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OSI vs SCO
the jackol writes "As expected, the OSI's just given the SCO vs IBM case a bite with this position paper. "SCO has never owned the UNIX trademark. IBM neither requested nor required SCO's permission to call their AIX offering a Unix. That decision lies not with the accidental owner of the historical Bell Labs source code, but with the Open Group.""
Anyway - on a related note: this is why IBM will not buy SCO. As much as people daydream that IBM is "on our side" and all that, there seem to be all too many who conveniently forgets that IBM is in it for the money, not because they have some kind of conviction that OSI is morally good, or something - it's only good because it's making them money.
Buying SCO, even if it temporarily puts this behind them, makes OSI completely unworkable by IBM - beacuse this would set a precedence of sketchy IP companies suddenly realizing that IBM will actually pay CASH for bullshit patents and stuff. As much cash as IBM have, they can't be buying every bullshit patent touting company out there - at least not doing so while making a buck.
so, if SCO fucks linux over, IBM will just find another route to makey money, and if linux stands, IBM will continue to stand my its side. Regardless, though - don't expect IBM to chump out the change for SCO, though i do think they will push a few lawyers for the good cause, because getting a few lawyers and bust SCO's bs out of the water and keep linux standing will, in the end, mean the best bottom line for its business.
look at the world with an economic eye, guys.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
So, not matter what happens, open source will survive. GNU/Linux may suffer, but not other systems.
The SCO law suit will probably go down in history in the same category as the stupid congressmen that bad-mouth the GPL. Namely, the trashcan.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
SCO's complaint is factually defective in that it implies claims about SCO's business and technical capabilities that are untrue. It is, indeed, very cleverly crafted to deceive a reader without intimate knowledge of the technology and history of Unix; it gives false impressions by both the suppression of relevant facts, the ambiguous suggestion of falsehoods, and in a few instances by outright lying.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I believe the key is what "derived" means in the context of that graphic. Yes, Linux uses UNIX design concepts and structures, but that's true of all the OSes in the graphic; to that extent, they're all related. Solid lines indicate direct inheritance of code. The off-to-the-side bit reflects the fact that Linus' original project was built from scratch and didn't use code from the other family members.
WRT the use of BSD tools, I suspect this was a judgement call in producing a readable graphic describing major influences. Show all interactions and the page is an unreadable mess, (possibly resembling the profile of a gnu?).
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
[4] We use the term "hacker" in its correct and original sense here, as an enthusiast or artist of computer programming.
'Hacker' is pejorative for many concerned with law enforcement, who do not care about ESR's 'hacker/cracker' agenda. Why not just call them 'contributors' or 'authors'? I don't see references to 'Micro$oft' or even 'Unices' in the document.
When suing someone else in the corporate world, you must be very careful of one thing:
Make sure they can't countersue you on something else.
If IBM were smart, they'd go looking through their patents and technology and countersue SCO into the stone age.
Chances are EXTREMELY good that a company as large as IBM has something to fire back at SCO. Patents are as useful for defending oneself against extortion as they are for extorting money from people in the corporate world. (Many companies file patents solely for defensive purposes - If someone goes after them for patent infringement, they hope that they can strike back with their own patent infringement claim.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Interesting how Caldera held the torch as it were for DRDOS (which IMHO was the TRUE and technically superior DOS for the PC, insofar that it really WAS better than MSDOS (aka "Messy DOS"), it derived directly from from Digital Research whereas MSDOS was the bastardization of Digital Research's CPM and further mangled by Bill Gates et al.) and DRDOS was MSDOS' direct and main competitor back in the day. Also interesting is the fact that Ray Noorda was involved in the formation of Caldera. It's no secret that there was no love lost between Mr. Norda and Bill Gates - especially from Ray Noorda's side.
With the way that SCO/Caldera has appeared to have become Microsoft's bitch, Mr. Noorda must be choking on his biscuits right about now.
They distributed the code under the gpl allowing everybody to see it and thus they have no legal base at all with respect to trade secrets.
Their argument for this claim will be "we didn't distribute it; we had no knowledge." Denying them this would do two things.
1: Hackers can now put words in the mouth of corporations. (See? MSDN got hacked and folk downloaded GPL'd Windows, so now it's all free!)
2: Every piece of "FUD" about the GPL will be proven--it IS a viral license, that can irrevocably infect your code without your express wishes.
