Slashdot Mirror
Today's SCO News
landoltjp writes "SCO (Nasdaq: SCOX) are hosting a teleconference today in order to clear the air (*snort*) regarding "Novell's baseless UNIX ownership assertions" and other bits of hubbub and nonesense that's in the news today. Should be fun." And SCO has apparently been enjoined from making some of its claims by a German court (also here.) Cringely has an editorial on the whole mess.
I've had it.. Okay, I just checked my wallet, and I'm ready to offer $43.00 cash for The SCO Group. I know I'm overpaying, but I just want to stop hearing about them!
---
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
$0 is going to have their own section in Slashdot.
Those who trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither" -- Ben Franklin
The headline pretty much says it all. "Today's SCO News". SCO is doing *everything* they can to keep themselves in the media/technology spotlight.
Of course, the Novell bit really hurt them, and now they're getting a bit desperate. If they had any dignity they'd just give up now, but we know they don't.
Der Bremer Linux-Spezialist univention_ hat vor dem Bremer Landgericht gegen die SCO Group GmbH eine einstweilige Verfügung erwirkt.
Well! I'm certainly glad to have that cleared up.
...I'm sure they're using SCO UnixWare wherever possible, so dive right in, boys, I'm sure you won't /. them! After all, it's *much* more reliable than Linux, right??
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Don't these people realize that they're wasting a renewable resource: hot air! We could probably produce megawatts from all of this ill wind...
Q: "Why do sound techs say 'check 1, 2'?"
A: "Cause if they could count any higher they'd be lighting techs."
Just when did SCO become the North Korea of IT?
t doesn't help, either, that one of SCO's own people made a strong argument awhile back against the whole idea that Unix code could make it into the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds found a Linux-kernel mailing list (lkml) posting from Christoph Hellwig, a former employee at SCO, then called Caldera. Hellwig pointed out the impracticality of actually getting copied code from UnixWare accepted by the tough critics on the mailing list. "The kernel internals are so different that you'd need a big glue layer to actually make it work and you can guess how that would be ripped apart in a usual lkml review," Hellwig wrote.
;)
Hmmmm...the kernel internals are so different...? But wait, if that's the case how did IBM copy SCO code into Linux...? Exactly. It didn't. Even a SCO employee says so.
SCO doesn't appear to be forcing Microsoft, so I can only come to the conclusion that Redmond is thinking of actually using that license, selling its own version of Unix. I wrote about something very similar to this a few months ago, only then I speculated that Microsoft might build a new OS atop Linux. But why use Linux when they could claim Unix, instead? The key here, I think, is the Windows emulation technology Microsoft got when it bought Connectix. Originally aimed at server consolidation, that code could be used by Microsoft to create and sell a Unix/Windows hybrid that would be a big success if Linux is killed by SCO. And the new Microsoft OS would even be a viable competitor to Linux if SCO loses, since it would offer Windows application compatibility. Microsoft could certainly use a sturdy server operating system for a change.
I never put those together until Cringely did, and ya know, Cringley could be on to something here. It's entirely possible that Microsoft staged this whole thing from day one. That would be the ultimate evil -- but then, again, wouldn't that be just like them? Yeah.
My journal has hot
Fantastic! Since HBO did not air the final episode of "Six Feet Under" last weekend, I have been feeling serial drama-deprived all week!
From this colorful agenda item from the press release, "Comments on Novell's baseless UNIX ownership assertions," it would appear that a fun and exciting installment is about to begin!
Will Novell save Linux? Will SCO go through with the suicide? Will IBM get drunk and break a lamp over SCO's head?
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
NOT!!!!!
This is not going away. I suspect this will linger for a good year or more. That is, unless SCO shareholders make a stand. Which is just not going to happen. The lawyers are running the show. SCO is no longer a technology company. They are one of these new fangled IP companies, like Rambus. The really funny thing is that it's not even their own IP.
I'm sure they think that they're on to something. But the courts have a way (albeit lengthy) of asserting common sense when the horse is already out of the barn.
I STRONGLY urge the slashdot editors to consider a weekly update, rather than hourly update, on this story from now until next year.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I'm hoping for some good old west style vigilante justice!
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Aren't these the same German laws and courts that had the OSS world up in arms over the Killustrator/Adobe issue?
It's hypocritcal to trash them when strange laws work against you, then cheer them when similarly strange laws work in your favor.
Since the editors didn't find this interesting enough to include, I'll post it here.
Lindows has claimed that their SCO license allowed them to relicense SCO kernel code as GPL. See here for the article. Basically it either means that Lindows has cleaned the offending kernel code or they're about to get sued off the face of the earth.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
While this is a great first step.. there is still much more to do.
/ 28 /caldera.html
As a matter of fact, I think the moking gun against SCO has been sitting right under our noses. In searching for information about Novell's sale of UNIX(or licensing) to Caldera/SCO, I came across an interesting article from last march at
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/02
In short las year Caldera(SCO) released some of the older UNIX Codes (they say including V7 and 32V) under an open source license. This means that if any of the code that SCO is talking about is revealed to be in these versions, they don't have a leg to stand on.
Search for one thing, find something else.
Just realise the reality of the situation..... There is no reality.
The oft maligned Distribution Lindows might have dealt a fatal blow to SCO. Lindows is apparantly in the clear due to contract entered between SCO and Lindows sometime ago. Couple this with the GPL and the Kernel is cleared for ALL even if the SCO allegations is correct.
Help fight continental drift.
Let's see, who's all involved again?
SCO sues IBM
SCO threatens 1500 Linux 'users'
Linus says SCO is full of it and wants proof
Novell knocks SCO on the head for being ID10T's
SCO threatens Linus if they don't receive the ransom^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H licenses
Microsoft funds SCO, but claims it was 'business as usual'
I think this might make things a little clearer...
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
$CO is wonderful.
All hail the great and powerful $CO.
Pay no attention to the code behind the curtain!
All hail the great and powerful $CO.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The Sun will nova, engulfing the Earth and SCO in its massive death-blast. SCO's still-undisclosed trade secret IP will be vaporized and that will pretty much be that.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Does anyone have any info regarding the patent's for code... I mean, usually a patent is 17 years with the potential for a 17 year extension, at least thats what I thought. UNIX was patented 35 years ago wasnt it? What's the deal?
Visualize the world of wine
SCO's website on Linux at Rackspace? Guess they needed to move it after the DoS recently. Odd choice of platform I have to say.
maybe if we all phone in at 1 we can slashdot the phone network? ;)
>1:00pm e.d.t.
>US: 1-800-289-0496
>International: 913-981-5519
>Conference code #: 164628
Last Trade
12:26pm $6.66
Hmmmm, 'nuff said.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
SCOs own SEC filings prove Novell's calims.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Netcraft's analyzer says:
Operating System and Web Server for www.sco.com
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.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
None of the BSD 'components' were stolen either, and you happen to be mistaken when you infer that BSD is dead. Look into OSX for further proof of it's vitality.
$CO has the IBM's response on its site, a PDF of a fax. It just goes over paragraphs, denying each "averment," and granting things sounding like, paraphrasing: Unix-like operating systems are widely used indeed, IBM POWER chip is more powerful than Intel's, and IBM has nothing much to say as to whether Linux is popular among computer enthusiasts! Their response to Prayer for Relief is basically: response is not needed; if needed, there's no relief, or any relief -- it's hilarious!
Should computers be able to parse the phrase "police police police police"?
The order forbids SCO from maintaining that, "that Linux operating systems illegitimately acquired and contains intellectual property of SCO Unix and/or that the end users of Linuxc can be made liable for patent infringement".
The German SCO office faces a fine of up to 250.000 euro for each offence if it continues with it's claims.
Univention had previously warned the SCO Group because of anti-competitive behavior. The Homburger based enterprise let the period for objections elapse.
"We were therefore forced to obtain the order", said Peter H. Ganten, CEO of Univention and one of the authors of the Debian standard work "Debian GNU/LINUX".
"SCO 's unproven statements , that Linux hurts patent rights of the Unix enterprise, upsets the public and harms the image of Linux. So we have had to resist."
The provisional order against the SCO Group is, according to opinion of the enterprise, an important step in several weeks of smoldering controversy in the computer industry regarding Linux.
