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The Power Behind the SCO Nuisance
akahige writes "Forbes has a fairly detailed story about the sordid history of The Canopy Group and all the various companies they've sued -- Microsoft (who they beat) and CA (this case is still pending), among them. Before joining Caldera, Darl McBride sued IKON Office Solutions, for whom he worked -- and won. And it also seems that a bunch of Canopy power players also sit on SCO's board of directors. The short summary is, 'these guys are professional litigious bastards -- be exceptionally wary.'" A local user's group is planning a protest for tomorrow. Reader myst564 writes: "After reading all of this SCO press I remembered that SCO once offered up all of their 'Ancient UNIX' (their words, not mine) source to the world while retaining all copyrights (i.e, no OSS license). Interestingly enough it WAS located here but isn't any longer: SCO's Ancient Unix. What's more you can read about the original release here at: Linux Today. I downloaded the source myself way back then but never did anything but delete it! Anyway, check out this comment. It's interesting that this was predicted in 2000!"
Itâ(TM)s a small fish that feeds on big fish. Not symbiotically either.
âBut it is very good at getting what it wants from other companies.â
Thatâ(TM)s because (law) practise makes perfect.
So then SCO isnâ(TM)t suing IBM because IBM is illegally interfering with implementing their business model, suing (IBM in this case) is their business model.
What then are they really contributing? Is SCO really a software company? What is it? Maybe it contributes within Canopy, but not for a wider good.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
Bill Baxter - Subject: Not Open Source, I'm afraid. ( Feb 23, 2000, 00:01:50 )
Note that these releases are not open source. SCO retain rights to the source code. Maybe they even hope that some of their code will wind up in linux, so that they can then sue, and render the Linux license terms invalid. Or would they be that spiteful? My guess == yes.
Really a good hunch, this one...
But, even if they retain the rights, the fact they had them published publicly make the source open knowledge, no ?
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Yeah that's right, you can still download the code
There once was a time when anyone wanting to get rich quick could join the Bureau of Indian Affairs or start a railroad. I guess those times are gone and stepping on toes is becoming the order of the day.
I'm trying to remain positive and think that this is part of an evolution toward revolution. Maybe someday we as a society can shame these people away.
These licenses permit hobbyists and enthusiasts to have access to the source code of these historic releases, for personal and non-commercial use, and to share experiences and code updates with other authorized individuals having corresponding licenses. SCO has received numerous favorable responses from UNIX enthusiasts around the world, including messages such as, "Future computer historians will greatly appreciate what you have achieved!" and "I've wanted access to this material for nearly 20 years! Well done!"
The keyword has been put in bold: it now looks more like ibm's problem than Linux problem as Linux is supposed to be exchanged a non-commercial way (even though the GPL predicts a reasonable fee may be asked for in order to amort some expenses)...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
If you take a look on their homepage, you can spot TrollTech's Logo! What are the interests of these people in TrollTech and QT?
> And it also seems that a bunch of Canopy power players also sit on SCO's board of directors. The short summary is, 'these guys are professional litigious bastards -- be exceptionally wary.'
I can't find the link, but someone posted to one of the (many) Slashdot SCO stories last week with a link showing that about half a dozen board members had bought large numbers of shares at greatly discounted prices just a few weeks before SCO gave IBM the original ultimatum. (When I say "discounted" I mean far below even the 60Â/share that SCOX was worth back then.)
Coincidence?
Someone please post that link again, if you have it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Check out all the Canopy-funded company : only one is viable, and it's Center 7.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
OS, Web Server and Hosting History for sco.com
OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.3.2-RC 17-Jun-2003 216.250.140.112 NFT
Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 28-Nov-2002 216.250.140.112 NFT
Linux Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.3pl1 12-Aug-2002 216.250.140.125 NFT
SCO UNIX Netscape-FastTrack/2.01 26-Mar-2002 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc.
SCO UNIX unknown 24-Mar-2002 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc.
SCO UNIX Netscape-FastTrack/2.01 10-Oct-2001 132.147.210.109 Caldera, Inc.
