Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the to-an-independant-analyst dept.
cheesybagel writes "In this EETimes article SCO claims to have shown their evidence to our independent analyst friends from the Aberdeen Group. The evidence, all 80 lines of it, allegedly even has identical comments."
##loop
for(i=0; i100; i++) {
##really common algorithm...
}
SCO: Look, they copied our f'ing code
Has anybody considered
by
gazbo
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
That maybe SCO are telling the truth - that maybe there is ripped off code? Undoubtedly if the claim was that MS had included GNU code in their apps, people would automatically presume guilt; why the immediate defensiveness now?
Especially as we have 80 lines of identical code including comments which is the real kicker.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
WeiszNet
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
True, but one cannot deny the fact that SCO does act very weird. Usually when some company "steals" GPL code, the copyright holder gives the company a chance to correct his mistake (and shows proove immediatly).
SCO does not do all this, which does not make it look honest.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
dfeist
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Not only that, but they contradict themselves every few days. Sometimes it's copyright, sometimes patents, sometimes trade secrets.
And umm, how can the Linux users be guilty if IBM put their code into the kernel source? They can't. If it was about proprietary software, noone would say all the licensees are guilty. But it isn't really another case then this - IBM gave it to the community under GPL. Some proprietary company gave it to the users under a proprietary license. Where's the difference? It's not the source, but I don't think that is important since the binary is generated from the copyrighted code, so it is copyrighted, too.
-- Unix makes easy tasks hard and hard tasks possible. Windows makes easy tasks easy and hard tasks $29.95.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
bheading
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
As the article points out, no-one knows that this code was SCO's to begin with. It could have found it's way from Linux to SCO's code. It could have bubbled it's way up from the earlier BSD releases. Who knows ?
If the case was really that simple it sounds like it's open-and-shut. It's hard to understand why SCO won't show it publicly, or allow anyone to see it without making them sign a huge NDA. What do they have to lose ?
And even then, the 80 lines would have to be pretty critical to form the basis for claims of $1bn in damages. How many thousands of lines of code are there in Linux (or any other OS) and how many blocks of 80 lines are singularly critical to the whole functioning of the OS ?
Re:Has anybody considered
by
Your+Anus
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It shouldn't be all that hard to prove where the code came from. Anything that gets into the linux kernel is posted on the linux-kernel mailing list. I would think one could simply grep the archives, given the lines of code/comments in question.
--
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
dnoyeb
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Its irrelevent. I am sure if SCO opened their code to full inspection, they would have numerous GPL violations. Thats just how business goes these days. Thats why you see big companies settling out of court. And thats one of the major reasons for the patent frenzy. So, so what if their is 80 lines of stolen code. Lets see how much GPL/LGPL/other license code is hidden in the SCO code....
Re:Has anybody considered
by
cookd
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I sincerely hope that all of this blows over. I'm very suspect of SCO's claims, especially since they won't let the evidence out, which means that they're going to charge royalties for everyone using their code without telling us exactly what we need to remove their code from Linux. Withholding the evidence is making everyone mad, and preventing us from "coming clean" by removing "their" code or even by licensing "their" Linux if we feel so inclined.
However, let's assume that there are right -- they own Unix, and there are segments of code, up to 80 lines in length, that match between Linux and Unix. What does that show? Still nothing in itself. The code could also be in BSD, in which case it would be free and clear from any SCO claims (although if it lacks the appropriate copyright label, the Berkeley regents might have to send their agents over to rough Linus up a bit (grin)). Or something like that. The code might well be public domain stuff (from an academic paper, from some code library, etc.), so nothing to see.
But assume SCO does own the code. We just rewrite those sections and call it good, right? Wrong. The sections are evidence of contamination, and it will be difficult to determine exactly how far the contamination goes. If someone could copy and paste SCO code, he/she was also probably doing other things -- opening the Unix code in one window, and writing a similar Linux routine in another window, referring back to the Unix code for a "how-to". This is also illegal, as such things need to be done via clean room reverse engineering procedures.
