SCO vs Linux.. Continued

An anonymous reader writes "ComputerWorld has an interview with Chris Sontag, from SCO. Now the story has a pretty face." The interview has a variety of comments worth noting like how much source code SCO thinks has slipped from unix to linux. This story continues to amaze me.

Comments

Re:And the drama continues

[StealthBadger]

I don't think SCO cares if anyone believes them or not. The only thing that matters is whether or not a judge finds their legal argument sound enough to award them a judgement. Anything else they say is just smoke and mirrors, a nod in the general direction of Publik Opeenion.

The only way the price will go down and stay down is if someone leaks the so-called evidence (or some juicy internal memos...) and the Emperor is discovered to be wanderin' around buck nekkid, so to speak.

I'm just wondering why it hasn't happened yet.

What this means

[Ender Ryan]

What this means, everyone, is that they knew of the "offending code" for a while without taking any action, and continued in their Linux business, knowingly distributing the offending code themselves.

They have no legal legs to stand on. Hopefully the courts will get this one right, and SCO will become irrelevent.

Re:What this means

[jedidiah]

This is a little bit different from the usual case of patent/copyright neglect. IF they new that the Linux kernel was contaminated and continued to distribute it this can only mean one of two things:

1) They willfully distributed the associated property under the GPL.

2) They willfully violated the GPL.

This would also means that SCO failed to take reasonable steps to inform the offending parties and allow them to make amends.

Litigation really should be the last resort.

Re:What this means

[EllisDees]

>It's true they have no legal leg to stand on, but unlike trademarks, patents and copyright do not diminish with disuse.

Doesn't matter. By distributing their own code under the GPL, they have given up the right to restrict the future use of that code. If they are trying to say that they didn't distribute it under the GPL, then every kernel contributor whose code they distributed can sure them into oblivion.

Re:What this means

[Surak]

How could they NOT know?

From the article:
How many lines of code in the Linux kernel are a direct copyright violation? It's very extensive. It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue, up to large blocks of code that have been inappropriately copied into Linux in violation of our source-code licensing contract. That's in the kernel itself, so it is significant. It is not a line or two here or there. It was quite a surprise for us.

Extensively? 10-15 lines of code in multiple places and large blocks of code? How could they NOT know? They distributed a custom-patched kernel with (at least AFAIK) Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 and 2.4, and probably all later versions as well, and maybe some earlier versions. I still have COL manuals and CDs laying around somewhere in my boxes of stuff. ;)

No, you're right. They willfully distributed associated property under the GPL, and they have willfully violated the GPL. FSF and/or Linus should sue them for all their worth (which is more than you think, I think their market cap is only $75 mil or so). IBM should countersue, their work is in the Linux kernel too. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM did so, either.

No, really, I think SCO is fscked and has been fscked and this is their last dying gasp. They figure if they're gonna go out, they might as well go out in style, eh?

Re:What this means

[meatpopcicle]

what is this?

SCO: we know "Linux" is guilty of code theft, but since the Linux source code is available we will let them figure out where the offending code is even thought they "technically" dont have access to the code that they are in violation of copying?

How is Linux supposed to prove their innocence with this kind of statement?

This whole thing reeks of a scare tactic by a company that is losing profit.

5-10-15 lines of code in blocks are in violation? Well tell me that a 1000 programmers all programming code couldn't come up with some code that looked like proprietary code!

How do you know you are in violation of copyright when it comes to code writing when you dont have access to it. Should you be liable?

If I wrote some code that was GPL and it looked like copyrighted code would I be in violation even though I technically never saw the other code?

How do you protect yourself from that kind of lawsuit. This whole thing of protecting code like this is ludicrous!!!

What a load of feces....

[NerveGas]

• Think about if I was the CIO of a company and I'm going to be running my business on an operating system that has an intellectual property foundation that, by almost everyone's admission, is built on quicksand
  
  What a load of crap. He's essentially saying that closed-source code is somehow more guaranteed to be more legitimate. I'd say that the reverse is true: There's a lot more incentive to do things legally when the entire world gets to see your source code than when virtually nobody does.
  
  
• I would suspend any new Linux-related activities until this is all sorted out.
  
  How unfortunate that he left out the "... and buy SCO instead."
  
  
• We certainly have a point of contention regarding their interpretation of that contract.
  