SCO UNIX Netscape-Enterprise/2.01 30-Mar-2001 209.1.8.14 Cable & Wireless
SCO UNIX unknown 29-Mar-2001 209.1.8.14 Cable & Wireless
SCO UNIX Netscape-Enterprise/2.01 23-Dec-2000 209.1.8.14 Cable & Wireless
SCO UNIX unknown 22-Dec-2000 209.1.8.14 Cable & Wireless
it is ironic that the OSS movement main goal is to avoid corporate lock down and give freedom for the end user. /. article the source code that found its way to the kernel was like 60 lines of code, so I'm suppose to believe that 60 lines of code is all what is needed to make an enterprise OS out of a toy OS?
...until Tux became the darling of IBM and that dragged us into a sleazy corprate war, i think the whole matter stinks especially when lawyers creep in.
Maybe its time to question the benefit of corporate support to Linux.
IIRC SCO said that whatever IBM put into the kernel magically turned Linux from a "toy bicycle" OS to an enterprise grade OS, and in another
yeah sure..
Does this strategy perhaps demonstrate the lack of any real basis to the case? Or is it that the case is vague enough so that there's the opportuninity for legal FUD to churn cash?
Inquiring minds want to know.
...tizzyd
You can exchange it with other non-professional users for your personal use, can't you ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Just a comment (probably naieve and dumb), but why can't we turn the tables on SCO?
Surely there are a lot of "mom & pop" computer stored with a few distro's of linux lying around. They could take SCO to their local small-claims court and sue for their loss of revenue due to SCO's unfounded ranting and raving hurting their sales of retail packages of Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, etc. You could take this to small claims court, where it is usually something like $30 to start a suit.
Most places have a small claims limit of something like $500 or so, but $500 x (number of counties in US) is a whopping huge number. And it would cost more to hire a lawyers in every county than it would to pay the claims off.
The entire community could be a royal pain in the @$$ to SCO!
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
The problem is this is a lawsuit between SCO and IBM. The Linux community may have an opinion on that suit, but a community can't really bring a suit for somebody verbally defecating on their common favorite product - this isn't Germany, and we don't have strong laws in the US against verbal diarrhea (note that there are now injunctions against SCO in Germany for some of their behavior in this conflict - because the Linux community there DID do something about it). The Linux community can't do much except chest pound since SCO hasn't done much except chest pound, unless a specific commercial organization (like Redhat for example) decides to sue SCO for interfering with their business relationships, defamation, libel, or something else. If I was the CEO of Redhat, I think you'd see that I have a rather big swinging dick, and I'd get my lawyers on these fucks in no time. Of course, IBM still has a hell of a lot more money to litigate this and it makes some sense to let SCO continue to attack those who can well afford an excellent defense (and counter-offense) until SCO moves to actually do anything except blabber their mouth at anybody else.
There's an article on vnunet that hints at what is really going on. It's sleazier than most have even imagined. When IBM, SCO and Sequent got together for project Monteray, the Sequent code for RCU, NUMA and other scalability enhancements were integrated in to the SysV OS they were building. While Sequent, and later IBM, owned their own code, SCO owned the rights to determine its continued usage. This is a result of the rather odious old ATT license agreements.
So, what SCO is claiming isn't that Linux has code taken from anything SCO ever created. They are claiming that Linux has code that was created by Sequent (now owned by IBM) and IBM and that the Unix licensing agreements give SCO rights over that code. SCO is suing IBM for giving away its own code because a goofy licensing agreement says they can.
See http://shop.sco.com/caldera/ancient.html to see the license on their own web server. But that's not really interesting because they've released all of this stuff except for System III under a BSD-style license (including advertising clause) in the meantime, as you can see at http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf. Another interesting link is http://unixtools.sourceforge.net/, pointing to some System V userland code released by Caldera in 2001.
... the Ancient UNIX source code? If we compared it against the Linux kernel source then we might get some hints of what areas SCO are claiming have been copied. We could then trace back to the original source of the copied code - SCO (= trouble for Linux), Linux (= trouble for SCO) or BSD (= trouble for SCO).
