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No Business Like SCO Business
The SCO must go on. Informationweek has a roundup. News.com has some analysis of the legal case. SCO reiterates their threat to revoke IBM's license. Reader hobsonchoice sends a blurb: "Also more from analysts who saw SCO/Linux code comparisons under NDA. Bill Claybrook, of Aberdeen Group Inc., says SCO changed their story to him about whether they had any "direct evidence" that IBM copied any System V code into Linux.
Laura Didio of Yankee Group has answered some detailed questions about her code review process. Lastly Fujitsu Siemens have joined in the debate: they don't think SCO's case is going anywhere." One observer of the SCO case has compiled some notes about Caldera's active participation in the IA-64 project. And look on the bright side: if you follow the school of thought that all publicity is good publicity, at least this suit has gotten Linux mentioned in many places where it normally wouldn't be.
Ok. We all know what SCO is doing, or at least trying to do.
I hate to sound like a troll, but do we really need this ammount of press time about it? How aobut one giant wrap-up post once this whole business is overwith and SCO is nothing but a faded memeory?
Could we try that? Please?
I can see those headlines in tomorrow's IBM company newsletter.
...it made me open margin account to be able to SELL SCOX SHORT :) If you don't think they have a case as well, you might join me and do the same. Come on, its almost $12 a piece or twice the price before the case. And we all know its gonna be worth zero in few weeks.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
at least this suit has gotten Linux mentioned in many places where it normally wouldn't be.
yes, now everyone that heard about linux through this case will connect linux with 'that os that you can be fined a shitload of money for using because (...insert random stupid sco reason here...)'
GREAT! WONDERFUL! Now EVERYBODY has a good impression of linux.
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
<quote>...If those terms aren't met, then we will announce what our actions are on Monday," Stowell said. "We would intend to revoke the AIX license...</quote> (infoworld article).
Seeing that they dodn't develop AIX, they can't revoke the AIX license. What they CAN do is try to revoke the license for any use of their code in AIX, which is not the same thing.
Even if they tried that, existing licensees shouldn't have to worry. After all, nothing has been proven in court yet, and an "announcement" that the licenses have been revoked would have no legal effect. Just like an "announcement" that SCO has repealed the law of gravity has zip effect in the real world :-)
Until there's a judge somewhere that actually makes a ruling on SOMETHING, nothing changes. They can announce all they want. Only a judge can actually invalidate the license.
"NUMA (Non Uniform Memory access) a mechanism for enabling large multiprocessing systems, RCU (Read Copy Update) (and) SMP"
I am not completely familiar with the details of it, but don't the last two, RCU and SMP, both exist in FreeBSD?
Also this lady admits that she is not a copyright attorney nor is she a programmer, so she had a code analyst there with her reviewing the code. So why can't we get his or her opinion? Also, why would she give her statement on how the GPL works if she's neither a copyright attorney nor a programmer? Seems to me she was fed nearly everything she's saying.
i.e. Her statements and opinions are worth about as much as SCOX will be in a few months.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
IBM licensed some code from SCO (or from AT&T but SCO inherited the deal) and used it to help them in AIX (to what extent is unknown).
Now SCO has a beef with IBM because they think they put some code that IBM got from a later version of the same product (Unixware, via Monterey deal) into Linux.
Using this beef, that still hasn't been proved in court or anywhere else than by SCO telling us it is true, they want to yank IBM's Unix code license and thus prevent not only IBM from shipping new versions of AIX until SCO's code is removed from it so they don't have a claim but also RETROACTIVELY to every copy of AIX that was sold in the last 15 or so years.
If they really manage to pull up sch a legal stunt (highly doubtful, it's more likely that they just are full of crap) it would mean that any piece of proprietary software made by company A that incorporate some licensed code from another company B could become illegal if company B yank the license of company A for any reason and without needing to prove a damn thing.
This seems like a big reason NOT to use proprietary software, to recap:
Free Software: Perpetual license (at least fro the GPL and BSD), code can only be declared illegal by court decision. Later versions with amended source code are legal (like the *BSD's after the settlement). Dute to the speed of development of the Free Softwre community the delay between the court ruling making a version illegal and a cleaned up version would be very small. Earlier versions can also be easily cleaned up if necessary to avoid upgrading.
Proprietary software (if SCO's stunt miraculously works): Even if your license is supposedly perpetual by contract with the vendor another company that had no business with you can come by and say that due to a dispute between them and said vendor your version is illegal. No need for a court ruling or to prove anything you assert (according to SCO). You cannot modify the software to make it legal (no code) and it is unlikely that the vendor will be willing to modify all the older versions still used by their clients so they don't need to upgrade it.
Which one is better for business already?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
To an outsider, this lawsuit probably sounds like the computer world fighting with itself. "I don't need this Unix/Linux stuff. Microsoft is for me!"
You're spot-on correct. You can read my story of one MS victory, due to this debacle, right here.
I would guess that the 80-line piece of code that she saw was not related to any of the "enterprise" functionality that she mentions. The pieces just aren't fitting together well, and it is confirming to me that SCO is making a mountain out of a molehill (that may not even exist.)
