Slashdot Mirror
USL vs BSDI Documents
Dibyendu Majumdar writes "Dennis Ritchie has posted some court papers from the lawsuit by USL against BSDI about UNIX intellectual property. Some of the SCO claims, such as identical comments in the code, etc. also occur in the claims made by USL. Interesting read in the context of SCO vs IBM case."
I see very little sense in imagining all sorts of things and reading thru all sorts of notes, briefs and voluminous snippets. Isn't it SCO's job to do this, and tell the court (in the matter of their IBM case), the 1,500 corporates (to whom they sent the infamous letters) or the Linux crowd (whom they point fingers at without sufficient prrof or data)?
/.ers pore into these details every day? It almost appears as if we are doing all the legwork for SCO. Let SCO do all the imagining, when they say something - then, let's debate it over here.
Why should
Peace.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
You should not. Nobody is forcing you. However, don't you think that someone may actually find those interesting??????
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
The outcome of the SCO vs. IBM case will have little to no bearing on the adoption of linux. SCO is just trying to bully IBM into buying them out. Even if IBM loses, and loses big, the rest of us won't notice. If anything, this could even further linux development, in the off chance that IBM is forced to stop distributing AIX if they are found in violation of their license agreement with SCO.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
MozillaQuest Magazine: How about GNU C++? Does GNU C++ use
SCO IP? If so, could SCO license and/or charge for use of its
IP in GNU C++?
Blake Stowell: I honestly don't know.
MozillaQuest Magazine: Does the C++ that currently is included
in most if not all Linux distributions contain SCO IP?
Ummm...this guy's a droid.
First off, MozillaZine basically asked the same question twice, and he didn't blink an eye. "The C++ that currently is included in most, if not all Linux distributions" == "GNU C++". Same question.
And attacking GNU C++ would change the whole ballgame. FSF would now have a definite stake, and would probably have to countersue SCO.
My journal has hot
Since C++ is standardized by the ISO and ANSI, I do not think any one owns them (the same thing with POSIX and the UNIX standard, hehe haha).
>Even if IBM loses, and loses big, the rest of us won't notice
You're joking right? If SCO wins this by bamboozling a court with smoke and mirrors, they'll emerge rampant and engorged with IBM cash. Want to bet that they won't go after Red Hat and SuSE next? How about anyone manufacturing an embedded linux product? How about cease-and-desisting all sites hosting linux distros, and suing a few just to make the point? Once the big guys are gone and the precedents have been set, they can switch from throwing teams of lawyers against one target to throwing groups of victims to each lawyer they have. And they have a lot of lawyers.
In fact, as far as I can determine SCO is a firm of lawyers. Suing people is what they do. It's all that they do. If IBM can't crush them, god help the rest of us.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
On USL's preliminary motion to stop distribution of BSDI on the basis of copyright infringement:
Consequently, I find that Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate a likelihood that it can successfully defend its copyright in 32V. Plaintiff's claims of copyright violations are not a basis for injunctive relief.
The judge ruled that since many copies of 32V source code (books, manuals, etc) existed before USL applied for copyright on that code, it cannot bar BSDI from distributing Net2 because USL failed to protect its copyright. This kind of parallels SCO claims in that some of the code that has been revealed are trivial school book type code that most of the programming world alreay knows about.
On USL's preliminary motion to bar BSDI distribution based on trade secret misappropriation:
Since Plaintiff has failed to provide enough evidence to establish a "reasonable probability" that Net2 or BSD/386 contain trade secrets, I find that Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim for misappropriation of trade secrets. No preliminary injunction will issue.
The judge ruled that USL's previous work with BSDI and third parties negates trade secret since all work done is in the public domain. Since UNIX development occured in an open manner with research papers, books, and technical manuals publishing methodology, source code, and programming techniques of UNIX (some of which was published by USL and its predecessors), USL cannot claim trade secrets misappropriation and cannot have Net2 barred from distribution.
SCO's release of Linux mirrors this. If SCO released the source code of Linux with their distributions, they cannot claim copyright infringement because they have essentially made the code open source. Some attorneys may claim that since SCO didn't know that the code was stolen from them, this doesn't negate their copyright. However, it is the responsibility of the publisher (SCO) to review any code before releasing it. Even if it was stolen, they still released it.
After the ruling, it was basically over for USL. I don't know when SCO will drag it out. Hopefully IBM will countersue them into oblivion.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
But using the same argument, the Linux source tree is well documented and somebody could trace the evolution of these comments over time.
What are the odds that hundreds of comments have slowly changed to become exact matches of the SCO code? Astronomical doesn't begin to describe it.
If the comments are unchanged since their initial appearance, then we can't say anything either way. But unless these are the type of comments where coincidence is expected, e.g., quoting pertinent RFC sections when implementing your own routines, you should see comments gradually changing.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
"The major downside is if IBM found guilty Linux could to the way of *BSD: Small scale adoption with a large hobbyist following."
? or derby=os_name&reverse=1
http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/Hosters
Hobbyist? I'm calling troll on that poster.
OD (Can't be bothered logging in)
The stock has gone from $0.60/share to $12/share... I'd sure as hell be selling too, if I owned shares!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney