Slashdot Mirror
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.
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??
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!!!!
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 ...
Yeah, no kidding. I switched more than one client away from UnixWare to Linux back in 1997 and 1998, well before IBM was seriously involved, AND got all the legacy applications running under the SysV emulation, even back then. Some of those systems are still running (they never really needed to be bleeding edge), and their upgrade path has been made an order of magnitude easier (and cheaper) by switching.
SCO was irrelevant five years ago. They figure that the possibility of getting any money from IBM beats killing off what little credibility they might have, because they're sinking anyway.
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.
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
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?
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
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.
> > "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code"
> Sounds like Penis envy to me.
It's an incredibly stupid a priori claim to base a court case on, for sure. Do they expect the court to just accept it as a given and move directly to the penalty phase?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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
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
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.