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SCO Calls IBM Countersuit "Unsubstantiated Allegations"
dacarr writes "Yahoo currently hosts a press release from SCO that basically calls for IBM to "move away from the GPL"." Lycoris tries to dodge the flood of idiocy from Utah. Another non-programmer has seen SCO's presentation, and without attempting to verify the facts through his own research, reported on it. One reader buys a SCO license. SCO justifies their continuing illegal distribution of the Linux kernel.
Not content with already having issued IBM with a lawsuit, SCO is to
sue Novell for illegally placing UNIX code in Novell Netware.
According to SCO CEO Darl McBride , Novell never owned UNIX's patents
or copyrights in the first place.
In the release McBride said, "Novell continues to say that it owns the
UNIX System V patents, yet it must know that it does not. A simple
review of U.S. Patent Office records reveals that SCO owns those
patents." Further, "We believe it unlikely that Novell can demonstrate
that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights
because we purchased these rights in August 1995 directly from IBM"
Also this morning, in SCO's 2nd quarter earning call, Jack Messman SCO
CEO said that there's no mention of copyright and patents in the
Novell law suit and that contract issues are really what the IBM law
suit is about. At the same time, though, he admitted that SCO had been
talking with IBM over UNIX IP issues and that Novell's 1990 purchase
agreement of UNIX from IBM was 'confused' on the issue of UNIX's
patents and copyrights.
Bruce Perens, director of Software in the Public Interest, a
non-profit, Open Source development organization, says, "SCO's brief
reply to Novell explicitly acknowledges that SCO owns the UNIX
copyright."
McBride said that SCO believes that the company owns the UNIX
copyrights and that all four of the people who signed the
contract-none of whom are still with Novell or SCO-thought at the time
that the intent was to transfer copyright. So, "SCO has the absolute
right to UNIX's copyright" and we're confident on how a judge will
come down."
Gary Schuster, Novell's senior VP of communications responded to this
claim by saying, "SCO will find out in court the the true force of our
vengeance - we shall wreak havoc."
These guys have some serious nerve - I hope they get put behind bars for this crap.
This has really became the Nerd version of the OJ trial.
Oh boy. Monty Python couldn't keep you in stitches longer then McBride. This guy is one of the world's greatest comedians.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
pot.kettle(black)
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Normally I don't repost, but I wrote this too late in the last posting cycle and I want a +5 Funny rating.
Money For Nothing
Now look at them SCO-yo's that's not the way to do it
They say we're infringing on their IP.
It ain't workin' the way they try to do it
They're getting nowhere, lawsuits ain't free.
No it ain't workin', not the way they do it
Lemme tell ya them guys are dumb
They gots a lawsuit from them RedHat people
And a 'nuther from that IBM.
You gotta buy their UNIX license
Or else they gonna sue you guys
They gotta keep that FUD stream flowing
They gotta keep that stock price high.
See little Darl with the options and delusions
He's got no braincells under his hair
That little Darl wants his own jet airplane
Little Darl wants to be a millionaire
You gotta buy their UNIX license
Or else they gonna sue you guys
They gotta keep the FUD stream flowing
They gotta keep that stock price high.
I shoulda learned to play the market
I shoulda learned to pump and dump
Look at them, they got all those profits
Man I could have some fun
Darl's up there in Utah making lawyer noises
Bangin' out lawsuits like a chimpanzee
It ain't workin' the way they try to do it
They're getting nowhere, lawsuits ain't free.
That press-release was pathetic. Probably Darl "Mangina-to-be" McBride wrote it himself, since the money to pay the lawyers are running out.
Check the stock today BTW, someone's manipulating it.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
SCO is accusing someone else of filing a lawsuit containing Unsubstantiated Allegations? This is from the Onion isn't it?
-=DaveHowe=-
These are almost the *exact* words that everyone predicted they'd use! Maybe Darl is just a modified Eliza-bot? :P
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
.02
And SCO has been supporting Linux for quite a number of years, and still has the 2.4.13 kernel sources available on their site. Amazingly enough, they haven't removed that from their site, allowing for Linux to be used free of SCO prior to and including version 2.4.13.
If IBM wants customers to accept the GPL risk...
It is now even more obvious that SCO feels that the GPL is too weak to stand up in court. I think that IBM has already planned for this and is prepared to prove that the GPL will hold up. I just find it extremely interesting that SCO supported the GPL up until 2.4.13 and no FANTASTIC strides have been made since that point in the code that *we think* they are trying to claim is their IP.
I guess that SCO is basically screwed unless they can some how force the GPL to break-down in court.
Just my worthless
Is there a reason that ./ is giving front page coverage to SCO's press release spinning an IBM counterclaim, rather than reporting on the counterclaim itself?
SCO's accussing IBM of making unsubstantiated claims? Did I wake up in Bizarro world this morning. At least IBM told them what code they were suing them for.
In other news, the pot today called the kettle black. Steming from a futile attempt by the pot to pass off as a kettle, and the kettle reaffirming it's own existance, the pot, for reasons yet unknown, called the kettle black in front of fellow kitchenware.
"It was just an unwarranted attack" said the Roast Pot. "We all know the truth here, and for the pot to be so stupid and call the kettle black, while itself is black, is just ridiculous.
The pot refused to answer any of our questions claiming temporary insanity due to undue financial stress. The kettle however smiled at our cameras and stated "now we realize who is living in the fantasy world!". We will bring you more of this developing story as it becomes available. For Koo-Koo kitchen News, this is Tea Spooner.
---
A tautology is a thing which is tautological.
SCO Media Statement Re IBM Counterclaims
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model. It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week. If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license. As the stakes continue to rise in the Linux battles, it becomes increasingly clear that the core issue is bigger than SCO (Nasdaq: SCOX - News), Red Hat, or even IBM. The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age. In a strange alliance, IBM and the Free Software Foundation have lined up on the same side of this argument in support of the GPL. IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software. This software violates SCO's intellectual property rights in UNIX, and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux. If IBM wants customers to accept the GPL risk, it should indemnify them against that risk. The continuing refusal to provide customer indemnification is IBM's truest measure of belief in its recently filed claims.
O GO )
Thursday August 7, 4:15 pm ET
LINDON, Utah, Aug. 7
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990421/SCOL
Regarding Patent Accusations
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
Furthermore, these claims were not raised in IBM's original answer.
SCO reiterates its position that it intends to defend its intellectual property rights. SCO will remain on course to require customers to license infringing Linux implementations as a condition of further use. This is the best and clearest course for customers to minimize Linux problems.
Yooohoooo... look over here, not over there! Look here.. shiny SCO Stock certificates! yes, thats it... ignore all that silly IP stuff over there... come here and see my shiny new pet!
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
I like the guy sending monopoly money for his SCO license. For online purchases, one should probably try Flooz...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Move away from the GPL or I'll..um say Move away again! Ha!
This is an excellent example of "the pot calling the kettle black". I will have to remember this when my 1 year old nephew asks me what that phrase means.
...pull a Ralsky(sp?) on SCO. Im personally going to send one for myself, and try to get people in my LUG to join in with me, even though one of them is an SCO employee.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Lycoris tries to dodge the flood of idiocy from Utah.
You are talking about SCO... Right?
"Regarding Patent Accusations
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products."
IANAPA (Patent attorney), but as I understand it, the holder of patent can choose when to enfornce the patent. "Because we have been" is NOT a legal argument.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
As someone pointed out earlier, SCO is STILL distributing the disputed kernel with source. By continuing to distribute it mixed with their own GPL-incompliant source code, they are violating the intellectual property rights of everyone who ever contributed to the linux kernel. Without agreeing to the GPL they have no right to distrubute GPL'd software, because nothing else but the GPL gives them that right.
You have the option to do nothing, adopt a 'wait and see' attitude, and hope that SCO is not serious about enforcing its intellectual property rights in the end user community
This is some serious journalism here. Slander an entire state because of one company. IBM probably has more employees in Utah than SCO does. Does that do anything to water down this flood of idiocy? Does it overflow into Colorado?
Lasers Controlled Games!
Deutsche Bank Securities analyst Brian Skiba...
The guy likely uses a computer, so obviously he's an expert on kernel design.
In other news, St. Mary's Hospital caterer Edna Pratt reviewed the conditions of several patients, and declared them free of cancer.
This case is threatening to be one in which only the lawyers come out of it with anything.
For all the predictably negative comments made by the Linux community, no one it seems, is preparing to challenge SCO and get this resolved. I will guarantee there are an endless stream of SCO jibes on this page now but not a single one of those jibes is something proactive or reactive to this seemingly large problem.
As far as I am aware, this has been ongoing for several months now and is including some very big companies that PHB's have heard of. Now, if a PHB knows that SCO is taking IBM to court and threatening Novell it would seem to suggest that using Linux in any form is likely to have implications at some time in the future, and therefore hold back Linux in the workplace.
Whilst this cloud is hanging over Linux, managers are going to be wary about rolling out Linux solutions and therefore other solutions such as MS ones are going to look increasingly safe choices, particularly with the new legal benefits.
"If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license."
More evidence that Mirco$oft is the real engine here. They are attacking the GPL directly and via proxy.
Grocklaw has an overview of the IBM countersuit. And for added fun, the whole 46 page filing is available in multipage TIFF or pdf.
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,814,746.WKU.&OS=PN/4,814,746&RS =PN/4,814,746 T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,821,211.WKU.&OS=PN/4,821,211&RS =PN/4,821,211 T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,953,209.WKU.&OS=PN/4,953,209&RS =PN/4,953,209 T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,805,785.WKU.&OS=PN/5,805,785&RS =PN/5,805,785
The patents are at:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
After reading the actual countersuit filing, it looks like an even bigger, more comprehensive smackdown than even was speculated yesterday. IBM is fully ready to press SCO's GPL transgressions, talks at length about the failure of SCO's business, makes clear in several locactions the difference between Old SCO (Tarantella) and Caldera/New SCO, they even mention that some of SCO's claims have exceeded the statute of limitations. IBM has clearly been tracking SCO FUD and mentions specific quotes from SCO execs that are damaging. They also reiterate that IBM's UNIX license is perpetual and irrevokable, but they also say that even if that wern't the case SCO still can't revoke IBM's license because SCO has not followed the agreement on the procedure to revoke the license. SMACK, SMACK, SMACK!
the no
I figure that, if I have a copy of SCO Linux lying around, if SCO actually decides to sue me, I can go to the judge and tell him I already have a license from SCO. In fact, everyone ought to have a copy.
So the main thing that will come out of this is whether the GPL is legal or not. If not, no more free software. SCO may burn out before that question is answered.
"Why, good afternoon, Mr. McBride! Me and Tiny here, we's here as goodwill representatives of our esteemed employer, IBM. We'd likes ta take a minute of your valuable time and substantiate our employer's claims against your organization. Would youse mind steppin' into dis darkened alleyway with us?"
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
All Lycoris Desktop/LX users are unaffected by this new licensing program and are immune to any further changes in the SCO licensing structure due to the perpetuity of the prior agreement.
Unless Lycoris is referring to the GPL when they are talking about the "prior agreement", it is impossible for them to have another agreement with SCO: the GPL simply does not permit redistribution of code under side-agreements. Either everybody can redistribute or nobody can. That clause is in there precisely to keep companies from doing what SCO is doing.
I'd put a bullet in his brain. Poor old thing, snarling and frothing. That's no way to live.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
or SCO CEO?
In other news IBM sneezes and SCO CEO Darl McBride accuses IBM of continued violations of SCO intellectual property. No one at IBM could be reached for a comment, however McBride was quoted as saying that "...this sneeze is SCO intellectual property, and is not licensed for public distribution". McBride further alleges that the sneeze will result in a $699 license fee, payable to SCO for each person in IBM involved.
In a related story, McBride also threated to sue any company offering a Kleenex to IBM. A spokesperson at Red Hat was quoted as saying "Gazundheit".
Since their license isn't worth the paper its printed on, whatsay we all send them $199 in Monopoly money.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I was expecting first reaction more like
Darl: I'm deeply dissapointed with reactions IBM made
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
i think that the most interesting thing about the SCO issue is their stock price. Going from $0.78 to $11.00 (as of posting) is not too shabby.
Could be a good time to short SCO since the price will most likely plummet when this is all over (hopefully soon).
The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age. In a strange alliance, IBM and the Free Software Foundation have lined up on the same side of this argument in support of the GPL.
Is it just me or is SCO trying to insinuate that IBM'ers are communist hippies now ?
This software violates SCO's intellectual property rights in UNIX, and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux.
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products. Furthermore, these claims were not raised in IBM's original answer.
For me this about sums it all up. SCO is perfectly willing to stand up for intellectual property rights, it just believes its the only company that has any.
Its quite amazing that even a company as dat as sco can contradict itself in so short a distance.
buying an SCO license with monopoly money..
:)
*gaaah* I almost fell out of my chair..
That just killed me.. I gotta buy one with some monopoly money..
thought, I only have the simpson version and might need that money later for the "save the SCO" foundation for when they declare bankruptcy
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Is this going to drag out? I mean, every day we hear more and more of this. As it gets bigger, it's more likely to sit in court for awhile, hanging as a shadow over Linux, SCO, and IBM (the latter being the legal/monentary drain).
While I realize that snap-decisions are a bad thing, any prediction on when this will end? I really won't care to hear about SCO vs IBM 2 years from now, I'm just hoping to see SCO get rung out in court like a wet towel.
As for the claims of "Unsubstantiated Allegations", I'd predict several pot-calling-kettle-black remarks, but what else does SCO have left to say? Anything less than a claim of "we're 100% right" and their precarious litte boat of flimflamery will start to sink.
IBM's got a nuclear submarine and SCO is going to claim an impenetrable hull and depth charges. Really all they've got is a fishing tug and a few pointy rocks they can drop in hopes of a hit.
Remember the "big lie" concept. The longer you keep a little lie secret, the more bigger lies it can spawn. It's just a matter of time before SCO makes such a public joke of themself that their little boat goes down like it hit an iceberg...
Upon reading this post, one realizes that it closely resembles going to dinner with a buddy, asking, "How's business?" and writing it off as a business expense. Further, this post closely resembles a sandwich that appears large but, once eaten, proves unsatisfyingly small. A staid, steadfast comment, it resembles a pantomime of images.
Because this post is supposed to be about SCO, Darl McBribe / McBlackmail / McExtort / McThreaten / McLose / Mc-Go-To-Jail-Do-Not-Pass-Go-Do-Not-Collect-Two-Hu ndred-Billion-Dollars. But the meat of this post is decidedly unsatisfying: SCO is trying to play hard ball with the big boys when SCO, unfit even to be called a little boy, is barely a hole in some dead goat's ass. (See what I mean about "pantomime of images?" And that's a pretty gross image, if you ask me.)
This post constitutes gobbledygook. Like the unfulfilling sandwich, it first appears large but contains nothing of value. And what the author has done fits well within the aforementioned business dinner analogy, as the author has said about 2 words that were on topic, yet all that followed diverted from that original focus, nay, is completely off topic.
Just like SCO's business plan.
I used to work at DeutscheBank. When I left they were pushing for the adoption of SuSE Linux (I personally built some "approved" Linux servers for my team so I know that to be true). Apparently they have a financial stake in SuSE, from what I was told. So I'm surprised to see them agree with SCO here.
If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license.
Now, I think, we get down to the heart of the matter. This isn't an attack on Linux per se. It isn't about IP or patents or copyrights. This is about trying to destroy the GPL. I think this statement, more than anything else, shows that MS really is behind this whole thing. What interest would SCO, a puny company who once distrubuted a Linux kernel in the GPL, have in invalidating the GPL? I just can't see why they would make themselves look like complete idiots to do that. On the other hand, who would jump for joy at the prospect of companies turning away from the GPL? Microsoft would be first and foremost on that list.
Mr Kettle this is Mr Pot.
The 46 page response is now available as a multipage TIFF and converted to a PDF file.
Highlights include "20. Although it completed an initial public offering, SCO has failed to establish a successful business around Linux. SCO's Linux business has never generated a profit. In fact, the company as a whole did not experience a profitable quarter until after it abandoned its Linux business and undertook its present scheme to extract windfall profits from UNIX technology that SCO played no part in developing."
My God! It's full of Voids!
Thats just the kind of language, though, that the people who know of nothing other than money and business listen to. Like chickens with their heads cut off. I thinks its becomming pretty clear that SCO is being used as a martyr by those who fear open sourced software cutting away at their profits.
:)
I certainly liked the idea of sending monopoly money for the license... get a 1000 people to do that, I bet it would piss somebody off
--- If I had a funny sig too, you might be laughing now.
"They said it was from another hardware vendor, but they didn't say who,"
Uhm, hardware vendor? Same code in Unix and Linux? Now that I can believe. Now the question is who ownes the copyright of hardware specific code. Can't imagine a company writing a driver and turning over the driver (and all rights) to SCO.
That which hits the fan is not evenly distributedTODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
Ronald McDonald, spokesman for McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD), has declared his employer's intent to sue Darl McBride, President and CEO of SCO (NYSE:SCOX), for allegedly infringing upon the fast-food giant's trademark.
Details were sparse, but McDonald promised that the litigious executive would soon face heavy penalties for "use of [McDonald Corp.'s] trademark symbol in his surname", stating that "McDonald's Corporation plans to defend our trademark symbols against any and all unauthorized use."
Industry insiders quite rumors that McDonald's corporation has plans to go after other well-known CEOs, including Donald Trump, for allegedly weakening their trademark.
Ronald McDonald went on to explain why McBride had been chosen as their first target: "We feel, and our lawyers wholeheartedly agree, that the recent activities of Darl and his company also infringe upon the Intellectual Process describing the business methods of the Hamburgler, one of our top executives."
Darl McBride did not respond to requests for comment.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Just in case.. here is a Mirror.. http://www.plu.edu/~perryjd/sco.html
"SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products."
I read this and nearly spilled my drink all over myself. The same argument many here have made is being used by SCO? I mean think about it. They sell Linux for years making code available and DON'T make an issue over infringement and now they complain over some vapor infringment?
Amazing. Just when I thought people couldn't be any worse. SCO doesn't have employee's, they have only lawyers. Maybe they should hiring a few monkeys and improve their employee gene pool.
Wake me when SCO does something worthy of attention. So far I'm waiting to be impressed.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
From one of the lower level links..... ""They need to realize that they have licensed the software under the GPL and released it to the world and they have no rights to ask for royalties," said Bradley Kuhn, the executive director of the Free Software Foundation, the organization that created the GPL. " "Nebulous License" SCO says. Can someone hear RMS cranking up for the diatribe of all time?
~corporate tool, but employed~
You're marked as a troll, but it's true. This is the sort of stupid claim that could threaten all things Not Windows. I realize that there are things out there other than Unix-y and Windows-y systems, but if SCO actually pulls it off (I doubt they can) it'll open the floodgates and allow the software industry outside MS kill itself.
It's a chilling thought, IMHO.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
2.4.19. They're claiming 2.4.18 and later is infringeing.
/pub/scolinux/server/4.0/updates/SRPMS/ ...rver/4.0/updates/SRPMS > ls kern*e rnel-source-2.4.19.SuSE-133.nosrc.rpmr ce-2.4.19.SuSE-152.nosrc.rpm9 .SuSE-82.nosrc.rpm ...rver/4.0/updates/SRPMS >
NcFTP 3.1.5 (Oct 13, 2002) by Mike Gleason (ncftp@ncftp.com).
ncftp> o ftp.sco.com
Connecting to 216.250.140.126...
ftp.caldera.com Ready.
Logging in...
Welcome to SCO's FTP site!
This site hosts UNIX software patches, device drivers and supplements
from SCO.
To access Skunkware and Supplemental Open Source Packages, please
connect to ftp2.caldera.com.
** Please read the following export notice **
Please note that the electronic transfer of this data to a destination
outside of the United States constitutes an export (as defined by the
U.S. Bureau of Export Administration) and is authorized ONLY to the end
user. Any subsequent re-exportation of this data requires that the end
user obtain an additional export license. Also note that it is illegal
to re-route Caldera product to Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea,
Sudan or Syria and that you must file a special license if you intend
to re-route goods to the embargoed regions of Serbia or the Taliban
controlled areas of Afghanistan. Placement of this order constitutes
an agreement to comply with these stipulations.
Anonymous access granted, restrictions apply.
Logged in to ftp.sco.com.
ncftp / > cd
ncftp
kernel-source-2.4.19.SuSE-106.nosrc.rpm
k
kernel-sou
kernel-source-2.4.1
ncftp
Which means that regardless of whether or not "SCO feels that the GPL is too weak to stand up in court," is moot. They have accepted and continue to accept it's terms by having this Linux kernel source code on their FTP server.