SCO Group had sued IBM at the beginning of March for a billion US dollars of damages, because they claim that IBM's Linux programmers availed themselves of the code of SCO Unix version. SCO has so far failed to provide any evidence to back up this statement.
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
Did anyone else notice that the 800 number and conference code for the telcon are on that web page?
Why talk about it when we ALL can be listening...
Dev Gnoll
and IBM is the coalition forces which will be met with bullets and shoes (according to Bill G)
Can someone legibly translate what that German article was all about? I ran it through Babelfish, and I swear, it made even less sense in English. I couldn't tell who was suing or imposing fines in what country to who's face in that company or what the hell was it talking about?!?!
Sure, SCO would like to have the UNIX branding powers, but they don't have it. Period.
That of Bremen Linux specialist univention _ obtained regional court before that of Bremen against the SCO Group GmbH a provisional order
Worst. Sig. Ever.
Q: What do you say to an SCO employee in 2005?
A: I'll have a Big Mac, large fries and a Coke.
Trolling is a art,
for(int i=0;in;i++) They'll be after me next, I use that all the time.
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
Is the end of SCO, or even linux if SCO wins...
If you're new to the SCO drama, you can play catch-up here in a context we can all understand.
They have the Internet on computers now?
SCO claimed today that they own the copyrights and other intellectual property to the bubble sort technique, the use of the variables I, J, and K in incremental loops, and some text output routines.
"Programs all over the world are using this code from our UnixWare package," SCO lackey Bob Fishey said today after the conference call. "We're not sure how we're going to handle this, but if you ever took a programming class in your life, you might want to talk to your lawyer to make sure that you understand IP laws."
When pointed out that all the 'offending' code was commonplace in many programming textbooks, Fishey replied, "If you could give me authors and publishers, that would be appreciated. We are not happy about this blatant violation of our intellectual property and hope to stop it at its source."
Fishey also mentioned that they were not above calling other software vendors into their lawsuits. "The use of our sort techniques, almost letter for letter, without getting a license from us is wrong."
Oreillynet's server is barfing on this. Anyone got a mirror or cached copy?
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Where is the code?
SCO has said that for legal reasons, they won't identify the exact code. But it would be useful to know if the code is in the kernel, or in user space. If the kernel, at least what directory, or section of the kernel is it in?
If it is a header file, in the include directory, similarities are to be expected. For example, the Linux system call numbers are the some as many other OSes. These number are well known, and and have been for decades, and can't possibly be a trade secret. POSIX defines a zillion well-known constants which will show up in most every POSIX compliant OS, and similarities are also to be expected here. Again, this doesn't mean that Linux copied from SCO, rather, that they both copied from POSIX.
If the code is in a device driver, it is very possible that both the SCO code and the Linux code share a common ancestor -- many device drivers are written by the device manufacturers, and given to the OS vendors to include in their system.
If the code is in the CPU-specific part of the kernel, is it something that there is only one way to do. Intel publishes specs on how to manipulate low-level registers to do specfic tasks (start second CPUs, enable memory protection, etc.), and there just aren't that many different ways to do them.
Is the code is *BSD, or elsewhere on the net?
If this alledgedly infringing code is in *BSD, or on other places on the net, this would again point to a non-SCO ancestor. For example, Intel publishes Application Notes on how to use features of their processors. It wouldn't surprise me to find this code in many different OSes which use Intel processors, or Intel-compatible processors. Also, there is some Unix(tm) code which has been given to the public domain, in the interest of portability. I believe that cpio is one of these programs.
Both SCO and Linux use the X window system, which came from the X consortium -- I'm sure there's a ton of common X related code in both, but again, that doesn't mean that Linux copied from SCO.
The last Unix lawsuit resulted in marking all of the BSD code as "clean", so if this infringing code is also in one of the BSDs, that would help to indicate that it is also clean.
When did the code first originate?
As many people have pointed out, even if there is similar code in both Unix and in Linux, that doesn't indicate which direction the code moved. If such similarities can be found, the origination dates would need to be proved as well. Apparently, SCO ships Samba, GCC, and other open source code today, and marks it as such. Perhaps there's more code like this that slipped into the kernel.
CIO of my corporation today sent out a corporate memo to all IT departments. Basically it demands that any departmental pilot projects involving open-source materials be placed on hold given the 'ongoing legal concerns about the licensing of open source materials'. This SCO debacle, whether orchestrated by Microsoft or not, is killing any goodwill regarding open source products. I can't even get people to agree to deploy Apache to replace our aging iPlanet webserver deployments... "Who owns Apache? Who provides support? How quickly can the vendor manage patches/updates if we have a critical production problem???". Never mind that SunONE support is pathetic, and iPlanet is a dying product line...at least management knows who Sun is.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
I suggest we move them to /dev/null ... all in favor? :-)
-Digital Extremist
Cringely says: "Let's try to make some sense of all this", but to me he doesn't manage to do this because all of the claims are just presented without enough questioning. E.g:
"At stake is certainly Linux and perhaps FreeBSD, NetBSD, and any other Unix that doesn't come with an SCO license."
Which (non-SCO) Unixes come with a SCO license? As I understood it The Open Group permit products to be called "Unix".
"What matters is the approaching June 13th deadline, which is when SCO can yank IBM's Unix license, making any subsequent copies of AIX not Unix."
Again, which license?
- Brian.
To get in on this conference call, they want: 1. Name (First & Last) 2. Telephone # 3. Company And no privacy policy either...hmmmm....
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
With all this talk about Microsoft developing their own Unix platform, i'm wondering if they will introduce their own "extensions" -non standard of course.
You forgot this...
4)M$ will release M$ UNIX
5)The next day, users of M$ UNIX (former users of SCO) reports the first BSOD for UNIX in the history of UNIX.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
(And for the record, they probably could have stolen...err appropriated code from FreeBSD. Also, note that Linux can run SCO binaries, through iBCS2. But that's likely because there's a standard that governs those binaries...)
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I've read lots of posts accusing MS of orchestrating this whole thing. I don't understand why people are so willing to believe that -- occam's razor leads us to a simpler explanation.
.NET and Java? Maybe they've got something really incredible -- but it seems pretty unlikely to me.
SCO is in bad shape. On the conference call the other day, they talked about web services, that's the actual product that they're going to try to sell. But what can they do that will stand up to
Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to use SCO knows that it sucks when compared to Linux. Are they going to sell that?
They're in a bad position. They have to make money the best way that they can. This lawsuit seems to be an indication of where they think their best options lie.
Sure, when MS saw the lawsuit, they were filled with glee and they went out and bought a license. But that doesn't mean that they created the situation, that they planned it.
I really think the MS paranoia here tends to miss the point.
Just th' good ol' boys
Never meanin' no harm...
But this conferance call - you call and listen to them all argue it out???
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Yeah. but it could backfire on MS. Either Linux will win and Linux keeps moving into more market share, or MS kills off Linux and leaves the world with no choice but... ...Apple?
There's no doubt about the BSD origins of OSX, and OSX is past the initial release dramas of its first few years and is a well-deployable, UNIX system available now, running on hardware built specifically to run OSX.
Sounds a good choice to me.
If you can't even use Apache, there is no hope. Run for the hills.
According to the injuction that uninvention got from the German courts, if SCO repeat or continue to make their unproven allegations that Linux contains their IP, they can be fined up to 250,000 Euros. :-)
So, who is going to make them say it in the conference call?
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
A Mr. Arie Rubenstein has helped us out here --
"To make [the SCO vs Linux thing] easier to understand, I put it in familiar terms -- Dukes of Hazzard"!
(warning: mirror needed)
For Immediate Release
May 30, 2003
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
-- The SCO Group is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and has done nothing of interest in many years.
Trolling is a art,
Memepool has a link to a fantastic Dukes of Hazard interpretation of the whole SCO/Linux affair.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
In fact, Microsoft already has a Unix/Windows hybrid: it's SFU (windows services for unix), and it includes a component called Interix, which extends the Windows NT/2000/XP kernel with a set of Unix system calls, and adds a few hundred Unix utilities.
If buying a SCO licence wasn't pure propaganda, then it's likely that Microsoft bought the SCO licence for the benefit of the SFU product.
It is highly unlikely that Microsoft would ever follow Apple's lead and create a new version of Windows that is layered on top of a Unix kernel. This is because of Microsoft's corporate culture. They are as rabidly pro-Windows and anti-Unix as the Slashdot community is the reverse of this.
