free. To fight back I am willing to spend some of my time.
Got Code?
What's going to happen to SCO's intellectual property when it croaks? Who will buy it? I think the ancient unices that they own are of great interest. I'd love to see those in the public domain, but that's probably wishful thinking.
From the complaint:
Except for SCO, none of the primary UNIX vendors ever developed a UNIX "flavor" to operate on an Intel-based processor chip set. This is because the earlier Intel processors were considered to have inadequate processing power for use in the more demanding enterprise market applications.
What about the x86 version of Solaris?
Why would IBM *buy* SCO? If they released their product under the GPL, couldn't IBM just take a distro and re-release it as "SCOSUCKS" under the GPL? Couldn't anyone? What would burn the top brass at SCO if after this lawsuit (clearly aimed at them just trying to cash in), someone took their distro and made it successful.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The key word you used was "recipe". If your sister follows the same recipe, exactly, then yes, you are in violation of your NDA. If, however, your sister has a different recipe that just happens to taste similar, then you are not in violation of your NDA.
:)
Except the recipe is the source code.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
And yet, SCO still offers products named OpenLinux. Is that going to change to ClosedUNIX or OpenLinuxfor$100.
They're probably hoping IBM will buy them out for a couple million dollars in an effort to avoid bad publicity, and then the SCO managers can retirs in luxury. The sad thing is, it might even happen
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
SCO is in the same position as Intergraph before it, and is trying the same gag. They're a formerly large and influential company, fallen to the point of minnowhood. They have no prospect of growing significantly, have no revenue, and no significant human capital. So they've gone the patent litigation route.
There's no obvious "strikebacks" at such a company (they're a lot like a "litigation proof" private citizen). Consumer actions or intensified competition won't work, as that is intended to interfere with revenue streams they don't have in the first place. Large tech companies (particularly IBM) might normally unleash a broadside of retaliatory IP lawsuits, but again SCO won't care much - that would interfere with revenue they don't have or enjoin actions they aren't taking. Their current claim is huge, but they'll try to negociate a more "reasonable" sum with IBM - one that would probably be less than the cost to IBM of the litigation.
Intel wouldn't roll over for Intergraph, and I'd guess IBM won't for SCO.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
I think legal arguments should have to be logically sound. This one is clearly begging the question. "It's not possible for them to be as good as we are unless they stole from us. So we're suing them for theft."
Cripes, sounds like 5-year-old whining to me.
I've never seen SCO Unix (is that what it's called) anywhere. I wonder if it would be better for our community to kill SCO with kindness? I'm considering writing to SCO (in my own name) asking for information on their products. I won't put anything in my letter about a protest or about this issue at all. I will just ask them to send me some details. I wonder what the effect of hundreds of thousands of people doing this would be. At the very least it might make it difficult for them to identify real would-be customers.
Is this legal? Is it a good idea? Would it have any effect at all?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I just LOVE listening to the audio broadcast of this on SCO's site. I think I'll listen to it again, and again, and again. Maybe I could listen to it on every computer in my house...
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Argh.. We still sell and use SCO OpenServer 5.0.x in many customer sites. We integrated Cleo's SNA/SDLC/3270/HLLAPI/??? product into ours on SCO years ago and it's hard to move away from it now. Can anyone suggest a good Linux alternative? Our application runs fine on Linux without the SNA integration. So if we can do it some other way, no more SCO! That would have made me happy before they went and did this :)
p
Cleo SNA product:
http://www.cleo.com/products/gateway.as
Their sales line is 1-888-GO-LINUX.
;)
Please MR Linus--
Please make them license the trademark from you!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
IANAL. However, I am trying to read through the exhibits SCO provided on its website. I have not looked at all of them, but I couldn't resist passing this on. Their exhibit C is a letter of understanding between AT&T and IBM which re-writes some of the clauses of the contract and license in an earlier exhibit.