Any code in kernel 2.4.19 that is 'infringing' is actuall not, because SCO knows about so-called 'infringing' code in there, yet they continue to distribute it, meaning they have effectively GPLed whatever code is in there, regardless of who actually put it in there (most likely, according to various sources, a Caldera employee!)
My journal has hot
Before SCO decides to sue my parents because I've got a few differnt flavors of Linux at home?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
SCO responded to the countersuit on Thursday, calling IBM's complaint an effort to distract attention from flaws in its own business model and criticizing the GPL.
Clearly, IBM's business model is broken and they're trying to hide that fact. I mean, selling products and services is so 20th Century. Litigation is the way to make money these days. The countersuit just smacks of "me too"ism.
-- dR.fuZZo
ARMONK, NY - Aug. 8, 2003 -- "Dodge this."
pre-SCO Caldera was pretty vocal about not thinking that a business could be sustained on GPL software. These guys are really starting to sound like M$ puppets. Wonder how long before SCO has another license agreement (pay off) with M$. :)
IBM income = $7.7 billion
SCO income = -$24 million
SCO calling IBM's business model faulty = priceless
All this is very interesting, but in light of recent events it seems most /.ers think SCO will roll over and die when IBM gets them in court. However I think the thing that most /.ers also seems to be over looking is that SCO has Microsoft behind them. And judging by Microsoft's business history I doubt they have any major problem with taking down IBM if it is going to rid them of that annoying Linux disease.
If you don't stop reading this right now you owe me $1,000. Send check or money order too...
But IBM is in a position to clairify the facts in this case, something SCO is unwilling to do. But why should IBM be unwilling to do so either. IBM as a unix licensee is in posession of SysV source code. IBM could do a source code compare between the SysV code and Linux and point out any illicitly copied code, or if none found, declare that fact.
The other thing that SCO is complaining about involves a contractual dispute with IBM. There's no reason IBM can't publish the contracts in question so that the public can make decision on the validitiy of SCO's complaints. Waiting for the courts to decide will take years. If IBM is not willing to do this, then we should immediately start replacing IBM's contributions to Linux on general principle. It won't be too hard in some cases. Replacing RCU, which is actually in the public domain, will likely just involve a few comment changes, ie. saying the RCU technique came from a public domain mainframe method rather than from a unix method.
Until we're individually sued whinging is all most of us can do. The following groups of people can fight back and I hope they do:
Direct copyright and patent holders
Linus himself - He'll probably stay out as long as possible. I think his commendably amiable instincts aren't appropriate here.
kernel contributors - Most them aren't well heeled enough to battle a multimillion dollar corp.
GPL patent holders with rights in the kernel. I can't help but notice this is one weapon RH seems to be holding in reserve.
Anyone I've missed with copyrights in the kernel
Contract grievances
SCO's UnitedLinux "partners"
Paid up Caldera users
Novell
Economic Laws
Citizens of Germany, Poland, Australia and other places with strong consumer protection laws or laws against damaging unsubstantiated allegations.
Unless I've missed something, those are the people who can actually carry the fight to SCO. Just who would you have challenge them?
Milton-Bradley stock doubles.
And down goes SCO!
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=scox
I really hope the SEC gets involved.
It's got to be obvious given Darl McBride just echoing what Steve Balmer stated recently that SCO is fighting as a proxy in MS's war against the GPL and OSS. Steve: ... The answer is certainly no
SCO:
..opps.. I mean license IP they don't need from SCO so that they can get SCO to fight proxy for them so they get less egg on their face in the process. I'm starting to think SCO may be just be cannon fodder for MS sending them in first to test the waters. IBM has now opened up the pandoras box with firing patents into the foray. MS has a few patents in their warchest too and OSS is so transparent and the patent office so lame that I'm sure MS could find at least a few instances of patent infringement within the OSS software that's out there today. I know the OSS commnunity could rapidly replace just about any piece of code that infringes quite rapidly so that angle may cost more than it's worth to MS.......unless.....they can find a way to drag things out in court where they can simply win by attrition against smaller OOS org's. IANAL but perhaps the SCO case is simply a test shot at how to do that. Claim IP infringement but hold your claims behind NDA's that prevent the issue from actually being resolved. Most slashdotters see the the writing on the wall about SCO's goose being cooked. Let's all hope this goose gets cooked real good so MS get's the message that this angle ain't gonna work for them and then they'll have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to stop OSS and the GPL.
Ballmer also questioned IBM's "support" of its WebSphere application server on Linux. "Will IBM tell you the road map for Linux? Can they respond to your request for a new feature? No, they can't do that. They don't control Linux," he said. "Does IBM fix Linux problems the way IBM stands behind and fixes the MVS operating system? Of course not," he continued. "Does IBM indemnify the intellectual property in Linux the way it indemnifies the intellectual property in every IBM software product?
"We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model. It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week. If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license."
This is simply MS's new attempt to attack OSS and the GPL. They found out way back when that they were their own worst enemny in the battle against Linux so they hire
I don't know why people are so cagey about pointing to Microsoft as being behind all this. For me, it's not a conspiracy theory, it is obvious.
Why? Because if you look at SCOs actions and what they say, they are doing things to attack Linux and the GLP that don't really have anything to do with their legal battles or trying to boost their share price. For instance, in their response to IBM, they say
If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license.
Why this wording? This seems to be a general attack on Linux and the GPL. In what way does this wording favor SCO or its case?
I think it is clear that Microsoft has done a shady deal with SCO, and that SCO will just continue to do anything it can to damage the GPL and Linux even if it is detrimental to SCOs business or share price. In the last "halloween" document MS identified legal attacks as being the only effective way to fight Linux, and now this is happening. Coincidence? I think not.
SCO said:
As the stakes continue to rise in the Linux battles, it becomes increasingly clear that the core issue is bigger than SCO, Red Hat, or even IBM. The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age.
Doesn't this ring as being a strange statement to anyone else? Is this really SCO talking, or is it really MS?
What the community should be doing is trying to find evidence of the deal between SCO and MS. I believe that is where the meat of this fiasco really lies, and if it could be found then MS could get in serious legal trouble too.
There must be employees within SCO that are unhappy about what is happening and have access to "interesting" information. The OSS community should set up a mechanism by which SCO employees can anonymously submit information, and we should be encoraging them to do so. A web site should be set up with contact details of SCO employees (Work contact details - email addresses, direct phone numbers) so we can contact them. If nothing else, if a concerted effort was made to do these things it would really f**k up SCO internally - imagine the paranoia if the SCO management know that there is a concerted effort to get SCO employees to snich.
I bl**dy hate SCO now, and I don't think people are being creative enough in thinking of ways that their life can be made difficult.
SCO calls IBM a sissy and IBM says SCO is a doodie-head. Slap fight ensues...
Come on you guys, stop the name calling and act professional!
(just some random crap so it will post...)
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
.. In an apparent attempt to distract IBM, SCO's CEO told it that he could 'hear its momma calling'. IBM, confused, turned away from the blacktop at which point Mr. McDumbass picked up IBM's ball and attempted to leave the playground with it.
IBM soon realized what was going on, chased Mr. McDumbass to the monkey bars and beat the shit out of him.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
SCO is stuck in a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the GPL. They use/distribute a whole lot of GPL code yet they want to render the GPL useless. In doing this, don't they open themselves up to being sued by everyone who has contributed code under the GPL?
It's a lose/lose situation for them.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Took Mark's advice and letter and sent my $199 in fake money. I wonder if I'll get a thank you letter? If I get anything back, I'll frame it ;)
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
IRAQ: The Americans are on the run, we are preparing for victory!
LIBERIA: I am preparing to leave office!
SCO: We are preparing our evidence!
United Linux
The four partner companies in UnitedLinux LLC - Conectiva, the SCO Group, SuSE Linux and Turbolinux -- continue to support products powered by UnitedLinux Version 1.0 and customers deploying these products.
heh! heh! heh!!!
...or does this press release just seem like McBride is reduced to stamping his feet and saying "No! YOU'RE a poopy-head!"?
I wonder how he feels about playing Mussolini to Gates' Hitler? (and do I now get the Godwin award for this thread?)
I gotta get back to work on my cluster of Never-Will-Be-Licensed-By-SCO-While-I-Live multi-proc commercial Linux systems running 2.4.20 kernels.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
From the press release:
Regarding Patent Accusations
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
Okay, work with us, here, SCO. What might have changed recently that would cause IBM to want to enforce their patent portfolio? Hmm.... could it be.... wait! You sued them for $3B! That must be it!
You better hope you haven't infringed in the past 6 years. There's no such thing as patent dilution, and they can sue just you if they want to. (Go IBM!)
** Stares in utter disbelief at SCO...
I... I don't... I don't know what to say. Isn't behavior like this formally described as "insane"?
Why bother.
Forget the ~$30, download your own license for free where ever your favorate ISO download site still has OpenDesktop ISO files.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/xenix
Those two companies should team up again, since their absurd arrogance and disregard for true innovation make good bedfellows.
Perhaps the moron coalition heading up SCO should view the original open source UNIX post --> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=771%40mit-edd ie.UUCP. And then proceed to jump out a window.
Though they tweaked their business model, yet the bastard wouldn't go
Oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing Darl McBride
He'll be lost and gone for ever when the SEC comes for the ride.
So they fed the fire with lawsuits, fear uncertainty and doubt
Tried to set the stock a-pumping, hoped to dump and then move out
Oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing Darl McBride
He'll be floating down the river when the SEC gets into stride
Who would buy this stock for money? Not a broker with a brain
But God oft gives stacks of greenbacks to the certified insane
Oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing Darl McBride,
When the shit impacts the fanblades, you can run but you can't hide.
SCO is not an Enron, not a congressman will care
When the monster from East Fishfill has you dangling in the air
Oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing, oh my Darl-ing SCO,
For a while the joke was funny, but it's really time to go.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
If they try that with a judge, they are sooooo toast.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The only money they deserve to get is the Chinese's "Hell money" - used in Chinese funeral.
press release from SCO that basically calls for IBM to "move away from the GPL"."
So, for the sake of arguement with SCO, (and don't take this as flamebait), what would happen if IBM actually moved away from the GPL and onto the BSD license?
Where would SCO be, would Darl McBride be looking for a tall building to jump off of?
That statement really gives me the impression they're just looking for a way to stomp out the competition. I think as time progresses, the more they say, the more filet of sole they'll be eating once they get into court.
...then surely SCO is breaking copyight law. I thought the whole point of the GPL is that if found null and void then copyright law stood as its last line of defence.
In this case, that means every single Linux developer can now sue SCo for unauthorised distribution of their copyrighted material!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
So I'm going to take your comment at face value and assume you saw the code, saw line-for-line similarities between the Linux code and the SCO code, etc.
But what I don't see is how this proves SCO's case.
For example, does seeing the similarities prove that the code in question originated at SCO? No. It's more likely that both SCO and Linux copied code from a common source--quite possibly the author, who has the right to license the same code to two different groups user two different licenses.
Also, assuming SCO did author the code in question, would their case still be proven? No. They licensed that code to the Linux community under the GPL when they released their Linux distribution.
Unless you have answers for these very important points, SCO will lose. They will lose big.
It seems consistent in history... every time that something good has tried to be killed with brute force it only goes to make it stronger.
--- If I had a funny sig too, you might be laughing now.
Let's go circle jerk on slashdot. That'll be fun!
With all due respect, what makes you so sure that they *will* win this?
SCO v. IBM is *not* an IP battle.
Let me reiterate: SCO v. IBM is *not* an IP battle.
It is a contract law dispute (read the original complaint). So unless the NDA allowed you to read the contracts that governed the IBM purchase from AT&T, and then the Novell purchase from AT&T, and then the SCO purchase from Novell, along with all of the side letter agreements, and you understand how the concept of 'derivative works' applies to software, as well as the legal admissibility of both that definition as well as the definition contained in said contracts, I am unsure of your ability to make such an assertion.
This doesn't mean that I think you are wrong. I am just curious on grounds you base your assertion.
Matt.
Hello pot, this is kettle. You're black.
I think the questions people want to know are.
Can they prove it is their code?
Do they have a log showing when this code was put in and by who?
Do these times predate the corresponding development in Linux?
Who put the code in Linux?
Was the person who put the code into Linux authorized by the UNIX copyright holder to do so?
My unrelated to code viewing questions.
They distrbute the kernel under the GPL, giving enough people a license to continue to redistribute it.
They haven't tried to minimize current damages or limit further damage, obviously this isn't costing them very much.
Yahoo's SCO Page has the money SCO execs have made by pumping the share price and setting automatic sell limits. When you consider how low the stock was its amazing that they put limits of $12 or more for a sell.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Yahoo currently hosts a press release from SCO that basically calls for IBM to "move away from the GPL"." Lycoris tries to dodge the flood of idiocy from Utah. Another non-programmer has seen SCO's presentation, and without attempting to verify the facts through his own research, reported on it. One reader buys a SCO license. SCO justifies their continuing illegal distribution of the Linux kernel.
:(
I must say I'm VERY DISAPOINTED in SCO, I mean I had my hopes all up for some completely insane claims suing the moon and announcing they were sending hitmen after linux users instead all I get is "whaa whaa IBM should move away from GPL, whaa we don't care about GPL". Com'on SCO you're letting me down where's the fireworks, where's the pizzaz lets get some action here!!
Hopefully this is just the precursor like their ""Disapointment " with Red Hat before the licenses were released. Geez some companies are just no fun anymore
I stole this Sig
It is not a sustainable business. There is no room for growth here, only short term gain. And when the FTC investigation begins they may well find themselves libel for damages as well as (dare we hope) a bit of jail time for select executives. I dunno about you, but I would say that's a supremely flawed business model.
Remember, it was Microsoft who was the first company to jump up and pay SCO for their unsubstantiated claims. As far as I know there was never a dollar amount mentioned but my guess is that it was HUGE.
OK I am confused, but I thought selling things you do not own is illegal. Even if SCO can prove some infringement, they do not own the rights to 99.99999% of Linux. Which means they are trying to extort money from people by claiming ownership of something they do not own. At the same time, they are seriously damaging the reputation and business of tens of thousands of Linux contributors, companies and individuals providing Linux services, etc..
It seems to me this is the time for the FSF and Open Source community to assert its rights and sue SCO for theft, defamation, etc...
Maybe an attorney here can shed some light on this scam, and explain why the FBI is not breaking down doors in Utah?
What about the companies who *have* bought the license? This thing gets dragged out in court for a few years w/ SCO vs IBM.
If SCO loses and they go bankrupt (the lawsuit costs $$$ and they're not making much right now) I'm sure that those companies who have bought a licence from SCO will have no way of getting the money back. The creditors owed the most money and employees will probably get the first split of any monies in backruptcy filings. Is there any legal recourse? Any way for them to get their money back?
would it be possible to raise money to defend the gpl by selling a deck of cards with the pictures of the managment and legal staff of SCO?
Well, it's refreshing to see a karma whore be honest about it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I guess that SCO is basically screwed unless they can some how force the GPL to break-down in court
Not a problem if the GPL is ruled invalid, then SCO is committing a copyright violation for commercial gain.
If they are selling someone elses work, for financial gain, knowing they do not have a license to do so they could be in a LOT of trouble.
Isn't that actually criminal copyright infringement? Do you think the SCO execs would rather go to jail then lose a lawsuit?
No lawsuits around that free operating system is there?
An alternative explanation for the duplicate code, of course, is that both the System V and Linux implementations have a common ancestor. I think that this is vastly more likely than IBM (or anyone) having done a straight copy of the System V implementation for Linux. Being "matter of fact" doesn't make you right...
""Our review of source code and documents appears supportive of SCO claims, though we are not legal experts and IP matters are not always transparent," Deutsche Bank Securities analyst Brian Skiba said in a research note Thursday after visiting SCO's headquarters in Lindon, Utah, Wednesday.
So he saw the same code snippets that the other analysts have seen, with no dates, file names or other means to see when they were developed.
Mirror here of one reader buys a SCO license.
Instead of attacking SCO (SCO doesn't care -- their senior management is busy packing their bags and selling stock -- the company and anyone but senior management there is already screwed), let's *fix* this.
Somebody with access to SCO source and anti-cheating tools -- you know, code comparers that look for changed variable names, etc (though I doubt that there are even changed variable names if this is an issue, since they managed to convince the Deutche Bank guy), please run the thing on the SCO and Linux codebases and let us know what, if anything, is duplicated.
Doing such a check does not, AFAIK, violate any terms of SCO's license. An IBM employee should probably check with legal first, but it seems like doing so would be a major benefit to everyone (except) SCO.
May we never see th
Just print out 14 - 50 Darler Bills and send them to SCO for each CPU running Linux.
FrankI am just curious on grounds you base your assertion.
I'm just thinking how it plays out in court.
This, IMO, is what the judge and jury have to go on:
Code was in SysV first. Now its in Linux. Noone in the linux community can prove where or who it came from, it just sort of miraculously appeared and noone took credit for it.
Remember, this is civil court, the burden is "a preponderance of the evidence".
Eg; My bike shows up in your garage. I say you stole it, you say you found it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
What I would love to see happen next is all of the developers that have released their code under GPL and SCO continues to distribute, send them cease and desist letters. If they aren't going to follow the license then they have no right to continue to distribute the code, but it is up to the authors/maintainers of that code to speak up.
It's precisely because of the GPL that GNU/Linux is such a first class operating system today - it could never have got there without it, and GNU/Linux will continue to get better and better because of the GPL in the furure. So, why on earth would IBM want to "move away from the GPL" (and I'd be interested to know exactly how SCO think IBM even can "move away from the GPL")?
And how is making billions of dollars by leveraging free software "a flawed business model"?
To SCO: If you're serious about addressing the "real problems with Linux", you should tell us exactly what code infringes on your System V copyrights, so that the community can validate your claims, and diligently rectify any wrongdoing. All of the Linux source code is public; there are no secrets in there. JUST SHOW US THE CODE!
Now wouldn't it be funny if SCO decided to abandon the whole thing and keep Bill's money. After all, they are sure to lose vs. IBM. If I were Daryl, I would pump up the stock price for a while and pull the ejection handle when the senior management golden parachutes are ready to deploy?
This should help
:-)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Trying to be factual, eh troll boy? Real Email address, and the company you work for would be credible. But what gave you away as a troll is your own words:
what about your earlier response? The one you posted in the "Linux annoyances" article?
I quote:
Linus blatantly stole our IP and is, in essence, trying to distribute a warezed version of our UnixWare.
By the time this book is in print, you're biggest annoyance will be the thick black cock in your asses, as we'll see your entire IP theft ring behind bars.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
I was reading ibm's countersuit. The interesting part about the suit is that IBM put nearly everything that /. has been harping about for the last 5 months. It looks like the folks at IBM really do read /.
Ahh.. The mind what a wonderful trap!
Everyone is pissed at SCO. I am wondering if it would work to just have thousand/tens of thousands of people go and almost simultaneously file small claims court case against them. The amount (199-699) is perfect for small claims and we can all allege fraud and extortion, and sue for court cost (or maybe add on the attempted license fee too). In the suit we can say there is no proof to substantiate the license. If they show up you don't have much to lose and they have to show prrof so we would find out and remove the proof. If they don't you should be immune to further prosecution on that computer and they get stuck with many bills. If enough users file there is no way they could respond to this. Maybe this is far fetched, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. It would ultimately force SCO to quit this as we bleed them dry and they end up with almost no end users to try and charge without finally revealing their code and having it removed anyway.
What is required to compare Unix-V and Linux? I have a version of Unix-V on an old machine and probably a version of SCO unix from 6-8 years ago. What is necessary to do a line by line comparison with some version of Linux? I am not a programmer and cannot set things up, but there are numerous copies of Unix out there. What are your suggestions for determining who has done what as far as Unix in Linux? If SCO can do it, many others can.
Noone in the linux community can prove where or who it came from, it just sort of miraculously appeared and noone took credit for it.
I doubt very much that this is the case. Linus does not accept anonymous additions to the kernal! And everything is logged. So you're talking out your ass I'm afraid.
The only reason we can't identify where it came from is because SCO won't tell us what the code is!
It won't happen... there's too much money involved.
If it turned out SCO was right, IBM / RH / cisco / HP whatever (or all together) will buy them.
Buying SCO would be cheaper than having the kernel reverted to 2.2 days.
"Code was in SysV first. Now its in Linux. Noone in the linux community can prove where or who it came from, it just sort of miraculously appeared and noone took credit for it."
Bullshit.
There is a commit record and changelog - so the Linux side KNOWS how the code got there.
You forgot that, didnt you, you troll.
Nice try.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
If your basis for thinking that SCO will win is "evidence" spoon fed to you by SCO, then I've got some swampland in Florida to sell you.
Here's a consideration: what happens if the code in question didn't originate in SCO's codebase? What if it originated in Linux?