Doug Moen.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
That link helped me out a lot! Daisy = Linux. Now I know why I always wanted to see Tux in a high cut pair of short shorts!!!
Tux has the same nice round cheeks that Opus had... Does he hail from Bloom County by any chance?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
The Sun will nova, engulfing the Earth [...]
Listen, I know some of the old SparcStation 10s run hot, but if you ensure proper ventilation and kept to the recommended CPU combinations you'll have absolutely nothing to worry about.
'business as usual'
I think that was rather lash...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I love the crack at the end about a microsoft hybrid that could be known as 'WINDEX'. Will Microsoft now have to Embrace/Extend/Destroy SC Johnson wax to steal yet another trademarked Name?
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
This has no relevance according to Novell.
scovslinux.slashdot.org. It will make SCO/Linux stories easier to find. I am tired of scrolling through a bunch of technical stories to find them.
the "investor club" over here I talked to during lunch, and my daddy who's a CFO... neither had heard of the SCO debacle, or even knew who SCO is. But they all knew about the Microsoft AOL agreement.
So, some job their doing staying in the spotlight. They're (SCO) just trying to make us suffer: of this I am sure.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Microsoft, will watch this unfold. Ultimately it will take a decade for this suit to conclude, and it's unlikely SCO will stick around that long. However, Microsoft can watch the preliminary legal actions and see where it goes. If the possibility of a win seems decent, then Microsoft can go and buy the Unix property off SCO, make SCO stockholders happy, and try to wipe out the Unix variants.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/moveson.html
... i guess it's a paragraph anyways.
3rd paragraph
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I saw the same thing in each of my trials. No matter what facts may be on your side, the other side has their own spin on them and, as part of ourcourt system, they have the right to express that spin.
Wouldn't it be interesting if all the Linux users got together and bought out the SCO stock as a way to thwart this? And then vigorously saw to the enforcement of the MS license? Am I really so uncaffeineted that I actually typed those dreams?
Yeah, guess I am..
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
May be IBM should buy Novell. That way they get 95% of all royalties collected by SCO too. They can then sue SCO for distributing Linux containing SVR-V code. IBM can then force all of SCO customers to move to AIX and MS will need to get license from IBM.
IBM supports wide variety of systems and supporting Novell wouldn't be that hard since Novell is business oriented only. Many people don't buy Novell products because they don't have faith that Novell would be around for long. With IBM that won't be the issue. IBM has a history of buying second rank companies: Lotus, Informix etc.
SCO: "copyright issues not important to our enforcement actions"
SCO: "next week ... will be showing ... direct lines of code from our LinuxWorks ... in the Linux kernel".
SCO: "since we have started down this path ... business great"
SCO is using AirSnort now? =)
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
SCO ist the celebration of the repellant and painful.
Would you like to touch my monkey?
Now ist the time ver ve dance!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I tried dialing in - I'm a Novell employee and told the operator that - and they said SCO had asked that Novell employees not be added to the call.
Hrmmph.
You'd think they'd at least let us listen to them talking about us!
If SCO did release that perhaps they could be in
even larger trouble. If novell owns the rights to
the code perhaps it was never SCO's to give away.
Got Code?
Can you spell it out for me? I read the entire article and it did not seem to clear up this situation. What did I miss. Thanks!
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Ain't gonna happen. However...
OK, MS has a license to use unix-code for software. Microsoft makes a well-known and fairly decent GUI, some decent office stuff (hey, it works, it's just bloated), and a few games, etc.
Now... remember this little thing called OSX? Hmm, and what do you get when you're in a terminal.
Continuing...
MS takes Unix, fixes up a little here and then, takes a head from the Linux developers on what is good and what's not. They have enough money to actually do something right if they had half a brain. Who would work on MS-Linux if it looked to actually be a good product? Continuing...
So MS-Linux comes out, it has a decent GUI, multimedia capability, hardware detection, and it can run windows programs quite decently (not everything, but hey even windows doesn't run all windows apps) - at least better than WINE. And then they release it at a profitable but not-too-insane price. Would you buy it? I can't say 100% that I wouldn't... depending on if was choked up with DRM. I know a lot of linux geeks who would give their right testicle for linux filepermissions, security, and the ability to run windoze apps/games.
Those cretins at SCO didn't think to register the domain name and now look what's there!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
SCO just stated on the conference call, in response to a question asking if it would be possible to use the Linux kernel in a fashion that would not violate SCO's claims, that they are only really concerned with people using the 2.4 kernel and above. So is this a clue that the code in question is something that is only in kernels > 2.4?
So say for instance we had a sue SCO day. Imagine 20,000 linux hackers and OSS developers going to their local court houses and filing a small claims
suit against SCO for defamation of character and or lost revenue due to groundless claims against linux and the developers. You know there is no way that SCO could defend that many suits and all of them would be no show guarenteed wins. Wow I sure would like to have about 5 grand in my pocket at their expense.
GLOBAL SUE SCO DAY, June 6, 2003
Got Code?
On the Conference call, SCO says that the version of linux that they will focus their sue will be 2.4 and beyond.
The box said "Windows 98, Windows NT, or better"; so I installed GNU/Linux.
3.11 NNS
Dukes of SCO-zard
Massive, Mr. Equator-like apologies if this has been posted before ....
Hey, we're just smart enough to know that if we count to 3, we have to lift something :)
:)
You may find this amusing though
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
I've just noticed that I own patents and copyright on almost all of the code in the Linux kernel, as well as every other OS. I recommend that everyone pays me $100 for a single seat license for this technology, or I will be forced to take this to the courts. If my demands, uh requests, are not met within 30 days then I will be forced to sue everyone who has ever written any OS code, but especially Linus becaues people seem to like him. No, I'm not going to tell you what the exact IP I'm talking about is, but if you can read this post then you must be using some of it. Trust me...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I just thought of something else, we would get Microsofts money....It does not get any better than that!
Got Code?
I have all of my old isos that I've burned to cd over the years. I always wondered why I'd kept them around (when will I ever need to reinstall RedHat 5.0?!) but hey, maybe the good folk at $C0 would like to grep through the source for some more lawsuit ammo. Anyone else care to throw down?
do not read this line twice.
I could see the dukes of hazard reference. But it reminds me more of a scooby doo episode. If it wasn't for you silly kids...
This signature has Super Cow Powers
I called and tried to get in. Gave the code, gave my name, then the person asked my company name. I replied "IBM" and was told that the call was "by invitation only". When I called back and said I was a "private investor", I was let in.
"And the reason I believe that this has become a large issue is because linux people in the know recognize we have a STRONG position" -SCO Exec, teleconference
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
SCO owns all of UNIX, all versions, all updates, all source and all derivative works. They have ~=30,000 license and sub-license agreements with ~=6,000 parties including many fortune 2000 companies.
.. they also have patents but this is their strongest lead.
.. improperly donated.
This initial enforcement action is based upon copyright law
There is no linux kernel that they have studied that is not in some violation of their copyright laws. They are specifically interested in 2.4 and later
they found evidence of SCO code and derivitaves in the linux kernel
Because of the legal issues there are limitations on what they can disclose, next week they will show some parties their proof, such as members of the press, parties they have license agreements with and some software analysts.
----
There are a lot of good reporters on the line asking a lot of interesting questions. There will also be a full text of the conference call later. Don't know where yet.
Let's take a moment to remember whose intellectual property all this really is:
Dennis
Brian
Ken
Rob
et. al.
"Unix, Live Free or Die"
I'm on the phone on this conference call right now.
.. blah blah.. which gives us full authority to reach agreement with our customers.
.. came and went and they didn't show up. Later that evening Novell did their thing with that letter we've all read. We were set to show them the code, but they didn't show up. TH
CALL START
great deal of aconfusion over last 2 weeks re: sco's enforcement actions.
suit against IBM and letter to 1500 commercial linux users.
Based on contract/licenses. None of SCO's actions have been based on copyright/patent. No assertion by anyone that SCO doesn't have contract rights. As to the copyrights, 2 points. Copyrights not important to current actiosn. We have stated that we own the UNIX copyrights and right to enforce. Novell has challenged taht. We disagree with that. Desperate measure to curry favor with the Linux community. We will take all steps to rectify the issues.