SCO will then argue that the contamination is very deep. IBM and the Open Source people in general will argue that the contamination is insignificant. It might be hard to tell in some cases. SCO will argue that the design patterns in use in Linux were stolen from Unix, and that those design patterns are crucial IP. Everything built around that design will have to be rewritten, probably with a different design to prove that we aren't continuing to steal their precious design. And then everything that depends on that design will also have to be rewritten. Etc. Depending on how deep the problem goes (according to what the courts decide), it may or may not be feasible to rewrite the affected portions and send out patches. The problem is that lawyers may have to get involved, certifying that the portions rewritten comply with all necessary laws and no longer intrude on SCO's IP. It may be necessary to abandon portions of Linux entirely, perhaps importing replacement code from BSD or the like.
In the meantime, all of the big fish who have been using Linux will be sued for royalties. I'm sure that many suits will be dismissed, but some will be upheld.
Whether or not SCO wins, this will be a wakeup call. Before accepting GNU tools for use in the business, managers are now going to be asking, "how can we be certain that this code is legit?" It is a very valid question. All source has pedigree -- are there any portions of this code that might be discovered to belong to someone else? If so, what protects us from having that code yanked out from under us? Somebody could sue us for damages, refuse to license the code to us, and shut down our entire operation.
If SCO wins, beyond the damage to Linux itself, a lot of people are going to get very nervous about using open source products in general in the business world. Even if they lose, things are still going to get a bit more tense, as you may have to prove the code's purebred pedigree before you can use it to run your IT department.
-- Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
surprise_audit
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
But the "trade-secret" code is already published in the Linux source, if SCO is to be believed...
Either: 1) SCO's code is included in the Linux kernel, and is therefore irrevocably publically available and no longer qualifies as trade-secret; or 2) SCO's code is not in the Linux kernel and may still be a valuable trade-secret. Or it may not, but that's not Linux's problem.
There isn't a third option, and all this dicking around with NDA's and crap like that is merely making SCO look stupid.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
SnowZero
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
And I still don't buy it either. It's not like any other IP enforcement we've ever seen. Not even the RIAA/MPAA act like this:
Imagine the RIAA comes and tells you that one of the CDs in your collection is a pirated copy, but they won't tell you which, and you must start immediately paying them royalties, along with fees for past damages.
Doesn't sound very ethical now does it? "Fair" would be indicated the infringing code so that it could be removed, and charging for damages of the use up to the point in time which it was removed. Making someone pay while not giving the opportunity to fix the problem is simply extortion.
Re:Has anybody considered
by
ReconRich
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The thing you miss ( and I HATE defending SCO here) is that if the code is there --- It constitutes IP theft, which is the actionable part of the whole thing.
Not true. A very likely source for that code is that it came from Unix code which was covered by the BSDi/UC Berkeley lawsuit and has been entered into the public domain. Loads of code in Linux has come from BSD, which in turn came from UNIX, just like SCO's code. But a judge has already taken care of that code - it's known to be good. But so long as noone can check (because of the NDA), noone will know. Or it could have been copied the other way, and now SCO's code is GPL'ed;-)
-- Rich
-- Free your mind and your Ass will follow
-- George Clinton
Re:Has anybody considered
by
RenQuanta
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
So first SCO is at fault for not showing any evidence. Now that they have, the claim is that they can't prove the code is theirs.
The code has yet to be given out to the community for consideration, it was shown to two heavily biased analysts under a strict NDA.
The DiDio character is a Windows consultant, and the Aberdeen group released a report last November that Linux was "the most vulnerable operating system". Yeah, that's the same as giving it to the community for them to verify SCO's outlandish claims.
Besides, copied or not, you already have it. Just look in the Linux source.
Yeah, sure. We'll get right on that. (In case you missed the sarcasm, eighty lines of code is a friggin' needle in the haystack! I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out all they implications that fact has...)
Why should SCO bother?
You're right about that. It's not in SCO's best interests now to give everyone the information required to determine what the facts are. It's in their best interest to drag this out as long as possible, to spread as much Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt as possible, and to control public opinion by controlling the flow of information.
My guess? There may well be some code, but I'm betting that SCO didn't do their homework (corporate managers rarely do). It could be from the BSDs, from public-domain literature, or from SCalderO's own UNIX-Linux integration project which I've read referenced in other posts here.
In any case, I have no doubt that SCO has no case here. For further proof, go read the OSI position paper on the matter. A lengthy read, but very enlightening, and basically shows the SCO claims to be rather without merit. Or is your mind as closed as your source?
Re:Has anybody considered
by
kubrick
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
However, SCO aren't (currently) suing for breach of copyright. They are suing IBM for breaking their SCO Unix license by revealing trade secrets.
They've muddied the waters by sending out their C&D to Linux customers, but they would have to prove the copyright breach pretty convincingly in the IBM case to get settlements from other companies -- and judges are normally very reluctant to decide issues outside the merits of the case at hand (although, of course, IANAL).
There's always the chance that, if they manage to win this case, they'd be feeling pretty pumped, and take on IBM or another company in a wider-ranging suit which could cause the sorts of contamination problems you describe.
Before accepting GNU tools for use in the business, managers are now going to be asking, "how can we be certain that this code is legit?"
This is a question that all business users of code (open and closed) should be asking -- as MSSQL users found out when their use of the product was considered contributory infringement in the patent case Microsoft lost a little while ago. If the company selling you the product/service can't indemnify you from things like this, you need to be prepared for that contingency yourself.
-- deus does not exist but if he does
Re:Has anybody considered
by
hammock
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Where did the code come from?
Find out which IBM engineers commited patches to the kernel. Find out which SCO engineers commited patches to the kernel.
You just narrowed it down. It's probably pretty easy to find out what code it is.
It's also just as likely that SCO copied the code from Linux, since we can trust Linus' logs, but SCO could fabricate thier own logs at a moments notice.
An Entire Unix Kernel...
by
doi
·
· Score: 5, Funny
...in only 80 lines of code? That's pretty efficient.
--
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
Re: An Entire Unix Kernel...
by
Black+Parrot
·
· Score: 5, Funny
>...in only 80 lines of code? That's pretty efficient.
Linux supporters, however, were quick to question the meaning of the evidence. âoeCan SCO prove that this code came from SCO to Linux, and not from Linux to SCO?â asked Jon âoeMaddogâ Hall, executive director of Linux International (Nashua, N.H.), a Linux advocacy organization. âoeOr did the code that's in SCO Unix come from a third source? Show me the facts,â he said.
Not only have they NOT proved to the Linux community that the egg came before the chicken, but they have not even proved what "egg" this is. Is it IBM specific code? Is it the actual kernel??
FUD FUD FUD
-- Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
Mac OSX based on Linux?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"The article also claims that Mac OSX is just as vulnerable to attacks as any other Linux based system."
Get your facts straight first, Mac OSX is based on BSD - not Linux!
Are the 80 lines contiguous ... ?
by
Ninja+Programmer
·
· Score: 5, Funny
If they are not, then I will be highly unimpressed if there are for identical/*'s and 40 identical */'s in the code.
Re:Are the 80 lines contiguous ... ?
by
ArmorFiend
·
· Score: 5, Funny
BREAKING NEWS: CUSTOMER LEAKS THE 80 LINES OF 'COPIED' CODE
At last, the copied code is revealed. Here it is!:
/*
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow. ...
80 lines Come on
by
Unleashd
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A couple of years ago SCO worked with the linux community on trying to bring together Unix and Linux... who is to say that their own programmers didn't insert this code durring that process?!?!
That must be ingenious lines of code.
1 billion / 80 = 12.5 million $ per line of code. Geez!
Just think, if you write just one such line per day, you could start competing with Bill Gates' annual income.
Re: 80 lines...
by
Black+Parrot
·
· Score: 5, Funny
> They prefer to call it an easter egg.
No, they prefer to think of it as a lottery ticket.
-- Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:Use SCO's Bandwidth
by
CodeMaster
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Or for the quick leaching of 366Mb unattendently:
#!/bin/bash
for i in `seq 1 10`; do wget sco.com/images/pdf/education/SCO_AEP_posterfiles.z ip -O/dev/null & done
Save as fsco.sh (or whatever...),
chmod a+x fsco.sh
and run
./fsco.sh
.
Kick back, and enjoy
And now.. read again SCO claims
by
MrNop
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
âoePrior to IBM's involvement, Linux was the software equivalent of a bicycle. UNIX was the software equivalent of a luxury car. To make Linux of necessary quality for use by enterprise customers, it must be re-designed so that Linux also becomes the software equivalent of a luxury car. This re-design is not technologically feasible or even possible at the enterprise level without (1) a high degree of design coordination, (2) access to expensive and sophisticated design and testing equipment; (3) access to UNIX code, methods and concepts; (4) UNIX architectural experience; and (5) a very significant financial investment.â (Paragraph 84) 80 LINES of code !
âoeOver time, IBM made a very substantial financing commitment to improperly put SCO's confidential and proprietary information into Linux, the free operating system.â (Paragraph 94) 80 LINES of code !
âoeThe only way that the pathway is an âeight-lane highwayâ(TM) for Linux to achieve the scalability, SMP support, fail-over capabilities and reliability of UNIX is by the improper extraction, use, and dissemination of the proprietary and confidential UNIX Software Code and libraries. Indeed, UNIX was able to achieve its status as the premiere operating system only after decades of hard work, beginning with the finest computer scientists at AT&T Bell Laboratories, plaintiff's predecessor in interest. â (Paragraph 99) 80 LINES of code !
Wasn't a good test
by
confused+one
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I read the articles (there was more than one written). I read the comments by Aberdeen's rep. She said: Yep, that's the same code alright...
Where's the analysis in this? 80 lines of code isn't damning. Where did it come from? Did she go back into the distro archives and find where and when it was put into the code? No. Did she check against the BSD codebase? NO. Did she even know what she was looking at? Probably not.
Could someone that seen the code tell you the comments so we could get it out of the Linux Kernel. I somewhat read the NDA and all I saw was stuff about code. It would be cool if that was a loophole SCO didn't think about.
Mike
-- I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Two previous post provide sufficient defense...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The following two posts, taken from previous stories concenrning SCO, quite beautifully sum up IBM's best potential defense.
The first post, taken from a June 3rd story, points out the relative significance of a situation in which everything that SCO has said is true, and it even is a bit optimistic in favor of SCO's claims (but it still puts things in perspective):
Ok so we have this quote:
"The month of June is show-and-tell time," McBride said. "Everybody's been clamoring for the code...and we're going to show hundreds of lines of code."
So lets assume "hundreds of lines of code" is our N value. Now let N equal... oh... we'll be lenient on our definition of "hundreds" and make N = 5000.
Ok so we've got our hypothetical 5000 lines of offending code. Now lets count the number of lines in every.c file in linux-2.4.20.tar.bz2...
TMPFILE=`mktemp/tmp/$0.XXXXXXX` for i in $(for i in $(for i in $(find./|grep "\.c"|grep -v Documentation);do cat $i|wc -l;done);do echo $i;done);do echo -n $i+>>${TMPFILE};done;echo "0">>${TMPFILE};echo quit>>${TMPFILE};bc -q ${TMPFILE};rm ${TMPFILE}
Which gives us 3332935 (including comments but hey we're lazy).
And this seems reasonable give that according to this link [geocrawler.com] which shows ~1.8 million for a 2.2 kernel so yeah hey what's another 1.5 million between friends? (think of all the new hardware support)
Ok so we've got our probably bogus number of ~3.3 million lines of code. Remember N? Come on you can do the next step its fun!
5000 / 3332935 == 0.0015% and lets be super generous and assume comments make up 40% of our line count...
5000 / 1999761 == 0.0025%
I wonder what the statistical liklihood of having similiar blocks of code of some signifigant size that happen to be the same (excluding format and variable differences). I mean there's only so many ways one can _intelligently_ code a given function
Given those kind of percentages I doubt a judge or jury could be convinced of any copyright infringement of any signifigance. It'd be kind like trying to sue a competing encyclopedia company for swiping that one entry in the "P" volume on "Petards" ("hoisting", "petard", look it up) from you and demanding millions of dollars in compensation for this plagerism (ok so this analogy sucks but I had petards on my mind so...)
The second post, taken from a June 6th story, highlights the fact that something fishy would have had to have been going on within SCO's ranks for a block of code with full comments to be submitted for inclusion into the Linux kernel:
Not having the benefit of seeing the code I'll have to assumme these comments are fairly overwhelming evidence wise.
If you knowingly copy code, into a product that can be viewed by potentially millions, wouldn't you at least try to make it not resemble the original work.
Yes, it is easy to catch the lazy cheaters, but if put some effort in it then it should be a little more difficult then running grep.
I'm sure there are bound to be similarities here and there, coders no doubt ran into the same problems working on the same platform, but apparently these grievances were enough to goto court over.
Obviously, we can surmise they understand their work enough to copy kernel code, so we know the individuals were at least someone intelligent.
