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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!"
You did not count on the Way Back machine Herr Doktor SCO?
Here's a working link..
Enjoy!
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
Quote: "these guys are professional litigious bastards"
:)
Given the statement that's a fairly brave thing to say in a public forum
The GPL has never been tested in court. SCO's claim that they own the Linux source code is clearly ridiculous--how can a person own an idea? So there's no doubt in my mind that Linux will emerge victorious in the end, which makes GPL, and therefore GPL/Linux, even stronger!
So bring it on, we welcome the test! Any thoughts?
Thanks for the libel, we were wondering who we were going to sue today. See you in court!
Sincerely,
The SCO Corporation
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
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
Lets all invest our money in SCOs stock!! Then they are guaranteed to tank and go out of business in no time! It's time we made this tech bubble burst work FOR us.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Courtesy of the wayback machine:
http://www.sco.com/offers/ancient_unix.html
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
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.
So, that brings up an obvious question:
Is the ancient software found at
http://www.tuhs.org/archive_sites.html legal?
What is the probability that SCO will rescind the public availability of it?
These guys in Utah are no dummies. The crunchies in the Linux community should be paying more attention.
,"That's not Fair!" while SCO continues to pound away. How many of us had the "Life-isnt-always-Fair" revelation?
I know which side I'm on, and I know everyone is pretty sure they know what side they are on, but I cant help getting the feeling that Linux side is relying way to much on the Fair principle and forgetting that it is quite difference from Justice in the legal systems.
What I am trying to say is that
Justice does not equal Fairness.
Ie It may not be Fair what SCO is trying to pull, but the legal courts are also concerned with what is Just and in this we are talking money and if the legal courts are about anything, they are about money. Making sure there are legal grounds to protect property (money).
Thus, What I see is the linux community simply yelling
Is the Linux community about to get the same?
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Let's not, eh? A weak test isn't a test. And I don't really think IBM gives that much of a shit about the GPL compared to beating the shit out of SCO. Also, as mentioned ad nauseam on here, allowing SCO to even make the braindead contention that the GPL screwed their IP could be nothing but bad for Linux in general. Look, if SCO's CEO says the GPL screwed them, other companies' CEO's might listen and prevent their CIO's from implementing linux. We'd just as soon avoid that, I expect.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
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?
Perhaps there was meant to be a NOT in there somewhere?
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
> 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 has now become clear to me that SCO has a very good chance of winning every single one of their claims.
By observing the public statements made almost daily by SCO and their spokespeople, the secret of their strategy has emerged and I now clearly see it. There is a very real and serious danger here.
Really, I must hand it to SCO. A brilliant legal strategy.
I don't believe the open source community has previously contemplated this particular type of legal attack.
SCO's strategy is simply this: they will win all claims, because IBM's lawyers will be unable to present a good defense, because IBM's lawyers are unable to concentrate, due to their inability to stop laughing. This will be especially unfavorable if this laughing behavior carries over into the courtroom.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
"The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. P.O. Box 7745
San Francisco, CA 94120-7745
United States of America"
The current SCO is NOT the same as the former SCO. (Now the Tarantella Group.)
If you read the article, you'll see that the current SCO was formerly Caldera. Caldera bought the Unix rights from SCO, the old SCO became Tarantella (which was one of their products IIRC...), and then Caldera renamed to The SCO Group.
That source offer was made by people with no management connection to McBride...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Never mind that stuff about decaffeinated coffee. What about weaning people onto deSCOffeinated Slashdot once this is all over? There'll be millions of geeks worldwide going "need..... SCO...... news......." and shaking.
The Linux @ Work section on Forbes seems to be authored by pro-MS people. To them, linux is something only fanatics use. Unfortunately, it appears that most of what they are currently suing over was done by them before their current lawsuit happy management was in charge. It's bad when you wish Ransom Love was back in charge of Caldera/SCO/whatever they want to be called.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
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
So they're buying each other's stocks, raising the prices and then selling them to outsiders at a profit.
In this cozy company, SCO even leases its office space from Canopy--a fact disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, along with the fact that SCO's chief financial officer, Robert Bench, has a side job as a partner in a Utah consulting firm that last year billed SCO for $71,200.
So they're renting space from the parent company, at possibly below market rates, making their own profits look bigger OR at above market rates making the parent companies profits look bigger.
But I'm confused how the CFO, who has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders of SCO, can also be a partner of a company (hence having a fiduciary responsibility to his partners) that consults for SCO. He has cross-loyalties. Either the contracts with the firm are too generous, benefiting his partners at the expense of the shareholders OR the contracts are too strict screwing over his partners to the benefit fo the shareholders.