I have seen many scenarios over the last few days that ask the question "what if SCO was right and there was some Unix code in Linux?"
But I am not sure this is so interesting to wonder about it.
Let's suppose that there is indeed many blocks of 10-15 lines of code that come from Unix and went into Linux (and not from a common source or the other way around). Let's further suppose that is was indeed put there by IBM (to avoid speculating about as yet nonexistent lawsuits against Linux companies). Now I ask the question:
Is that code really worth one frickin' BILLION dollars?
I mean, to prove that it was worth that much they would have not only to prove that it was there and that IBM put it there but also that it was crucial enough to transform Linux from a "bicycle" to a "sports car".
Also, I don't know how much SCO makes from Unix licenses each year but I wonder how long it would take for them to make one billion dollars from their Unix licensing program.
I also wonder how much less money they have made from said licensing program since IBM supposedly put that code here.
The more you look at it, no matter what angle, the less sense it makes.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Encouraging people to waste SCO's bandwidth because they're being stupid is petty and immoral.
:)
On the other hand, it's perfectly fine and moral for you to "vote" by preparing statements for any court case that will result, warning any of your friends in IT who have just returned from a 6 month spelunking adventure that SCO's management can't be sane if they think they can revoke pre-existing licenses, and therefore you don't think they should ever risk future business with SCO, and selling short their stock (assuming you still can).
You don't complain about someone not playing nice by playing naughty yourself. You do it by being scrupulously decent. The resulting contrast makes it all the more obvious how wrong they are to anyone watching, by the way.
p.s. if you don't believe the morality argument, that's fine. Think of this, however: would you rather that SCO lose all its money to hosting companies, ISPs, and telecoms, or to a Linux-and-open-source-promoting vendor like IBM? And I ask that as someone who misses his ISP job, even
Get off my launchpad!
I wouldn't expect lawyers for either side to divulge all of their evidence in advance. IBM and SCO are just now beginning the "discovery phase" of the suit. So I anticipate that more revelations will be forthcoming over the next couple of months.
Huh?! SCO is just "discovering" things so they can't come forward and stop the supposed infringment by publishing it and telling everyone to cease and dissist? Yet they know it's cost the at least one billion dollars!? The code was from 1980's era Unix but this is not about copyright? That code is well known and publishded but they consider it a trade secret? It lacks all the advanced code they call "enterprise grade" but IBM stole those features from SCO? When are these SCO idiots going to get their story straight?
It's so undignified, I'm embarassed to watch. Laura Didio, it's obvious you have been pulled in way over your head. Recognize that people who would restrict what you can tell others have something to hide and get out of it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"The Linux business model was bound to change..."
Mr. Mcbride is showing that he just doesn't understand that Linux is not a business model.
Linux is a reality of the market. Deal with it.
Free Software and Open Source are ralities of the market. Deal with that too.
If someone wants to contribute to the industry through Open Source and Free licensing, they can.
No entrance fee required.
For the first time in the history of the industrial revolution, an educated hobbyist can create something that will take business a corporation.
And nothing can be done about it. No legislation required.
And no amount of hair gel will change anything.
Read, L
Near the bottom of the InformationWeek roundup SCO's McBride states:
"The notion that you're going to run a Fortune 1,000 company on something that in the end could be more like Napster than an enterprise software system, it's a big question mark."
The efforts of thousands of dedicated, skilled programmers working for years to develop one of the most beneficial collections of software ever devised... yep, just like Napster!
Laura Didio at least identified some of the code areas: "The claims are not limited to just one area of the Unix System V kernel. SCO claims there are multiple instances of copyright violations. SCO said these include: NUMA (Non Uniform Memory access) a mechanism for enabling large multiprocessing systems, RCU (Read Copy Update) (and) SMP."
As far as NUMA goes, this is clearly aimed at the Monterey project. For a good laugh read the SCO Press Release on Industry Support for Project Monterey
I don't see how SCO can make it's "mutual mistake" (aka the pregnant cow) argument for NUMA. Their SCO Linux 4 datasheet advertises NUMA functionality as a feature of the GPL'd "Linux kernel 2.4.19" and trumps up SCO's Linux expertise and support for this kernel. I really don't see how they can win a trade secret case when they ADVERTISE and SUPPORT the open source release of the secret.
I've read the links above, and have been following the claims from both sides of this issue, and have come to a conclusion:
Linux development cannot be stopped.
I reached this conclusion by looking solely at how Linux has been created. The kernel has progressed through the efforts of thousands of contributors from around the world. Each of them can lay a legal claim to portions of the kernel. They contributed to the kernel under the full knowledge that no one could take their contribution away based on IP rights. Are these developers going to stop developing if SCO's claims prove to be true?
Also, what does SCO hope to secure from the Linux community? They are guilty of distibuting the very product that they claim infringes on their IP. I believe that they do have a right to object to full integration of their property without their concent. That said, I do not believe that their property should be GPL'ed without their permission. But how does their claim of ignorance trump Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, or any other vendor? They had access to the UnixWare source. If they were duped and claim that in court, then they can hardly claim that these other vendors were willful in their conduct. In short, I can't see how they are going to make much headway against the other Linux vendors.