I would point people to the 4th page of the pdf file, which addresses clause 7.06a of an earlier agreement. It reads in part:
"LICENSSE agrees that it shall hold SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this agreement in confidence for AT&T. . . . Nothing in this agreement shall prevent LICENSEE from developing or marketing products or services employing ideas, concepts, know-how of techniques relating to data processing embodied in SOFTWAR PRODUCTS subject to this agreement, provided that LICENSEE shall not copy any code from such SOFTWARE PRODUCTS into any such product or in connection with any such service and employees of LICENSEE shall not refer to the physical documents and materials comprising SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this agreement when they are developing any such product or service or providing any such service. If information relating to a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this agreement at any time becomes available without restriction to the general public by acts not attributable to LICENSEE or its employees, LICENSEES obligations under this section shall not apply to such information after such time."
Now, I've not glanced at exhibits D and E and have not read completely exhibits A,B and C. However, this clause, if not overridden in D or E, would seem to me (remember IANAL) to give IBM the right to use IP embedded in licensed code to produce other code or services. It would even seem to allow people who have worked with licensed code to work on the new project so long as they do not refer to licensed code or documentation while working on the new project.
So, even if IBM took SCO intellectual property and placed it into Linux, so long as they didn't copy SCO owned code or look at while working on the Linux code, it seems to me that it would have been perfectly legal under the contracts for IBM to co-opt SCO owned IP and place it under the GPL in Linux.
Anyone read it differently?
The most well known of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." But only slightly less well known is "Never go up against IBM, when Intellectual Property is on the line!" A ha ha ha! A ha ha ha! A ha ha...
(thud)
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
From SCO's complaint:
"51. Prior to this time, IBM had not developed any expertise to run UNIX on an Intel chip and instead was confined to its Power PC chip."
IBM had a version of UNIX on Intel, AIX-PS2. And don't forget OS/2's (albeit limited) POSIX layer. And IBM was involved with Linux before Project Monterey began.
So, let's get this straight.
So either Canopy doesn't know what's going on, or is pretty hands-off, or they have no qualms about using one business in a way that would hurt or kill off one or more of their other viable businesses. Either way, they aren't a good company to work with.
Kind of like the dilbert comic, "The net-net at the end of the days is we owe ourselves 3 billion dollars."
-Adam
Yao. Can I write a check?
The case is worse than you think. There are all sorts of factual inaccuracies in the filling.
For example they make a great deal out of the fact that Linux = Linux + Unix; to show that the intent was to steal Unix intellectual property. As a side note Linux is a pun on Linix which was an abbreviation for Linus' Minix and SCO owns no Minix intellectual property.
They refer to Stallman as a former MIT professor.
Where it is not just factually untrue they often are highly misleading. For example they talk about SCO intellectual property as part of the Monterey project and then have quotes from IBM indicating the version of JFS in Linux is from Monterey project. The clear intent is to leave the reader with the impression that JFS came from SCO and was stolen by IBM.
Unlike the other two mistakes (which might just show negligence is preparing a court filing) this one is clearly an attempt to mislead the court.
Similarly they have multiple sections outlining the fact that the probability of someone randomly creating libraries compatible with the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries are close to 0; which hints but never states that Linux is compatible with the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries.
I think a very good case can be made for summary dismissal. As for IBM winning in court there won't be a problem. If this is the best claim Caldera has they really are in deep trouble.
This is horse shit. I picked up some nice long sleeved shirts at SCO's booth @ LinuxWorld in January. They're great looking, comfortable shirts, and now I can't wear them...
SCO, you bastards.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Thought you all might be interested in this article.v iewer.asp? a=695
http://www.sourcemagazine.com/articles/
"In 1979, brothers Doug and Larry Michels founded the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) as a UNIX porting and consulting company using venture capital from Microsoft..."
"Microsoft acquired a 25 percent share of SCO, which at the time gave it a controlling interest. While SCO handled the actual development and added some enhancements of its own, Microsoft handled the marketing of the product, which it touted as the "Microcomputer Operating System of the Future!""
Shared libraries are by their nature unique creations based on various decisions to write code in certain ways, which are in great part random decisions of the software developers who create the shared library code base. There is no established way to create a specific shared library and the random choices in the location and access calls for "hooks" that are part of the creation of any shared library. Therefore, the mathematical probability of a customer being able to recreate the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries without unauthorized access to or use of the source code of the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries is nil.
Aside from the insult proffered to programmers everywhere (calling our decisions "random"), there's the real problem that it IS possible to duplicate functionality in shared libraries without the source code. Check out WINE as an excellent example.