2: Every piece of "FUD" about the GPL will be proven--it IS a viral license, that can irrevocably infect your code without your express wishes.
Actually, in this case it doesn't matter what open license it is. If the license used was the BSD license, SCO would still be losing their "intellectual property" because the source would still be there for everyone to see. Thus, we need not worry about the "viral FUD" if the above point is brought to attention.
If IBM had the legal grounds to base a countersuit on one (or more... probably more) of their numerous patents, it would take a very, very long time to prepare these things in an airtight way, not like what SCO has done with their haphazard and amateurish nonsense.
One thing's for certain; no matter what hapens, IBM will make sure their rebuttals and countersuits are extremely well supported and factually correct, probably with the help of many, many highly paid expert witnesses.
I'm expecting them to try to prove a point in court, to legitimize their new business model, and to open up future revenue streams for cooperation (they need to clear EVERYONE of this nonsense, or else an entire industry [the one they created by embracing Linux] might disappear).
It would do better for their bottom line in the long run to prove their business model is sound, and to legally fuck their competition (i.e., SCO) than just outright buying SCO; it would then look like they are covering something up.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
This is getting tiresome.
SCO has made a big gamble here, they're incurring the wrath of much of the Unix community (and ALL of the Linux community), and they might end up destroying what's left of their IP and credibility.
BUT...they're putting their money where their mouth is. They're taking this to court, and winning or losing based on a court ruling.
Eric Raymond, on the other hand, is providing a 'rebuttal' to their case which is at LEAST as revisionist and self serving as SCO's, but he's not risking anything. Instead he's sitting back, making smarmy comments, feeling superior, and further convincing the Linux community that Open Source is a holy and sacred beast, which must take over the world.
In other words, his evangelism is just as galling as SCO's corporatism, but without the clout behind it.
It's time for ESR and all the rest (Theo de Radt, creator/manager of a fabulous OS and general asshole, Linux coders who don't believe in documentation, etc. etc.) to get off of their evangelical horses and start working for the best results, rather than a vision or mission.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The SCO spokesman said something was added to Linux by vendors that was proprietary code. That sounds like the kernel is out of the picture, in which case, we cant say their aim is on "Linux" no matter what the intention. So it could be something like YaST or even some fancy scripting. How hard can it be to replace something thats not the kernel in a distro? And this wouldnt affect the other distros either.
Theyre really kicking up dust in the face of Linux and not clarifying why. Everyone has been blindly mounting defence for Linux without even knowing what code came from UNIX by IBM at all. By the time they 'reveal' their little blame, all this wall of defence would have strengthened the case for Linux being really free.. and we needed a phreak losing case like this to give a reminder to the community not to use tainted code anywhere in the distros at all. No other Operating System grew up with so much licensing issues in mind; and Linux is bulletproof now. It is precisely this reason why Linux took the lead over BSD.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Nobody claims that the University of Manchester is the distibuter of the gnu tools they mirror, they claim that the FSF is. SCO's case is very different and not helped by the fact that they only pulled their distributions some time after filing suit against IBM.
Furthermore, the fact that they were making threatening noises towards other distributions, while still actively distributing their own, makes it very hard for them to argue that they had not previously been aware of the possibility that they were distriuting the claimed infringing code under GPL. Especially as this point has been trotted out in every slashdot discussion on the subject.
Of course not. Only when a corporation purposely distributes code does this become an issue. They may not knowingly distribute it, but they purposely distribute. There's a lawyer term that relates here, due diligence, that basically means that a corpoartion has a duty to their stockholders to make sure they aren't doing something stupid by a purposeful action, such as releasing trade secrets under an open license. If SCO really did purposely publicly license trade secrets under an open license, even unknowingly, there may actually be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit against SCO for not being properly cautious about such a public licensing. Note that this would be a bad thing for Open Source in general, as most companies don't have the resources to properly examine, what, 5 million lines of source code for the software in a normal linux distribution. And therefore the proper "safe" response may be to not use linux, even internally.
Yes, the GPL is viral. It is meant to be viral. Stallman did that on purpose. No, it cannot infect your code without your wishes. But it can without your informed intent, if you are not properly careful of what you are doing. Again, due dilegence.
Actually, assuming SCO has a valid case in this lawsuit, I don't really see a problem with both viewpoints on this...
If IBM really did release SCO IP in kernel patches, then IBM is liable for violating a NDA, and there should be consequences for that.