I also don't see where SCO gets the idea that people will pay them for a license to use Linux. The developer community will simply strip out the offending code and will ship the kernel out as a fork. All of the contributors to the kernel will make their claim to their portions of the infringing code and will incorporated it legally into the fork.
SCO will not kill Linux, nor will it kill community development of software. The auditing process will just become more robust.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
But mentions of RCU, NUMA, and SMP would mean that those areas of the kernel would be a REALLY good place to start looking.
Isn't IBM the primary contributor of the NUMA code?
http://oss.software.ibm.com/linux/news/?project_id =56
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Didio: "Check the GPL and look at Section 0. It reads that the legal copyright holder of the source code has to explicitly put an assignment and copyright transfer notice into the beginning of the GPL. There is no concept of accidentally giving away the code to the GPL."
That's not what my copy of the GPL says. It says "This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License."
Further copying and modification are separate. The original author of the program placed the program under the GPL, and it and all distributed derivative works are likewise under the GPL.
If someone modifies and distributes the code, they don't in any way have to reaffirm the GPL notice. They certainly are not required to add additional copyright notices.
Didio's comment about the GPL is a complete misrepresentation, and she reveals herself here as an SCO pawn. I have no reason to believe anything else she said.
Now, according the position paper put together by ESR, SCO's OpenServer doesn't contain NUMA and has crappy SMP.
The question then becomes, if SCO has these things, where did they get them from?
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
I don't think that case has much applicability here for lots and lots of reasons:
1) SCO advertises its linux expertise and supports linux. They can't really claim they didn't know the cow was pregnant here. For example, in the case of NUMA, SCO's datasheets advertise NUMA support in Linux
2) If you read the case, the court found that because of the mutual mistake of thinking the cow was barren, Walker had a "right to rescind, and to refuse to deliver" the prgenant cow. SCO already delivered the pregnant cow. It had babies and grandbabies. Is SCO ready to rescind all the profits they made selling the mistake?
3) The case cited is a Michigan state common law contract case. The GPL issues make this a federal copyright case. State of mind and knowledge of infringement (ie mistakes) are NOT an element of copyright infringement. (see below) They're going to have to do a lot better than state contract law citations to make this argument. Unless they have federal copyright caselaw to cite, I don't think they'll get very far with this argument.
4) This is also a trade secret case. It is settled law that revealing your own trade secret destroys it, mistake or otherwise. You can't "rescind" the destruction of a secret. Moreover, copyright issues aside, Linus has no duty to keep the secret. Even if IBM did screw up and violate their NDA, that doesn't taint Linux. Only copyright issues can taint Linux.
5) Even if the GPL as pertains to SCO is declared void, SCO still needs some licence to distribute the kernel.org owned IP in Linux. SCO can't make up some other licence for Linux, that is not their right. They must choose to accept the GPL or admit infringing the legitimate parts of Linux via their distribution, modification, and copying thereof. Again state of mind (intent) and knowledge of infringement (ie mistakes) are NOT an element of copyright infringement. This is firmly established law, the best examples of which are the "Dance Hall" cases, where vicarious liability was found when dance hall owners allowed the unauthorized public performance of musical works by the bands they hired, even when the owners had no knowledge of the infringements and had even expressly warned the bands not to perform copyrighted works without a license from the copyright owners. [see Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. v. H.L. Green Co., 316 F.2d 304, 307 (2d Cir. 1963) (citing some 10 cases)].
6) Finally, suppose the GPL is deemed breached. Whenever a contract is breached (and this would be especially true if the GPL here was breached by mutual mistake) there is a duty to mitigate damage to the other party. It is important to realize that the alleged wrong-doing here is by IBM, not Linus Torvalds who did little more than commit the same mistake SCO itself claims to have made but without the opportunity SCO had to know it. SCO has steadfastly refused to inform kernel.org of the technical details of the mistake which would allow it to be fixed. Their insistence on an NDA obviously precludes an open source release to fix the problem. Moreover, the actions such as the threat letter sent by SCO to all those companies seem coldly calculated to maximize damage to kernel.org. I think it is inarguable that the damage caused (intentionally) by SCO to Linux is far more substantial than any damage to SCO's IP, which could be easily fixed by simply distentangling the two code bases.
Why do you think SVR4 code "most likely BSD-derived"?
Isn't there about 10 years worth of System V development that was never merged back with BSD?
If you don't know how to do it, you really don't want to.
The point stands that we have seen unattributed BSD code in the Linux kernel in the past so it's possible there is more that nobody noticed.
Anyway, I'm not claiming this is definitely the case just that it's one possible explanation. SCO now says they've checked for possible BSD source but I'll believe it when we find out what code they're talking about and unrelated parties can check it out (or, better, we can see exactly who checked in the code and ask them).
I find it particularly interesting that they're claiming that significant stolen code is in stuff like NUMA support, which SVR4.1 did not have, or SMP support which SVR4.1 did remarkably poorly. These claims seem like they'd be difficult to substantiate.
I guess it'll all come out in court.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
if these two Germans are not under the NDA they should just post the code. If it was lifted from BSD, the original author should be able to identify their own work.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too