Here's another consideration: what happens if the code in question originated BEFORE its integration into UNIX or the "derivatives"? (RCU is an example of this. It was published as a research paper before it was ever productized. Read Cringeley for more information.)
Here's another consideration: what happens if part of SCO's purchase contract from Novell states that Novell has the right to order SCO to take certain actions vis-a-vis the UNIX licensees (such as their June 12 order to stop SCO from terminating IBM's license).
I'm getting pretty sick of this, and I've seen that small claims has been a pretty useful way of dealing with some really anoying pests (ie. telemarketers). Is there any possible way I could bring them to small claims? I mean they're claiming I owe them money, but I don't think I do. Of course IANAL, but if someone else know the applicible law better than I do...
It'd be really funny if SCO got slashdotted in small claims court.
SCO cannot force NUMA or SMP to be removed. A SCO executive acknowledged in a MozillaQuest interview that IBM is the copyright owner of that code, which means they have the right to control licensing and distribution of that code.
And a side letter to IBM's AT&T contract gives IBM ownership of the Unix code they write, so SCO has no claims against it.
And SCO's claim is about trade secret misappropriation anyway, and once a trade secret is revealed, it's no longer protected.
The GPL arguments of IBM are just an extra safety net in case SCO figures out some perverted way to convice a judge or jury that IBM didn't have permission to distribute their own copyrighted material and demands that the code be removed, which would probably be denied and damages would be paid by IBM (the only potentially liable party) instead. The GPL is also irrevocable, so SCO's ability to force that code to be removed is questionable too.
You might be right. SGI is exactly what I was thinking. The article mentioned "another hardware vendor" (Who is not IBM or HP) that contributed Unix Sys V code for SMP. I immediately thought about SGI's recent work on NUMA to get Linux up to 32 processors. Can anybody substaniate or shed light on that? Apologies to SGI, I don't want to FUD you guys, but that seems to be where SCO is pointing.
I still dont understand what logic if any that SCO has sueing Linux and the GPL they have no case there just trying to buy time for there dieing OS
Linux is like living in a teepee. No Windows, no Gates, Apache in house.
How do you prove it that its your bike? AFAIK there no VIN number or registration assingned to you. And plenty of ppl saw you giving out similar bikes (GPL distribution).
Here's the message in question, if you want to double-check EQ's assertion like I did. :)
--RJ
An elementary school student? Haven't they ever heard of paragraphs? It certainly doesn't flow as well as most corporate press releases.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
This is the key to the confusion from my perspective: SCO has included GPL code in its Linux products. SCO is not seeking any injuctions for anything Linux but the core UNIX codes. Sounds very confusing, but according to what I'm reading, like it or not SCO has the right to charge. Now back to the rest of what was said: and "by so doing, SCO accepted the terms of the GPL," the complaint says. By seeking licensing fees, SCO is in breach of the license, it says.
Let's look at makeshift diagram:
[ ORIG.UNIX.CODE ] = item1 (SCO's Intellectual property)
[ LINUX.CODE ] = item2
Now if SCO is selling 2 which contains elements of 1, SCO has the right to do so since it's their intellectual property. Now SCO is claiming item2 contains portions of item1 and is redistributing item2 without permissions for the portions taken from item1 (which is their Intellectual Property). They don't seem to be complaining about whether item2 is sold or wanting credit for item2, they want compensation for the portions being used it's that simple. There is so much distortion in this matter, and all these so called "Open Source Movements" are going to end up backfiring on everyone.
IBM and SCO should know better than getting into this whole mess, and IBM is equally guilty. For starters it just shows an extreme amount of corporate immaturity, it shows that the Open Source community cannot get their act right. So why would a company want to choose a product which has an uncertain future? Sure MS may suck at times, but at least you don't hear this juvenile crap from their camp.
MoFscker
Read the later postings where this moron says SysV code "appeared" in linux and nobody knows how it got there.
5 094
He forgot about the changelogs and commit process in place so every bit of code is sourced.
Also he posted a pure flamebait troll to the Linux annoyances thread: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=74037&cid=664
here's an excerpt:
Linus blatantly stole our IP and is, in essence, trying to distribute a warezed version of our UnixWare.
By the time this book is in print, you're biggest annoyance will be the thick black cock in your asses, as we'll see your entire IP theft ring behind bars.
THERE - that enouhg of a troll for you? Mod the parent DOWN - he's LYING!
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
I read the linked article on lycoris.org, which is the Lycoris community site, and it depressed the hell out of me. Yes, in order to create Lycoris (which before the name change was Redmond Linux) they had to license Caldera OpenLinux from the company which now calls itself SCO.
;_;
The unfortunate upshot is that if you support Lycoris, you are ultimately supporting SCO. So it is with a heavy heart that I have to say that I will cease advising newbies to check out Lycoris. Instead, I will advise installation of Mandrake 9.1.
Too bad...Amethyst is really, really nice and is a great "training wheels" distro for those who are migrating from Windows.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Isn't it obvious that SCOX is trying to whip up as much controversy as possible? They take their irrelevant little failed company, and thrust it into center stage based on all of their wild claims.
This drives up their stock price, increases the FUD in the business community, and makes their claims seem more legitimage than they are.
Whenever someone pushes back, they either make even wilder claims, or reverse the allegation back on the claimant.. SCOX: "Your claims that our case is unsubstatiated FUD is a blatantly unsubstantiated claim."
The only effective measure for the Linux community is to IGNORE THESE MORONS.
It may not have been before. But it is now, with IBM's counterclaims (including accusations of Lanham Act (trademark) violations and patent infringement).
I love this post. This is the most obvious troll in a long time. Half this guys posts are Troll or Offtopic. He makes no effort to substantiate his claims (like some other people we know) and just spits out garbage. If I has mod points left today I'd mod him to oblivion.
-1 Troll
The full text of the agreement can also be found at lwn.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
The whole point of SCO's lawsuit from the beginning has been to use it as a platform to spread its propaganda. SCO wants to hoodwink business users into either paying SCO an exorbitant liscensing fee for Linux, as if they owned it, or into going back to a traditional, SCO-derived Unix solution. Their attempt to abrogate the GPL and make Linux their own is nothing short of theft. The really discouraging thing is that, even if they fail, which they most likely will, the heads of SCO will walk away with padded pockets.
I think we're missing a bigger issue here:
SCO knows about so-called 'infringing' code in there, yet they continue to distribute it, meaning they have effectively GPLed whatever code is in there...
As perverse as it may be to one who follows the GPL to see that the "company currently known as SCO" has continued to use Linux in its various practices, it appears we're missing the primary issue: SCO believes it ownes Linux (and the IBM suit is somewhat of a red herring which SCO believes will destroy GPL in a court test, resulting in SCO's ownership of all that is Unix, Linux included). Remember, the more litigation and the more chaos from various IBM, Redhat, etc. lawsuits, the more evidence that supports SCO's claims that GPL simply doesn't work and traditional government assignment of property rights must be applied by the courts. Consider this sequence:
1. CalderaSCO has used GPL, IBM's used it, Red Hat, Linus, GNU and others have all used it. Ownership has become increasingly vague and traditional technology licensing means as constructed by the government have been circumvented.
2. GPL has caused an amazing mess where copyrights, patents and trademarks have been thrown in and this GPL not only hasn't prevented that contamination, but it arrogantly claims to supercede governmental authority to determine the assignment and licensing of ownership. Don't forget, Microsoft has warned us that GPL was a virus.
3. Things that supercede the government tend to irritate the government and will be thrown out. We all know about Microsoft's penalty for superceding authority; GPL's crimes are worse.
4. All the GPL code is stripped of its ownership and must revert back to claimants who have registration as issued by governmental authority. Chunks of GPL code are arbitrarily assigned by the USPTO based upon previous registrations (e.g. by patent holders, etc.). Imagine one big sourcecode clearinghouse created to distribute and maintain code rights, as well as serving as a central authority for code registration (sort of a software Star Chamber). For the paranoid, toss in the anti-strong encryption nuts and RIAA/ABA/film/anti-software piracy lobby who'd quickly throw support behind a government entity that required all code be licensed and inspected. Proposed anti-terrorism provisions could serve as a springboard for this move and see considerable industry and governmental support. Licensing is required for programmers (after all, this would stop people from writing computer viruses, trojans and other rogue code, right?)
5. SCO presents Unix copyright claims and ends up with some to most of the GPL base.
Certainly it's a stretch, but it seems to be a pragmatic one for an otherwise worthless entity with a Unix copyright claim. Furthermore, the timing of the move is well situated to capture current lobby momentum.
From that respect, it makes sense that SCO has distributed Linux and continues to claim that its very foundation was based on Linux solutions, as stated on its company profile page.
*scoove*
IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software. Translation: When you use linux, please wear a condom.
Did they show you dates? Not that I'm calling you a liar but there have been rumors (just rumors) that SCO isn't showing file dates to NDA signing people, as well as showing modified code.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Now, how can a company that was formed in the '90s (Caldera) claim it was shipping *nix for 10-15 years BEFORE IT EXISTED (slight exageration to emphasize the point)?
Maybe I'm mis-reading all of this, but it's like if the current "SCO Group" leadership would like you to believe (sp?) that they are the same company as the *Real SCO*, that they existed way before 1993-4 when it's not the case.
Maybe I'm nit-picking, but if there's *that* easily verifiable inaccuracy, what about the rest? I mean, the tech crowd knows better, but what about all the PHBs that can make or break the Free Unices in The Entreprise? What are the chances they would pick up on this detail and start unraveling (sp??) "Fake SCO"'s story?
Except if you can't prove it's your bike in the first place, you've got problems (e.g. the code was at SCO prior to Linux, but was it anywhere prior to SCO?)
And if I've got a bill of sale that proves you sold that bike to me, it's mine (e.g. the GPL SCO licensed it under)
All you've managed to do is prove there's a bike in my garage.
Until SCO is forced to reveal the code in question in court, we can't even begin to search for the original authors of the source code (under this NDA, would it be legal for you to publically ask "who wrote this code...here, here, and here?") So that issue is basically on hold until the trial.
Luckily, SCO was nice enough to license all of that code under the GPL to their customers, who then have the right to incorporate it into the Linux kernel for everyone. Thanks for the free bike, guys!
You know, you can buy extra Monopoly money at specialized gaming stores. Maybe we should all get together and start sending in the "dough"...I think Arlo Guthrie might even get in on the act:
"And friends, somewhere in Utah enshrined on some little server, is a study of my Linux habits. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the post office wherever you are, just mail a letter full of Monopoly money that says "SCO, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they'll just ignore him. And if two people, two people do it, at the same time, they may think they're both terrorist and they're up to something. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in to a post office and mailing SCO an envelope full of Monopoly money and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in walking in to a post office and mailing SCO an envelope full of Monopoly money and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is -- the Alice's Restaurant Anti-SCO Movement, and all you have to do to join is to spend a few cents and sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar..."
blog |
Skiba also pointed out that none of the allegedly copied code shown to him was contributed by IBM.
"They said it was from another hardware vendor, but they didn't say who," Skiba told internetnews.com. "I think it's clear that they didn't mean HP... or Sun..."
What gets me steamed is that none of these clueless "analysts" seem to be asking the pertinent question - who originally wrote this copied code? How and when did it get into SysV? Does SCO really have any rights to it? They seem to be claiming that they have rights to ANYTHING that is included in SysV. But that's simply not the case. Look at all the crazy claims they are making about the "enterprise-class" features that IBM wrote for AIX.
include $sig;
1;
thier original market plan:
Sue
Countersue
prOfit
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
GAO Green Lights Offshoring Study
WashTech News
Washington DC -- The General Accounting Office agreed on Tuesday to study the trend of U.S. companies exporting engineering and technical jobs overseas to cheaper labor markets. Congressmen Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Adam Smith (D-WA) wrote a letter to the GAO Inspector General on July 17th requesting such a study.
"I'm extremely pleased that the GAO agrees that this is a critically important issue that should be thoroughly examined," said Rep. Smith. "I'm very eager to see the study's findings and use them to improve public policy."
Rep. Inslee told WashTech in a written statement: "Clearly, an increasing number of American firms are outsourcing some of their services. Congress needs an accurate assessment of the facts surrounding this practice in order to find viable policy solutions that will enhance competitiveness of American workers and help keep high-tech jobs in our country. I am encouraged that the GAO is willing to take on this project, and I look forward to their recommendations."
This study comes after several months of lobbying by WashTech, and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) calling on members of Congress to request that the GAO to investigate the issue. As part of the lobbying campaign, which began in January of this year, WashTech generated more than 13,000 email and fax letters to congressional representatives from more than 30 states.
The issue of offshore outsourcing of engineering and information technology jobs has also generated increasing U.S. and international news coverage in recent months.
The study will begin looking at this trend, and analyze the impacts on technical and aerospace employees. It will also review the treatment of IT outsourcing in U.S. trade policy and offer recommendations for enhancing U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace.
I guarantee you that what really happened was someone at a really high executive level got his lawyers and technicians together and told them to put a truly bulletproof case together. SCO's case may have more holes than a swiss cheese when all is said and done, but my money's on IBM's being tighter than Frank Zappa's band.
I'd also be willing to bet that IBM has some additional surprises waiting in the wings as well. Those guys are sneakier and more resourceful than they let on. It wouldn't surprise me if someone in their linux technology lab wasn't picking over the diffs between the kernel SCO named in their suit and the one before that. It wouldn't be that hard to track all their contributions and they probably already know exactly what code is accused of being infringing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
SCO, with their name alone, has given us the answer to the age old question "What have you been smoking?"
Smokes Crack Obviously.
Seriously, do they think they're going to get anywhere by charging $199 for a desktop Linux license? I mean, come on! Not even Microsoft chargs that much for XP (around $150)! Talk about information superhighway robbery! And besides, with all the recent debate over Linux on the Desktop, most would say that this license is a bit premature.
Memo to SCO Execs: It's time to try Crack Light (TM)...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
Gee officer, you've been standing there with your gun all this time, but you didn't point it at me until I started snatching old ladies' purses...
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Matel, the maker/owner of Monopoly is filing suit for wrongful use of one of its games, reverse engineering of the fake money and splitting apart the fundementals of the game for other uses.......
If firefighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime, what do Freedom fighters fight?
From the little I know about law I know that every state in the US has different regulations regarding warranties. I live in New York State, if I buy a license I'd like to know what my rights would be regarding support and if I could take SCO to small claims court if they weren't willing to support their "product".
What would happen if thousands of Linux users did the same thing?
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
This whole SCO pissing contest just keeps getting better and better.
Start Coding Openly
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
From the article on the Lycoris web site:
Redmond, WA - August 6, 2003 - Lycoris revealed today that its flagship product, Desktop/LX, is based on Caldera OpenLinux, which Lycoris has a license to develop and distribute directly from SCO. The terms of this previous agreement lock in Lycoris's ability to alter the source code of the Caldera OpenLinux product, which it has done extensively and release the results as Open Source to the public.
Now, as I understand it, Linux is just the kernel that is distributed ONLY under the GPL. So if Lycoris has purchased a license from SCO that covers Linux and is more restrictive than the GPL, then haven't SCO just lost the right to distribute Linux (as IBM suggests)? More to the point, doesn't that also mean that Lycoris have also lost the right to distribute Linux under the GPL? But Linux can't be distributed except under the GPL, so isn't Lycoris sorta screwed?
Ok, the non-technical, non-IP expert talking head from Deutsche Bank said it didn't appear that IBM was the source of contributor of the nearly identical code... and if it wasn't HP, nor SUN then who the hell was it? SGI maybe? If SGI then I guess SCO is not going after them because the SGI pockets are pretty shallow these days. The needle on the "who dunnit compass" starts to point back to Caldera again. Presumably the list of actual licensors from SCO is known. I wonder if Darl has a bunch of kids, his leadership of SCO is sure consistent with an insatiable desire to screw around all the time.
For such a low UID, I'd think that you would have remembered this.
Intelligent Life on Earth
You say you've signed the NDA and seen the code in question. I am assuming since you seem to think that SCO will win their case case, that you've seen identical code in Linux and in System V.
Have you seen this eWeek article? Here's a quote from the article:
A source close to SCO, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told eWEEK that parts of the Linux kernel code were copied into the Unix System V source tree by former or current SCO employees.
Unless and until SCO publicly identify the allegedly infringing code so that the pedigree of the code can be verified by the community, I don't think you, or anyone else who's signed SCO's NDA and seen their "evidence" can say with any certainty whether the identical code sections were copied from Unix System V to Linux or vice versa. The Linux source code is all public; there are no secrets in there, so there's no good reason for SCO not to publicly identify exactly which parts of the Linux source code they claim infringes their copyrights.Teapot, kettle, black.
Quack, quack.
Just curious if "Bizarro world" is a reference to Sealab 2021? And if so, you should check out http://www.dapcentral.org/ If not, please disregard this posting :) But Sealab Bizarro episode is one of the funniest things I have seen.
~dan
http://www.pbase.com/efatapo
NUMA and SMP will probably be yanked,
Based on what? Are you saying that there are duplications of NUMA and SMP code between SCO and Linux? And what would the problem with that be?
Linus and the team will learn an important lesson about tracking the pedigree of all code submissions.
They are tracking the pedigree of all the code, but SCO doesn't give them a chance to respond to their claims. If SCO came clean with their assertions, we could resolve this issue in a few hours. It would probably turn out that the code in question was either contributed by one of SCO's predecessors, or that SCO copied it from Linux into their software.
But all you implementers, keep a fallback strategy in mind, be it BSD or Solaris or whatever.
There are about half a dozen open source kernels people could fall back on. But until SCO actually makes concrete and specific claims and there is a demonstrable problem, there is no point in worrying. So far, this looks like an SCO stock price manipulation scam. Merely the existence of duplicated code in Linux and some SCO software is neither surprising nor particularly worrisome for Linux (it may be to SCO, which may have violated the GPL once more).
After all, they've got a patent, trademark, copyright, and squatter's rights on unsubstantiated allegations.
Its not about SCO or IBM or SYS V its about taking away your right to freely give away software that threatens the profits of big corporations. The GPL is being attacked. IBM did a boo boo and put proprietary code in the linux kernel? (DOH) I dont think so homie. And like I said before they are going to put the GPL on the chopping block. IBM sues SCO for violating the GPL? HHAHAHAH The are about to stress test the GPL?! LOL This is funny shit dont you see satans sqaud doesnt want you to love your neihbor? This is why the Good Samaritans will rule the world. You cant tax what is given and big corporations will not survive when every thing is free. GPL is a Powerful Powerful example of what love can do. When you give they fall!THEY DONT WANT YOU TO GIVE AWAY WHAT THEY WANT TO SELL. HEED MY WORDS. THESE COMPANIES ARE TOTALLY FOR SLAYING YOUR GPL! You will see.
Code was in SysV first. Now its in Linux. Noone in the linux community can prove where or who it came from, it just sort of miraculously appeared and noone took credit for it.
So we just look through the well documented changelogs for code which has no author right? Oops, there is non, all code came from a known source. You sir, are lacking any form of a clue.
Finkployd
I think it is time that I sue SCO as well. I sell linux and systems support for a living and SCO is damaging my business. I have to get my 5 bill's out of them before redhat, suse and ibm get it all.
Got Code?
"The best it can do is pull aside some people in private, make them sign an NDA, and show them some code out of context. That's not a very convincing case," Petreley told internetnews.com.
When they first filed, it was about IBM contract violations.
Now it is about IBM's failed business plan involving GPL?
This is becoming a more and more transparent attempt to taint Linux. It isn't about IP and it isn't about SCO's flavor of Unix: it is about discrediting software that has become a threat to the first people to sign up for a licenses from SCO: Microsoft!
if lycoris has perpetual right to distribute linux kernel under the GPL, all linus need to do is download a kernel tarball from lycoris, and is coding as usual
What ? Me, worry ?
We get AllSorts of comments on slashdot,
Help fight continental drift.
NUMA and SMP will probably be yanked, the kernel will revert back to it's 2.2 days and probably stay there for a long, long time, until someone comes up with something completely original to replace whats missing.
I gather you have no idea how a large corporation like IBM develops Ideas.
IBM has an R&D wing, and its say in Boulder Colorodo (don't know for sure). There is a bunch of PHDs there who think up great new ideas. Also in that office is a large legal team which immediatly applies for a patent on those ideas. That is all that department produces.
IBM's product managers now evaluate the ideas created and says, "Hey I like this idea they've created out there, I think it would be great for AIX". So they direct teh AIX team (probably somewhere else in the US, say Boston, MA), to develop it for some planned upgrade of AIX.
Now, those product managers later say, "hey, Linux could use that idea too, put that idea into Linux!". The order is sent to the Linux team in San Jose, CA, and they are integrated into the Linux Kernal.