I kind of like the idea of screwing SCO using information they once put in the public domain.
and more specifically:
What comes after this section is the definition of what can be considered to fall under the "Publication Doctrine". Essentially, the issue here is whether publication of the source code happened to 'selected groups' or it was published to a wider audience. If SCO actually published the source code on their website, there was no screening procedure - which is needed to make a convincing point. Even if they had a screening procedure, they would have to convince the judge that this screening procedure can be successfully applied to narrow down the audience selected for viewing the source code. Apparently, plaintiff was not successful at convincing the judge.
Note that we talked about Copyright infringement so far. What comes next is more similar to SCO's claims. You can see how SCO's doom is spelled out in this verdict:
The concept of preempted claims is quite difficult to
But you know. . . My old plan is still a good plan.
The game is entirely rigged, and as such, those who play by the rules are chumps. Make up your own rules, make them good ones, and then follow them. That'd be "Chaotic Good" to those of you out there with little bags of dice. The only alignment worth living!
--With the exception of small producers with no corporate ties, (and the odd Lucasarts game when Lucas' brain was still made of grey matter), I've never payed for software in my life, much less an operating system, and I'm not about to start now. SCO can go blow.
--And you watch! If SCO wins their little scramble, it'll be amazing to see just how fast the free software community responds. Talk about a unified force! "Linux; The Revenge"
Sign me up for an advance copy of that!
Sociopaths are not human. Destroy them before they destroy you. Don't waste your good conscience on them, because they haven't got one.
-FL
Many have commented that this is a suit about lawyers more than about technoogy or even law. That's true in a lot of cases, but this one is especially interesting for law-geeks becaue it pits David Boies (former superstar litigation partner at a New York uberfirm) against that very New York uberfirm, Cravath Swaine & Moore.
SCO has hired Boies, whom slashdotters will remember as lawyer who so skillfully and successfully led the Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft and less successfully defended Napster (as well, perhaps, as for his less successful outings in Florida representing then vice-president Gore). IBM has chosen Cravath, its longtime counsel for "bet the company" litigation. Interestingly, Boies made his career as a young lawyer at Cravath by his (successful) work defending IBM against a massive Justice Department antitrust suit in the late 1970s (and 80s, the suit went on for something like 17 years before IBM finally prevailed). There is certainly no love lost between Cravath and Boies and the fight promises to be a fascinating one for lawyers and law-watchers. In any event, SCO's choice of cousel is an extremely canny one, though Boies' typical roster of slashdot-friendly clients has now, one assumes, been somewhat besmirched.
"The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government." - George Washington
But, even if they retain the rights, the fact they had them published publicly make the source open knowledge, no ?
It certainly nukes any 'trade secrets' litigation that references that code, but with SCO's ever mutating rhetoric and accusations, it really amounts to just another stone in the pile which as become a mountain of evidence that SCO has no case, no legitimate claims whatsoever, and is merely grandstanding dramatically in a burnout that will amuse those watching, enrich their patrons (Microsoft and the other mystery party that I am becoming convinced may well be Sun Microsystems), and in the short term hurt, but in the long run vindicate with a vengeance, both GNU/Linux and the free software/open source paradigm.
We know their claims are nonsense. We know their complaint (while it must be taken seriously and fought) is groundless. We know that, were the government at all willing to enforce anti-trust law, Microsoft would not be daring to underwrite this, and we know that, were the justice department at all interested in enforcing corporate law in general (against, say, the likes of Enron and WorldCom), that most of the board of directors of this letigious group would be under serious investigation for stock market manipulation and insider trading, starting now and continuing through the end of the trial, when it will with near certainty be proven that (a) they never had a case, (b) they knew this and (c) they have violated the copyright of Linux and perhaps other projects consistently, over a long period of time, and continue to do so today (they are still distributing Linux today even while claiming their alleged code isn't under GPL).