1995 agreement -- we own all rights to ownership to unix and unixware. blah blah blah.. blah blah blah.. we own everything.. blah blah blah. He's being a real dick about it, too.
Why SCO bases initial enforcement actions: SCO owns unix licensing agreements. ~30,000 agreements. these licensees include a lot of people. blah blah.. these licenses include restrictions and "standard of care". This applies to the original source code and the derivitive works created by the licensee.
Current enforcement actions are based on these rights. They may do copyright stuff later, but not now.
Second question: Does SCO have evidence of UNIX source in kernel? "Resounding yes" Each of our 3 groups studying linux for UNIX code have individually come back finding code improperly put into LInux.
STarting next week viewing code under NDA. We hope this step will be of benefit of the software community.
Question 1: differences wit Novell causing problems to deal with IBM: very simple answer: we have full right to UNIX
Question 2: What does it mean "turned novell issue over to attorneys to rectify issues". We've said very clearly that ocpyright isn't important to current enforcement actions.
Question 3: SCO claims that they're being damaged by presence of their IP in Linux kernel. Aren't you continuing your damage by not showing the code?
We're showing it next week. We'll show our actual code samples. Also derivitive works. ALong with contract info to back up the claim.
Questino 4: SCO has rolled all the dice on this lawsuit. If you lose, what is the remaining company if you lose?
We're enforcing our rights in the UNIX business. Only one compnay can say they own 30,000 contracts on big unix companies. It's an incredible position to be in. Basically saying that all they have is the lawsuits. He talks nothing about actual product or anything. All about suing. All future prospects are regarding lawsuits.
Question 5:
Re: novell contract. did not metino copyright and patents. Does it meniton copyright and patent?
56 pages of novell/SCO documents. Majority of contract clearly shows intent that Copyrights covered as related to SCO going to market.
Again, our point is that C&P don't affect our current lawsuits. Contract rights are much more important than C & P. SOme really bad card-game analogy thing.
Question 6:
Stupid question. Already been covered.. more stuff about copyright stuff. SCO claims they have copyright and patent, but that it doesn't matter for the current stuff. Dude didn't seem to really have much of a clue. Sounded like some guy living in his parent's bedroom in Wyoming. I hope you're reading this. You're dumb.
Question 7:
Were you surprised what novell did, as you were a previous novell exec.
We had a meeting with their vice chairman scheduled to look at the source code stuff. "Come on over, we'd be glad to show those to you". We set up a time to do that 11am tuesday
Sorry, the all the BSDs have already been down this path before and re-wrote any code that was in question. Next...
They were angry that novell gatecrashed their profits announcement :-) :-(
I was on the call and nothing really that new was said
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
... as all the whiney, arrogant pie-holes determine his IP address despite his posting AC and drown the box with ping floods, spam, and all other sorts of geeky nasty things.
I think the flames have something to do with the dust that was collecting in the back near the GeForceFX-brand vacuum cleaner. You should invest in an air can, man.
Oh, $c0 sux. (not ot)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
That being said this might not be so bad for FOOS.
From the attitude of your CIO it looks like there is Zero undertanding and Zero willingness to give anything back, so why should your company benefit from FOOS.
The impact to FOOS of them not using any open source software is zip to the community as a whole, and your employeer puts themselves at a competitive disadvantage which is richly deserved.
FOOS is a long term Quid pro Quo and not a one way street, at least in spirit.
Help fight continental drift.
..why would they be so reluctant to point out which sections belong to them? After all, it's not like their copyright would go away immediately after pointing it out - their case would still stand, and in fact, would stand a lot taller with shareholders than it does today. Thus increasing the chances of a juicy settlement or buy-out offer from IBM.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
I never put those together until Cringely did, and ya know, Cringley could be on to something here. It's entirely possible that Microsoft staged this whole thing from day one. That would be the ultimate evil -- but then, again, wouldn't that be just like them? Yeah. ;)
Actually, I think what they (SCO and MS) wanted to happen didn't materialize, so they are taking this route. Consider this from the article by Cringely:
Gee, maybe SCO wanted to get its hands on the copyrights to UNIX so that Microsoft could buy SCO. If MS were to buy SCO, then they would have the copyright rights to UNIX, and could sic the lawyers on all the Linux vendors. All the greedy, incompetent execs at SCO get to retire on a nice fat payday, simply for turning over the keys to Linux. This plan didn't materialize because Novell wouldn't give up the rights, so Microsoft came up with this strategy. The execs at SCO don't really care what happens, they just need an out. They are heading a dying company, so all they are concerned about it how they can get paid before the whole things collapses.
It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I think it is a pretty good one. Using money and power, Microsoft could legally squash Linux. What, you think they wouldn't want to do that?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That's Meddling kids... Not interloping adolescents, not silly kids, but meddling.
"Schranken verwiesen"
:o)
Isn't that what happens to your naughty bits when you go swimming in a cold lake?
First let me preface this by saying I am a Linux user, and a huge fan of Linux. However, I can also say, without a doubt, that UN*X hackers over the years have almost certainly copied code from the old Unix/Sys V codebase into Linux. These people know who they are, and once SCO reveals which source is in violation, they will be revealed (there are CVS logs, ya know). I would encourage these people to step forward now and help diffuse the situtation. If everyone who lifted code (possibly believing it was "open") came forward, the community could exercise this code in a number of weeks. Let's fix the problem before the issue ever makes it into court.
Interesting, because during the Q&A period at the end of the conference call Darl specifically spoke to "the people from Novell listening to this call." Basically saying that he didn't hold the employees responsible, just your corrupt leaders. What a guy, the Darl.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
As far as I can tell Novell admitted that they gave the right to collect License fees from Unix. I personally don't see what it has to do with copywright, IP or trademark. SCO is essentially a bill collector in this contract so I would assume that this deal could be revoked whenever. So, I guess my question is if this is indeed the case, why isn't Novell yanking the contract NOW?
It would be kewl if it could use Google as a service to do this.
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
I grepped the kernel source for their code, but there's not a singly instance of "Hello World!". If that doesn't settle the case, I don't know what will.
Novell? I mean, it sounds like the safest bet here. Imagine IBM+Novell. Then just find some excuse to kill SCO's license, misrepresentation maybe. (IANAL, though, so who knows if this is possible).
Wonder about their webcast too - could have made a good phone-in question this past week.
Something like "You're running this webcast on Linux - why is that?"
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
why isn't Novell yanking the contract NOW?
Good idea! Then, then can GPL UNIX and live happily ever after!
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
It was the man in the rubber mask! Jinkies. Thanks for the correction. shows you how much tv I watch...
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Makes you wonder doesn't it, how can we be sure SCO aren't using tactics to help Microsoft in exchange for sales and licensing?
I'm curious to see just what patents are in question here. Does anybody know the patent numbers off hand?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Several people questioned how SCO was claiming copyright over this code, and SCO's response was two fold.
It doesn't matter to the current litigation with IBM, that is purely a contract matter.
SCO believes that the rights they purchased to in fact include the copyright rights. The contract just didn't say so explicitly.
They sent a letter to Novell asking for them to 'clarify' this (implying that they wanted Novell to just hand over the copyright explicitly.) Apparently Novell declined to do so. So, SCO is going to litigate to show that they have the copyright rights. SCO claims that the 58 pages of the contract with Novell contains everything but the explicit turnover of copyright, and SCO believes that they can argue successfully that they can infer the copyright rights from that contract.
Somebody (Steve Nicholas?) noted that SCO and Caldera worked a long time on Linux and Unix, trying to build a unified system [you remember Monterey? I didn't think so.] How could SCO be sure that it wasn't SCO that added these lines?
SCO just says that they didn't do it. They blame IBM for wasting two years of their time on Monterey, then walking away from it.
In closing, Darl said that "Everybody who really knows, knows that SCO has a strong position. How is it going to get resolved? Will it be by attacking us, and destroying us, before the issues are heard in court? We are very comfortable with our position. We understand that the battle is fierce, but we will continue it because we have the rights and these are our crown jewels."
They say that they are going to show hundreds of lines of infringement, starting in June. June will be "show and tell" month.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Indeed. Cringely doesn't seem to have any clue that the Open Group is the one and only entity that can call something "UNIX". SCO can't do a damn thing about that! If AIX contains any code licensed from SCO, they can (and may already have) opt to replace it with their own code. So AIX is a non-issue.