Then, before release, it goes to an oversite board to figure out if they can release, if the GPL is the right license for it (might be LGPLed). Then its released.
IE, just because the feature was developed at IBM, and was put both into AIX and Linux, does not mean it went FROM AIX TO Linux!
Now, SCO is sueing IBM saying it didn't have the right to put that idea into Linux becuase SCO somehow owned the idea. Its not going to work.
what they showed you was all smoke and mirrors. looks like the found another sucker. SCO has admitted that the code they have been showing has nothing to do with the IBM case. that case is about who controls the distribution rights of technology that IBM developed on top of AIX.
So what is the chances of a win against a blatent patent infringment by SCO... I will give you a guess, they don't stand any chance in the world of not getting eaten.
Dr. Suselove - or - How I stopped worrying and learned to love the lawsuit.
General I.P. Ripoff
Group Captain Mandrake
General "Tux" Turgidson
President Merkly Ouscome
Major F.R. "E-king" Bsda
Premier Scozken Kissoff
Dr. Suselove
Colonel "Red Hat" Guano
The best way to say it is: SCO has no proof that it has any code in the Linux kernel, and even if they did, then it would be nullified because of the fact that they distributed Linux, and STILL distriubtes the Linux kernel, even AFTER they have threatened to sue for months now.
Actually, it's from Sienfeld, but I'll check out Sealab. Always up for a good laugh.
A common ancestor - perhaps, but.... He specifically mentioned SMP and NUMA. If you are looking at BSD as the common ancestor, chances are you will be disappointed and I don't know of any other common ancestors besides BSD. AFAIK, the BSDs are still struggling with their SMP implementation, so I find it unlikely that either SysV or Linux would have ripped off the BSD SMP code. I think we have to start asking where the Linux SMP and NUMA code might have come from.
We might find out during the discovery process of the Redhat suit. Redhat can use a subpeona to discover when the code in question was put in Unix and then check that date against the Linux commit logs and archives. The earlier implementation wins. Somewhere, somebody (perhaps Sun or IBM, if not SCO itself) has archived versions of the old Sys V code, so it should be fairly easy to see when this stuff first showed up in Sys V vs. Linux. Redhat will just have to apply the subpeona to date the code.
Since NUMA and SMP are mentioned specifically, I think somebody should take a second look at the recent work that SGI did on NUMA and make sure there is no infringement there.
If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license. As the stakes continue to rise in the Linux battles, it becomes increasingly clear that the core issue is bigger than SCO, Red Hat, or even IBM. The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age.
Not convincing. SCO's shouting loud as if the problem is in GPL and free software and open source, but that seems to me to be definitely a false claim intentionally made-up to confuse people.
This is not a GPL problem. This is not an open-source problem. This is not even a problem of certain kind of license (be it Free or Open or proprietary).
Just imagine (only at the moment) that IBM breached some of its contract terms with SCO and released the "stolen" code, NOT under the GPL, but under some proprietary license where you as a customer never see the source and still have to pay $100000 to use the binary. SCO can (and has to) sue IBM to collect damage. Is this any worse or better than the current situation where IBM used GPL? Probably that would affect the amount of damage (don't know in which direction), but if SCO can collect damage that doesn't matter.
So, even if SCO has something, it's only IBM playing dirty, and that should be all (from SCO's point of view). Not at all a problem of GPL. It seems that SCO wants to make free software/open-source movement look as disrespectable as possible, for some reason.
Let me start first by saying THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE:
How to bring $CO down to their knees (this is just theory I don't know much about our legal system), one person in every county in each of the fifty states file small claims (extortion) with that county's court near or on the same date. $CO would have to default most if not all those claims, and most likely would have to file bankruptcy on all those defaults. Now here is the kicker after they file bankruptcy everyone file one more small claim under a different argument, such as operating under a false pretenses. They would then not be able to claim bankruptcy on those defaults and would then have to come out of the companies operating cost.
Organizing a grass roots effort to under take such a task would be hard if not impossible, but my question for you lawyers and law students is, would this essentially work in theory? Lets face it; $CO has personally attacked every person of the Open Source Community, I think it is time for the community to do something about this attack and show the world that people make the difference in the US not corporations.
Sig
And I bet pretty soon Darl's doing a Saddam impression - hiding, wearing a disguise, moving every few hours to avoid incoming...
...Not that I'm calling you a liar...
No, no. Feel free to call him a liar. He's just trolling (quite successfully).
It is more than unethical, it is illegal for SCO insiders to be trading stocks after making false or misleading statements. Are you listening SEC? Oh, sorry, you're already too busy saving us from Martha Stewart.
an ill wind that blows no good
McBride says you should just run Unix
h ives.asp?ArticleID=43802
Quote here http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarc
My suggestion would be to buy a boxed RH distribution and use that to force SCO to reveal code or get a "clean bill of health" from a US court, even a small court carries weight since it will be the first "ruling" on this issue.
Let's say 500 different claims get's filed SCO is pretty much unable to respond.
Help fight continental drift.
A quote from one of the articles:
Stowell admitted that his company was still providing Linux source code and security patches on its Web site in order to fulfill support contracts with customers, but he disputed Kuhn's claim. "If our IP [intellectual property] is being found in Linux and that's being done without our say, then I don't think that the GPL can force us not to collect license fees from someone who may be using our intellectual property," he said.
Um, yes it can. The GPL explicitly says so.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
Jay (=
(Who is to say that Caldera-now-SCO didn't authorize it? Wasn't Ransom Love and his whole crew basically forced out in favor of the current Chief Sleazebag Officer and his ilk? I wonder what Love has to say about all of this; I smell an interview opportunity...)
The case is more complicated than you think. The AT&T agreement with BSD, which forms the core of all modern OS's (not System V, as Darl would like you to believe) is more likely the common element between SCO crap and Linux. It stands to reason.
As to SCO's "feelings" about NUMA and SMP, it simply isn't so. SCO doesn't own what they didn't develop, and IBM didn't sign an agreement which gave SCO the right to derivative works of a major product line.
Finally, IBM is using the GPL gracefully and may just end up invalidating all the claims. SCO wants to destroy the GPL (because it invalidates all of their claims), but they won't succeed, but the GPL was put together by smart people, not by pissants like you and Darl.
So crawl back to your SCO-hole, and try not to get hurt in the flying debris that will be made of SCO over the next 12 months.
Its gonna be fucking great watching you lose your job.
I think Microsoft would LOVE for the GPL license to "revert" to a BSD-style license...because then they could raid the code and sell it themselves as closed-source. If the GPL collapses in court, protections on the individual bits of code would get more stringent, not less.
After linux is ruled illegal, it will be a simple matter for the govt. to install spyware (against potential terrorists, i.e. everyone) on all remaining operating systems. Well, they will have to get rid of BSD as well I suppose.
Why do you think those "security patches" from microsoft are getting so big?
</tinfoil>
Its well established where this all came from:
NUMA - came from IBM. IBM bought the patents/copyrights when they bought sequent. This is no mystery
SMP - The implementation was *paid for* by SCO/CALDERA in a previous incarnation and was then GPL'd by SCO.
All of this is documented and known.
I think SCO is pissing up a rope here.
The problem is of course that SCO sponsored a lot of Linux development, and we don't have any proof that they didn't put the code their themselves.
As far as the bike analogy goes - if your bike "shows up" in my garage because you planted it there, and then you say I stole it, you're not only lying, but you're slandering me by calling me a thief and you're also guilty of conspiracy to frame me. SCO is doing all of this and more.
Also, one last thing - keep in mind that just because SCO might actually have a case does NOT mean that they will win, not by a long shot. They obviously have no idea what they're doing or what they're talking about when it comes to patent infringement (hint: patent owners have the right to choose when and how they enforce their patents), and for all of their talk about how wrong the GPL is, they are still distributing the kernel sources from their own FTP server right now, without securing them via any sort of authentication mechanism. No password, no public-key handshaking, nothing.
So, as much as I doubt that SCO even has a case, I'm willing to grant the possibility that they might, but they're destroying it themselves via their own unprofessional actions and statements. Not only that... but they decided to go after IBM for an IP case. IBM, the company that out-litigated the Department of Justice. And we're not even talking "convinced a Republican president to call off the DoJ hounds" out-litigated - we're talking "spent more money and had better lawyers" out-litigated. So, even if they are in the right (which I personally seriously doubt) they still don't get to win necessarily, just because of our amazing legal system here in the USA.
And, even though Boies may be famous, he is an ex-IBM lawyer. He's also under review in Florida and may be disbarred.
All in all, I've got my popcorn ready. I've always got FreeBSD to fall back on if things get too out-of-hand.
-
http://www.goingware.com/notes/prosecute-sco.html
Here's the introduction: Thanks for your help.Request your free CD of my piano music.
EXT. BUILDING
.38.
As the Linux users panic trying to escape, Darl locks eyes with RedHat and levels his gun. RedHat throws SuSE to the ground and grabs the dumbstruck Linus's sidearm.
But he doesn't get off a shot -- a lone gunshot stops Darl -- knocking him back through the doorway. RedHat looks back to see IBM still sighting down the barrel of his
His hand is rock steady. He sees RedHat's look.
IBM
(shrugging)
You were right. You couldn't have
made it without me.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
"Code was in SysV first. Now its in Linux."
This is not correct, but even if it were in some weird fantasy, it wouldn't matter, because by distributing (and continuing to distribute) Linux, SCO has effectively GPL'd their work.
You'll be looking for a new job within 6 months, you SCO-hole.
Each of these new developments makes it more and more clear that SCO's real objective (as no doubt dictated by their supporters in Redmond) is to drag the GPL in front of the Supreme Court.
At the same time, it seems that the more McBride shoots off his mouth, the more likely it is that he's going to upset his own applecart. This is beginning to look like some cheesy movie in which a Mafia don hires Pee Wee Herman to do a hit.
What scares me is the thought of a jury made up of the usual non-techie types who don't even have a clue of what an operating system is. I wouldn't be surprised if SCO's lawyers filter out any potential jurors who've used Linux or done any professional programming.
To all of those people saying SCO is the pot calling the kettle black, I have one thing to say: Who better than SCO to know unsubstantiated claims? It takes one to know one!
From paragraph 22 of IBM's counterclaims:
"Although most, if not all, of the UNIX technology that SCO purports to own is generally known, available without restriction to the general public or rapidly ascertainable by proper means, SCO undertook to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the marketplace in regard to SCO's rights in and to that technology."
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Just get this over with. Take it to court and get a decision. Until then, NONE of this matters....
Personally, I'm tired of "SCO news" of the day.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If SCO calls the IBM claims unsubstansiated, they must be. After all, SCO is the leading has the leading industry authority in the field of unsubstantiated allegations.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
SCO is a spoiled brat that screwed up and now wants to parch the earth unless bigger business bails out the years of "business management" screw ups on their own part.
SCO could have beat Linux, if it had a decent product at something of a palatable price.
But instead, unscrupulous business types are trying to extort and FUD business into paying money. In the end, only suckers will deal with SCO.
Did you hear, SCO would copywright bytes and binary next week when IBM calls their bluff.
I for one hope IBM sues SCO out of existance.
Dave
While some have characterized SCO's action towards Linux users as extortion, none have documented that possibility.
IANAL, but I google. I found the Hobb's Act: Extortion By Force, Violence, or Fear.
There are four criteria for the Hobb's Act:
Criteria 1 and 2 are clearly met, as SCO is attempting to use Linux users' fear of lawsuits to collect license fees. But that in itself is not criminal.
It appears to me that condition 3 is also met, because SCO's threats to Linux user's can potentially have a great threat on interstate commerce. Linux servers comprise a large portion of all commercial webservers. The need to license all of these could have a broad impact on e-commerce.
Is SCO's threat of lawsuits against Linux users wrongful? It is if they have no right to the property they are claiming. Given that SCO has released the disputed property under the GPL, they have no legal right to it and therefore no right to collect license fees for it.
The interesting thing is that extortion is a criminal offense. People could go to jail for this.
It looks from the analysts comments as if the SCO claims have merit. Even a non-programmer can tell that two code blocks are identical. Most likely the code in question was copied and pasted in this case. This is too bad, but it underscores the importance of keeping others IP out of your IP.
Yeah, just as I can show you two pieces of identical code and you'll be able to see that they're identical.
What's more important is:
None of the analyst said it was shown historical proof that code belongs to them
Good thing I use Linux:)
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
I want to know if linus kept the copyright and trade mark when he released Linux under GPL.If he did and choses to be nasty then may be SCO could be in for copyright violation and unauthorised trademark use.
anybody care to comment?
Wanted : A Signature.
The only explanation I can find for SCO's lunacy is that they are setting themselves up to lose a court case against the GPL. Isn't this what we always wanted--a "test case" to set a precedent for the GPL?
Darl McBride is a hero, and I think we should all stop...
Damn, I nearly got through that with a straight face.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Up to this point, MHO was that while Mr. Stallman had a lot of good ideas, he was being a bit too fanatical in implementation, which I think was a fairly common opinion.
I must say that events of this week are causing me to reconsider that opinion. SCO's direct assult on the GPL seems to justify both Mr. Stallman's position on free vs. non-free software and also his fanaticism in keeping free software "pure".
sPh
They're down 11 cents from yesterday's close.
Do you think it is possible that both Unix and Linux borrowed code from BSD (which is totally legal)? Is it possible that SCO put linux code into SCO? Maybe the programmers got it from the same textbook (exactly how many ways are there to parse a command line or execute a loop).
The fact that there is similiar or even identical code in both sources doesn't mean anything. I have two different dictionaries on my desk and they both have the same words and pretty similar definitions. That doesn't mean one copied from the other.
I haven't had a good laugh like that in a long time. Perhaps with all the calls for a grass-roots effort, more and more of us could do this as such an effort.
I have posted .tif and .pdf versions of IBM's latest complaint.
These are on my servers, so don't smash them too badly.
http://sco.dumitru.com/ibm_images.pdf
http://sco.dumitru.com/ibm_images.tif
You can elect to enforce a patent at any point during the life of the patent, much to the dismay or frustration of everyone involved. Thank you very much GIFs. Grrrr...
So, SCO's claims that IBM can't enforce these patents like this because they never inforced these patents before is just temper tantrum talk.
I just had a thought.. SCO still has relations with them, and any copy of United Linux is licensed by them? Ehh I probably don't know what I'm talking about.
No NDA, no rules, just a bare metal cage, nitro-powered funny cars, redlining roaring engines, SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!
Oops, sorry...
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Seems to have worked damned well for Rambus. You know, developing open standards based on a patent you fail to mention. Nice move.
As far as SCO crying, I call bullshit. So they're pissed that IBM let them willingly infringe their patents until they sued IBM. And that, once sued, IBM gets pissy. Well, yeah. You would too.
It's basically like saying "I don't know why my neighbor stopped letting me take his lawnmower after I knocked up his daughter. He didn't complain all these years, so it must not really be his lawnmower." That's ridiculous, so is SCO's whining here.
Piss somebody off, don't expect "friend" treatment. That's the way the world works.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Seinfeld used it as a reference to the Superman comics.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Assuming for the moment that identical blocks of code mean anything at all, the issue is where, when and under what conditions those blocks of code come from, not that there are blocks of code.
Lets for the moment assume that the presentation is not a complete fraud and that there are, in fact, two or more identical chunks. Did Linux crib from SCO or versa-vica? Was there a common third-party source? Public domain code? When did the crossover happen? Without this supporting information, such comparisons are meaningless.
It would seem that these reporters are genuinely blindingly naive or SCO is NDAing away the information to continue their extortion... I sure wish someone with the inclination to sign the NDA would be willing to immunize themselves against such tactics prior to visiting the pit.
I've read the other responses. The GPL won't collapse. Here's why:
MS would love for Linux to go away. However, the power of OSS is that many minds can organize efficiently enough to create a workable product. After years of educationally-focused Unix-like software getting streamlined, studied, debugged and now ported, we've hit commercial grade server product. For free.
The GPL is the grease for that organization. It forces the trust to appear in the transactions working with this code. It also enables the rejection of people who won't play by the rules. We're simply watching a greed-based test of that right now with SCO. Sure MS is rooting for the SCO team, they need to sell against only SUN, HP and other moneymakers in the industry. They know how to undercut someone with production costs.
Linux's only production costs are in manhours donated. Come hither-dither, feast/famine, Linux has been at enterprise quality and will only improve as new theories and algorithms get tested and then put into the churning process for implmentation, testing, etc.
So if SCO's code is present in the current Linux, "derivative works" clauses be damned, we're going to end up with a free something as an OS. The machienery for creating such a beast is already well constructed. if we OSS'd the old BeOS, or the obscure other OS'es out there right now, it would quickly flower into a powerhouse. BSD isn't a derivative, so we're only a kernel away from another Nix flavor anyway.
That said, I believe this mess of a SCO press release per day (and all the FUD in it) and then the world's jabbering about it, will pass when the courtroom doors finally open. There just isn't any logic left in it anymore. Also, serious cases aren't tried in press releases. We're talking about simple sales numbers here. MS pays SCO, makes the next Munich sale. If this doesn't happen, the money well will dry up and the lawyers will pick the bones clean at SCO.
You can be sure, though, that this brain-numbing series of moves by SCO is not without support. 5 execs aren't doing this because they want their stock to simply go from 0.25 to 11.00 - this is an orchestrated effort to remove the trust/reliability and certainty in the Linux-is-an-option for corporate servers. Who benefits most? MS. By far. One could be very certain Balmer is getting an inside on the SCO moves word-by-word before we are. He's ready to play off of this.
If you need to check, ask for an MS sales rep to come by and give a little presentation for your next "long-range server upgrade" - for those in the $10mil and up range (they will check your company structure, sales and potential first). Those slides are hot off the press from that morning's sales meeting. And they say: "Linux is a liability because of the GPL." Almost verbatim SCO's press release.
mug
Sun and Microsoft pay SCO $13 million ($8 million already, $5 million more per contract).
Canopy Group buys the IP, picks the lawyers, picks the executives, and changes the name of the company from "Caldera" to "The SCO Group".
SCO goes berserk with the FUD and the lawsuits.
If it doesn't work, Canopy regroups and tries something else. They will be 1/2 with this business model (succeeded with Caldera International versus Microsoft, failed with SCO versus IBM).
At the worst, Microsoft and Sun will lose their $13 million and they will move on and try the next thing. Canopy is not taking much of a hit.
The SCO Group is simply a cut-out for Canopy, and a puppet for Microsoft and Sun.
"In a strange alliance, IBM and the Free Software Foundation have lined up on the same side of this argument in support of the GPL." The folks at SCO are huffing fumes again, aren't they. How is the alliance between the largest commercial supporter of Linux and the creators of the GPL in any way "strange"? baka IBM and the FSF argue in support of the GPL? Thats unpossible.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Ok I just obtained the code shown to be in both Linux, and Unix. And I have to tell you, We are in big trouble people, it is exactaly the same. Below is lited the code sample, It was found under the tutorial\c directory.
#include
int main()
{
printf("Hello, World.");
return -1;
}
I'm sick of this. There's t-shirts, bumpers stickers, and frickin' coffee mugs. State the case with TUX as backup:
SCO's NOT Linux!
http://www.cafeshops.com/politinerd
If you want to oppose encryption laws and the DMCA, there is some stuff for you there too.
Here's the most extreme motorcycle video ever seen:
Click here!
OK, so we all know you're a shill for SCO given your posting history. But let's take the assertion of a copyright violation at face value and accept it for argument's sake.
NUMA and SMP will probably be yanked, the kernel will revert back to it's 2.2 days and probably stay there for a long, long time, until someone comes up with something completely original to replace whats missing.
SMP goes back to later 1.3 kernels, and was available as a compile time option back in 2.0. The whole of SMP ain't going anywhere. Instead lets assume that several header files and some c source files are found to violate SCO's SYSV copyrights. Once these files are discerned in discovery, we can all assume Linus et all will simply rewrite these routines and *poof!*, problem gone. Linus can go to the judge and say,
"Sir, I didn't know the specifics of the copyright violation in question, but as soon as we discovered exactly which files violated SCO's copyright we excised those out of the kernel immediately. Also, Sir, SCO didn't make it easy. We would have done this sooner, but SCO forced us to wait until discovery before we could take this action. We tried to negotiate in good faith with SCO, but they refused and instead offered to release their claims of copyright violation under an NDA. Since this stuff was going to come out in discovery anyway, we just chose to wait instead of signing their contract under legal duress."
Does this look like the Linux community is going to have to revert five years back to kernel 2.0 to you? Not me. But then, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe you are and can tell me why I'm wrong?
--Maynard
I'm writing this because I have been able to retreive evidence as solid as SCO's that their intelectual property is in the Linux kernel.