With respect to the article itself, these people are certainly letigious thugs, and they should be taken seriously, but lets not forget the author's bias, where he frequently refers to free software developers and enthusiasts dismissively as "crunchies," so while it is interesting to know what sub-human filth comprises SCO and its umbrella group, this isn't really anything new, and the article's spin (which is an underscoring of FUD, really) contains a rather transparent and quite significant anti-free software bias.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
No, do not mod the parent is being funny. He is being serious, and i must agree with him. Because SCO's claims all look so ridiculous like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, IBM might not present a defense as strong as it could because they don't take the claims all that seriously.
/. concerning SCO. Its just people saying "SCO is dying and just screaming as it goes down" "SCO is such a loser!" "SCO has no claim!". No one appears to be taking them seriously. It is a brilliant legal strategy, and if IBM does not play its cards right, there is a chance for a fatal blow to be dealt to the GNU/Linux community, i sadly must say.
Look at all the other posts on
All of these facts about "Ancient Unix", predictions of SCO shenanigans, the wayback machine, etc. are obviously of some interest to IBM. Aside from commenting in Slashdot (and hoping that IBM is reading), is there a better way to share this useful research? I have nothing to offer besides a general disdain for SCO (as if there was a shortage of that), but others seem to be digging up some fine dirt.
The OSS people have collaborative efforts on so many development projects, I think this is an opportunity to "turn the aircraft carrier into the wind" and focus the OSS "mental firepower" to sink SCO. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself agreeing with IBM (on anything), but here we are. Yes, I actually want a Fortune 500 company to have its way with a [former] Linux distributor. It must be snowing in Hell.
This contract dispute revolves around the ancient wording of the original AT&T contracts. All AT&T contracts contain wording about them owing the "derivative works". This caused some concern "back in the day" (I remember being concerned when I had to sign one...), however these concerns turned out groundless. The contract only covers true derivative works, i.e., works which included the original sources.
Most modifications to UNIX (V6, V7, etc.) were distributed as pure diffs, i.e., ed-diffs and did not include any of the surrounding context the way that diffs do now. That means that the modifications included only the original work, owned and copyrighted by the authors and not AT&T.
Now, the revisionist historians at SCO want to try to enforce a much stricter definition of what constitutes a derivative work. IBM clarified the contract with the famous "side-letter", explicitly claiming all of their modifications as their own property. SCO seeks to claim RCU as their property under the strict definition of derivative work interpretation of their contract with Sequent. IBM claims that when they bought Sequent, their contract clairification overrides the Sequent contract, so they own RCU now and can donate it.
Who wins in this contract dispute? IBM, since the long history of the AT&T contracts and the various USENIX tapes supports the idea that people who modify UNIX own their modifications, not AT&T. SCO cannot swoop in and change history to suit themselves, or the desires of the Camopy Group.
McBride purchased 7003 shares at .001 dollars per share. That's right. He paid $7 for for stock worth around $70,000 at the current overvaluation.
The more interesting thing to note is section 15. It shows that after purchasing these 7003 shares, he owned 15003 shares. That implies that he only had 8000 shares before the purchase. However, if you look at some earlier forms 4 for him, you'll notice that in March of this year, he acquired 200,000 shares of stock.
This means that there must still be some forms 4 in the system that have not made it into EDGAR online yet. Unless, I'm reading this wrong, sometime between March and now, McBride dumped over 200K shares of stock. I'd love to see an SEC investigation of all of this.
Here's a link for SCO related SEC filings.
I disagree further. This is not really a test of GPL or lawyers - this is a test of Cathedral vs. Bazaar - specifically, those companies and entities whose fortunes are tied to closed - source, proprietary code casting fear and doubt on open-source and collaborative development methods.
Unless SCO loses completely and fully - even if they only win on some small technical point - Microsoft will never let it go. They will beat every IT manager over the head with the 'risk of IP contamination' that open-source methods supposedly have.
Yes, this is bad news...