So, having in mind how code theft works, it doesn't make sense for something as obvious
Re:Does Linus et al keep track of code submitters
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
First, all code is attributed in the changelog.
Second, Linus most of the time ignores code which does not come from his trusted lieutnants. They, too, do proper attribution.
Third, most code isn't accepted unless it's obviously correct (like small fixes) or has had some testing on the list first. Which means that the patch can probably be found in LKML.
Things are getting worse for Linux.
by
aussersterne
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This is a lengthy prediction, and I'll probably get modded down for it, but hey, Slashdot is all about having fun by voicing one's opinion, so here I go.
You know and I know that SCO's case is meaningless and that even if some hapless SCO, Caldera or IBM idiot inserted code into Linux, that code can be quickly removed and replaced and a new kernel distributed to people using Linux.
You and I also know that it is much more likely that code made its way from Linux into SCO, or from BSD into both, and that SCO's "side-by-side code" demonstration technique doesn't hold up to solid reasoning.
However, very few people in business are going to understand this. Management are scared idiots, American management doubly so. They're going to stay away from Linux in droves and are already feeling personally betrayed by the people who make Linux, just on the strength of the FUD and accusations. They're already at home telling the wife how big a mistake Linux was and how they should have listened to the doubters.
It's natural for them to take this view so easily because they've been conditioned all their lives to believe that "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" and after years of business training they're suspect of anything (even family matters) that don't emphasize the "bottom line" above all else. They were very reluctant to consider Linux in the first instance for these reasons and it took years of badgering on technical grounds and tempting on cost grounds from technical underlings to stop them from seeing Linux as some kind of a scam in the first place.
The courts in the US, unfortunately, have the same view. If it's corporation versus non-corporation, the corporation will always get the benefit of the doubt. The burden of proof will always be on the non-corporation, regardless of what the "law" may say, and in many cases, it's impossible for the non-coproration to win a case; the court will simply rule for the corporation even if it's patently obvious that the law doesn't support such a ruling. They'll do it with a backhanded wink and a nod and the belief that to hurt business and "the economy" is far worse that to hurt any non-business entity or group of individuals.
For these reasons, Linux in the US will likely suffer horribly over the next few months or perhaps even several years. In fact, it's doubtful that Linux will ever recover the "inevitable force" swagger that it has had over the last few months in that country. Instead, Linux will continue to grow across the rest of the world and the US will lose yet another technical and cultural advantage in the interests of supporting business above all else.
Hmm, maybe it's not so much a prediction as a fear. But I can't help but think that SCO has turned a corner on this one, not in terms of their case from an honest perspective, but in terms of the effect they're having.
-- STOP . AMERICA . NOW
What did you say they wanted?
by
Lumpish+Scholar
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
"SCO is not trying to destroy Linux," said [Laura] DiDio of the Yankee Group. "That's silly. This is about paying royalties."
We don't want to destroy privacy; we just want to be able to track terrorists.
We don't want to destroy fair use; we just want to make sure the artists get paid for their work.
We don't want to destroy free software; we just want to be paid every time someone uses it.
<sarcasm>Yeah, right.</sarcasm>
-- Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
SCO has no leg to stand on here. Even if all of their absurd claims are true, no-one is liable beyond the point at which SCO could have provided them with information to correct the matter. Assuming SCO's right, they could tell IBM and the community exactly what lines of code are identical, and provide real evidence to prove that the code was copies from SCO => Linux. The offending code would then be immediately removed and replaced, ending further continuation of the problem. SCO has not done that, so they cannot collect on any damages past the point at which they could have done such.
Slashdot Mirror
will this end?
Especially as we have 80 lines of identical code including comments which is the real kicker.
...in only 80 lines of code? That's pretty efficient.
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
Linux supporters, however, were quick to question the meaning of the evidence. âoeCan SCO prove that this code came from SCO to Linux, and not from Linux to SCO?â asked Jon âoeMaddogâ Hall, executive director of Linux International (Nashua, N.H.), a Linux advocacy organization. âoeOr did the code that's in SCO Unix come from a third source? Show me the facts,â he said.
Not only have they NOT proved to the Linux community that the egg came before the chicken, but they have not even proved what "egg" this is. Is it IBM specific code? Is it the actual kernel??
FUD FUD FUD
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
"The article also claims that Mac OSX is just as vulnerable to attacks as any other Linux based system."