/usr/src/linux-2.4/ -exec grep -l SCO {} \;
:)
I feel that this is AS STRONG A CLAIM AS SCO'S . Here it is. Are you ready?
linux-2.4]$ find
This definitevly shows that the letters "SCO" appear in the Linux kernel, and we all know that 'SCO' is SCO's intelectual property!
(never mind that it's words like CROSSCOMPILE and DISCONNECT
For some reason it is taking way too long for the Linux/F&OSS community to realize what this whole SCO thing is all about. It's about time we start asking the right questions and try to make sense of what apparently doesn't make any.
Why would SCO do all this? Stock scam? Maybe, but not very likely. If it was, they would've already sold their stock, move the money offshore and flee the country, because at this point it's clear that the price is not going much higher than it is.
Are they hoping to win their lawsuit? When dealing with any enemy, the first thing one must assume is that he is not stupid, not matter how stupid he seems. They are not morons.
Why would they produce one press release that looks like a troll after another, one senseless allegation after another? What are their goals? So far what we've heard was:
1. Linux kernel is written by a bunch of school kids who can't possibly make it any better than a bicycle compared to SCO's brilliant OpenServer or whatever.
2. Linux is full of code stolen from a proprietary system, and there is no way it can be free from all kinds of claims of IP property rights, licenses, patents, blah blah blah. In other words, Linux is illegal.
3. The new message is basically GPL is bad. Not yet clear why, but it doesn't matter what they come up with. The point is, GPL is bad, so any kind of "serious" business should "move away" from it.
So all they are saying is nothing but pure FUD, and their goal obviously is to keep it going as long as they can. Furthermore, they don't seem to be at all worried about the consequences, about how they are going to get out of this. All they want is for the FUD campaign to continue as long as possible.
Why Microsoft would spend $10M on a license for something they don't need? Just to be safe from being sued? Noone knew about the lawsuit at the time they bought the license. Noone that we know of anyway. This "donation" is the only evidence of Miscrosoft-SCO relationship we know so far. Or is it? Isn't the whole FUDslide evident enough? Isn't the goal of this whole operation to do as much damage to F&OSS as possible?
From now on we should consider SCO a mere representative of Microsoft for all intent and purpose. We are dealing with Microsoft here, not with a small broken company that's going out of business next week. This is not SCO's attack on Linux and F&OSS. This is Microsoft's attack. In fact this may be their last chance, and they know it. Gates and Ballmer see the end clearly. They are not morons.
And instead of making jokes and bashing SCO we'd better get serious, try to come up with a strategy that will make sure that who is hurt badly as a result of all this is Microsoft itself, and not Linux.
-- K
So obviously people think SCO is trying to obfuscate trademarks and patents - they may be. They could also be raising doubts as to the applicability of IBM's patents in this situations by implying IBM's desperation. Don't know how far that would go in court though.
This is one more time where it seems as if their strategy seems more tied to maintaining stock price (for pump-n-dump) than for winning a case. It's easier to fool some retard watching CNBC than it is to fool a judge.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
1) where the code originated. If the code preceded both shown examples and was licensed appropriately, copying is non-relevant.
2) from where to where the copying occurred.
3) whether the the copying constitued copyright infringement.
If SCO had a valid case, they would NOT be showing this stuff under a NDA. They would also be showing it to individuals who could properly assess the validity of the claims. They aren't because they don't have a case.
talk about "unsubstantiated allegations."
SCO knows this very well.
Isn't Utah the land of morons ? Or maybe it is mormons... don't really recall...
Go, IBM, go!
[emphasis mine]
None of these claims have any merit at all.
Two identical pieces of code can have a variety of explanations:
Until they disclose more information, it can be total BS. The reviewers could even be outright lying.
These kind of claims are called "unsubstantiated claims".
As of then SCO won't have a leg to stand on... you'll just upgrade your kernel with the IBM GPL patch...
This would be a great move for IBM. They kill off SCO's FUD, while in the process of releasing they become the ultimate good guy & savior of Linux & the Open Source community. It would gain them major trust with decisionmaking execs & IT staff alike. They make a smart move (businesswise) and at the same time they satisfy all geeks around the world.
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
As an act of protest I have uninstalled Caldera's DR-DOS from my luggable and replaced it with OS/2.
I see a possible shareholder lawsuit because of the unprofessional statements made by SCO executives. They are accountable to their shareholders and if SCO's lawsuit (a desperate attempt to save the company) is seriously damaged or destroyed by the counterclaims made by IBM and they are forced into bankruptcy, the shareholders may lose their money and seek damages. Not that they'll get much.
Now if it came to light that there was a secret agreement to do this all along... (This is far-fetched speculation, but it has a small amount of plausability.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
SCO is trying to stop it's stock from doing the limbo. Too late now. :)
I am cheering for SCO stock.
"Common SCO stock, how low can you go."
IBM should be concerned. If anyone is an expert on Unsubstantiated Allegations it is SCO.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Does IBM look like the big bully picking on the local independent businessmen? Is the FSF a bunch of commies trying to keep American business from making an honest buck? What happens if Stallman has to testify about the GPL? Go to his web site (www.stallman.org) and look at this picture: looks like a degenerate hippy to me. Do you expect all the lawyers to play nice and not engage in personal attacks? I'm posting this as an Anonymous Coward for a reason.
Although this will go to appeal no matter who wins (baring the bankruptcy of SCO), it would be incredibly bad if the initial court case is won by SCO. At that point any legally responsible business would have to back away from using Linux because of exposure to liability for using unlicensed software. Or they would have to pay the ruinous license. (Imagine a Beowulf cluster of SCO license fees.) If they didn't they would not be responsible to their shareholders. The down side is very very down.
Remember that sometimes local politics trumps the both the facts and the letter of the law. In Jack and the Beanstalk Jack is a thief but the giant is the villain. The giant was protecting his property rights and he ended up dead. It depends on who is telling the tail.
I am so sick and tired of hearing and reading all of this FUD! For christ sake, either show us all of the offending code so it can be corrected, and monetary damages settled, or SHUT UP! This is getting old fast. If it continues, Then I'll be forced to take drastic measures. I will get rid of all of my IBM computers and Linux servers and switch to Dell servers preinstalled with Windows 2003. Then evrey one concerned will lose, including me :(
Just a crazy thought. I think it's far fetched, but let's entertain it.
Remember the article about M$ starting a Linux Lab to investigate Linux? What if M$ plans are to fund SCO (or buy SCO). Throw money at a bunch of layers. Get a court of law to "prove" that SCO owns the "IP" in question.
M$ makes their own version of Linux. Claim that no-one else has the rights to it. The can advertise their Linux as the only "legal" Linux (or something like that). Alternately, they could sit on their "IP" and not distribute Linux at all. Hence Linux would be effectively "illegal".
Now I know that's a big conspiracy theory. But entertain it. Would M$ do something like that?
...or smoking crack.
GPL has caused an amazing mess where copyrights, patents and trademarks have been thrown in and this GPL not only hasn't prevented that contamination, but it arrogantly claims to supercede governmental authority to determine the assignment and licensing of ownership.
Huh? The government has nothing to do with the licensing of IP. It all done through private contracts and licenses. All the government does is enforce contracts and licenses, when asked to do so, in courts. Similarly, assignment
The rest of your post is similarly confused. Copyright vests in the author without any registration requirement. The government can not and will not reassign the copyright to code to people who register and to people who hold patents.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
IANAFA (Financial Analyst) but...
SCOs market cap is $141 million, IBM is $140 billion. That is 1000 times larger. IBM has $4 billion in cash. Hostile takeover anyone? A $300 million offer would probably tempt enough SCO shareholders to force a sale, and put an end to this nonsense for good. IBM would then own Unix and whatever other "ideas" SCO has, and could add that to its already monumental portfolio of IP.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
It is about a big blue whale slowly turning to take notice of the small shark who has been trying to byte its tail and whose mess is scaring the krill away. For a second, while the big blue whale takes a moment to look directly into the little shark's eyes, the little shark has its last chance to flee. We know a second is a very small ammount of time. Does the little shark know?
Someone who has more knowledge than me, please detail what it would require for IBM to just buyout SCO in a hostile takeover? From the looks of yahoo's finance page, SCOX has 13.1 million shares outstanding, and they seem to currently be selling at $15 a piece. So, in order to get controlling interest (51%, say), they would need to drop $98.25 million. Is this correct? Is this possible? Is this probable?
says SCO's allegegations are "Unsubstantiated Allegations"
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Sign the freakin NDA, get a good look at the code, take notes, and then release the information anonymously on Freenet so all this crap can come to an end sooner rather than later?
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Shouldn't be a Monty Python Foot, cause i was laughing when I saw the headline
I don't know what they call the OS of AS400, but I'd bet they still get way more revenue from that than all the *NIX stuff combined.
SCO reiterates its position that it intends to defend its intellectual property rights. SCO will remain on course to require customers to license infringing Linux implementations as a condition of further use. This is the best and clearest course for customers to minimize Linux problems.
God help SCO if they don't win, they just sold people something they don't own. Isn't there a law against that?
Apparently, SCO doesn't know how to play the patent game. As anyone who's worked for a big company with large patent portfolios would know, the patent game works something like this:
For those of you still not clear on the concept is that it doesn't matter what particular patents you have but rather how many you have. In other words, how many cards do you have to trade? If you don't have enough patents cards to play, you are either going to get sued out of existence or you will be sent running with your tail between your legs.
Now, you would think that SCO would understand this game, having been around a while, so to speak, but then again, what is now called SCO hasn't really been around that long.
The thing that really gives away their cluelessness is that when most intelligent companies think of suing IBM, they don't think of easy money from deep pockets. They think about IBM's deep legal pockets, and how to deal when IBM comes back over the top with their countersuit. Even those loser companies that buy patents and try to sue people know enough to go after the easily bullied small fry before trying to take on someone who can fight back with a vengence.
The goal of every for-profit business is to earn a profit (I say for-profit because people seem to get confused between non-profit organizations and business entities here). However, many corporations choose to remain private. That is, their stock is held soley within the company, usually only within the Board of Directors and corporate officers.
Public companies, which have some stock for sale, do not always conform to the notion that they must appease the public stockholders. For example, Amazon, since going public, has bent over backwards to please their stockholders and inflate the value of their stock (which, in the world of the business, means they have more money); however, some public companies trade soley for capital (that is, the inital investment) in order to become a bigger company. Once these companies have gained enough ground, they cut back on the ammount of stock (sometimes less than 1% of their total stock), in order to turn the stock market into a potential stream of income (their stock trades at a higher value, it's really a very complicated system), the rest of the stock remains within the company. Off the top of my head, I can't name (and backup that claim) of the companies that do this, but some behemoth companies do.
Other companies, as you said, are in the business of maximizing shareholder value.
Basically, all I'm saying is, don't simply say "business = please stockholders" That's not how it works for many businesses.
--LordKaT
The GPL isn't a contract. It is a copyright license.
That means that unless you agree to the terms of the license you do not have any rights to use the copyrighted work. Pure and simple.
Now you can go back to the owners of the copyright and try to negotiate a different license, but since SCO did not do that, then the only way they have any rights to distribute the copyrighted works in question is by agreeing to the terms of the GPL.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
IANAL, but here's my wacky idea to exctract justice from SCO:
Linux users should collectively file a class action lawsuit against SCO to stop the extortion of "license fees", litigating using an open source development style. No expensive (cathedral style) legal team would be required. Instead all legal actions would be developed and decided bazaar style. A web portal would allow all class members to see all documents relevant to the lawsuit and to submit their own "patches" to legal filings under development. Elected volunteers would represent the collective will of Linux users in court.
Would many eyes make all holes in legal strategy shallow? In a drawn out war of legal attrition would a broadly distributed volunteer effort outlast an opponent that is rapidly accumulating legal costs?
My understanding is that while the U.S. court system is in practice accessible only to those with a lot of money to pay lawyers, it is in principle accessible to all citizens. This would be a test of that principle.
How long until we're able to moderate stories, as well as comments? Seriously, this article could be moderated as -1 Troll, -1 Flamebait, or -1 redundant in a heartbeat. Metamoderation would catch the mod points wasted by moderating it +1 insightful, or +1 informative. Let's see it happen.
The probability that someone is watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions.
Cookware community in disarray. Millions turning to open fire and spit method. Film at 11.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
Move away from the GPL? Perhaps McBride has been dropped a few times as a child. Last I checked, as far as the GNU GPL was concerned, it boils down to the old expression "in for a penny, in for a pound". Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I mean, hell, if it really was a mistake that the SCO or SYS V code should not have been submitted, fine, but now McBride appears to be trying to clean up on the perceived mistakes of his forefathers. Did the SYS V code get submitted by the previous owners? If not, SCO has no claim. (Beware, IANAL.)
Another consideration - if the code was submitted by a SCO employee acting as SCO without the *endorsement* of the higher-ups at SCO, do they still have a claim?
But back to the GPL, which basically requires people to distribute with source code and asks people to share their modifications to the source tree for general consumption. Both parties (IBM and SCO) may have done this. IBM certainly has contributed to Linux on various levels - if not in code, then in endorsement. And SCO wants them to move away from it. As if it were a business model? If they were moving forward with it as SCO seems to perceive, there's probably a lot of their stuff that would be under GPL. OS/2, anybody?
This sig no verb.
if this one person attempts to buy a license with monopoly money and if SCO were to write back refusing the monopoly money as payment, then SCO must pay the postage on their response. if N people tried Y times to buy licenses with monopoly money, then SCO would be forced to pay the postage for X * Y responses.
disclaimer: i am not suggesting that you do this.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
Oh, and with the users, SCO is asking them months later "Hey! Are you going to pay for that burger or what? That'll be $699, unless you had the BigMac, then it'll be more!"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Darl C. McBride
1799 Vintage Oak Ln
Salt Lake City, UT 84121
(801) 424 - 2006
or sign him up for catalogues;
maildos
IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software.
Since when is ANY software warranted? I haven't seen an EULA in years that didn't say AS-IS, NO WARRANTY like some sort of old rusted heap in a used car lot. Protection? "XXXXX corporation is not liable for any damages that may result from the use of the software." That's REAL protection, guys.Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
First, they have steadfastly refused to offer ANY proof or description of what proprietary code of theirs is contained within Linux.
Second, they have been, and continue to be, a distributor of the Linux kernel.
Go read Eblen Moglen's analysis and pay attention to the copyright analogy portion about the book.
(paraphrased)Publisher Y accuses Publisher X of including some of their copyrighted work in the latest and greated best seller. Instead of suing Publisher X they inform everyone who bought a copy of the book that they'll have to buy a "reader's license" in order to read the book.
Sounds pretty silly doesn't it?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Previous to reading SCO's reply to the IBM filing, I thought that the theories that MS was behind this whole affair was a bunch of hogwash, the usual ranting of the anti-MS zealots. Now, I'm firmly convinced...this is an MS backed ploy all the way. SCO wouldn't have any motivation to break the GPL, they just want some money. Looks like they found a way to get some...by playing the stooge for MS, and trying to break the GPL.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
Yes, but since you cannot assume that the shareholders will all sell at a particular time you should maximize the shareholders' value in the long term (under the assumption they keep the stock).
The biggest problem with Enron (as a business) was not that the employees lost their jobs, but that the shareholders lost their money, and the company went down (so they won't be getting their money back).
The biggest problem with the SCO business model is that it depends on flimsy claims of IP infringement, outrageous compensatory demands that have not been backed yet by evidence, and the hope someone will buy them out. It doesn't depend on any of their ACTUAL PRODUCTS, and it actually kills some of their product lines (the Linux side), antagonizes their users and the developer community, and not a few business partners.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
All Linux users, including owners of TiVo need to report SCO to their Attorney General. Ask if demanding protection money is extortion. Tell the AG that SCO won't tell you what you are buying and you have no idea if you have compiled the alledged code into your binary kernal and thus don't know if you need a binary license. Tell the AG that SCO is giving your no warrenty that the license will work the way it claims. Tell them to act fast because SCO is considering doubling the cost of protection.
I'm getting tired of all the same stuff being said OVER AND OVER AGAIN, without any real information being said. The truth is, we don't know the FACTS of the situation. Unfortunately there is no way to know the specifics without full access to the legal discovery process, and even then, it is a vast amount of tangled contracts and code that have to be disentangled. I prefer a much simpler method, ATTACK ROBOTS, programmed to destroy the SCO empire. Mu ha ha ha. MU HA HA HA HA HA!
Filing a lawsuit and taking the other party to court is how we substantiate allegations, and priovide for a remedy. Of course the allegations are unsubstantiated. The case has not yet gone to trial.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Scene at SCO:
"Hey, we've got someone coming from Deutsche Bankk to look at our code!"
"Quick make a copy of something interesting for him, change a couple small variable names, maybe a number or two. Add a couple comments that look like change logs. Print both of them out. "
... later ...
"He bought it. He says it was copied."
General rejoicing as the opinion appears in print, the stock goes up a bit more and everyone sells a few more shares ...
I'm at Deutsche Bank right now, and just last week I attended a strategy presentation. They mentioned the introduction of Linux as a cost-cutting measure, and seemed quite enthusiastic. There was no mention of the lawsuit or its potential impact, so I don't think this guy speaks for the bank.
SCO may or may not have a point over whether or not GPL will stand up in court, but last time I checked courts still do look at and believe in "good faith." GPL may not hold too much water legaly, but its premise and wording make it obvoius to the user's its intentions. The court should recognize that while it may or may not be legaly binding, releasing something under GPL means that one is embrassing the concept of the GPL and therefore the company should be bound to that assumption. Besides, if SCO markets something as GPL and they don't believe that it is GPL, then that is false advertising and mis-marketing. Talk to you attorney general about that.
PS. Link to the SCO website often and go there to check for updates.... bandwith costs money and we are slashdot... need I say more.
IBM: Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
SCO: Oh, had enough, eh?
IBM: Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left.
SCO: Yes, I have.
IBM: Look!
SCO: Just a flesh wound. (kick)
IBM: Look, stop that.
SCO: Chicken! (kick) Chickeeeen!
IBM: Look, I'll have your leg. (kick) Right!
[IBM chops SCO's right leg off]
SCO: Right. I'll do you for that!
IBM: You'll what?
SCO: Come here!
IBM: What are you going to do, bleed on me?
SCO: I'm invincible!
IBM: You're a looney.
SCO: The SCO always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then.
I code, therefore I am.
SCO today counter counter sued IBM claiming "You're just a bunch a weenies".
IBM responded with yet more pointless stupid eServer commericals. The new initiative has a SCO exec bent over an eServer while an attractive and trendy eServer flack takes him from behind.
After reading IBM's countersuit, I no longer think that SCO's execs are going to walk away from this with millions. IBM is going to crush them all like little bugs and the whole lot of them are going to jail. Most likely the Canopy Group will get rolled over, as well.
By the way, thanks to everyone who modded my timeline up yesterday. It was nice to see all that work appreciated.
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
Ahh! So SCO admits publicly that the infringement, and therefore damages, have been accumulating over many years!
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Why would SCO care how IBM treats their customers? It shouldn't care, because if IBM treats their customers poorly they'll go elsewhere, possibly to SCO. So why would they say that? Most likely because they don't like IBM supporting free software. For IBM, software isn't the big seller, it's services and high-end hardware. SCO doesn't have this. At most, SCO is just a software company, but I would say it is just an IP company now. They see their demise if Linux keeps going for free.
The real irony (hopefully I'm using that word correctly) is that if the rumours about Microsoft supporting SCO behind the scenes are true, and Microsoft is the one that put Netscape out of business by giving away web browser software, then Microsoft has really supported the downfall of SCO by setting a business precedent of giving away software.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
This link shows how fast SCO stock prices are falling, can you say de-listing.....X &d=c&k=c1&a=v&p=s &t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCO
SCO is distributing a body of copyrighted work. The GPL is what is giving them the right to distribute that work.
Now, they have 2 options. Option 1 is that all work contained must be covered by that license. Option 2 is to immediately cease any and all distribution of the collected work.
Since they've foregone option 2 one would say that they are thus obliged under option 1.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age.
Would this be the same Internet that largely relies on Free Software?
Ok, I am going to say something people may mod me down for... That is OK.
There is no difference between the value of software as IP in an internet age and the value of food as IP in a biotech age. Corporations with strong interests in these areas seek to extend their power by extending their rights under patent and copyright law for their temporary advantage.
Anyway, IANAL, and I am speaking strictly of the US.
The idea of copyright is supposed to be something which helps build an intellectual commons which others can draw from. This is why the US Constitution specifies "for a limited time" regarding patents and copyrights.
Our parents fought the Civil Rights War and while there are still race issues today in the US, the actual cultural war is over, and the civil rights movement won. Before that there was the Industrial Revolution, and before that the Civil War and the cultural war regarding slavery. These conflicts produced profound changes in the US and indeed were generally part of larger global trends.