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
I try to keep an overview of the facts pertaining to this case and it seems as if the quote "professional litigious bastards" has more to it than first meets the eye. Consider the newer bits of info that become apparent in this article:
According to the article it seems very likely that the Canopy Group is involved in some kind of scheme in which the companies it owns buy one anothers stocks in order to push up interest in that stock which is then sold to outsiders at a profit, only to be later bought back, again at a profit, when the stock tanks once again. The sudden boost in SCO stock since this case has begun is indeed very reminiscent of what is described on the Forbes page.
Not only this, but it seems as if these groups of companies specifically look for cheap old products that they can buy and then use as ammunition in IP lawsuits. It also looks as if they specifically look for employees who have experience in litigation, such as Darl McBride, who has yet to show any knowledge of Unix or software whatsoever apart from the fact that it has lines.
Added to all this, it seems as if this company specifically teams up with whoever is willing to be a vested interest in order to sabotage some other companies market. The mention of Redmond Wa, Vista.com as well as the knowledge that Center 7 and SCO were trying to port Active Directory to Unix says a lot to me in terms of the word Microsoft and Microsoft's common tactics of sabotaging with underhand tactics anyone who gets in it's way.
I do start to see the MO of this suit: Go for as many points as possible, no matter how remotely removed they are from the actual suit itself, because this generates DOUBT amongst managers and shareholders, who routinely have no knowledge of computers whatsoever. No matter how long this actual suit carries on, SCO can make a profit on it's stock which it's managers are now unloading on outsiders, which they will then buy back when the stock inevitably tanks.
SCO, in fact the entire Canopy Group's main line of business is simply making money. This may sound obvious, but think about what it means. It means they have no interest in any real product and simply want to make money in any way they can. They might very well have released the "ancient Unix" code years ago for the sole purpose of trolling for some suckers to misuse their code. To me, usually when some American company starts sprouting BS in the form of "so that users can share experiences and code with developers, mafiosi etc" I know it's a lie.
I think that IBM is very right to take this case to court as was CA to continue their case. I think IBM is going to wait until enough evidence has been released in order for them to counter sue SCO and it's parent into the ground. The details of this case will be very interesting in that I expect SCO's indirect dealings with Microsoft to come to the for eventually.
The only thing that really worries me personally, as a MacOSX user, is that Apple has based it's browser on Trolltech's Qt toolkit. If Trolltech is indeed owned by Canopy (stupid fucks, how could they let that happen), then it could very well be yet another bait. KDE might have some huge potential problems comming up as well.
And the author certainly seems enamored of SCO because they won a lawsuit over IP in the past. Heck, "they always get their way".
That arrogance is going to get SCO eviscerated. IBM takes no prisoners in the courtroom - expecially when it comes to IP. Without IP, IBM would be selling boat anchors.
It's probably going to take a while - maybe even years - but IBM will squash SCO and put McBride's head on a pike as an example for anyone else who wants to try a shakedown of Big Blue.
Why's IBM been quiet in the face of SCO's assault? Two reasons, IMO: making a counter noise would be unprofessional and undignified, and IBM never takes any lawsuit lightly.
As has been stated ad nauseam, IBM has also a big legal team, backed by the biggest share of patents in the US.
SCO management appears to have bitten off a bit more than they can reasonably chew. At this point, if they had a bit more sense, they would have either approached IBM calmly with ideas towards making Linux better in their own long-term interests (unlikely, but anything's possible), or attempted to reach some form of settlement.
Saying as they have done that IBM rebuffed them, and even threatened to eat their business, is to my mind just a lot of huff.
I think the Forbes writer may have had a point on first glance, but further examination pretty negates it totally. My 2 cents, anyway.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
When are those SCOundrels going to stop abusing Mickey Mouse in the logo? Mickey Mouse is a trademark of the Walt Disney Company.
Sounds like a larger version of the shake down the Trevor Law Group was pulling in L.A. before they got SMACKED by KFI radio. These guys were suing little businesses for small infractions in the "name of the people" or $X amount and we'll go away!
scox has $10 million in cashes and loses at least $25 million a year. These IP cases usually take at least three years, but it looks to me as if this one will take much longer.
