Today's SCO News

joebeone writes "Linus has commented on the SCO v. IBM suit saying "SCO is playing it like the Raelians" and that he will withhold his judgement until the code in question is shown in court. He has also recommended that former slashdot editor, Chris DiBona, be appointed to a panel offered by SCO to examine the evidence." Businessweek has an interview with SCO's CEO. The Open Group would like to remind everyone that SCO is only one of many in the Unix world.

Comments

Lawyers...

[Albert Pussyjuice]

"One source close to SCO confirmed that IBM lawyers are in "discussions about possible discussions" with SCO's legal team."

Aren't lawyers great?

Why charge for one discussion when you can charge for two?

considered the father of Linux?

[asv108]

In an e-mail response to CRN, Torvalds, widely considered the father of Linux

Who the hell else is under consideration? SCO's CEO?

Re:considered the father of Linux?

[finkployd]

I understand back in the 70's Al Gore took the initiative in creating Linux :)

Finkployd

Dear Mr. Gates

[DailyGrind]

Hello Bill,

Re: Dropping of the anti-trust matter - done
Re: Slowing down Linux - done

I am eagerly awaiting your third wish.

Sincerely,
Satan

Something Mismatches

[tanveer1979]

Yea the SCO is firing on all counts against Linux. But there are certain strange anomalies as far as their India Division is concerned. SCO India is apprently still pusihing linux!

The May Issue of Linux for You India has interview of SCO India Head in which that guy is pushing linux and says linux is the key focus of SCO with they wanting to contribute to the Linux Community by way of more software. Isnt that a bit odd!

SCO's own goal

[bazik]

Anyone else noticed that SCO continued to sell their Linux distribution for two months _AFTER_ they sued IBM? They even had a kernel source code on their servers available for download >:)


For more information click here.

SCO's Ineffable Fallacy

[codefool]

"If trade secrets are the issue, it wouldn't be hard for the Linux community to recode the offending software."

This is precicely why SCO does not divulge exactly what's in question: it would be too easy for IBM et al to say "Oh. So sorry. Many regretti." and recode it, thus deflating any hope they have for the Home Run.

All SCO can be after is money - QED.

Re:SCO's Ineffable Fallacy

[spitzak]

Revealing the code would not remove the fact that copyright infringment has been done already, and they could still collect exactly as much damages as before.

There are only two reasons for them not to reveal the code:

1. There is no such code

2. The code is in some laughably insignificant or obsolete part of Linux, which would backfire on them because everybody would then say that SCO's code is obsolete and this proves that Linux has far surpassed them.

Some people say there is a conspiracy and Microsoft is paying SCO to cast fear and doubt on Linux, and that this doubt is more valuable to them than winning the case. But this still does not explain why they don't reveal any of the code. If there was any code of value, it would likely be in several pieces. They could reveal one piece so that everybody knows they are serious and they can prove they have a case, and say "there are several others that we will reveal later". This would be far more damaging to Linux than their current actions and would make Microsoft happy. Therefore I feel pretty confident now that they have no case whatsoever.

Re: SCO's Ineffable Fallacy

[Black Parrot]

> Some people say there is a conspiracy and Microsoft is paying SCO to cast fear and doubt on Linux, and that this doubt is more valuable to them than winning the case. But this still does not explain why they don't reveal any of the code.

My take on that yesterday:

That's also why I believe that this is an anti-Linux FUD campaign. If they were really concerned with IP then they have nothing to gain by keeping the code secret. If they announce it now it will get removed now (which is what they want, right?) but they'll still be entitled to any legal remedy they'd be entitled to without announcing it (assuming any at all). There's simply no IP-based reason not to announce it.

But as for FUD-based reasons, well, it's only FUDworthy so long as everything is up in the air and businesses thinking about making the switch have something to worry about. Point to the code and the argument switches to the facts of the claim, or the code gets ripped out, and the FUD-bubble bursts overnight.

The IP motivation says "announce it", and the FUD motivations says "mum's the word".

No, this isn't about IP.

Does it...

[frodo from middle ea]

Does it occur to any one , that the result of this problem is not of much importance.
Think about it, Microsoft has been spreading the FUD that GPL is THE big problem in enterprise environments not open source.
With all the bad publicity this is generating for linux, even if SCO were to loose its case in court, the Damage has already been done

Do managers really care whether linux code has or has not infringed upon copyright code? Do they ?

All they will see is that, GPLed code could potentially land them in problem.

This has a two fold implications on a IT manager thinking of deploying linux

• One:- As long as the case is not resolved, using Linux could mean risking being sued for copyright infringments. Also what's to gurantee that no other company could sue in future.
• Secondly mixing GPLed code, or even using the GPLed libraries with their own propritory code is now a NO-NO

This has been probably the most successful attack policy of Microsoft. Shoot from the shoulders of SCO and scare the IT managers.

Remember programmers like you and me, don't matter as long as IT managers are scared to use linux in their enterprise.

Lawyers to the rescue!

[Shadow Wrought]

One source close to SCO confirmed that IBM lawyers are in "discussions about possible discussions" with SCO's legal team.

Its nice to see that the two sides are moving closer together. It seems like only last week that they were only discussing the possibility of disscussing discussions regarding the discussion of case discussions.

a cunning ploy

[mikeee]

Linus, of course, is cleverly hedging his bets here. He knows there's no chance that a Slashdot editor will catch a duplicate!

Re:show us the CODE!

[DailyGrind]

Actually the executives are going somewhere.... have you seen the stock price.

Unfortunately in the U$ the end justifies the means and the executive options for SCO are now making them rich.,.

It is not important if they win as long as they can cash out before the outcome....

Re:show us the CODE!

[Mr2cents]

Well, the article states it is:
- it is added in the last 18 months
- it is added by IBM
- they added 'a whole program'

I think this narrows things down a bit, shouldn't it be possible to make a list of code added by IBM in the last 18 months?
Maybe we could all put a snippet of this code on our website, and the one who gets sued by SCO has the right part :)

Why?

[eric2hill]

"He has also recommended that former slashdot editor, Chris DiBona, be appointed to a panel offered by SCO to examine the evidence."

Why's that? So that it can get sent to court three or four times?

<ducks>

opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html

[Mensa Babe]

OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint by Eric Raymond, President of The Open Source Initiative. Do we really have to say more, than what have already been said?

Scaring OSS consumers

[wine]

In the business week article Darl McBride tries to scare (potential) OSS consumers:

I believe the way the open-source community works right now has some fundamental flaws that have got to be addressed. We need to address how this open-source intellectual property is developed, routed, and sold. Thousands of software developers send code to contribute to open-source projects -- but there isn't a protective device for the customer using the software to ensure they're not in violation of the law by using stolen code.

This might be true, IANAL. But this is no different for proprieraty, closed source code. For open and closed source alike, you cannot trace if code has illegaly been copied into it from another source. So, even if you buy a proprietary closed source application, you might as well be in violation of the law.

Playing it like the Raelians...

[FFFish]

...except the Raelians don't appear to be a doomsday death cult.

SCO is playing it much more like, say, Heaven's Gate or Jonestown. Drink the koolaid, take a trip on the passing comet.

This is the real concern

[AppHack]

I was at a meeting yesterday with 60 or so Security and IT leaders from around our city. One of the items being discussed was the use of OSS. The general consensus of the non-techie leaders was that they would steer away from OSS when things like SCO were going on. The more technical leaders were trying to explain some of the issues, but that largely fell on deaf ears.

This entire issue has nothing to do with the code. It doesn't matter when SCO release the "offending" code or if the code is really an IP infraction or not. Most people's understanding of this will simply be a headline here and there. The idea that you might get sued for using Linux will be all they remember. If the courts determine there is some basis to this, it will get even worse. Those things take a long time for the general population to forget.

Re:IBM response to SCO :

[HisMother]

Isn't that "What the F# do you think you're doing?"

There's lots of BSD code in AT&T Unix

[fstanchina]

The article from Newsforge had this (anonymous) comment attached to it. I didn't think of this, but it looks like he's right.

[disclaimer: as stated above, this comment was written by an Anonymous Reader -- I'm just pasting; any positive moderation doesn't belong to me, except a "+1 informative" if you will]

"As people may recall from the original settlement of the BSD lawsuit, three files had to be removed from BSD that represented things in SysV source. What is often forgotten, though, is that AT&T itself was in a far greater bind because while there was some SysV code in BSD, there was a LOT of "borrowed" and misattributed BSD code found to be in AT&T SysV. BSD permits this, but the license at the time required the advertising clause, and AT&T fraudulently ignored this. The actual settlement said that AT&T would no longer sue the BSD people, and that the University of California would also agree to hold AT&T harmless for misappropriating BSD code. Hence, much of the code that SCO owns is actually misattributed BSD code for which UC permitted AT&T (and it's decendents) to use."

"Now much of Linux also shares code derived from ancestrial BSD sources or people who have worked in common on both, and I am sure many of the same ancestrial routines still found today at the core of SysV are in fact also BSD derived. Hence, where common code may exist, it's code that AT&T originally misappropriated, and that SCO is free to use and relicense from the AT&T/BSD settlement, but in point of law neither AT&T nor the current SysV owner has actual legal copyright over. Perhaps the regents of UC could hall these SCO scum back into court, as they are in fact in material breach of the AT&T/BSD settlement if SCO now claims copyright "ownership" of that originally misappropriated code since the settlement gave AT&T no such rights."

So lets see

[91degrees]

IBM misappropriated SCO's code, which was then incorporated into the Linux kernel released by Caldera, making Caldera liable. SCO then bought Caldera, thus implying that SCO had been misled into buying a license to their own code. SCO fails to realise this and releases Linux as per the GPL.

Okay. That bit makes sense. SCO then realise that some of their code is amisapprpriated. They contuinue to distribute it under the GPL even though they claim the GPL doesn't cover it. They also claim that some of SCO's code is in the Linux kernel, but fail to say what. All this time they continue to distibute their own code under a license which states that either they are not allowed to, or that they must allow others to do exactly what they're claiming everyone else shouldn't do.

SCO make some statement that says that it isn't being distributed under the GPL, and the GPL says so, disregarding the fact that says that if they distribute GPLed code they give a license to use all the code that's included.

This is where I sart getting a headache. I just can't make the facts of that last sentence sound coherent however hard I try.

FSF's Bradley Kuhn comments on SCO case

[vinsci]

In an e-mail interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, FSF's executive director Bradley Kuhn says several interesting things, for example:

"Indeed, FSF holds documents from SCO regarding some of this code. SCO has disclaimed copyright on changes that were submitted and assigned by their employees to key GNU operating system components."

and earlier:

"SCO was not merely a distributor of the kernel named Linux; they were the distributor off the entire GNU/Linux system, which includes Linux as well as the core components of the GNU operating system, such as glibc, GCC, GDB, etc.

"Most of the core GNU components are all copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation and distributed under our auspices under GPL. SCO's right to redistribute them, and Linux too, is the GNU GPL and only the GNU GPL."

[...]

"For nearly two decades, the FSF has carefully and arduously collected copyright assignments on each contribution to the GPL'ed programs on which we hold copyright. We carry out due diligence to ask contributors if they have any reason to believe that trade secrets, patents, or other copyright claims cover their work before they submit it to us. We then collect a copyright assignment from the contributor (and a copyright disclaimer from their employer when necessary) to ensure that we hold proper title to the software on which we place our copyright notice and license freely under GPL or LGPL.

"Individuals and companies using FSF copyrighted programs know as much as one can know that the software has been examined carefully, that its authors certify that the work is their own, and that the authors have no knowledge of other claims conflicting with its licensing under GPL or LGPL."

For several other interesting quotes, see the whole interview.

Re:show us the CODE!

[Eunuchswear]

They've said they will, soon.

SCO ship a bunch of Linux stuff with their "LKP", (Linux Kernel Personality) add-on for UnixWare, and according to The Inquirer they've written to say:

Secondly we [SCO] have begun examining the Linux RPM CD which we ship with the UnixWare Media Kits to expunge any material which is thought to have any IP issues...

Within a few weeks we expect to have completed the purging of the Linux Kernel RPM and will be remastering a new CD which will allow customers to begin receiving UnixWare 7.1.3 Media Kits with the needed LKP materials.

So, within a few weeks we'll be able to compare the old "Linux RPM CD" with the new one and find out what SCO/Caldera think was stolen.