I almost wish now that I had been using SCO's products all along -- Just so I could make a declaration about how "I will never use them again!"
But alas, some malevolent twist of fate has conspired to keep me from such bliss....
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
Before you know it, you receive an envelope from SCO on your doorstep, as you now have seen their sources, and you might be working on Linux..
Caveat emptor!
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
In other words, like many religious folk, the money-grubbing fsckwits in the sue-the-world movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will take their word for it.
Doh! I've been trolled by Forbes!
The Forbes article is unbearably basic and takes the view that SCO have a good chance because Caldera won a previous case against Microsoft.
No attempts to examine any facts are made, with the assumption being that Caldera won the DR-DOS case only because the judge agreed with them and not because Microsoft actually did anything wrong. Whilst the judge's decision does determine the outcome, if you want to analyse the situation before the end of the case then you must look at the facts yourself, i.e. they are not irrelevant!
- Brian.
The evidence is clear, right from the fresh 2.4.21 kernel (under bluetooth):
"Say Y here to compile SCO support into the kernel or say M to compile it as module (sco.o)."
Pretty strong evidence there, huh?
Every single SCO story on Slashdot gets a lot of comments - far higher than average. This means that these stories are very, very popular to the readers. Why, pray tell, should Slashdot stop posting popular stories? It doesn't make sense.
As for a new IBM vs. SCO topic - this thing is time limited. When IBM has utterly devastated SCO, there will be nothing more to report.
Please, stop the whining about the SCO stories. They are obviously very popular, so you are a tiny minority. And as the saying goes, if you don't like what's posted on Slashdot, go somewhere else. Simple.
Clever signature text goes here.
Your honor, I downloaded the file, but I did not decompress.
"These guys in Utah are no dummies. The crunchies in the Linux community should be paying more attention. "
I have a hard time taking seriously a writer who uses the word "crunchies".
The fact that SCO has published their code has absolutely nothing to do with this case.
Their license is pretty clear that you can't use in a projects as the Linux kernel, BUT, this doesn't matter.
For the moment, there's no proof for ANY SCO PROPRIATARY code in the kernel, and I believe that it'd be really hard to proove this. So, looking at old stories is just shifting the attention from the main subject, and nothing more.
The thing that strikes from this article is that those guys just don't look the type that'll start FUD-ing, if the don't believe they've some chance to win... that's scary.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
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
I disagree. I have YET to hear anyone on slashdot say anythign to the affect of "thats not fair." What people are saying is "Thats not right." People are pointing out lies and misrepresentations they believe SCO is making. Nobody is simply crying foul.
more than 1/2 the work of the lawyers will be research into the issue. The community has already produced mounds of information that lawyers can and WILL use in court. Look at what was found today about the Anchient UN*X code being shown, and the predicition of law suit.
I think the Linux community is not a bunch of kids but intelligent working professionals that know exactly what is going down here and is offering their help in the best way they each know how.
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
Do these people (canopy, SCO, whatever) actually produce anything, or is all their revenue generated through litigation? If this were a biological analogy, I would say that this is classic example of a parasite.
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
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.
Where are my moderation points when I need them.
-1 Troll.
Sorry, guys, but this DOES matter. Linux is the POSTERCHILD for OSS and the GPL. If LINUX DOES get dragged into this, and SCO IS sucessful, the general public will most likely view all OSS and GPL software as 'risky', and everyone will be afraid to use it because of that risk of litigation.
Does SCO have a viable position? IANAL, so I have NO idea. But I CAN see what possible outcomes would be, and what affect they could have on our post-dot-com industry.
I'm STILL hoping for a viable alternative to the crappy quality code MS puts out. MAC ain't gonna do it... they're too desktop focused. Linux is currently the strongest contendor. If SCO wins, this could DRAMATICALLY change the face of Linux.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
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.
And on this linke http://web.archive.org/web/20000816145931/www.sco. com/linux/
you will find this... "A corporate sponsor of Linux International, SCO has always supported open standards, UNIX Systems and server-based technologies and solutions that benefit business computing. Our engineers have continuously participated in the Open Source movement, providing source code such as lxrun, and the OpenSAR kernel monitoring utility. We offer a free Open Source software supplement that includes many Open Source technologies as well as making our commercial UNIX products available free for non-commercial use. "
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 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.
Or does SCO seem to be more and more like the black knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
IBM: You fought well sir knight, but the battle is mine.
SCO: Tis but a scratch!
IBM: A scratch?! I just took your arm off!