As far as Microsoft goes, I find it interesting that the Santa Cruz Operation (a.k.a. SCO) was started to sell Xenix, Microsoft's own UNIX clone, before they ever had a real UNIX product. That irony was lost on Cringely. And why would Microsoft throw away 15 years of kernel development to port Windows APIs to UNIX? Especially since the NT OS is finally getting stable enough for production use! Well, Cringely doesn't have any idea what Connectix does...
Turn off any machine that has open source software on it. Windows has some. Solaris does too. Can't have open source? Then you can't run the company. Do a reply all and tell everyone what a dumbass your CIO is.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
SCO today announced they own the intellectual property and distribution rights on the Big Mac, large fries and Coke. Apparently they are seeking legal advice on their next move, McDonalds has declined to comment. Burger King admit they had a deal with SCO to produce "large fries" but deny that their Pepsi infringed in any way with SCO's "Coke" licensing, and that they had a contract to serve Pepsi from a third party.
The case begins...
... I guess
*best in the sense of being hilarious.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
That's all you have to do, but a lot of people don't even do that; if they did, then there'd be some mention of BSD or the Regents of the University of California somewhere in the Windows EULA, right? I mean, IIRC, there are still references to Spyglass and MOSAIC in IE's About box; you'd think Microsoft's legal people could give credit where credit is due...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Wasn't OpenUNIX 8 (the rename of UnixWare 7, A.K.A. SVR5 UNIX) supposed to meld a lot of Linux and UNIX things. I don't think they violated any copyrights but it does show that SCO/Caldera was deep in the Linux world for a long time. How they just recently came up with this realization is still a mystery.
On a lighter note, someone has explained the lawsuit in terms we can all understand. Can you just see RMS in a Dodge Charger with Dixie playing on the horn?
could sco be using this time to edit there own CVS logs?
Nine! Du hast mich.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
they said SCO had asked that Novell employees not be added to the call.
Hmmm...what about Novell employees who happen to be SCO shareholders?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Can we get a German-to-English translation that doesn't suck, please? I've tried google to no avail, and feel that Babblefish won't be any better.
I still wonder how many people have read this by Eric Raymond.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
While SCO has yet to provide any substantial evidence in their case against IBM and Linux, Timeline Inc has already won a US Washington Court of Appeal judgment against Microsoft in another contract dispute.
The outcome of this case puts developers and users of Microsoft SQL Server,Office and other Microsoft product at risk of being sued by Timeline Inc for violation of Timeline Inc patents.
Microsoft's products do not provide users and developers a safe haven from the threat from lawsuits based on violations of intellectual property.
However, since the SCO Group has knowingly sold and distributed the GPL licensed Linux kernel and components, it must by the terms of the GPL license, provide all those who receive the code from them an implicit license to any intellectual property, patents, trade secrets which SCO owns and is used by the GPL'ed source code. That implicit license to that SCO intellectual property is also granted to anybody who subsequently receives the GPL source.
You are actually in a better legal position using GPL'ed Linux than using Microsoft's products.
You should have told them you were "The Borg Queen"... Surely they would have taken questions from a Microsoft exployee.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Is there any way to change the caldera story icon to something like a zombie hand or rotten fish head or something? I don't think they deserve to be recognized by their official corporate symbol anymore. If Microsoft rates a borg photoshop, Caldera certainly should get something more exemplary of their character and bearing.
Like say, cat vomit.
could sco be using this time to edit there own CVS logs?
No... First they edit their pocket books, then they fold up shop and edit their pants.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
The majority of IBM's work on the S/390 was to port it to a very alien platform. I'm sure there were parts of Linux that needed some code help -- for example, the S/390 handles disk and file systems quite a bit differently. That disk and file system predates almost all contemporary computer hardware. The file system originated in the S/360 days, the 1960s.
The Sytem 390 is hardly a "very alien platform"; its a von Neumann machine with a byte addressable memory; in some ways it resembles the PowerPC or 680x0. Linux/390 on zVM uses standard Linux filesystems on IBM disks; it doesn't use the CMS or MVS file systems. Handling low level disk I/O on a 390 is different (channel programs or using the diagnose instruction in a virtual machine; don't know which Linux uses myself) but this is not a fantastic difference.
there's no SCO with out miCrOSoft.
I write code.
For an interesting alternative to all of the complications being presented in the current case, may I suggest a "picture book" view for the younger readers.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
Atleast Cringely, thinks of the Microsoft angle from a pure economic rational. His conjecture is much more rational than the obfuscation of / to \ or cp to copy or ls to dir, the difference between a proprietary dynamic link library and a private lib. It is obvious that the problems with computer software language is the babel that has occured to obfuscate and remain secret.
There is nothing technical about obfuscation of software language, it has been the stock and trade of Microsoft, and most companies including IBM. However IBM has been forced to become much more responsive to server technical support. IBM has realised that open source for the OS is a good thing as site specific changes to functions can easily be implimented by a qualified software tech. The result is that Microsoft, a company that relies on antiquated 32bit IBM arch to sell computers to ignorant pc users, is now trying desperately to eat IBMs 64bit lunch. However if IBM launches a killer cheap 64bit pc with Linux it might blow Microshaft out of the water in one heck of a hurry! Microsoft might then be forced to port a Win32 emu, Office and IE to 64bit Linux just to survive. It sure would be funny if people realised how stable and easy Open Office is to use! SCO is just a side show in the ongoing battle of the titans.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
I *might* give them one of the "Please try again" caps. Nothing more.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Orders of magnitude better
There's an extra space being inserted after '28'. It's not in my code, but the link in my preview works...
It'll be /.'ed now, for sure.
Lets see
first they attempt to buy Unix Patent and IP rights from Novell earlier this year and got rebuffed..now they claim that suddenly that those rights that Novell has and they tried to buy are baseless?
What did they do hire Rudy from SUn?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
This is where I can't understand who is running this strategy - Darl or the VERY expensive lawyers they're supposedly paying. Because it seems pretty easy to predict. First, they claimed property they do not own - property actually owned by the Open Group and Novell. These organizations then bitchslaped SCO in public.
Did they not think the "bitchslap" step would occur? Because it looked pretty obvious to me. Did they think Novell wouldn't tell the world that they were begging for Unix copyrights? Did they think Novell would actually give it to them? That's pretty damaging to your case there, guys.
Fools.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
4 already happened. MS Unix (aka Xenix) was sold to SCO in 1983.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
I want to hear/read the call just to find out what was said at about 1:15 pm.
Thank you Alta Vista Bablefish.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Backslashes were used as directory separators in DOS because nested directories were not introduced until several revisions in, and by that time forward slashes had been widely adopted as option indicators.
However, all modern Win32 platforms support forward slashes as directory separators. There are only a few places left (e.g. the standard file dialog) where you still have to use backslashes.
NTFS also supports case-sensitive filenames, though it's not turned on by default for compatibility reasons.
DNA just wants to be free...
Perhaps they are waiting for the stock to drop some more. It would solve a lot of problems for sure. >
Now, as you can see from that page, it will be retired on June 16th and replaced with a new database. Unfortunately, the new database won't have all the same information available unless you are a reseller partner or have paid for support. There's a thread at comp.unix.sco.misc discussing this, and as you can imagine, even those who would still like to find some reason to feel good about SCO are more than annoyed.
In the interests of total honesty, at the moment at least it is easy and free to become a SCO partner and get full access to the database. But as SCO insiders have specifically said that the purpose of this is to generate more support income for resellers, how long will that last?
Also, if you are battling a problem at 2:00 am and google a link to the ta that would solve your problem, will you enjoy having to sign up as a partner to find out why the stupid thing won't boot? I doubt it. My bet is your next move would be to install Linux right over it..
-- Tony Lawrence
Maybe somebody could clear this up for me. Folks seem to think that SCO will not reveal the alleged violating code because there isn't any. SCO's silence is understandable. But they threatened IBM, presumably by telling IBM that it is misusing SCO code. So IBM would know what code is in question. Why doesn't IBM reveal even a hint of what the allegedly offending code might be or where it resides? I don't see any good incentive for IBM to keep quiet.
Option 3. Take a dump in it, then send it back.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
The replay is not available, nor will it be made available by phone.
SCO is going to make an MP3 download available instead, probably by Monday.
I got this information from Paul Hatch of The SCO Group.
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
Here's an excerpt:
Also, here's the original Lindows announcement.