It looks to me like there is only one way that scox to survive until the lawsuit is settled, and that is if scox gets more fud money from sunw and/or msft.
opinions?
btw: scox insiders are still selling.
... MS settled. SCO didn't have to beat them. MS did this the day before the Novell revelations, no doubt the timing of Novell's announcement was influenced by the timing of MS's settlement.
l8,
AC
So, once this infringing few lines (comments?) from the Linux source code is found, removed and the "F-OFF SCO!" kernel patch is released? How long can SCO live?
I hope they take a long walk off a short branch hanging over a cliff and disappear in to nothing. I for one expect my self continue to use, modify what I see fit, contribute what I could, and distribute everything freely long after SCO is gone and forgotten. I am sure I am not alone.
It's interesting to read their company history:
http://www.tarantella.com/about/history.html
I'll bet today they are VERY sorry they gave their good name to Caldera -- it looks like Caldera took over the operating systems and, I guess, the SCO name in 2001. It's usually been portrayed here and on other sites that the Santa Cruz Operation (who I know as SCO since I live in the SF Bay Area and we actually used SCO XENIX and OpenServer way back when) is the same as the SCO group and they (the current bad guys) bought UNIX from Novell in 1995.
According to the above link, the original SCO bought UNIX from Novell in 1995, then in 2001 Caldera bought the "operating systems divisions" or UNIX from the original SCO. I assume the purchase included the purchase of the SCO name since the original SCO renamed themselves Tarantella in that same year when the purchase was made and Caldera renamed themselves SCO Group.
So, it seems that this B.S. from the "SCO Group" has only started in the past 1-2 years, and it was probably completely initiated by those scumbags currently calling themselves SCO. They don't deserve to wear that name, IMHO...
Ah, but the guy who supposedly didn't sign an NDA stated that the worst case (the Scheduler) looked like pre-SysV code. While one should take that with a grain of salt, it's going to be hellaciously hard for them to prove that the code is indeed SysV specific AND show that they are the proper owners of said code. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Their case has holes big enough to drive the USS Enterprise (CV-65) straight through.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I remember reading about a study where groups of college students were asked to debug the same program, but each group was given a different indentation level. There was a dramatic decrease in time to debug when the level was increased, up to 4 spaces, but after that it hit diminishing returns. So, 4 is often considered optimum.
The article describes a company that operates a lot like Enron, although on a much smaller scale, shuffling funds from one company to another as needed to prop up their FTC reports.
But then the article concludes that this is a company to be recconed with!!
Sounds more like a house of cards too me. Now we know that the lunacy going on at SCO is inherited from "The Canopy Group". I bet we get to see them on TV in handcuffs before too long.
The most usefull thing about the article though is that it gives the names of about 5 more people, and several more companies that you should never do business with if you want to walk away with your wallet. I'll add them to my list.
I also signed up for alerts for when these crooks, errr "businessmen" engage in other noteworthy activities.
"You have successfully signed up for the following News Alerts: Canopy Group, Linux, Darl McBride, Ralph J. Yarro III! "
My theories:
1.)This is a slight against developer's hygiene. They were implying that we wash our clothes so infrequently that they get crunchy, and that we bathe so infrequently that crunchy things begin to live in our hair.
2.)They were trying to tie us in with hippies. Hippies are notorious for their love of granola and grape nuts, which are crunchy. Hippies are also often commies, and open source is a commie idea.
3.)They were (as a previos poster mentioned) using military slang for infantry, implying that OSS advocates are the foot soldiers of the movement.
4.)Some reference to number or code crunching? But this is a stretch, I think.
5.)They are implying that we are all druggies: I have heard people coming down from some drugs say that they feel "crunchy," which is the result of being "fried" for too long.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Not sure about the US, but here in Australia you can ask a court to rule an entity (person or organisation) as a vexatious litigant. This basically means the entity has to petition the court before they commence any legal proceeding and show that they're not just being annoying bastards...