SCO: It's just a flesh wound!
ETC ETC ETC.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The SCO-IBM case is centered around two assumptions:
1. Unix Source went into Linux
2. This was because of a violation of an agreement SCO had with IBM
Now that it seems that the Unix sourcecode was in the open, how will they ever prove that IBM put it in Linux, breaching the agreement? Anybody could have done that, if the source code was copied from Unix to Linux at all.
the pun is mightier than the sword
So you're like -- interested in all the countless other stories using the Caldera icon, but not the SCO vs IBM stories?
Turn off the Caldera stories in your user preferences, then hush and enjoy your peace while the rest of us keep an eye on the most important thing to happen to free software this century.
I'll bet you use Mandrake.
The Forbes writer missed one thing: it isn't the Linux companies SCO and Canopy are suing, and against the company they are suing they're relatively small fish. IBM is the defendant named in their lawsuit. Remember the IBM-DOJ antitrust suit? The one that IBM fought to a standstill for 20 years? The one that IBM effectively won?
The Linux people may or may not be right, but IBM's saying SCO is blowing smoke and IBM has the legal department and the paper trail and audit trail procedures in place to be certain they know what they're talking about. And this suit is a direct threat to their core business, they aren't going to take it laying down nor pull any punches in dealing with it.
.
If you read the article, you'll see that the current SCO was formerly Caldera. Caldera bought the Unix rights from SCO, the old SCO became Tarantella (which was one of their products IIRC...), and then Caldera renamed to The SCO Group.
Which pill makes me small?
Seriously though, this is going to be part of what hurts NewSCO if this ever get's to the courts.
They are going to have a darned hard time showing what they really own, what they stole, and what was borrowed... long before they ever became NewSCO.
The wiggle room that they have built into thier complaint is they are not really using copyright, or patent as the basis for the suit, they are using contract law.
And they are alleging the transfer and or use of 'Unix Methods and proceedures'. This is a fuzzy area that may not even be answerable.
Part trade secret, part dogma. If you didn't know about how to do something, or that something could be done, you might never have developed it yourself, even without using the original Unix code, or seeing the affect.
Might be true, might not, but the contract kinda binds you up and makes you liable, even if you didn't peek under the covers.
These are the kind of arguments that RMS had for creating GNU in the first place.
Owning code is one thing, controlling ideas is another, and what SCO is attempting is not protection of code, but restriction of ideas.
The temptation is to throw out the phrase UnAmerican right about here, but that's not right. Corperations are not American, or Canadian, or Egyptian... they are just big money making machines that have more rights, fewer morals, than individuals and total disregard for anything but more profit/power.
In the army, infantry are refered to as "crunchies" because of the sound they make while marching in formation. Crunch, crunch, crunch. So they're the crunchies.
In context, she was referring to the army of Linux developers, and specifically, the ones doing the dirty work.
I can imagine that IBM might care about the GPL. After all, it gives them:
(1) a free, very dedicated, and huge developer base for code that runs on their systems
(2) A ton of good will from said coder-base, thus sales into the future are much more likely
(3) It helps keep down that upstart competitor from the NorthWest.
At this point, there are just too many computer-savvy people to make "Only IBM" a reality. The code will be developed, one way or another. So IBM's best bet is "IBM at the head of the stack of everyone." Since IBM has invested in Linux, IBM does have reason to push development under Linux.
These reasons lead me to believe that yes, IBM does care about the GPL. Not for the sake of the GPL, but for the sake of their own business. So I'd say that their motivation is dual, and if given a choice between "let SCO destroy Linux, and we squash SCO" and "squash SCO before SCO destroys Linux", they'll likely choose the latter, even defending Linux in court.
When it's the masse rabble against the castle, it's usually a ton better to be the guy directing the rabble, than to be the guy in the castle. Especially if the guy directing the rabble also has access to a ton of munitions. I think IBM has already chosen their spot, and that's where they'll be. This one doesn't look to me like what America pulled on Iraqi Sikhs ("yeah, rise up, and we'll support you, probably").
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
IBM should follow Jerry Jones's (owner of the Dallas Cowboys) lead.
NFL Properties, the league's business and marketing arm, filed a $300 million lawsuit in September 1995 that challenged licensing and sponsorship agreements involving Jones and Texas Stadium that included private contracts with Nike, AT&T, Dr Pepper, American Express and Pepsi. The suit contended those arrangements violated NFL Properties' centralized licensing and marketing role.
In response, the Cowboys filed a $700 million lawsuit in November 1995, charging that NFL Properties' centralized role violated antitrust laws. The suit also claims the Texas Stadium sponsorships don't involve Cowboys trademarks and are consistent with NFL Properties' rules.