  Earlier he said that companies should abandon linux-related projects until SCO's suit is worked out. Now, he's implying that despite the fact that SCO is lying out of their teeth, and that Novell is calling them on it, noooooobody should abandon SCO-related projects. Sounds a bit hypocritical.
  

Here's what it really boils down to: SCO is the armpit of the Unix world, and the headquarters are in a city that's virtually the center of the MLM universe, and also known for immensely brain-dead business executives. SCO sucks, and is going downhill. Why? Because of Linux. Amazingly, Linux is also eating into Microsoft's server market share. Now the two team up, and decide to try and get rid of Linux. It's really not hard to see what's going on.

steve

Re:What a load of feces....

[AlecC]

"Think about if I was the CIO of a company and I'm going to be running my business on an operating system that has an intellectual property foundation that, by almost everyone's admission, is built on quicksand"

What a load of crap. He's essentially saying that closed-source code is somehow more guaranteed to be more legitimate. I'd say that the reverse is true: There's a lot more incentive to do things legally when the entire world gets to see your source code than when virtually nobody does.

You're right. With open source, you have the chance to look at the code and see if bits of it at least appear to have been pirated (e.g. changes in programming styl;e, naming conventions etc.). With propriatary, you have no idea until the person claiming theft has forced your supplier (who they claim has ripped them off) to show the souce (of the program you need top keep using) to a court appointed expert - at which point all legal hell may let loose.

And companies have a motive to plagiarise code, because they can sell it. GPL'ers don't have a financial incentive to do so - and a strong personal incentive not to. A Linux contributor who would be shown to have ripped off SCO (or other) code would be a mockery. Geek cred is valued precisely because it is visibl earned - "I wrote that - judge me by it".

He says there is "only" an honor system (and the law) to stop SCO code getting into Linux. But what comparably system is there in commercial enterprises? So GPL has law PLUS honor, commercial has law MINUS financial incentives.

So commercial software is better/safer how?

SCO sues Linux for contractual violation w/ IBM

[usurper_ii]

SCO has now said it isn't an IP issue or a copyright issue, but a contractual issue. Since Linus had no contract with SCO, how could they sue him for an alleged contractual violation that happened between SCO and IBM?

And the same goes for anything IBM may have leaked, and note I'm not saying they did...but if they did break a contract, how can anyone using a Linux product using such code be held liable for a contractual violation done by IBM, again, when SCO has now said it is contractual issue and not an IP issue or a copyright issue.

On one hand I guess we can be glad SCO are such morons, but on the other hand, can you imagine releasing a press release saying the issue was never about IP or copyrights when they are running around screaming about suing everyone because Linux may have some of their IP in it!!!

Go that way really fast, if something gets in your way, turn

BSD

[siskbc]

So, there are also some big blocks. What do you want to bet that those big blocks are the things which have been copied from BSD? What do you want to bet that they match up to SCO's stuff because the unix code that SCO bought the rights to sublicense has in it the BSD code which AT&T illegally copied?

I've been trying like crazy to figure out if this is the case, and if so, if SCO is shit out of luck. I remember a long time ago they said it wasn't the case, but their story might be changing.

What I want to know is whether:

1. The code was pre-1994 from BSD, but they somehow don't think the 1994 agreement is transferrable or even valid, or

2. The code in question was written by Novell or (God forbid) SCO after 1994. If written by Novell, did they explicitly give it to the OSS community or was it just that they didn't enforce the violation? If the latter, this could pose problems...or,

3. Did SCO illegally copy code from BSD (or elsewhere) post-1994? I will say, it will be very important to see source tree commit dates even if they do have some interesting code similarities

I wonder who the "independent experts" they show the source code will be? Probably not anyone with Novell, huh?

How small can IP be?

[Sean80]

ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code

What fascinates me is how much intellectual property can you fit into 10 or 15 lines of code? There are only so many ways to structure data in the world, so many ways to allocate memory and so forth. How close does your code have to be to some other piece of code for it to infringe on intellectual property?

Sure, if Linux stole entire libraries of code, then that would be an issue. But how can you lay claim to component parts as small as this?

Re:Last 2 questions

[Wavicle]

Would it be ok to spell it $CO from now on, especially since they seem to be in bed with M$?

In bed with M$?? Let's look at what the article says:

What do you see as a company's options in the face of your warning? I would suspend any new Linux-related activities until this is all sorted out.

This is not in bed. This is in a dirty bathroom stall, in a seedy part of town, with one party on his or her knees.