Because Caldera is located in Utah. State of incorporation is not the same as location of the business. Many (perhaps most, not sure) corporations incorporate in Delaware (I've done it myself, though I have never been to Delaware), because of that state's well-developed body of commercial law. Attorneys (I am one) tend to be conservative, and selecting Delaware as the state of incorporation is sort of like picking Microsoft or Intel -- there is a perception that no one can fault you for making the "safe" choice.
--Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
Caldera does its Unix business in Utah.
Delaware is a handy place to incorporate $-wise. A lot of corporations are "Delaware Corporations".
Here's why.
JoAnn
SCO might have written their own death warrant by suing Big Blue. IBM has more software patents than Microsoft and Oracle combined, and probably has enough legal firepower in their patent portfolio to countersue SCO out of existance.
I doubt that anyone will miss them once IBM is finished mopping the floor with them.
OK I'll hide my head in shame. Oce printing uses a SCO solution for their postscript control center:
(individual systems -> SCO master -> ?SCO slave? -> Postscript rip -> SCO slave/master -> ?IOCA RIP? -> Printer. Its switching to Linux but it isn't converted yet (since it works and scales big enough).
[Screams of "but its not my fault" in the background]
It appears that SCO has helped themselves to
r y0 1.html
t io n.ppt (slide #4)
Éric Lévénez's unix family tree, possibly in
violation of the "you can freely use this diagram
for non-commercial purposes" line at the bottom
of the page.
compare http://www.levenez.com/unix/
with
http://www.sco.com/scosource/unixtree/unixhisto
http://www.sco.com/scosource/SCOsource_Presenta
I guess "What's mine is mine, and what's yours
is negotiable" rings true at SCO.
--chuck
Here's the relevant section:
That's all well and good, but it blatantly ignores a couple hard truthes of the marketplace at the time:
- The architecture of the Itanium is so different from x86 that SCO's knowledge of previous Intel architectures was either useless or an active hinderance to development.
- By May 2001, it was obvious to anyone paying attention to that Linux was going to be the OS of choice among the early adopters of Itanium. A significant percentage (20% at least) of all Itanium-1 processors produced were going into compute clusters at academic HPC sites like NCSA and OSC (my employer), and those sites were all using Linux on their Itaniums. (NCSA bought their Itanium gear from IBM, IIRC.)
I think this suit is going to come down to SCO needing to prove the sentence italicized above, including identifying the trade secrets that IBM supposedly misappropriated. I have to think that's going to be extremely hard to prove, especially given that IBM wasn't even substantially involved in the Linux/ia64 port. (HP did most of the heavy lifting there, I think.)Personally, I think Bruce Perens is right -- SCO is trying to get someone with deep pockets to buy them, whether that's IBM, MS, or somebody else.
"My life's work has been to prompt others... and be forgotten." --Cyrano de Bergerac
Here's some of the misconceptions they have:
In their brief, one of the points they make is that Linux was originally created for not-for-profit uses:
I don't know for sure about what Linus was thinking, but I know for certain that GNU was intended to be used in commercial, for-profit applications. Stallman has repeatedly stated that people can GPL stuff and sell it. His analogy was with legal help: you pay a lawyer to write up a contract, but then you can give the contract to a friend in a similar situation. You pay once for the lawyer to write up the contract; the lawyer doesn't get royalties every time you use it. OTH, your friend would be wise to at least run it by a lawyer before using the contract to make sure it fits his/her situation. You can produce GPL'ed software that way, too. You can offer custom GPL'ed programs for a fee. The GPL has ALWAYS been intended to be applicable to for-profit programs.
Free of charge, yes. Not-for-profitt, no. I can sell GPL'ed code for a gazillion dollars if I want. Of course, the first person who buys it can then put it on an ftp site and distribute it to the world...
All GPL'ed software is copyright property. That's the only way the GPL works.
And then they go on to claim that IBM is trying to "destroy the economic value of UNIX (paragraph 90)." Um, guys, Stallman's intent at the outset was to destroy the economic value of all proprietary software.
I just hope that IBM's lawyers don't let them get away with such huge misconceptions. I really hope IBM can squash this suit like a bug (oh, wait, is that a good analogy? IBM... squashing bugs...infinitely growing bug lists... hmmm...))