Finding God in a Dog
Just goes to show that it's being adapted into new products all the time, though I guess if you added up all the BSDs together they still aren't close to the numbers Windows holds, but it's still far from dead.
If you ask me, he's doing what he's paid for. Why risk exposing yourselves to costly legal fees and penalties? Yeah it might suck, but that doesn't mean it's a bad decision.
Oh and ixnay on shutting down the company, as one poster suggested, work from within, inform people, educate them, trust me, you'll get farther that way.
Have you ever experienced the situation where a client would not allow open source packages (for example Xerces) to be used for an implementation? In particular, the lack of indemnification clauses against 3rd party intellectual property claims in open source licenses, found in most commercial licenses, seems to be worrisome for clients. This question also has relevance with regard to the recent SCO/Linux commotion.
Has your company chosen to legally vouch for open source packages? Did you have to replace open source packages by homegrown or commercial products?
The only jewels Darl has are the brass one in his pants. SCO is run by a brass balled lamer.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Here's the license:
http://www.apache.org/LICENSE.txt
It isn't; its an apache license.
And remind your CIO these same debacles can involve highly regarded corporate backed OS's, like AIX.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I heard it in a movie... i forget which one. Sorry 'bout that.
Bai bai!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It does seem that way - they don't seem to own any copyrights of mass destruction after all 8)
:)
Only, they're the ones claiming they *do* this time
If I had mod points, I'd mod you back up.
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
SCO knows that IBM is just going to get real pissed off and annihilate them... "I'm not quite sure... but I think IBM and Novell are real pissed at SCO"
I just had a look at SCOX's stock on Yahoo. They closed up about 12% from yesterday's close.
I can't help but suspect this increase in price was due to thrillbert's buyout offer.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
If SCO collects on the IBM suit, then they would probably have to pay over 95% to Novel, leaving them with M$50. Gee, what a business model...
Oh well, what the hell...
Yes, you can license UNIX for...
"One MILLION dollars!"
you have 24 hours to comply.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I could accept that explanation easily except for one thing -- hasn't MS been making vague allusions to IP issues in Linux for months, well before any of SCO's brouhaha began? Sure, it could be coincidental... but that seems the less likely explanation to me.
Joseph Goebbels
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1011627.html?tag=f d_top
who needs credibility anyhow - famous last words
FUNK!
Have you ever experienced the situation where a client would not allow open source packages, such as Xerces, to be used for an implementation? In particular, the lack of indemnification clauses against 3rd party intellectual property claims in open source licenses, found in most commercial licenses, seems to be worrisome for clients. This question also has relevance with regard to the recent SCO/Linux commotion.
Has your company chosen to legally vouch for open source packages? Did you have to replace open source packages by homegrown or commercial products?
I also have this license, plus the original CD's that came with it. I plan to use them to test how "Bulletproof" SCO's O/S is. Bulletproof as in 30-06 or 7.62mm bullets.
...I'd be shorting the FUCK out of SCO. That's how confident I am that they won't win this lawsuit. Of course, if they did, that would give them $1B, divided by about 11M shares outstanding...or, in other words, their stock would be worth about $91/share assuming all their other assets are worthless...which of course they are.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I think it is a pretty good one. Using money and power, Microsoft could legally squash Linux.
I still maintain that it is all just a Mongolian cluster fuck.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
It never ceases to amaze me. That so many fellow Linux users and free software supporters assume that ALL Linux users and free software/GNU supporters are on the left and anti-bush or even USA haters. That is not the case. So why use these throw away lines that contribute nothing informative to the discussion at hand such as you have done.
Just a thought from a person on the right setting at his Linux box he uses for everything, everyday, all the time. Linux. Live Free or Die remember?
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
What if Microsoft is using infringing Unix code? Could they be buying a license to protect themselves against a lawsuit like the one that SCO has launched against IBM?
Not everyone runs the newer kernels. I have machines that still have 2.0.x and 2.2.x kernels, just because I have never need the addition functions. What these guys are doing is just throwing a tantrum. There is no honor in what they are doing. They are ruining the reputation on something they are apart of, well supposedly apart of :/.
... really doesn't know yet if SCO got anything on them or not. It certainly looks weird so far. Perhaps they are just stalling as long as it takes so their own auditors can go over it once, twice and thrice so they don't pull a boner in court. Probably interviewing a lot of past programmers as well. The last place you want to find out stuff is in discovery.
methinks that wasn't an appropriate saying for slashdot......
oh well
the opportunity to correct any code determined to be an infringement.
So how do you code change a hello world program?
According to patent law there are some things that are not patentable. And this includes such things that anyone in such a relative field would come to the same or similiar solution in the normal course of work.
What this means is that for SCO to prove there is code of theirs in Linux - And I'm sure they are doing some conversion on the code (i.e. converting variable names and function calls to some common symbolic sets) and comparing the results - they have to also show that such solutions are not common knowledge today, such that solution is likely to be patentable today.
Considering the fact that the linux code is open source........
Who is to say that SCO themselves did not spike the code?
What is more likely to be the case is that they are finding pattern matches after doing symbolic conversions. Sorta along the lines of searching for bible codes but far more mathmatically likely to find matches.
In this symbolic pattern matching the task of linux will be to be allowed to disprove the probability of correct findings proving infringement.
The conversion process alone could be reason to NDA it.
But perhaps now the cat is out of the bag and we can openly start creating our own symbolic conversion programs to process sourcecode for pattern matching.
A recording of the teleconference is available:
(888) 203-1112 code: 164628
The SCO Group, Inc. develops and markets software based onthe Linux operating system and provides related services that enable the development, deployment and management of Internet access devices and specialized servers.
Does SCO know thats what they do?
Yeah, I saw that too - barrel of laughs. Brings up a good point, though, really - this suit has caused them to COMPLETELY abandon one of their most (if not THE most) significant revenue streams for...what? A lawsuit? If they actually expected to be a real company that makes products after all this is over, I think they would have worked out a deal with IBM, assuming there's anything real anyway. As it is, their actions have forced them to kill their business for a chance of a lawsuit. Charming.
That line should have been "The SCO Group, Inc. develops and markets LAWSUITS based on the Linux operating system."
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
It does not suprise me that Microsoft now is going to make a Windows on Unix as they love copying Apple.
What does suprise me is they waited so long.
So they are facing a 250,000 Euro fine is they don't stop claiming Linux has illigitimate SCO UNIX code in it, and stopinsinuating that Linux end users could be liable for anything.
I listened to the conference call today. I had no trouble getting in as an "individual investor". Here are my raw notes. It's just the fragments that I wrote down in real time. I'll provide my own editorial opinions in a follow-comment.
... based on contract rights ..." ... 6,000 licensees" ... we own the Unix copyrights" ..." ..."
.. "unix code, derivative code, mehods, and concepts ... in linux". ... viewing opportunities under NDA"
... impeded ability to settle with IBM?" ... source code, contracts, business ..." ... [that is, novell's position is causing them no problem]"
... "in linux, in the linux kernel"
... rolled all the company dice. If you lose, what's left of the company?" .... SCO's business prospects have been going great."
.... This does not relate to the contract rights that we have."
... Were you surprised? [by Novell's actions]" ... we had a meeting with a Novell executive, Chris Stone ... [Stone didn't show up]"
... areas of concert."
... for AIX license recovation?"
=== 1:00 conference call start
Introduction by Blake ?Sillow?
Sillow: "We are not making of the material today available on the web."
Opening Statement, Darl McBride, SCO CEO
McBride: "SCO's actions
McBride: "30,000 licenses
McBride: "None of these actions are based on copyrights or patents."
McBride: "We reiterate today
McBride: "Strongly disagree with Novell
McBride: "[Novell's actions are] desperate measure to curry favor with the Linux community."
McBride: "SCO owns all rights
McBride on Linux & Linux Kernel
McBride: "Resounding yes"
McBride: "[we will provide]
=== 1:12 questions and answer session
[#1] Robert Mina, Cooper Beach Capital
Q: "differences with novell
A: "we believe we have the full rights
A: "we have no problem
[#2] Maureen O'Gara, Client Server News
Q: "What does it mean that you've turned novell matter over to attorneys?"
A: "Our [IBM] case does not depent on copyrights"
A: "We are prepared to get resolution on that"
(That is, they are going to sue Novell to get the Unix copyrights and patents, if they have to)
[#3] Joe Barn, Linuxworld.com
Q: "SCO claims damage from linux kernel. Are you not contributing by your refusal to show the code?"
A: "We'll show that next week"
[#4] Dennis Powell, Linux & Main
Q: "SCO has
A: "... very positive
[#5] Amy Hull, Hull Associates
Q: "What you were reading from the Novell contract did not mention copyrights and patents. Does the contract mention those?"
A: "We do not have any issue with copyright and patents."
A: "The contract rights are senior in position."
[#6] Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe
Q: "You are standing by your position that you do own the copyrights. Are you standing by that position?"
A: "This is clearly in dispute.
[#7] David Paletus, Utah Tech-Watch
Q: "You're a former Novell executive.
A: "Here's what's surprising
[#8] TC Doyle, Barr Business Magazine
Q: "Is there any legitimate Linux code out there?"
A (Chris Sontag): "In every major version, we've identified
A: "We're specifically concerned about version 2.4 and beyond of the linux kernel."
[#9] Kyle Kreuger, Apollo Capital
Q: "Patent discussion with Novell?"
A: "We've never had a discussion about patents."
[#10] George Weiss, Gartner
Q: "What is the scenario
Q: "Has Linus Torvalds or other experts made any effort to collabo
That Linux is percieved as such threat is a complement to its effectiveness. It had to go through these growing pains eventually, it is a necessary rite of passage. As long as they keep spelling its name right, all this is ultimately, positive press.
Anyone ready to take bets on when the SCO stockholder class action lawsuit gets filed?
> Actually I do not quite understand IBM. Why the hell are they giving this a chance to be viewed in Utah?
Actually, IBM has moved that this lawsuit be tried in federal court. Both the court & IBM are waiting for the SCO Group's reponse. Evidentally, the SCO Group is too busy talking to the press, rather than talking to the judge.
In any case, MacBride & his ilk have to deal with this motion before it can go to trial. No telling how much it will cost them in legal fees to respond; obviously less for them than IBM.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
If there is something going on beyond the obvious one of trying to enhance their value for buyout or annoyance in general, can any slashdotters see anything else going on in June that may benefit from this FUD fest?
Is M$ planning some major releases?
Are some players looking at some financial stuff (like floating bonds, doing IPOs, etc.)?
Major releases of Linux/UNIX vendors with neat stuff coming out?
Something other than M$ encouraging FUD? I think Cringely is right on the FUD front...kill Linux and you can kill SCO trivially...
Something other than SCO last-ditch valuation enhancement?
Is anybody checking the SCO stock sales for serious insider trading (as in dumping the stock when it is up)?
I think it is great how Novell took the wind out of their sails/sales...even if it was unintentional...
Let's skip the usual answers of blame M$, space aliens (unless she's really, really pretty), etc. I think there is some other "game afoot" we may be missing...and no, Saddam or his WMD are not involved...an no ass-ociated shrubs (think about it) were involved in this, I'm willing to bet...
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")
if microshit wanted to make a linux clone itd be here long ago. and doing great.
the truth is that ms is using sco to attack linux the brand. maybe they get to keep 10 percent of the bribe money. no windex. sorry.
The URL http://www.sco.com/soss/ takes you to a very helpful page which, among other topics, has an address where you can "Report problems, make suggestions, get help". I certainly reported a problem with SCO & open source, suggested a few alternatives courses of action and asked for their help in understanding what they hoped to achieve. Maybe you have questions for SCO too... I might even send them another mail later today.
- mipe -
Yea this "secret evidience" crap has been festering in the US for some time. It didin't start under Bush but people who support this anti civil liberty view have taken advantage of it post 9/11. It's a bipartisan group as many would not suspect. Fortunately theire is also a bipartisan group fighting it. The "USA Patroit" act will not be extended or renewd. Now if we could just get DARPA's little project to spy on the innocent shut down and prohibited for ever. Goverment teend to erode civil liberties, You now stack of books to find out if what you want to do is legal. You used to just know it by it's feel.
Now you are guilty until proven innocent. Less goverment is good goverment. Less law is good law. The US has forgot that.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Mod this up, moderators.
This guy is way out there
Yeah, well at least we don't have to wait until we get to the last chapter of our novels to get to all the verbs. ;)
That's 250,000 euros each and every time they make such a claim without backing it up. That could get expensive fast!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
SCO CEO Darl McBride before and after the law suits?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
"Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with." -- SCO
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Unfornately, ownership, even majority / mass plurality, of stock does not, apparently, give the "owners" of a company the right to dictate to the corporate ruling elite nowadays, from what I have been reading in the papers. The Board of Aristocrats can do whatever they !@#$ please. (after all, *they* went to the best schools and were brought up by the proper families, you plebe!)
Now, if they owed us money, OTOH, that would be another story....
-
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
related to the Iraqi Information Minister?
--- 11 meters/second, or 24 miles per hour - the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow. Really.
I think Don Imus needs call this bastage up and give him a interview.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
#define EPERM 1
#define ENOENT 2
#define ESRCH 3
#define EINTR 4
4)M$ will release M$ UNIX
a.k.a. 'DOS with grep'.
C:\>dir | grep goatse*.jpg
DOSCLIPPY: you seem to have been looking for goatse pictures...
It's clear to me now... it's not Microsoft behind all this SCO mess, but Richard Stallman trying to get people to use the Hurd!
Way to jump rails there, chief. Your examples of secret evidence against Afghanistan and Iraq are qualitatively different than this situation as those were not court cases.
In this case, the evidence is not being disclosed to the public because SCO calls it a trade secret. IANAL, but I'm fairly certain that evidence is often withheld from the public in trade secret lawsuits, because releasing the evidence does more damage than one company using the trade secret.
That doesn't mean that I don't think SCO's going about this in an underhanded way, it's just a comment that your post has little to do with reality.
Matt
It think this is like SCO. Just wait til sundown.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Germany has the advantage of a 20th Century legal system that in many aspects -- though certainly not all -- is vastly superiour the 18th Century hack that the U.S. is hobbled by (for the record: I'm an American). This starts with the basic philosophy: The American system is adversarial, which means that you don't even pretend to care about what really happened, you just let both parties slug it out and declare one side a winner at the end. In constrast, the German system at least pretends to be interested in the truth. This means for example that procecutors are required by law to list all the evidence they think shows that the accused is innocent.
Also: The court calls the scientific experts, which means that German cases are almost completely free of the junk science that makes the U.S. legal system so bizarre. Lawyers are paid the same (by fixed rates) if they win or lose and law students do not aspire to become millionaires. The guy with the most money doesn't automatically win -- while most Americans will not even consider going to court against entities with deep pockets anymore. All judges are appointed, not elected, and then they are basically untouchable; note the U.S. only uses this system for a few elite positions like the Supreme Court.
More differences: Laws are written down in books, not make up as you go along by creative interpretations of older rulings. This provides Germany with Rechtssicherheit ("legal security"), so the legal environment has a certain degree of stability, a very, very alien concept to the U.S., where anybody can sue anybody else for anything at any time, stupid or not. As a result, there is basically no such thing as a "tactical lawsuit" in Germany. You don't get "laughed out of court" -- they don't let the clowns in in the first place.
Like in any modern legal system, the lottery of trial-by-jury has been replaced by a panel of professional judges who know what DNA is and don't show up in Star Trek uniforms when considering a murder case -- remember OJ? People are assumed to be of average intelligence, not morons like in the U.S., and so you can't sue McDonald's if you are such a dumb fuck that you burn you tongue on their coffee (the mentally handicapped are treated on a case-by-case basis).
The German legal system has also proven itself to be fiercely independant of government influence (compared to the Microsoft trial in the U.S., for example). German judges ruled flat out that Libya was behind the bombings in Berlin that killed U.S. soldiers at the same time the German administration was kissing up to Ghaddafi for economic reasons.
There are, of course, disadvantages, like a tendency to give murders 20 years and then let them out after 15. However, the German system on the whole is far, far more sane than the American one, and so it doesn't surprise me one bit that SCO is not getting away with this crap in Germany.
Just finished reading the nmap questions answered...then moved onto this...found it kinda funny that they talk about all the revenue they're going to get from sueing people...would be salt in the wounds of the open source community if they won the case and used Nmaps OS detection to find linux boxes and issues summons :)
They can easily compete in the same way as before by making a Unix-based or even Linux-based system with their own additional features. Only command-line programs would be portable between it and other systems. A windows emulation that only works on their system would be an obvious difference, but there certainly would be others.
Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong.. but isn't a Von Neumann machine a machine that can replicate itself by building copies? You know, like the Monolith in 2010?
-- Karma is for people who think they matter.
Ride HURD on it....
sounds like a lot. 'til you realize how many lines of code are in Linux:
1,780,000 !! and that's just the kernel.
For a full linux distro, 55,000,000 for the Debian project.
Bring on your 'hundreds' of lines of code.
Dumbasses.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Hmmm. There's a contradiction in there regarding the threat to sue Linus for patent violations, I think.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Judge dismisses lawsuit against publisher, author
Dale Kimball is the judge in SCO versus IBM. So what he says about intellectual property matters.
In the above case, an author wrote a fictional book based on the memoirs of a World War II veteran. The interesting part of the judge's decision is:
In his ruling, Kimball said Jacobsen did not "express any disapproval" of the series until 1999, after the third volume had been published.
"Had Jacobsen voiced his disapproval in 1996, Hughes would have had the opportunity to take the offending material out of the books," Kimball wrote. "For Jacobsen to wait until three volumes of the series had been published before voicing his disapproval, when it is clear he had ample opportunity to let Hughes know of his disapproval as early as 1996, results in extreme prejudice to Hughes [sic]."
I can't figure out that last reference to Hughes (the defendant). From the context, I think that the judge really meant extreme prejudice against Jacobsen (the plaintiff).
This looks similar to the situation of SCO versus Torvalds, SCO versus Red Hat, SCO versus SuSE, or SCO versus 1500 Linux end users. SCO sold both Linux and Unix for a long time before they made any claims, and to this day they have not identified the offending code in any Linux product. I suspect that if IBM brings those issues to the case, Judge Kimball will take a dim view of SCO's submarine strategy.
(Disclosure: I am short SCOX, no position in any other companies mentioned).
Nah, that's what? Like, ten bucks? :-)
You know, this is actually a truly interesting idea. Could it work? i think the way the capitalist system (haha, don't I sound Marxist? :-) is structured, they simply just assume people are going to do things based on a "I've got to get meself more $$$$!!!" basis. In which case is there any legal reason why a bunch of people can't just move in and do what this post suggests?
(pronounced von noi-man) An early computer created by Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957). It included three components used by most computers today: a CPU; a slow-to-access storage area, like a hard drive ; and secondary fast-access memory (RAM ). The machines stored instructions as binary values (creating the stored program concept) and executed instructions sequentially - the processor fetched instructions one at a time and processed them. Today "von Neumann architecture" often refers to the sequential nature of computers based on this model.
I forget the names of the SCO executives, so I rolled them together. also, IANAL.
SCO did claim to own those copyrights and patents, and SCO claim the right to take action on those copyrights and patents at their discrection. SCO explained (with a perhaps poor choice of words) that the contractual rights are "aces" and that the copyright and patent rights are "a seven and a five".
Personally, the NDA's sounded a bit B.S. -- simply signing an NDA would prevent one from removing the code from the kernel, because to remove the code from the kernel would reveal information subject to the NDA!
To me, this sounds like SCO wants to take advantage of their position as "Owner of Unix" to extort license fees from existing licensees (licensees =~ the Fortune 500). By keeping information actual patent / copyright violations under wraps, said licensees can't reduce their exposure by fixing Linux instead of using SCO Unix.
Maybe there's something like a EULA in the SCO license that tells IBM "You can't support S/390 on anything that competes with SCO Unix". Or something. I dunno.
Cheers,
~ patSPLAT
... is that the law will be ignored.
More and more, from Michael Millikin to Trump, to Bill Clinton to George Bush to Enron to previous Microsoft antitrust suits to Waste Management, I seem to be seeing that the United States is not a country of law.
That means that whatever decision is made may have nothing to do with legality, but just to do with who benefits. If that's the case, then Linux loses.
On the other hand, if that is the case, then betting on America is a losing bet too. I seem to remember that the Cato Institute explained Argentina's crash, by saying that countries that are not based on the rule of law should use currencies of those that are based on the rule of law, or mass inflation and deflation becomes highly likely.
But America doesn't depend on Linux. Rather, I am just concerned that Linux will become a casualty of America's slide.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Hmm. Good point. This is not a personal problem for me, as I have nothing outside of retirement plan stuff, just what I've read.
Ignorance and apathy don't get much done, do they?
Still, it would seem like punishing the guilty might help to restore some confidence in the market, and make people more inclined to invest in future business. The perception seems to be that the current government (Congress, not just the Executive) just looks the other way, and is not demanding much of anything from the privelidged.
Well, maybe that's just my rant.
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
no text
Unix makes easy tasks hard and hard tasks possible. Windows makes easy tasks easy and hard tasks $29.95.
No I made a point that references to GB jr are throw away lines that impart zero to the subject at hand, not even humor. And that not everyone has a political alignment that see humor in such references. Since it appears you had your dick steped on by me by your comment you apperantly disagree. Thats your right.
"Bush is tantamount to terrorism. Left wing terrorism. And who can blame hime?"
WTF is up with that? Who even suggested it.
Your 9th circuit unconstitutional pledge you mean. The same one that despite all evidence pointing to the opposite says "the second amendment is not an individual right" pledge is unconstitutional court? Oh The one for the curcit I live in that is the most overturned federal appeals court in then nation. Even when we had a liberal Supreme Court instead of the centerist and moderate one we have now most overturned appeals court? Now you are making me laugh.
SNORK!
Never try and argue with a lefty they will just try and insult you or shout you down. Now that is fucking funny.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Isn't the MS TCP/IP network stack based on BSD? Is this BSD code not contiaminated with other companies' intellectual properties? Yank it out, run only NetBios!
June 13th is when IBM's license of UNIX for AIX comes up for renewal.
The word is that soon SCO will resume sales of their Linux distro-- to be renamed "The Judas Distribution" ..
This does not change my basic argument, however, that the German system is superiour in this regard because all judges, state and federal, are appointed, and therefore are not put in a position where they have to fight for re-election, leading to the temptation of bending justice to fit the tastes of the public.
As for Boies I can offer another motivation: exposure. If someone is trying to build their firm and their rep it might make it worth it to take a case like this in the long run. At least I can see the logic behind it.
I am mainly thankful that I don't have to work on it;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Just a parting thought about the whole sco vs the world thing.
The reason why Microsoft bought a Unix license is not the fact that ifconfig, etc etc sounds terribly close to ipconfig etc, etc, etc ad infinitum.
If this is the case then we all might need to bow our heads to Redmond and keep our collective mouths shut for eternity!
Richard Stallman is only a voice in the Gnu wilderness, but he is right.
Giving the exclusive rights to digital communication technology to one small consortium is as bad as the Spanish Inquistion of all printed material by a Gutenberg press. Then trying to enforce an exclusive control of all printed and sold documents for ever! Just look how that ruined the beauty and glory of Rennaisance Spain! The monopoly cannot be allowed to happen, or we are headed for an era that will make Orwells 1984 look like a Baptist Church picnic during a rain storm.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
You're thinking of Canadian Dollars. The Euro is actually worth slightly more than the US Dollar, so it's more like $275,000.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I seem to recall hearing that the Euro was doing poorly. But it's been a while since I heard anything about it at all. Say, does Britain still use pounds or did they go with the Euro? Someone told me the other day that they hadn't adopted Euro currency but I was fairly certain that they had.
I work for a French company, and at the most recent meeting the VP said that American employees had lost less on their options than European employees because of the Euro being worth more. The question he was answering was about how the difference between the Euro and the Dollar effected stock price. That's the entire basis for my comment, as I don't generally pay attention to such things. That's why I have no idea about the Brits using the Euro, although I seem to remember that if they hadn't signed on the whole thing would have died.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Apparently when Novell bought Unix it came with a number of Unix licensees and when they sold/licensed...whatever they agreed to with SCO about Unix they kept these clients but SCO administered them, paying back 95% back to Novell. BUT, my interpretation is that it only concerns these clients and any new clients aquired by SCO are not covered by that arrangement.
At least that's what I understood from what the Novell guy said about it in the article.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,