The NFL backed off because they were going to get stomped. (They don't own Texas Stadium; The Cowboys lease it from Jerry Jones even though Jerry Jones own both the Cowboys and Texas Stadium)
The comment
...that someone made on an online discussion, oh, about a year ago. It cracked me up so I saved it:
Richard N. Turner - Subject: I'm Reminded of An Old Post... ( Feb 23, 2000, 15:39:02 )
``SCO should do the industry a favor and disband, pausing only to bulk-format all their drives so that none of the evil source code can inadvertently escape into the world. Their marketing people and their tech support people should be sent to camps to be retrained for professions more suited to their skills and their buildings should be torn down and burned.''
I think thats a bit prophetic.
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
Not looking at their source code would simply perpetuate the idea that there is something magical about software copyright that isn't the same as literature copyright, music copyright, etc. If you're a writer, do you avoid reading any material written by someone else? If you're a musician, are you afraid to listen to anyone else's copyrighted song? Of course not. As a programmer you shouldn't have to be afraid of these things either.
Ironically, this idea is exactly what SCO would like to encourage: they don't just want to be able to sue anyone who copies what they've written, they want to sue anyone who writes an original implementation of the same solution, or even someone who writes a different solution to the same problem!
Hasn't RMS being predicting this since dinosaurs ruled the Earth? Remember how we all thought "Gee, Richard, aren't you being just a little paranoid?"
He might be a slightly crazed filthy socialist hippy, but by golly, he nailed this one.
Next up: all those RedHat "defensive" linux patents, and their sort-of-promise to temporarily refrain from suing over them. Better hope that they never get bought out by someone a little less altruistic, eh?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
Canopy owns 5.8% of trolltech.
Not ownership.
Safari has an emulation layer to make signals and slots work with khtml. I wouldn't say it is based on Trolltech's Qt.
And even if Canopy goes nuts, there is the Trolltech/KDE agreement. Nobody can do anything about that.
In the March trade, notice section 2. The issuer is listed as Caldera, but notice the trading symbol is SCOX. That's the same trading symbol as the Friday filing in section 2, even though the Friday one lists the issuer as The SCO Group.
So, I'm comparing oranges and oranges. (Or maybe rotten apples to rotten apples.) Also, if you look at a 5 day intraday trading chart for SCOX, you'll notice that there were some really large volume trades on Friday and Monday. Some approaching 100K in a single transaction. This for a stock that normally averages around 200K/day total. I believe that last Friday's total was 2.4M changing hands. A lot of people unloaded a lot of SCOX stock on Friday and Monday.
This is the official press release from the Provo Linux Users Group:
----
To whom it may concern:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jason Hall
jason@plug.org
http://www.plug.org/
UTAH LINUX USERS DEMONSTRATE OPPOSITION TO SCO LAWSUIT
Provo, Utah (June 19, 2003) -- To voice their opposition to SCO's
lawsuit against IBM and their malignment of the Linux programmers
community, members of the Provo Linux Users Group (PLUG) and other
Utah-based Linux Users Groups will protest in front of SCO's Lindon,
UT office on Friday, June 20, 2003 from 3 to 5 pm.
SCO's lawsuit claims that IBM copied parts of SCO's UNIX computer
operating system into Linux, a freely-distributed operating system
written by an international community of computer programmers.
They have therefore revoked IBM's license to distribute AIX (IBM's
version of UNIX) and are seeking $3 billion in damages for theft of
intellectual property. Furthermore, they have sent letters to 1500
corporations warning them that Linux contains computer code belonging to
SCO and continued use of Linux may result in SCO taking legal action
against them.
With this suit, SCO has raised the ire of computing professionals
worldwide by overstating its contributions to UNIX operating systems
(which include Linux and AIX), claiming ownership of Linux and denying
past involvement in its development, and making inaccurate and derisive
comments about the Linux development community. Under the auspices of
the Provo Linux Users Group, Linux users and programmers from northern
Utah will meet on Friday in front of SCO's headquarters in Lindon, UT
to demonstrate the opposition to SCO's actions and to show their support
of IBM, the Linux development community, and any other companies against
which SCO takes legal action.
About the Provo Linux Users Group:
The Provo Linux Users Group (PLUG) is a non-profit, volunteer-run
organization dedicated to helping members to learn the Linux operating
system, offering volunteer technical support, and encouraging the use of
Open Source software. Membership is free, meetings are held
monthly, and the group mantains an active email list. For more
information about PLUG, go to
http://www.plug.org/
About other Utah-based Linux users groups:
PLUG is only one of a half-dozen Linux users groups in Utah, and one of
thousands of such groups worldwide. More information about Utah-based
Linux users groups can be found at
http://www.ssc.com:8080/glue/groups/us/utah
Taken from '/usr/src/linux/Documentation/CodingStyle':
"Chapter 1: Indentation
Tabs are 8 characters, and thus indentations are also 8 characters. There are heretic movements that try to make indentations 4 (or even 2!) characters deep, and that is akin to trying to define the value of PI to be 3.
Rationale: The whole idea behind indentation is to clearly define where a block of control starts and ends. Especially when you've been looking at your screen for 20 straight hours, you'll find it a lot easier to see how the indentation works if you have large indentations.
Now, some people will claim that having 8-character indentations makes the code move too far to the right, and makes it hard to read on a 80-character terminal screen. The answer to that is that if you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program.
In short, 8-char indents make things easier to read, and have the added benefit of warning you when you're nesting your functions too deep. Heed that warning."
Not that I personally agree, but that's what the Linux coding Standards says...
rm -rf / is the evil of all root
So SCO says IBM can't distribute code that IBM owns because it was first used on derivative workds of System V.
As someone pointed out yesterday, the letter of understanding that is Exhibit C in SCO's complaint explicitly agrees that IBM owns their derivative works. They may just not be allowed to distribute them.
Assume for the moment that the modifications themselves are derivative works. (I don't think this is likely from the definition of derivative work from Title 17 of the U.S. Code.)
But even if is a derivative work, IBM still owns that code. The code is not stolen or misappropriated, merely released in a manner that might possibly be a contract violation. While SCO might possibly be able to demand that everyone stop using it or maybe remove it from future versions, it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone would owe SCO any damages or licensing payments at all.
Noone is in possession of stolen property or SCO's intellectual property.
The whole matter then becomes nothing more than a contract dispute over whether or not IBM has the right to distribute code they own.
I think that the whole matter then boils down to whether or not the modifications themselves are considered a derivative work.
If the judge and jury agrees with SCO that the modifications are a derivative work of System V when there is no System V code in it, then IBM might owe something in the way of damages. It might be possible that they could just be ordered to retrieve the code (unrelease it) and owe no damages at all.
But it's hard to see how anyone who does not have a contract with SCO would owe them anything at all on this matter.
By the men who moil for gold; Whoops, never mind...
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the Caldera Board of Directors hired Darl McBride. I wonder if it went something like this:
Chairman: Your record certain is very impressive Mr. McBride. In closing, do you feel that there is anything else about yourself that we should know to help us with our choice? .. I sued my former employer for many millions while I was working for them and won. .. You're hired! You're our kind of guy!
McBride: Well, I did, uh, that is
BoD: [Many looks around the table and private whispers]
Chairman: Mr. McBride
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Someone could set-up a "site of SCO factoids" where all intesting links are collected in one place for reference to the volunteers researchers. As more factoids are discovered, they are added to the site. With a little chance, this will lead to a more effective research.
Having all the evidence at one place would also help counter SCO's FUD, especially if the page becomes known to industry analysts and press. If the site shows for instance how SCO's claim change overtime, their FUD campaign will become much more apparent to CIOs and CEOs that are considuring using Linux. Some essay explaining basic concepts such as trade-secrets, copyrights, patents and derivative work would help debunking many misconceptions.
If geeks makes a habit of immediatelyposting new SCO claims on the factoid site and immediately explaining what the claims are, then it will become harder for SCO to increase the FUD pressure by confusing issues.
All OSS homepages should link to the SCO factoid site home page. This will increase the likelihood this site turns up as a result on a Google search for SCO.
IBM has acces to both Linux an System V code. They can compare to find all potentially litigious code and then call upon geeks to determine to origin of "code of interest". If they want stay on a legally safe ground, they may even include with such requests some code that doen't match System V. This could help avoid giving ground to claims they indirectly disclose SCO's alleged trade-secret.
If IBM dare identify publicly the Linux code that matches System V code, the list could be posted on the site of SCO's factoids. The result of research on the code origin could be posted as well. The general public would then be able to watch SCO's claims deflate day after day. If some code is found to be of dubious origin, the the public will be able to see how fast the Linux community can correct the issue. Tracking dates when information is posted on the page will be extremely useful.
Linux could also be compared with the ancient Unixes for matching code. This portion of Linux will then be cleared from any trade-secret claims. Again the result of this search could be posted on the SCO factoids page.