Get your facts straight first, Mac OSX is based on BSD - not Linux!
If they are not, then I will be highly unimpressed if there are for identical /*'s and 40 identical */'s in the code.
A couple of years ago SCO worked with the linux community on trying to bring together Unix and Linux ... who is to say that their own programmers didn't insert this code durring that process?!?!
We don't need no stinking sig!
Just think, if you write just one such line per day, you could start competing with Bill Gates' annual income.
> They prefer to call it an easter egg.
No, they prefer to think of it as a lottery ticket.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Save as fsco.sh (or whatever...), and run .
Kick back, and enjoy
âoePrior to IBM's involvement, Linux was the software equivalent of a bicycle. UNIX was the software equivalent of a luxury car. To make Linux of necessary quality for use by enterprise customers, it must be re-designed so that Linux also becomes the software equivalent of a luxury car. This re-design is not technologically feasible or even possible at the enterprise level without (1) a high degree of design coordination, (2) access to expensive and sophisticated design and testing equipment; (3) access to UNIX code, methods and concepts; (4) UNIX architectural experience; and (5) a very significant financial investment.â (Paragraph 84)
80 LINES of code !
âoeOver time, IBM made a very substantial financing commitment to improperly put SCO's confidential and proprietary information into Linux, the free operating system.â (Paragraph 94)
80 LINES of code !
âoeThe only way that the pathway is an âeight-lane highwayâ(TM) for Linux to achieve the scalability, SMP support, fail-over capabilities and reliability of UNIX is by the improper extraction, use, and dissemination of the proprietary and confidential UNIX Software Code and libraries. Indeed, UNIX was able to achieve its status as the premiere operating system only after decades of hard work, beginning with the finest computer scientists at AT&T Bell Laboratories, plaintiff's predecessor in interest. â (Paragraph 99)
80 LINES of code !
Where's the analysis in this? 80 lines of code isn't damning. Where did it come from? Did she go back into the distro archives and find where and when it was put into the code? No. Did she check against the BSD codebase? NO. Did she even know what she was looking at? Probably not.
Could someone that seen the code tell you the comments so we could get it out of the Linux Kernel. I somewhat read the NDA and all I saw was stuff about code. It would be cool if that was a loophole SCO didn't think about.
Mike
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
The following two posts, taken from previous stories concenrning SCO, quite beautifully sum up IBM's best potential defense.
.c file in linux-2.4.20.tar.bz2 ...
/tmp/$0.XXXXXXX` for i in $(for i in $(for i in $(find ./|grep "\.c"|grep -v Documentation);do cat $i|wc -l;done);do echo $i;done);do echo -n $i+>>${TMPFILE};done;echo "0">>${TMPFILE};echo quit>>${TMPFILE};bc -q ${TMPFILE};rm ${TMPFILE}
The first post, taken from a June 3rd story, points out the relative significance of a situation in which everything that SCO has said is true, and it even is a bit optimistic in favor of SCO's claims (but it still puts things in perspective):
Ok so we have this quote:
"The month of June is show-and-tell time," McBride said. "Everybody's been clamoring for the code...and we're going to show hundreds of lines of code."
So lets assume "hundreds of lines of code" is our N value. Now let N equal... oh... we'll be lenient on our definition of "hundreds" and make N = 5000.
Ok so we've got our hypothetical 5000 lines of offending code. Now lets count the number of lines in every
TMPFILE=`mktemp
Which gives us 3332935 (including comments but hey we're lazy).
And this seems reasonable give that according to this link [geocrawler.com] which shows ~1.8 million for a 2.2 kernel so yeah hey what's another 1.5 million between friends? (think of all the new hardware support)
Ok so we've got our probably bogus number of ~3.3 million lines of code. Remember N? Come on you can do the next step its fun!
5000 / 3332935 == 0.0015% and lets be super generous and assume comments make up 40% of our line count...
5000 / 1999761 == 0.0025%
I wonder what the statistical liklihood of having similiar blocks of code of some signifigant size that happen to be the same (excluding format and variable differences). I mean there's only so many ways one can _intelligently_ code a given function
Given those kind of percentages I doubt a judge or jury could be convinced of any copyright infringement of any signifigance. It'd be kind like trying to sue a competing encyclopedia company for swiping that one entry in the "P" volume on "Petards" ("hoisting", "petard", look it up) from you and demanding millions of dollars in compensation for this plagerism (ok so this analogy sucks but I had petards on my mind so...)
The second post, taken from a June 6th story, highlights the fact that something fishy would have had to have been going on within SCO's ranks for a block of code with full comments to be submitted for inclusion into the Linux kernel:
Not having the benefit of seeing the code I'll have to assumme these comments are fairly overwhelming evidence wise.
If you knowingly copy code, into a product that can be viewed by potentially millions, wouldn't you at least try to make it not resemble the original work.
Yes, it is easy to catch the lazy cheaters, but if put some effort in it then it should be a little more difficult then running grep.
I'm sure there are bound to be similarities here and there, coders no doubt ran into the same problems working on the same platform, but apparently these grievances were enough to goto court over.
Obviously, we can surmise they understand their work enough to copy kernel code, so we know the individuals were at least someone intelligent.
So, having in mind how code theft works, it doesn't make sense for something as obvious
First, all code is attributed in the changelog.
Second, Linus most of the time ignores code which does not come from his trusted lieutnants. They, too, do proper attribution.
Third, most code isn't accepted unless it's obviously correct (like small fixes) or has had some testing on the list first. Which means that the patch can probably be found in LKML.
This is a lengthy prediction, and I'll probably get modded down for it, but hey, Slashdot is all about having fun by voicing one's opinion, so here I go.
You know and I know that SCO's case is meaningless and that even if some hapless SCO, Caldera or IBM idiot inserted code into Linux, that code can be quickly removed and replaced and a new kernel distributed to people using Linux.
You and I also know that it is much more likely that code made its way from Linux into SCO, or from BSD into both, and that SCO's "side-by-side code" demonstration technique doesn't hold up to solid reasoning.
However, very few people in business are going to understand this. Management are scared idiots, American management doubly so. They're going to stay away from Linux in droves and are already feeling personally betrayed by the people who make Linux, just on the strength of the FUD and accusations. They're already at home telling the wife how big a mistake Linux was and how they should have listened to the doubters.
It's natural for them to take this view so easily because they've been conditioned all their lives to believe that "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" and after years of business training they're suspect of anything (even family matters) that don't emphasize the "bottom line" above all else. They were very reluctant to consider Linux in the first instance for these reasons and it took years of badgering on technical grounds and tempting on cost grounds from technical underlings to stop them from seeing Linux as some kind of a scam in the first place.
The courts in the US, unfortunately, have the same view. If it's corporation versus non-corporation, the corporation will always get the benefit of the doubt. The burden of proof will always be on the non-corporation, regardless of what the "law" may say, and in many cases, it's impossible for the non-coproration to win a case; the court will simply rule for the corporation even if it's patently obvious that the law doesn't support such a ruling. They'll do it with a backhanded wink and a nod and the belief that to hurt business and "the economy" is far worse that to hurt any non-business entity or group of individuals.
For these reasons, Linux in the US will likely suffer horribly over the next few months or perhaps even several years. In fact, it's doubtful that Linux will ever recover the "inevitable force" swagger that it has had over the last few months in that country. Instead, Linux will continue to grow across the rest of the world and the US will lose yet another technical and cultural advantage in the interests of supporting business above all else.
Hmm, maybe it's not so much a prediction as a fear. But I can't help but think that SCO has turned a corner on this one, not in terms of their case from an honest perspective, but in terms of the effect they're having.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
We don't want to destroy fair use; we just want to make sure the artists get paid for their work.
We don't want to destroy free software; we just want to be paid every time someone uses it.
<sarcasm>Yeah, right.</sarcasm>
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
SCO has no leg to stand on here. Even if all of their absurd claims are true, no-one is liable beyond the point at which SCO could have provided them with information to correct the matter. Assuming SCO's right, they could tell IBM and the community exactly what lines of code are identical, and provide real evidence to prove that the code was copies from SCO => Linux. The offending code would then be immediately removed and replaced, ending further continuation of the problem. SCO has not done that, so they cannot collect on any damages past the point at which they could have done such.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
linux-2.5.69# wc -l ./include/net/bluetooth/sco.h ./include/net/bluetooth/sco.h
81
I managed to hack around and find a copy of the 80 same lines. They are not necessarily in order:
//end-if // end-while //end-if
}
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}
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...etc...
Table-ized A.I.