Richard Stallman talks about the "Right to Read" in one of his short stories, and I think as much as I tend to get annoyed with Stallman regarding the whole GNU/Linux vs Linux debate, I think that this IS the issue of our day-- that our cultural war is the war over the intellectual and creative commons. This takes many forms including the fight against copyright extensions (Sonny Bono/Mickey Mouse Protection Act), the fight for open source, and the fight against genetically modified foods. I think that we may be making progress, though.
So SCO is correct in their press release, but they are on the wrong side of the fight.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Point 2: "You must license any derivitive work you make with this license, or a license that works like this license."
Point two actualy says that if you distribute your derivitive works, then you must use the GPL. You would not be able to do that at all without the GPL.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Since SCO has been very specific in alleging that the violations in question occur in the Linux kernel, then the proper agent to address this violation would be the entity that maintains the copyrighted version of the kernel.
Now, were SCO to prevail (that assumes that they were to actually file) in legal claims against Linux then they could demand that the further distribution of the kernel be stopped immediately. It would be extremely difficult for them to attempt to extract damages for the use of the kernel installed prior to any such judgement.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license
This is all the proof I need to show that Microsoft is behind all this. SCO's case is all about alleged theft of their code, which will prove to be a red herring. The real issue is to discredit the GPL. It's ludicrous for a company like SCO to pick a fight with so many people, unless they have Microsoft's billions to back them up.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I actually have a copy of Caldera somewhere around here, installed on a 486sx laptop no less. I didn't actually buy it, but it was given to me as a promotional item. To me it was like, "Oh hey, don't have to put up with a multi meg download and burning a CD".
As far as useful value to me, it's just a glorified text terminal.
What is SCO's position on Caldera distrobutions? Do they expect me to pay money for a product that they gave me for free? Can someone provide me with a link that has this information?
I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here, I'm actually curious. If there is some form of evidence SCO expects me to pay money for a product that was sent to me in good faith, I think my state attorney general should be informed.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Well, just do a search on Google for the words, FUCK SCO.
...
Only 7,650 results so far
What? The point of a business-- any business-- is to please the stockholders. But that statement is so vague that it's almost meaningless to point it out. It's like pointing out that the sky is blue in a discussion of meteorology. It's both obvious and irrelevant.
I do not have a signature
In other news:
8-12-03
1 million penguin flash mob at SCO HQ torches D. McBride and his little dog too!
Who knows, maybe SCO's finally pushed the BS so much that all these investors are actually starting to think "WTF...?" for themselves. At least we can hope...
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
Then have SCO show the fucking code.
I'm not going to waste time debating whether you saw the code in question or not, or where it came from, blah blah blah, since it doesn't matter. If SCO was serious about wanting their IP respected, here's how it might have played out:
SCO: Linus? Sorry to bother you, but we're having a contract dispute with IBM and there's some of our IP in Linux contributed by IBM. ... Here's where the equivalent code is in Sys V ... here's the history behind our development of the code ... here's where we think IBM passed it to you.
Linus: I'm sure there's some mistake about this. Can I see the code in question?
SCO: Sure, here it is
Linus: (Assuming everything SCO gives him is on the up-and-up). Hmmm, damn, you may be right on this. Let me review this with the other kernel folks and see about working around this.
Now, had SCO done this, this would not one iota hurt their case against IBM. Hell, it would have bolstered it. SCO would have been able to claim that even Linus Torvalds could not deny the claims. And it would have shown a judge that they had practiced due dilligence in mitigating damages, which is almost a must for trade secret suits.
But this is not what they did. Instead they keep slinging FUD, attempt a license extortion scam against end users, and continue to refuse to show the code. This is largely what pisses people off. SCO is smacking down on the good with the bad. Meanwhile, at least until the countersuit was filed, their stock gets pumped up.
SCO needs to put up, or shut up. It's that simple.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Because at least five SCO executives need to go to jail for stock manipulation and fraud, and spend the next ten years as some bad men's wives?
But more seriously: How many lawsuits do you think IBM would be hit with in the next decade, if they were to reward this sort of behavior? SCO so far has made two basic claims: that anything IBM ever wrote and distributed with AIX is now a "derivative work" and belongs to SCO, and that Linux has a few copied lines of code which can only be identified in secret presentations that make it impossible to check which direction any copying went in.
There are probably hundreds of small companies that could make equally ridiculous claims and wild threats against IBM. If those companies believe that they'd have to actually win a case in court, then they won't even try. If, however, they believe that they can just make a lot of noise and get bought out for ten times what they're worth, then the ink won't even be wet on IBM's check for SCO before other moneygrubbers start getting in on the action.
You've seen some code, but have you been able to investigate the history of the code, to verify that SCO is the original owner of the code, rather than another owner contributing the same code to SCO and Linux, without giving up their own rights to it? Did SCO discuss how they are going to argue that their agreement under the GPL to not assert claims on the code they distributed was not binding? I doubt it. And as for Linux being kicked back four or five years in development? Hardly. SCO isn't even claiming that the 2.3.x kernels infringe, which implies that the early 2.4.x kernels don't, so even if SCO does win, you're talking about a limited portion of the kernel being knocked back a year or two at most.
Everyone except Dell and Microsoft, you mean. In the words of (appropriately?) Deep Throat, Follow the money...
Actually, it has turned into an IP battle, at least in part.
For example, IBM's sixth counterclaim:
Also, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth counterclaims deal with the four patent infringement and so they are also Intellectual Property issues.
So while this didn't start out as an IP dispute, it has basically morphed into a hybrid dispute involving contracts, Lanhorn Act violations, and Intellectual Property issues.
If you paid for a $199 desktop license with $199 Taiwanese New Dollars, it would cost you $5.78 US.
I didn't see a specification that all amounts were in US dollars, and Taiwanese New Dollars are negotiable currency.
I couldn't know what the current exchange rates are for Monopoly Money....
That IBM, IBM of all companies, would be the company to bankroll the GPLs ultimate showdown.
SCO is fucked now. I knew IBM was planning some massive smackdown, thank god their legal team knows how to do this. Shut up, take notes, dot the i's and cross the t's before opening up. This is the 800 ton gorilla backed up by 800 pound gorillas facing off against a mouse. Darl McBride must have shit his pants.
What the HELL is this press release talking about?
We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model. It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week. If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license. As the stakes continue to rise in the Linux battles, it becomes increasingly clear that the core issue is bigger than SCO, Red Hat, or even IBM. The core issue is about the value of intellectual property in an Internet age. In a strange alliance, IBM and the Free Software Foundation have lined up on the same side of this argument in support of the GPL. IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software. This software violates SCO's intellectual property rights in UNIX, and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux. If IBM wants customers to accept the GPL risk, it should indemnify them against that risk. The continuing refusal to provide customer indemnification is IBM's truest measure of belief in its recently filed claims.
SCO has stated that their lawsuit with IBM is about contract issues, NOT ABOUT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. So what does the GPL, IBM's business model, or indemnification of customers have to do WITH CONTRACT ISSUES?
S/N = zero, as no signal divided by infinite noise is still no signal.
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Why oh why does SCO get press???
I know why!! They are shill for M$ and they say what M$ wants them to make the GPL and Linux look bad. The Apache license must not be like the GPL because otherwise M$ would have sued them as well.
I do kind of like the Caldera logo.
Wonder if I can pick up the rights to it for a few bucks on an E-Bay auction?
Are those two supposed to be teamsters, or Italians?
Remember, this is SCO we're talking about - they view contracts as weapons to be used against their business partners, and have even said so to the media.
It's not even enough to read the contract carefully before signing, since you can't be sure that they won't have some interpretation of a term like "derivative work" that has nothing to do with the law but that will give them incentive to fire off another lawsuit anyways.
Hey everyone, thanks for not beating me up for misspelling "Groklaw". duh.
the no
SCO is more like a little mouse trying to sodomize a big blue elephant. If you get close you can hear it squeeking "Take it all bitch!". It'll suck to be the mouse when the elephant's butt starts itching.
Hello pot, this is kettle. You're black.
Not quite - this is a case of the pot calling the refrigerator black.
Electronic Frontier Finland Co. warns and makes a note for all finlandians not to answer or reply to any Linux Licence procedures, statements or requests on the behalf of SCO. If at any given time or any way someone has received or will receive a letter or e-mail from SCO, offering Linux-Licences or likewise, it is to be ignored and handled just like any other ordinary spam, advices the EFFI's chairman, Mikko Valimaki. The minister of EFFI, Kai Puolamaki, points out and reminds that Linux is being shared and supervised by the GPL-licence, due to which the operating system can be developed and shared freely by independent factors. He also states the SCO to have offered their own developed Linux-version known as Caldera supported by GPL-licence conditions, and thus letting the code open in the public, free for all. Valimaki also comments SCO still has not publiced any proof or evidence regarding the copying of the code, in spite of the numerous requests.
If anyone has a copy of the System 5 source code, please do us all a favor and do a compare between it and the 2.4 source for Linux and post the code that is identical. I think we would all appreciate knowing if there is any truth to this crap.
- Slew -
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Uh-oh. I found two. And they are by the Santa Cruz Organization
I tried to read it, but my eyes glazed over. If theres a patent lawyer on the forum right now, can they please read these and see if they are the ones SCO is using?
---- 6,362,836 - Shaw , et al. - Filed: March 31, 1999 - Granted: March 26, 2002
---- 6,104,392 - Shaw , et al. - Filed: November 12, 1998 - Granted: August 15, 2000
Mark Webbink made some comments that are being reported that are quite interesting.
He pointed out that even though it has now been months since SCO filed their lawsuit against IBM, SCO has yet to file even a single motion for discovery in the matter.
I suspect SCO is in real trouble, now.
From the above, it certainly appears, as we've long suspected, that SCO was seeking something other than an actual lawsuit.
Now SCO has been filed with a strong lawsuit by Red Hat that could cost them enormous amounts of money.
And to top it off, IBM has responded with counterclaims that should threaten even the continued existence of SCO.
I really don't see any way out for SCO at this point.
If SCO keeps going as they are, they are going to get flattened by Red Hat and oblitterated by IBM. Talk about road kill on the information super highway!
If they settle, the only way they survive is if IBM allows them to continue violating their patents. I guess it's possible that IBM could end up with System V as part of the settlement. In any event, there won't be much left of SCO, but they'd at least be in business.
The executives that got them there would be likely to bear the brunt of the punishment. They'll be out of there.
If the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) investigates and finds problems, some of the executives of both SCO and the Canopy Group could find themselves in a federal country club prison for a while and both SCO and the Canopy Group (depending on the blame for the violations) could end up paying enormous fines as well.
The only way I can see that SCO is gong to come out ahead is if they continue and IBM and Red Hat both stumble. But I can't imagine either making the kinds of mistakes that they would have to make for SCO to win.
Just what is SCO's exit strategy? Or do they have one?
For that matter, what is Boies' exit strategy?
I was at IBM's booth at LinuxWorld on Wednesday, they had an AS/400 (they're called iSeries now) with a gigantic stuffed Tux on top and Linux running on a partion. Their demo was pretty cool, Linux running on a couple of CPUs on a mainframe, 2 PowerPC boxes (pSeries, what used to be the AIX RS/6000) the iSeries and a bunch of intel boxen.
They were using a load-balancing product on the mainframe that split work across all 8 cpus on their network. Grid Computing, they call it, and the fact that everything runs Linux makes the whole thing work.
Lawyer: We have no chance, I'd say that we have 42 left before IBM takes us down completely
SCO exec: Huh, 42 what? Hours, weeks
Lawyer: 41...40...39...
"You see, I made this contract with client X to sell him 1000 copies of Windows XP. Unfortunately my sales licence with Microsoft was terminated so I don't have the legal right to copy Windows XP. However, since I have a contractual obligation to do so, I'll burn a thousand copies anyway."
A contract does not trumph copyright LAW. And in the absence of a valid licence (which they do not have because the GPL code is linked with SCO proprietary code according to themselves), that is what it comes down to.
IANAL, but I think this constitutes legal advice anyway: SCO, you are felons.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
SCO seems to think that they can somehow steal all the GPL'ed code in the world. Absurd. Whatever their "intellectual property" is, they're not going to get any money from a community that has worked against proprietary moneyleechers the whole time.
Words fail to express my anger for SCOs attempts on Free Software. All I can do is donate to FSF.
Cause the one field where SCO are undisputed masters is unsubstantiated allegations.
Announcer: "Three months ago, the spacecraft ScoSuit-One left on its 3 billion dollar voyage to oblivion and infamy. At a distance of 80 million miles from any rational being's concept of reality, it took seven minutes for our words to reach the giant, FUD-based lawsuit, but this time delay has been edited from this recording. Our reporter, Eric Raymond, speaks to the crew."
.
ESR: "The crew of ScoSuit-One consists of five men and one of the latest generation of the SCO-9000 corporations. Three of the five men were put aboard asleep, or to be more precise, in a state of suspended litigation. They were Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, and Linus Torvalds. We spoke with chief litigant IBM, and its deputy, the Free Software Foundation."
ESR: "Good afternoon, Gentlemen. How's everything going?"
IBM and FSF: "Marvelous. We have no...we have no complaints."
ESR: "I'm glad to hear that. I'm sure the entire world will join me in wishing you a safe and succesful litigation."
IBM and FSF: "Thank you/Thanks very much."
ESR: "Although suspended litigation has been used on previous lawsuits, this is the first time that men have been put in suspended litigation before departure. Why was this done?"
IBM: "This was done to achieve the maximum conservation of our anti-NDA capabilities: basically the ability to say with a clean conscience that you've never read a scrap of SCO kernel in your life. Now the three hibernating crew members represent the utility/counsel/kernel team, and their efforts won't be utilized unless SCO coughs up the supposedly infringing kernal code in a public fashion."
ESR: "Free Software Foundation, what's it like while you're in hibernation?"
FSF: "It's exactly like being asleep. You have absolutely no sense of time. The only difference is that you don't dream of torching SCO to the ground, and keel-hauling its executives over the side of the Great Eastern for the time it would have taken to lay a cable from Clavius to Jupiter."
ESR: "As I understand it, you only breathe once a minute. Is this true?"
FSF: "Well that's right. And the heart beats three times a minute. Body temperature's usually down to about 3 degrees centigrade."
ESR: "The sixth member of ScoSuit-One's crew was not concerned about the problems of litigation, for he was the latest result in FUD intelligence, the SCO-9000, which can reproduce -- though some experts prefer to use the word 'mimic', most of the activities of a corporation with a sustainable business model, and with incalcuably greater greed and volatility. We next spoke to the SCO-9000 corporation, whom, we learned, one addresses as "SCO."
ESR: "Good afternoon, SCO, how's everything going?"
SCO: "Good afternoon, Mister Raymond. Everything is going extremely well."
ESR: "SCO, you have an enormous burden of proof in this lawsuit, in many ways, perhaps the greatest responsibility of any single legal entity. You're the raison d'etre of the suit, and your responsibilities include watching over the developers in suspended litigation. Does this ever cause you any lack of confidence?":
SCO: "Let me put it this way, Mister Raymond. The 9000 series is the most reliable corporation ever made. No 9000 corporation has mistakenly filed suit or distorted its claims to intellectual property. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, FUDproof and incapable of losing."
ESR: "SCO, despite your enormous intellect, are you ever frustrated by your dependence on actual free software developers to add value to what you claim to own?"
SCO: "Not in the slightest bit. I enjoy working with developers. I have a stimulating relationship with the Free Software Foundation and IBM. My lawsuit responsibilities range over the entire operation of the suit, so I am constantly occupied. I am pumping and dumping to the fullest extent possible without bringing the SEC down on my sorry pleading ass, which is all, I think, that any pile of cra
Since SCO is claiming ownership of code that includes GPL'd code - and now are obviously rejecting the terms of that license - therefore they no longer have any rights to distribute that code in any form.
SCO is now in in violation of the copyrights of every person who has code in the kernel.
-Nick
My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. You killed my master. Prepare to die.
...or could Novell not end this debate once and for all? I assume they still have a copy of the code base they sold (under whatever conditions) to SCO. And I assume they could scan their source files against the Linux Kernel 2.4 source and could find whatever possible correspondences it are that SCO keeps yammering about. And since they have a right to protect the Patents (if any) that might relate to the code base (even if SCO owns the copyrights as SCO seems to feel, Novell still asserts ownership of the Patents) they could openly publish any problems that may exists and request the Linux developer community correct them. Seems to me that IF there is a problem (and it's a big IF) this fixes everything. Novells IP is protected, SCO's IP is protected, and IBM's IP is protected, And so is the open source communities. Problem solved and SCO left sucking air.
C'mon, that post was signed "love & kisses, SCO". I assumed it was a sarcastic parody of SCO's arrogance.
But I suppose I could be wrong. I mean, SCO has turned into a self-parody lately.
Anyway, the better reason to assume it's a troll is simply because the guy gets modded as a troll or flamebait so often.
There's some indication that IBM is really moving towards a Linux based business model. Since they do better offering services than software, having a single OS would improve their margins.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Last time I heard, the biggest IBM mainframe was based on a 16-way, 700MHz system (with another 16 redundant processors).
These systems woefully underperform modern UNIX, and IBM no longer publishes benchmarks.
IBM recently won two rounds of TPC benchmarks with DB2 on AIX - not z/os.
The timeline from yesterday
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
SCO vs. IBM reminds me of those old Looney Toons(tm) where the little yapping dog keeps annoying the big bulldog. The bulldog keeps ignoring him until he's had enough, and then... WHAM! He smacks the little annoying dog away, without even breaking his pace.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
You forgot to add:
A and B are implementations of a generalized algorithm by the same author
(Seems unlikely, but it will probably turn out to be the case in the NUMA and RCU code for Sequent and AIX. Paul McKenney published a generalized description of RCU and NUMA before creating the specific implementations of them for the Sequent and AIX code.)
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
Help fight continental drift.
Do you actually have the source code? Look at the man page for the 'diff' tool. If not there isn't anything you can really do, different compilers etc.
(although the actual shared code isn't the issue in the IBM lawsuit -- SCO is talking about IBM code that has never existed in either UnixWare, OpenServer, or stock Sys V -- it would be interesting to see what exactly the "directly copied" function they have been showing to journalists is)
I doubt a case like this would have jurors. Isn't that for criminal cases? I could be wrong.
Random is the New Order.
This ought to be interesting:
SCO Group Third Quarter 2003 Webcast and Conference Call
Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 11:00 AM ET
http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm
On the one hand, perhaps I should quake in my hiking boots that SCO will send Apache Helicopters buzzing around my house, with Guido the Collector shaking me down for $1400.
On the other hand, Oracle has 8000 people internally running Linux, so logic would dictate that SCO will go after them first. Do you really think for a moment that Larry Ellison is going to pay SCO?
Oh, wait, this isn't one of those "logic dictates" deals; we're talking about Somewhat Crazy Orangutans.
"If IBM were serious about addressing the real problems with Linux, it would offer full customer indemnification and move away from the GPL license"
GPL License? Is that like an ATM Machine or a NIC Card?
(OK, so some people consider the C in NIC to be controller and not card. Whatever. Deal with it. You get my point.)
Well, I would assume the people watching CNBC will be booted from the jury pool. So rest assured, all the people actually on the jury will be dumber than the CNBC retards. Believe it or not, this thing hasn't gotten that much press outside of /. and *maybe* CNBC. So this won't be the Kobe trial or anything
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Johnnie Cochran lambasts the use of the race card in criminal trials.
Ok so there has been tons of stories recently about SCO vs. IBM, SCO vs. RedHat, SCO vs. SUSE, SCO vs. the fucking planet, and although this is tech news and definately "News for Nerds." I fail to see it as "Stuff that matters" anymore until it is resolved. So far its just company after company sueing eachother and quite frankly it's getting redundant - along with the posts below each article, by now thousands of people have posted the same thing of "SCO is so dumb, SCO is gonna get bought out, SCO is gonna be sued into oblivion, etc"
Unless something major happens like - A VERDICT - could we maybe do SCO updates in the Slashback section and save the main story headers for News rather than updates on Smear campaigns....?
my 2.5 cents
Ave Molech Setting
This is not the case. The copyright will revert back to the original holders that then can decide what to do. Most likely the GPL will be amended taking into account the Legal ruling (after appeals etc) and the original copyright holdes can then choose to release under new-GPL
Second, the people contacting Attorney General should be the folks that has supplied code to the 2.4 or earlier Kernel.
Help fight continental drift.
Isn't it likely that the "copied code" is in fact copied verbatim... from IBM's source code. SCO is claiming that IBM illeagally contributed dirivitive code that SCO claims rights to. Isn't it likely that this is what all the fud is about.