Acronyms Obfuscate
"IF THIS IS THE CASE, the SCO may very well have a valid claim here. The facts on whether SCO is a good Unix, bad Unix, good company, successful company etc, is irrelevant."
So far I have yet to see how this could be the case, considering that IBM has succeeded in getting virtually NONE of their "enterprise" contributions into the kernel!
Multi-queue scheduler? Looks interesting, but we'll use Ingo's instead?
EVMS? Looks interesting, but we'll use Sistina's LVM!
Posix threads? Looks interesting, but we'll use Redhat's!
JFS? Prefer ext3. Maybe it will make it into the kernel in 2.6.
I'd like to see WHAT exactly is in Linux that IBM contributed that supposedly made it "Enterprise ready"? A few printer drivers??
But then, I'm Machivellian. Most corporations are too. But are we the same Machievellian? :-)
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
From the compaint:
Except for SCO, none of the primary UNIX vendors ever developed a UNIX "flavor" to operate on an Intel-based processor chip set. This is because the earlier Intel processors were considered to have inadequate processing power for use in the more demanding enterprise market applications.
Hmmm.... I guess that Solaris x86 doesn't count?
Prior to IBM's involvement, Linux was the software equivalent of a bicycle. UNIX was the software equivalent of a luxury car.
And SCO UNIX was the equivalent of that Mercedes Sportscar until you discover that it had a really cheap transmission in it and 2 cycle lawn-mower engine....
Nother interesting point which regardless of accuracy should give Shared Source advocates pause is:
Based on other published statements, IBM currently has over 7,000 employees involved in the transfer of UNIX knowledge into the Linux business of IBM, Red Hat and SuSE (the largest European Linux distributor). On information and belief, a large number of the said IBM employees currently working in the transfer of UNIX to Linux have, or have had, access to the UNIX Software Code.
It seems to me that this suit is interesting because as a derivative works suit... This is very dangerous for Microsoft and its shared source initiative. So the idea that this is good for Microsoft is actually very misleading. Normally, lawyers will usually take a "play it safe" mentality where unless victory is quite likely, suits are often discouraged. Particularly in expensive areas like copyright or patent laws. So the fact that SCO has moved into the DMZ of copyright law is significant and could redefine where the DMZ is. In fact their presence there, if they lose would be a severe blow to their ability to pursue other suits. So if IBM wins, this is a victory for all of us.
Now as to what can be done:
1: Can the FSF get involved?
2: If so, cvan we all donate to them?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The site www.sco.com is running Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 on Linux.
Looks like they started to switch in August of 2002, had some problems and switched back to SCO for a few days, and then completed their switch on August 14, 2002.
You KNOW a company is dying when they don't eat their own dog food.
Never mind the fact that in the days of IBM's PS/2 systems (no not the sony toys - the 80386 era) you could get AIX for PS/2 so IBM had indeed prior knowledge to run UNIX on Intel CPUs.
--Ulrich
On no accounts allow a Vogon to read poetry at you
Let's look at it from a different perspective.
...
... go figure
--SCO wins, stock goes up -- management cashes out and drives the company down the drain; they have a lot of practice in this matter
--IBM get's fed up and buys out SCO, stock goes up-- management cashes out and doesn't give shit.
--Bunch of spamers on stock web sites spread fud about how valid SCO's arguments are, bunch of idiots buy their stock, the stock goes up 40% in one session
well
the management knows the company is going nowhere with their crappy software, they can't follow their fellow brothers of Enron, WorldCom and others because there is nothing to steal, so they've found out other way to make money.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Let's see. Somebody replying to the other article said they're worth 16 million bucks.
They probably pay a nickel per minute for their 888 number.
That means that we can bankrupt them by making 320 million minutes worth of useless calls, navigating their stupid voice menus! If we can each make 100 minutes worth of calls, we only need 3.2 million slashdotters to participate!
Looks like it's time for an offensive slashdotting, old school!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
You just need a big, fat, red magic marker. Make a circle-with-slash (e.g. No SCO!) logo out of it.
Then it will be truly 1337.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
SCO group is acknowledging that Linux is as good as its Unix if anything through this lawsuit. It's like SCO telling its customers that Linux has competant enterprise functionality. This sounds like a great news for Linux to me.