However, at the point that SCO (or Caldera after they bought SCO) released that IP in their own linux distribution, liability for other users/distributors stops.
That (assumed) window between IBM releasing SCO IP, and Caldera (as SCO owner) releasing that same IP under an open license, makes for some interesting possibilities for legal rulings for other distributors.
Oh, and I like your sigline, but really... Cadbury creme eggs *are* heavenly.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
"not knowing" is no excuse in court
IANAL(RU), but I was taught (by lawyers) that intent is as improtant as action.
The way I see it, if SCO's code is in fact in Linux, then "Us" would have to prove that it's common practice to examine all of the source code for an OSS distribution (it isn't), that SCO didn't do so (which they obviously didn't), and, probably, that they continued to distribute Linux with their code after knowing that it was "theirs."
They don't belong in the OS industry if they can't even manage their own releases, and/or know what it even does.
OSS is built on trust and re-use. If we (that is, folks who use any OSS at all) had to examine every bit of source code, then OSS would grind to a gut-wrenching hault. At best, we'd have locked-down distrubtions with a small fraction of the software that they have now.
No, you are completly missing the point, don't know how it's very simple.
SCO is a distributor, it's not the user's fault, nor will he ever be held liable to using a product that was legitimatly licensed software given to him.
SCO IS LICENSING THEIR GODAMN OS!, you're damn right that everyone that licenses through the GPL SHOULD KNOW EXACTLY WHAT's IN IT! this has nothing to do with joe blow linux user, this has to do with distributors who create and release this stuff, sometimes for a profit, sometimes for not, it's their responisbility. Total bullshit that a company can claim they didn't know what the fuck they were licensing.
Every godamn linux distributor should be inspecting their releases, if they waive that right, they also waive the right to sue for infrigement, if something in that release happened to be one of their trade secrets. This is not the case if someone else does it, if I take SCO's code and implement it, I am at fault, and redhat can't be held liable for my contribution, only I can be held liable. But if SCO dosen't check their own stuff, they just download source and give it out as GPL, that's their problem, cuz they actually own the IP, so they are giving their consent by waiving the right to look at it, even if it was taken from under their nose.
I'm not condoning this action, but I am saying if your own IP, you need to always look carefully at your releases to make sure you don't go releasing it to the public, cuz after that it's too late, and you shouldn't be able to claim damages.
That's the risk you take by owning IP and contributing to open source, it could be SCO employees that put the code in, no one really knows, but since SCO gave it out themselves, it's their fault, regardless of who actually put it in the OS.
This is not a hit on the open source model, because it's clearly a grab at cash, linux will survive in the splendor it is, exactly because of the copyleft, and the fact that if you assign it GPL, you are giving it away, wether the fuck you know what in it or not!
Posting useless rant since 2003.
It's as if I give you an old table I found in my basement, and you find a gold bar in one of the legs. Can I sue you to get it back because I didn't know that it was there? No, because it's yours and myfault for not inspecting the table beforehand to ensure I was only giving away the table. You came over, and I gave you the table, end of discussion.
Exact same concept here, SCO is responsible, intent is irrelevant here, because it's not even criminal, it's civil. Someone else "might" have put some code belonging to SCO in the linux kernel, Caldera knowingly kept licensing linux for years, without even knowing what's in the kernel, like I said earlier, waving the right to claim that it's not their fault, wether they meant to do it or not, it's negligence, and they shouldn't be rewarded.
They want money for damages ages after the actually offense happened (I'm assuming it did in this case) and they don't want to take any blame for purposly continuing to contribute to it.
What I am saying here is that they are clearly at foul, and this is most likely pointing to a case of money hungry conglomerates. I mean, you can defend them all you want, but if you want to look at it in a logical sense, they were stupid, and gave away their own shit, copyright dosen't excuse stupidity, nor should the courts.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
All this stuff about "irrevocably infect your code without your express wishes" is just FUD. Whining about "programmer took some 'free' code to incorporate into our precious corporate product" is just whining -- no one else is responsible for your clueless employees. "GPL" is not a synonym for "public domain."
SCO distributing a Linux distribution doesn't necessarily affect the case since they can reasonably claim they didn't look through all the billions and billions of lines of code in the kernel. But I'm not a lawyer, and my unfounded speculations are just that. Don't read this paragraph.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.