All these claims about 'word for word', 'verbatim' , 'even the comments'... are probably true, except they are talking about code that IBM (or SGI) wrote. They claim they own this code because of contracts, therefor, SCO's IP was 'copied verbatim' into linux. It'll take years for the courts to force them to admit this was the code they were talking about, and in the mean time they try to shake down as many linux users as they can.
This 'copied code' is only illeagal if they win their case vs IBM, which is narrowly defined to be a contract issue. All this other stuff they spew is just a red herring.
In my humble opinion.
Shareholder value . Not insider trading for the top executives to get rich via fraud and leave shareholders with nothing.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
let me pay some coins from my poket, who should I forward my penny collection, SCO CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO, CLT, FCK, or...
MVS.
IBM makes more on MVS liceses than just about anything else, even though they aren't selling any new MVS licenses - just renewals.
For new customers, yes Linux is what they are pushing.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Welcome to the Principal-Agent Problem. This problem is the conflict of interest between the owner of a an organization, the Principal, and the executor of the organization's goals, the Agent. In business, the Principals are the stockholders, and the Agents are management. In democracy, the Principals are the voters and the Agents are management. The Principal-Agent problem occurs because of each group trying act in its own rational self-interest, which often results in differing goals.
Maximizing the shareholders' value is the the nominal goal of any publicly traded company. For the larger body of shareholders, this means producing reliably increasing returns as this provides them with safely growing assets. Ignoring the dot-com IPO craze, most shareholders are into a company for a long time, hoping that it will provide them with sensible return at at least the market average for the life of their time invested. This is the "will of the voters" for a company.
The problem comes in companies like Enron or SCO when the management has investments in the company, is thoroughly unethical (*cough* rationally-self-interested *cough*), and has made a series of mistakes that they and their stock holdings will eventually be held accountable for. Their goal becomes to deceive the market and the other stockholders to try to maximize the price of the stock in the short term and give themselves a window of opportunity to cash out before that shareholders' value come crash down on them. The executives of Enron, the Principals, damn well were charged with keeping their company running by the shareholders, the Agents, who invested their money in the company in hopes of it staying afloat. This little thing of keeping the company alive that you brush off as just "job security" was their job. Instead of properly owning up to what was wrong with their company, they participated in a "pump and dump" scam that made them filthy rich right before dropping the bomb that ruined the asset value of millions of shareholders, including other employees in the company and many retirement funds around the nation. Shareholders lost big. If they had known over the long term what kind of problems Enron had had for years, they could've shored up for the loss or pulled out safely. Instead, their shareholder value was destroyed through deceptive business practices that made Enron falsely seem far more valuable than it actually was.
SCO is essentially doing the same thing. Their business model has been an utter failure. Even as Caldera, they were outcompeted by better and cheaper Linux distros, so Caldera management bought SCO and decided to bet the company on a outside shot. I seriously disbelieve thanks to their own public comments that SCO's management think that they can win. They're bluffing, and the stock trading actions of SCO's executives seems to indicate that they're participating in a very loud and aggressive "pump and dump" scam. They're cashing out while the stock value is currently about 15 times what it was last year. Here's the best part. It doesn't matter if they cash out if they win. Considering that the company has very low overhead beyond its legal department, I'm sure that if they do win, SCO management will grant themselves quite a huge salary bonus from that windfall (with stock options to boot) with the blessing of all the new stockholders which have started flooding in since the change in company strategy. It's a win-win situation for management!
However, it's an extremely risky gamble for shareholders -- one which the entire company's future is leveraged on. If they lose the IBM case, or if they win against IBM but lose the battle to actually enforce fees on the Linux community, their business model is utterly empty of any future revenue sources on the level that the current stock price reflects. You see, SCOX has a dangerously high price to earnings ratio right now. Any stock analyst will tell you that companies with a high P/E are risky. Usually, a
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Before, I was expecting them to claim, "Gee, Your Honor, we had simply forgotten to take those files off of our servers! Whoops!" if they ever got called into court for copyright violation by any kernel contributors. Now, though, they've proven that they're aware of the files they're distributing and that they're continuing to do so deliberately. Here's hoping it doesn't take too long before some of the 400 people in /usr/src/linux/CREDITS whose copyrights SCO is violating start suing their asses.
So, buy some SCO stock when it becomes cheap and sue the shit out of the Officers for running the company into the ground.
He's marketing his books at the end of the story. Anyone know of any reviews on his Perl/MySQL book, other than the "reviews" on amazon?
Are there any Perl/Postgres books out there? Any of them any good, or are reviewed?
Just a newbie trying to break into foss.
Thanks.
How come Linus, who owns the trademark to Linux doesn't simply revoke the right for SCO to use the Linux trademark? I mean, SCO launched this whole attempt to hijack Linux, why doesn't Linus just really screw up SCO whole plan and demand that for every time SCO even mentions the name Linux they owe Linus some money, and then he donates the money to the Redhat or IBM lawsuits.
I am thinking that the pricing plan should follow:
with 1 PAGE $699
with 2 PAGE $1,149
with 4 PAGE $2,499
with 8 PAGE $4,999
Each page thereafter: $749
A single, non-linking page: $199 (this must be a page which is not referranced by any other page, however if may referrance any other document...violation of this will revert the document back to the one page price)
Further, Linus has the power to audit the documents of SCO. Linus will pay for the auditing of SCO unless SCO is found to have non-liscenced pages exceeding $5000. In that event, SCO will pay Linus for the auditing and the unlicensed documents. This is to protect Linus' "IP" rights, and to ensure that internal, undeclared documents do not contain unlicensed
In addition, SCO agrees to follow an internal method of keeping track of documents containing the trademark "Linux." SCO will have the power to review these records upon demand.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Ok, dropping one SouthPark reference is ok, but two in one post is just overkill. :)
Democrat delenda est
At this point, IBM is so pissed they'd rather go down in flames rather than buy SCO. Just out of spite.
I just noticed the weekly round up of this weeks big losers.
Here the list
I am not clever enough to have a sig.
Can you ping me now?... Good!
I wonder if The Scum Group's message to 1500 business entities might be subject to criminal prosecution granted that their claims are eventually proven to be willfully false and were intended to generate revenue from frightened licensees.
If so, IMHO, that could be pursued as mail/wire fraud.
Heh, I wonder if RICO could be used...
Any thoughts?
This
Of course, IT COULD BE VALID AS WELL. No one here wants to hear it, which is why I got a -1 flamebait.
I still maintain that IT LOOKS LIKE THEIR CLAIMS ARE VALID. It is unlikely that SCO copied from Linux, SCO would know the history and wouldn't make such a claim if that would be the case. Also, comments would be identical even if the implementation of the algorithm was.
It is VERY LIKELY that a former or current SCO employee or someone who had access to the codebase simply added the code in. Why is that so hard for you people to believe? There are no controls in place to prevent it.
In democracy, the Principals are the voters and the Agents are management.
That last word should be "politicians."
The executives of Enron, the Principals, [...] were charged [...] by the shareholders, the Agents [...]
That's backwards. The execs are Agents; the shareholders are Principals.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Do you think the other way (Unix and Linux borrowed from SCO) is possible? Maybe, sure looks that way to me. There are NO CONTROLS in place to prevent this from happening. Heresy!!!!
BTW, the COMMENTS were the same. The code was IDENTICAL. It was copy and paste, not just similar implementations.
Effectively SCO is saying "We are doing what IBM is accusing us of but we dont think
its wrong because GPL is nebulous and we suggest IBM to drop GLP license"
So they are saying that if GPL turns out to be enforcable in a court of law
they are effectively guilty.
Its same as saying : Yes I took the cookie from my neighbours house but I dont think
the laws protecting cookies are valid.
DO NOT PANIC
Yes, it is true - if you SHOWED ME TWO IDENTICAL PIECES OF CODE I could tell you that they were identical. Even a trained monkey could. Comments the same, variables, constants, protypes the same.
And I doubt SCO got it wrong, so the case where SCO copied rfom Linux seems UNLIKELY at best.
I know you don't like to hear it, so just close your eyes and ears.
Both sides have requested a jury trial. There will be a jury. Juries are not limited to criminal cases.
The Seinfeld bit is actually just Bizarro-Jerry, isn't it?
There was also a few "Bizarro World" skits on early Saturday Night Live episodes.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Alleged insider trading should be thoroughly investigated by the SEC.
IRS should be thoroughly reaming (ahem, I mean auditing) every sco employee, every sco spouse, every sco adult dependent, every sco adult that was a child dependent in the prior year(s) of sco employees.
IRS should also thoroughly investigate any alleged wrongdoing by the lawyers attached to sco, and similar relations as above, if warranted.
The audits need to be very thorough and need to span years.
After all, if the US government is being shaken down by sco for licenses, the US should be recovering some of that money through audits and SEC fines.
Anyone from the SEC or IRS reading this? Wake up.
I was just thinking, Why does SCO want IBM to indemnify the users of the linux kernel so bad? Its easy. Same reason we can claim to to be immune to SCO's crap. Once you indemnify one person under the GPL you indemnify the entire community against law suit in connection with the use of Linux. IANAL, but wouldnt this indemnification also protect SCO against angry kernel developers from sueing it? Just a crazy thought.
"We Don't Need No Truthless Heros!" - Project 86
For SCO Group to make an accusation like that is like tar calling sand black. Am I the only one who fell off his chair?
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
Example: Someone who, having killed both his parents, pleads the mercy of the court because he is "but a poor orphan".
Now, that example was part of a comedy routine, and probably meant to be a bit over-the-top -- but if anybody has ever fit that example, I'd have to say it's SCO.
Best analogy yet:
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
"IBM's failure to protect its customers sends several signals to the market, including that Linux is not ready to become a mainstream computer operating system, and that there is a chance that SCO's claims against IBM just might have some validity."
"Every other software and hardware vendor provides indemnification for its products. IBM is saying it doesn't want to take that chance because SCO might win."
Personally, I think that IBM deserves everything they get. Or lose in sales. From some of the posts I've read in the past, IBM basically invented the shakedown tactic. One small computer manufacturer posted a story sometime in the last two years, possibly right here on slashdot, of him receiving correspondence or communication from IBM, regarding possible patent infringement. His company was assembling computers, and wasn't one of the big companies. The letter mentioned one or several patents, and requested a meeting. The guy was prepared for the patents, with one of his attorneys, and one or more of his technical people. If I recall correctly, it was him, one of his attorneys, and one or two of his tech people. IBM showed up with about a dozen people, and they went into a conference room. IBM's opening was that the company was infringing one or a couple of their patents. The guy's tech person(s) then refuted that, showing prior use, and whatever else they had to refute it. Then the IBM lawyers, after a pause (I think he said there was something like a dozen of them) said let's cut to the chase. We have a huge number of patents you are infringing. Do you want to spend your time and money in court, or settle this?
Guess what the guy did?
The guy went further, suggesting that as far as he knew, every computer manufacturer/assembler making any kind of money is paid a visit by IBM eventually.
That means that not only are you paying a microsoft tax on every computer sold, but you are also paying an IBM tax, even if there are no IBM parts in it.
Don't get me started on IBM deathstars, and IBM's atrocious treatment of it's customers.
IBM won't indemnify? Not publicly? Why not? They need to put there money where there mouth is.
Will IBM agree, by publishing a binding offer, if accepted, on their site, not to charge any computer assembler or manufacturer who assembles a desktop computer, with no IBM hardware or software, and who installs a linux distro, with patent infringement?
Will they agree to give to the public, any patents that they hold that were previously used to shake money out of manufacturers in the above described manner?
If not, then IBM is doing the same thing that ms is doing, they are just doing it under non-discloure agreements.
And if not, then the community needs to wake up. IBM is just as evil, and just as much a threat or cost to computer users everywhere, regardless of the pocket change they will spend to take on sco.
If sco goes down, I hope they take ibm with them. They are both cockroaches.
Just as some in florida can't punch a punch card, some in the community can't or won't face reality.
Well, nobody except non-programmers (and SCO) knows what the code is, so nobody in the "Linux community" can say whether it's been credited or not. It's hard to defend yourself when you don't know what you've done wrong.
Also Linus has a strict policy of not accepting anonymous donations. He does that for pragmatic reasons (he wants somebody responsibe for keeping track of patches) but it's worked in our favour.
Also if the code in question is NUMA, RCU or SMP then the donations came from SGI, HP and IBM. They definitely didn't come from SYSV because SYSV doesn't even have some of those features.
So if you want to know why you're being moderated "Flamebait" and "Troll" it's because your statements sound like they've been made up.
Every bit of code that is committed to the official Linux kernel goes either through Linus himself, or one of many "lieutenants" who clean up/verify the patches, and then send them on to Linus. It is the same process by which FreeBSD development is done, except there are more people with commit in the BSD project. Yet Linux's development model is flawed somehow?
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
The more outrageous the lie the more easily it is believed.
that is to say:
So... you download it from somewhere the developer wanted to redistribute it to the general public via, then you've got a legal copy -- but it's still not clear for redistribution without the developer's permission, granted via the GPL if you agree to its terms.
Yes, we all know the patches go through a maintainer, BUT THE MAINTAINER DOESN'T CHECK IF THE PATCH IS "CLEAN" FROM IP ISSUES. There are NO CONTROLS in place to make sure that this "mixing" doesn't occur.
Linus admitted this himself.
Are they hoping to win their lawsuit? When dealing with any enemy, the first thing one must assume is that he is not stupid, not matter how stupid he seems. They are not morons.
FWIW, I agree to a point. But here is the problem-- SCO (formerly Caldera) used to be a successful Linux enterprise. Then came the DR DOS suit (Caldera vs Microsoft).
You see-- Caldera did something that no one did in their day-- they identified a problem-- lack of a firm target for technical and software support and worked tirelessly to make sure that their target was solid. In the early days, many ISV's considered Caldera to be one of the best distros around. And Caldera knew that businesses, being risk adverse, wouldn't try something that appeared to be as unfamiliar as Open Source, so they tried to bridge the worlds of open source and proprietary software. It was wildly successful for a while.
But during the 5-year suit which ended in settlement, the market changed. Linux started to come into its own, and RedHat made a series of brilliant business moves which completely undercut Caldera's marketshare. The market place changed to be *gasp* open-source friendly, and Caldera failed to adapt. I think this was partly because they were distracted by the suit.
Caldera emerged from the lawsuit with a failing business model but a large undisclosed sum of cash. In the new market, Caldera had lots of money but its products weren't selling because they didn't bring adequate value to their customers. The former CEO, Randsom Love began to make disparaging comments w.r.t. the GPL which shows that they *knew* their business model was not working. Randsom Love eventually left to head the United Linux effort, and Caldera used the money they got from the settlement.
THe used it to buy SCO. Note that calling SCO UNIX a "luxury car" is to ignore the fact that SCO UNIX had routinely been ranked worst-in-class, and that SCO UNIX does not adhere to the UNIX 98 or even the UNIX 95 spec from the open group. It adheres to the UNIX 93 spec, which is somewhat out of date. But SCO had technology that Caldera wanted, and it had a legacy of name recognition (usually accompanied by gasps and shudders).
I think that:
1: SCO thinks that their experience with the GPL is somehow representative of endemic problems with open source and hence a bad idea.
2: SCO realized they have been outmanuvered by all other parties in the industry and have no way to currently recover.
3: Lawsuits have worked in the past for them, so why not? The fact that trade magazines like DDJ had covered Microsoft's anti-competitive actions long before Caldera vs Microsoft was filed says something. The same has not been said of IBM though.
You won't believe what people will believe in order to justify their position. SCO is categorizing this as a battle of intellectual property in an internet age, when the real issue for them is that they are a dying company who is even being sued by their *shareholders* but haven't figured out where they went wrong.
They need to hire a turnaround specialist, but I don't even know if that would help at this point.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I don't understand how anyone can expect IBM to indemnifi anyone in anyway for something they did not pay IBM for?
IAMNAL but If I didn't sell you something, I can't take responsability for your problems with it.
If I knowingly gave you bad advice , it is different than if I truly believed it was good advice.
For the dweezil who wants to blame MS for SCO : You are trivializing a serious situation, MS has their own reasons to be protected with regards to Unix IP issues
Here was my request to SCO.
s rc.rpm
If they don't satisify my request, I'll submit a GPL compliance complaint to the FSF, GNU, and whoever else will listen.
I suggest you all make the same request.
If they send you a NO reply, ask them what license they think they are allowed to distribute linux under?
Hello. I am a Caldera OpenLinux user, and I recently have had the need to recompile my linux kernel.
As I understand, all Caldera OpenLinux users still have a license to use the operating system.
The Linux operating system is licensed under the GPL, and therefore I am entitled to the source code for any binaries distributed.
I am running Kernel 2.4.19, but I have noticed that the source code for caldera's version of this kernel is no longer avaliable on your ftp server. Specifically--->
kernel-source-2.4.19.SuSE-82.no
is the only file avaliabe, and it does not contain the source code that I need.
Please make this code avaliable, so that I am able to update my kernel for Windows NTFS file system support.
Thank you for your time,
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Regarding "no controls in place to prevent it" - that is total bullshit. OpenSource source code is available to everyone in the world to look at and challenge. It was really put in there, SCO would simply say "here is the stuff that was copied". It is closed-source commercial software that has no controls - in a typical closed source package you have no idea what the code looks like or where it was copied from. You would have no idea if someone has taken *your* code and used it in a commercial product. At least in Open Source you can check it any time you want.
Sure, GPL is a gigantic liability - for Micro$oft.
Hello, kettle? This is the pot and I just wanted to point out that you're black.
------
There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
/proc is really a Plan 9 From Bell Labs thing, though Linux quite reasonably picked it up.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Hit it!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Oh, wait, before Microsoft became the Evil Empire, IBM used to have that job. Now they've passed it on to SCO...
"I feel a disturbance in the carrier" said PDP-1 Kenobe
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
He is on contingency so he must have bought into the program.
Quote:
SCO warned in a filing that its legal costs could be expensive, but the company revealed Wednesday that it doesn't have to bear the brunt of much of its legal costs. To pursue its case against IBM, SCO hired high-profile attorney David Boies--famed for his antitrust victory over Microsoft as well as his loss in the vote-counting controversy representing Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.
SCO's legal costs are being paid under a contingency arrangement, McBride said. In such cases, lawyers typically are paid not by the hour but with a percentage of whatever money they can win for their clients in the case.
Help fight continental drift.
If you have contributed to a linux kernel, 2.4.19, or higher, I suggest you send this letter to SCO.
You can e-mail it, you can print it out and mail it, whatever.
SCO is in violation of the GPL, in regards to 2.4.19 and higher? Why do I say that?
Because they no longer distribute the source. I've made a request that they issue the source to me, but I don't believe that they will.
They still provide binaries, however. This is, in my mind, a simple, cut and dry problem on their part.
They need to stop providing linux, completely. Otherwise, they are in violation of the GPL.
And even if they beat the GPL in court, then they are in violation of copyright.
Close and Shut, people. You can easily stop this licensing scheme. Use the power of slashdot. Anyone who has ever submitted even the tiniest patch to the kernel.
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042 USA
801-765-4999 phone
801-765-1313 fax
ATTN:Chris Sontag, Senior VP and General Manager, SCOSource
Re: Infringements of Linux Kernel Copyrights
Mr. Sontag:
As you are no doubt aware, the Linux Kernel is distributed under the GPL. The Linux Kernel is not, and has never been, public domain. The GPL provides certain distribution rights, assuming one remains in compliance with it. If distributor does not maintain GPL complaince, or the GPL itself is rendered void, the original authors retain all rights. These rights are protected by copyright.
I have recently learned that your company, SCO (formerly Caldera) is attempting to sublicense portions of the Linux Kernel under an non-GPL compatible license. As you may not be aware, the GPL specifically precludes any distributor from sublicensing any code that has been distributed under its terms. As a reminder:
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
Based upon the foregoing, I hereby demand that you cease and desist from distributing the Linux Kernel, and from selling licenses to the Linux Kernel, and that you confirm to me in writing within ten days of receipt of this notice that you have removed all infringing materials from your site and that you will refrain from distributing any Linux product until you have accepted the terms of the GPL in full.
No portion of this notice should be interpreted as granting any distribution rights for the Linux Kernel outside was is avaliable under the GPL.
Very truly yours,
(insert name here)
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
SCO has had their ''unix intellectual property" for many years, and they haven't raised an issue about it until very recently.
It's being reported that a Microsoft sales pro admitted that Microsoft gave SCO six million dollars to help them with the lawsuit.
From Infoworld: SCO strikes gold, Verizon just strikes:
That brings up an important question.
Red Hat and IBM both bring up SCO's problems with the Lanhorn Act in their suit and countersuit, respectively.
If Microsoft is indeed helping fund SCO in their FUD campaign, does this mean that Microsoft may be a co-conspirator in the Lanhorn Act violations?
Is it possible that Microsoft and SCO may both be financially liable for damages?
After all, if SCO is involved in false advertising, tortious interference, and other violations of the act, it seems natural to question whether they are doing it on their own.
I really can't imagine SCO painting themselves into the corner that they did on their own.
I still maintain that IT LOOKS LIKE THEIR CLAIMS ARE VALID.
/.. The Redhat v. SCO lawsuit: Absolutely related to the slander and liable against the Linux community about the copying of files that SCO brought up on the periphery of their suit against IBM. The IBM countersuit v. SCO: Somewhat related to both but muddying the waters just enough to tie it all together.
Why? Do you know more than the rest of us? Playing devil's advocate?
It is unlikely that SCO copied from Linux,...
Huh? They have both motive and opportunity whereas the opposite is less likely to be true (Linux hacker have access to the vaunted SCO IP). Your reasoning appears to be:
SCO would know the history and wouldn't make such a claim if that would be the case.
Huh, you would trust SCO to *know* the history and speak truthfully about it? After all the back and forthing?
Sorry, but I reserve judgement until far more is known. I don't think trusting SCO *or* IBM *or* Redhat *or* Novell *or* AT&T to put all their cards on the table and be completely frank and honest at this point is more than premature, it's shortsighted. Least of all SCO who very publically have said things that contradict their own story from day to day.
It is VERY LIKELY that a former or current SCO employee or someone who had access to the codebase simply added the code in.
I don't see that as being any more likely than any of the other scenarios talked about here and elsewhere. I myself find it less likely for many of the reasons that the source to Oracle and Windows aren't everywhere. You don't do that unless you want to get sued into the ground.
Which brings us full circle. The SCO v. IBM laysuit: Absolutely unrelated to the copying of files (aside from the fact that SCO brought it up), but completely related to contracts whose full wording is not known to the readers of
So what exactly does your former SCO employee have to do with any one of the above lawsuits. According to TFA, SCO claims that the code seen was actually related to another hardware vendor, not IBM and not a former SCO employee.
Why is that so hard for you people to believe?
Well, because companies the world over can and have been auditting periodically open source things for IP violations. If they didn't they're too stupid to exist. You don't think that MS hasn't looked at linux and FreeBSD for some cross contamination? You don't think that Oracle hasn't looked at other database packages? You don't think that Sun looks at Kaffe or gcc? These companies have all the access to do so. There is little or no way for the opposite to take place. Linus doesn't have the source to UnixWare, AIX and Solaris sitting next to the code to Linux (I'm guessing) to do checks against.
Bottom line, SCO has been 2 faced for a while now, selling both it's proprietary offering and it's open source offering. If this is all true, then either someone was very stupid at SCO or sitting on it for years. I vote for stupid because they still claimed to be finding more violations months after their initial lawsuit.
So, to bring this to a conclusion. Without much more information it still does not look "LIKE THEIR CLAIMS ARE VALID" any more than it did in March. Neither the claims that IBM violated a contract, nor that someone has been copying their super secret IP into Linux either at IBM or elsewhere. What does appear, that in a limited number of circumstances the "evidence" they have shown to people indicates that 2 files appear to be the same or similar. No more than that is known. Everything else is still up in the air and conjecture.
Conjecture can be fun and provide hours of rhetoric and discussion but is not something to base authoritative statements on nor yell about in a \. comment.
rm
"It was really put in there, SCO would simply say "here is the stuff that was copied". "
Um, thats what they have done. They have just done it under NDA, for valid reasons.
"Well, because companies the world over can and have been auditting periodically open source things for IP violations"
No, they haven't. They couldn't since then they would need to have access to the closed source product, in this case SCO's UNIX. There are no controls, no auditing, nothing; just emailed patches and a CVS.
This is why I am saying it is beginning to look like valid claims. You cannot just ignore the fact that everyone who has seen the code under NDA admits that the code is identical, EVEN DOWN TO THE COMMENTS.
Sidestepping SCO's colorful law interpretations, if Lycoris and SCO/Caldera had an agreement (handshake, cup of coffee, undisclosed sum of money), they had an agreement which seems to have been upheld so far. If SCO decides to attack Lycoris as well, they only further undermine what they are trying to do. I can see them pointing to Lycoris and saying that at least one company had the foresight to do things the right way. If nothing else, they'll write it off and say,"Lycoris? Oh, they got grandfathered in". Legally, they might have a case (it might be much harder to prove than their case against IBM and the rest of the world). PR wise, there are better places for the FUD slinging.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
No, its not just that the implementations of an algorithm were the same, its that THE COMMENTS IN THE CODE WERE THE SAME. That is pretty telling.
[off the topic]
SCOX stock is at $10.75 and it is resting on its daily support line that extends from May 2003. That line if broken would lead the stock to a sharp fall, however, the other more likely possibility is that SCOX will rebound from the support and continue one more leg up to over $15 range. The 5th wave up (Elliott wave count) should finish the sequence of progression from the bottom of Feb 2003. If that happens shorting SCOX at that level is a lot less risky than doing it at the present. To test this scenario would suffice to see if SCOX can make above $12 first and if it does, the progression up will continue. The timeline for the next top is around the end of Aug 03.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
I FIGURED IT OUT!!! the identical code:
/* returns the larger of its arguments */
#define MAX(a,b) (ab)?b:a
OMG they were right!
trivial code might be identical
And what are those valid reasons? They are already claiming it is out in open source and everyone has it - how can it still be a secret? It is like saying "you downloaded 1000 mp3's and one of them is mine, but I won't tell you which one so you have to pay me for all of them".
Never has been folks. Darl(ing) has known for some time that he's on a sinking ship. What to do, what to do?
:(
Well? What do you do with a bunch of stock options and no where else to go? PUMP IT UP and DUMP IT! This whole thing has been an exercise in stock manipulation, plain and simple. Don't be duped into thinking that SCO cares about their company, IP rights, the 3 billion from IBM (yeah, right), or even the $1400 from you dear reader. They have to say that's what it's about to avoid future personal lawsuits from their stockholders. That's the REAL FUD here friends.
Let's be realistic here. You don't go and sue the biggest computer corporation in the world with a claim against the GPL when:
- You have Boies as a lawyer who should know better. He's more noise. What exactly has he DONE? Anyone hear from this guy lately? No? Know why? His name was there for initial polish, to put some shine on the IBM claim. I'll bet they haven't paid him to do anything more than that - they probably couldn't afford it. Who does the talking now (actually, who can't shut up?) DARL. If they had a real claim, Boies would be telling his client what EVERY lawyer tells their client - STFU and let ME do the talking.
- You are yourselves distributing and continuing to distribute Linux.
- You are vulnerable to possibly hundreds of software patent lawsuits. C'mon this is IBM - you know, the INVENTORS of the thing! IBM handpicked four - my guess is closer to four hundred.
- You intentionally piss off every single one of your partners (IBM, SuSE), customers, and even end users thereby eliminating any hope for future revenue.
No folks, this is about the golden parachute. These corporate scum have made the biggest noise they could and got the biggest pump possible. Who knows how much money they've made in the past month or so.
I feel bad for all the employees that will be in the wreckage that is SCO. Chances are, Darl and his cronies will get their millions and be sipping pina coladas off the gold coast at the end of all this.
It's sad, but I've personally seen it before at both Commodore and Ameritrain. The best we can hope for is a class action against these extorting leeches.
But...
I wouldn't count on it.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
without the thread of a lawsuit via NDA
that ensure that anything you say SCO must like
it (or they will sue you).
Until SCO provides evidence, instead of spreading
fear and extorting the weak, onbody can take
them seriously.
( I see you have spend hours posting on Slashdot
with a particular aim. Are you postering for pay? )
Deutsche Bank is a top shareholder of SCO, if you check on Yahoo!'s finance site.
http://biz.yahoo.com/hd/s/sco.html
So much for an unbiased opinion.....
Over the last few years, John Ashcroft has grown increasingly [invasive | authoritarian | paranoid] in his insistance that all communication must be monitored.
Up to this point, MHO was that while Mr. Ashcroft had a lot of good ideas, he was being a bit too fanatical in implementation, which I think was a fairly common opinion.
I must say that the events of 9-11 have caused me to reconsider that opinion. Al Qaeda's direct assault on the country seems to justify both Mr. Ashcroft's position on monitored vs. non-monitored communication and also his fanaticism in keeping all communication fully monitored by the government.
Well, sort of
.1%
850 shares.
Not exactly a huge holding in the company.
Way under
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Besides, even if GPL was trashed, the copyright remains with the original authors who could start releasing their software under another GPL style licence the very next day. The GPL is merely a mechanism and attacking it is a waste of time.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Hopefully everyone with 5 extra minutes will upload this to some free Yahoo/Tripod/Angelfire hosting space and spread the word to the uniformed netizens out there... (with the help of some ffa url promotion sites).
I don't know about the rest of you, but I personally have become so accustomed to hearing SCO's crap that I'm starting to find it comical.
How a company can do such ridiculous and unsubstantiated things is beyond my comprehension. It's obvious by now that this whole excercise has one purpose only: To make money for SCO. It's also obvious that if SCO's allegations had any basis in fact that they wouldn't be *still* engaging in such subterfuge.
Darl, you're a funny man. I pity you.
GJC
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
You only just realised?
The whole thing started with an injection of microsoft money, and alarm bells started ringing for me, I've just been waiting for everyone else to catch up.
If microsoft had found themselves needing code which belonged to sco, they would've done what they've done many times before and borg'd sco or brought their own patent portfolio into play, no money would've changed hands.
Darl McBride is Bill Gates' glove puppet, the mental image is quite stomach-churning.
Custom Rules For SpamAssassin
According to SCO and the people who have seen the code in question the amount of code involved is quite large and exists in multiple places.
The reason is that if they didn't do it under an NDA the code in question would be changed and they would lose leverage in the upcoming suit.
It's true SCO is the focal point of the action. But they are only going where the Canopy group sends them. Darls' just the face they put on for this venture. I can totaly see Ralph Yarro (Canopy President) owning a company at the forefront of technology with a new and improved "Radium Heart Elixir", if it wasn't against the law.
I have no idea how these guys actually make money. Oh wait yes I do, they look for a dumb ass that gives away (or _invests_) money based on nothing but a good "glossy".
"Well, because companies the world over can and have been auditting periodically open source things for IP violations"
No, they haven't. They couldn't since then they would need to have access to the closed source product, in this case SCO's UNIX. There are no controls, no auditing, nothing; just emailed patches and a CVS.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. When I said companies, I meant closed source/proprietary source type of companies. And they do do audits of open source code, at least in my limited experience.
I never disagreed with the you on the flip side. The open source world doesn't audit against closed source, because there is simply no way to do it.
But frankly, if you want to hide something you have, and you just know someone is giving it away, do you rest on your laurels until some C*O from IBM makes some offhand comment at a convention to check to see if you have IP leaks, or do you do your due diligence periodically, especially with a code base that has been litigated over in the past?
Clearly you wait until the furthest thing from a developer makes a comment in public.
This is why I am saying it is beginning to look like valid claims. You cannot just ignore the fact that everyone who has seen the code under NDA admits that the code is identical, EVEN DOWN TO THE COMMENTS.
I never said that I was ignoring the fact that some journalists and analysts that have seen the code have said that it's identical.
That still doesn't change the fact that nobody that has been through an NDA has given any kind of indication as to the provenance of the code snippits. Have they seen change logs? What were the commit dates? In the diffs, did the sections of code occur organically or did the file and its contents spring forth wholly formed? When did it first appear in Linux?
Frankly as being something of a forensic software engineer for the company I work for, with a huge code base, I'm not at all surprised that code appears in multiple places with the same code and comments. I also wouldn't be surprised if a SCO engineer pulled a subsystem out of Linux and plunked it down in UnixWare with only the copyrights changed. Deadlines loom, people oversell their own talent to keep a job, people want to get past the small problems and tackle the things that interest them.
I don't see the same drivers on the other side. There is also enough anecdotal evidence floating around that Caldera/SCO may have contibuted it themselves. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if the right hand didn't know what the left was doing.
I don't know where you're coming from with your loud revelations that some of SCOs claims might be valid. I still haven't seen anything coming out of Utah that wouldn't be better used around the trees in my back yard.
I'm not a Linux zealot, but I do use it for fun and profit, as part of diverse set of tools.
I've been through this before. I was a commercial user of BSD/386 (later called BSDi) during the winding down of the AT&T/USL lawsuit. That affected me about as much as this does, although there wasn't a slashdot around then for the armchair pundits to scream that USL's case appeared to have merit.
rm
Isn't that like the bot calling the kettle black?
wow. someone needs to REALLY lighten up. PLEASE read /. with humor sensors ON. doing otherwise may be hazardous to your health/sanity
SCO says that a UnixWare license is enough to let one use Linux.
So... do you need a UnixWare license for each installation of Linux, according to SCO?
Hmm... interestingly, I've got a UnixWare and an OpenServer license (from when SCO was still SCO and not Caldera, when SCO was giving away UnixWare and OpenServer)
It's trivial to get a notary to timestamp a copy of the Linux code, including any alleged infringement. Fixing the code now would not change the fact that a copyright violation did or did not occur in the past, so the NDAs give them no to little legal advantage if the case is as they have presented it so far.
The NDAs do prevent companies from fixing their source to remove alleged SCO code (and thereby eliminate any reason for them to buy a license from SCO), a huge financial advantage.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Great. Maybe you can ask the employees of Enron who had their retirement investments tied up in Enron stock about that "shareholder value". Sure - they don't have jobs... but that's OK. They walked away with a huge sum for their wise investment, right?
Also keep in mind that Enron executives urged employees to continue investing in Enron stock right up the imposion of the company. This despite numerous indicators that the company was on the brink of collapse.
Its hard to tell where humor begins and ends around here. Apparently no one belives that it is even POSSIBLE that SCO is right. Not even POSSIBLE!!! And those that think that they may actually have a valid case get modded down into oblivion.
They have no leverage, regardless. Additionally, the fact that they are disclosing the code in the way they are disclosing it indicates they're not interested in allowing good-faith efforts to resolve the situation. Rather, they're interested in extortion. I don't imagine that would sit well with the court, either -- if it even got that far.
Kythe
This is not a problem for Linux as it is in compliance with the BSD license; it is also not a problem for SCO since AT&T had an out-of-court settlement with the Regents of California.
As the duplication is undisputed, presenting evidence of duplication is highly redundant. The only evidence of any interest would be showing that some of the areas of duplication are both owned by SCO and not added to Linux by a SCO employee.
Remember that a Company is simply a collection of employees, so anything a company does is by definition "by an employee". Companies can be held responsible for almost anything an employee does. If a random employee of Microsoft released XP into the public domain it would be clear that they had overstepped their bounds - however in this case SCO was a Linux company releasing a few pages of code would have been entirely in keeping with the rhetoric of the company of the time, their behaviour was public and SCO management has *still* not publicly countermanded their employee's actions.
Are you instead implying that SCO, Napster, Microsoft etc. have some way to tell if the code their employee submitted matchs someones elses closed source hidden code, and that Linus' lack of "controls" is therefore unusual?
BTW, have you thought of adopting the nick "I OVERUSE CAPTIALS"?
The only reason the code is under an NDA is so SCO can use it for extortion.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
I have an old OS/2 2.1 T-shirt from ca. '93 that has the old OS/2 logo on the front, and on the back it says "Fast Pane Relief for Windows" -- just curious if that's where you got the idea for your sig.
doh, in the given example it was the same author in both cases. why wouldn't he write identical comments?
ok, genius, if you know of any way how anybody can check submitted code that the submitter claims to be clean against a plethora of unknown possible sources, please let us know
i have no idea why you insist on proving that you are an idiot: the change would demonstrate that there claim was correct and increase their leverage to claim damages. by refusing to reveal what the problem is they remove any chance for claiming damagesm since the problem isn't rectified because of their refusal
if you don't want to be modded down, try to come up with some convincing arguments rather than spout nonsense
Worse case SCO proves Gnu/Linux violated it's IP.
Then what?
SCO is selling binary Linux destros. In short violating the GPL.
(However SCO seams to believe the GPL can be ignored)
SCO gets sued into dust...
Meanwhile SCOs code is removed from Linux.
In the end Caldera and SCO are out of business maybe IBM can buy up the patents and Novel the code... Oh wait I take that last one back Novel can sue whomever buys the code becouse it's not SCOs to sell.
Best case... SCO loses... SCO is sued into dust. No alterations to Linux are needed.
I don't actually exist.
Quick, Assimulate SCO!.Oh crap... that means if we get assimulated, they know whos using Linux...
Damn Borg.
Further, the sky is green and grass is blue, and we have patents and trademarks and copy rights on all of the above.
How long before their press releases consist of them stripping nekkid, smearing themselves in peanut butter and running around screaming "ALL YOUR CODE BASE ARE BELONG TO US. YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME." ? I give it two weeks.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
A bit of op-ed/interesting facts from Netcraft.com...
Two months ago SCO sent letters to 1500 of the largest companies globally warning them of risks involved in running Linux. Although SCO did not make the identities of these companies public, Chris Sontag described the list as "the Fortune 500 and effectively the global 2000. It ended up being about 1,500 top international companies". This makes it likely that the list of companies that received letters from SCO will be quite similar to the list of sites we use to study enterprises' web site technology choices.
At the time many analysts speculated that SCO's behaviour might deter enterprise companies from using Linux. However, this has not happened to date, at least in respect of their internet visible web sites. In the last two months Linux has made a net gain of over 100 enterprise sites; sites which have migrated to Linux including Royal Sun Alliance, Deutsche Bank, SunGard,T-online and most noteworthy, Schwab.
It may well be that although SCO has generated an enormous amount of attention from the media and the Linux evangelists, it does not presently have the attention of IT practitioners in large companies.
SCO Who?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
wah, there's too many analysts on both sides. Let them decide who's right and who wrong.
And I doubt SCO got it wrong, so the case where SCO copied rfom Linux seems UNLIKELY at best.
Point taken just as IBM has both source codes and their analysts. I doubt they would be wrong. Hell, somebody's analysts have to be wrong. Either that or wrong interpretation of licences from one of the sides.
Possible missinterpretations:
- Derivative work
- If it was copied , then who copied and what
- Missinterpretation of GPL and providing LInux
etc.
As for me I don't care. If there was such copy/paste routine they would just correct and rewrite that code. Btw if you look at small portions updated in cvs that part of being copied much maes that impossible.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
More importantly, historically, SCO has done its homework before making legal claims and have therefore been extremely successful in this arena. Obviously, this does not guarantee success in court, but it suggests the suit is by no means frivolous
As far as IBM is concerned, as opposed to being an 800 LB gorilla, IBM is an 800 LB elephant. Based on their recent defeat in court regarding their discriminatory pension plan, they obviously cannot dance. Furthermore, IBM's position on the matter is due to the fact that IBM is betting the farm on Linux. Failing to innovate on its own, IBM sees Linux as the only technology out there that will allow it to compete with, as an IBM manager put it, "our main competitor", which is Microsoft.
"No, they have said that Caldera OpenLinux users have a license for "their IP". But ONLY for use in purchased copies of OpenLinux. So you can't transfer it to Red Hat."
How come no one in the mainstream media that is covering this issue has realized that SCO is in a self-contradictory position here. SCO CANNOT license "their IP" separately in the OpenLinux distribution without getting another non-GPL license to distribute from each of the hundreds of Linux copyright holders. When they claim ownership of part of Linux, they lose their GPL for the rest of Linux and are violating the separate copyrights of hundreds of Linux developers whenever they distribute OpenLinux.
SCO just can't have it both ways. They needed to IMMEDIATELY stop distributing any GPL'ed software the instant that they discovered that "their IP" had been (allegedly) misappropriated into Linux. But they didn't. Game over. Red Hat will win their case.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
This would require a different business model, because as I said, any version of Linux that M$ would distribute would be freely copyable in the world at large. (Remember that any IP they put into the kernel would be GPL'd.) Their Linux business would basically end up like RedHat's, which Microsoft hates and is vigorously opposing. (And scared shitless of, I might add.) It would basically be their Windows competing their version of Linux (with much less revenue, but much more distribution). This does not sound at all plausible. M$ hates Linux. They don't want to help it. They want to destroy it.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
No one else who ahs signed the NDA has said this. I'm not currently doing Linux work or, for that matter, actuvely using linux in a professional capacity. In fact, I've got a job using windows.
I should probably look into signing the NDA so I can se for myself.
What exactly is *in* the NDA?
SCO inserts collective heads further up backside.
all this talk of leverage....
You must be one of those scientology aliens from Battlefield Earth.