OSDL Releases Q&A on SCO Legal Actions

craigoda writes "OSDL released a Q&A today written by Lawrence Rosen, noted expert on technology and intellectual property law. The Q&A points to serious flaws in SCO's claims that end-users have to pay for Linux licenses." The press release is a little more diplomatic, saying that the document only helps one determine whether or not one should buy a license from SCO.

Comments

What if I do not use SCO code?

[ryan76]

What if I run Linux but I do not use any of the features that invoke SCO code? (Provided they were indentified) Would I still owe them $$?

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if I run Linux but I do not use any of the features that invoke SCO code? (Provided they were indentified) Would I still owe them $$?

No.

This is similar to the situation in which you do invoke SCO code, in that it is exactly the same. Using code does not infringe upon copyright. Copying and distributing it does.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Fareq]

Yes, because by copying then to your hard drive you have made a copy. If SCO actually does own a piece of the code in Linux, AND it is decided that the GPL is meaningless, (or only applies when big companies feel like it) THEN simply copying the code (in source or binary form) to your system constitutes "use"

Thus, if SCO were right in all of their claims (highly unlikely the way I read it), you would be allowed to use Linux only if you did not have any copies of the SCO code anywhere on your system (or if you bought a license to use them)

So, yes. If you simply disabled those features, you'd still potentially be liable -- if you physically uninstalled them? you should be fine.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Frymaster]

however, sco is unlikely to sue you since a court case is likely to force them to identify the code in question, and they don't want to do that since, once the code is identified, linus and co. will start working on linux lite (to steal a phrase from bsd). they'll probably only tip their hat in a high stakes suit.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[danormsby]

As the Q&A explains, the case is SCO vs IBM. If IBM pay up a court is unlikely to allow SCO to also persue users of Linux.

I'm convinced that after the release in the court of which lines of code are tainted, a workaround SCO free Linux kernel will be available before the court case it over.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Because of the viral nature of SCO code, it will soon infect any non-SCO code it comes into contact with.

In fact, it is estimated that at the current rate of infection, all code will be SCO code by late 2004.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Bun]

You wouldn't owe them any money anyway. They are suing IBM for damanges caused by the alleged contract infringement. Demanding $ from Linux users for the use of the code is a form of double indemnity and is generally not allowed by courts.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[B'Trey]

I'm convinced that no modifications will be necessary - I don't believe SCO will be able to prove it's case at all. However, in the remote chance that they do, you're right that the damage will quickly be coded around.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[usotsuki]

Yeah, but what is the code in question?

Until they pony up the fucking code without requiring NDAs, I won't believe a word those asshats say.

And they are asshats.

-uso.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

SCO code is SHIT, if there web applications are any indication.

I just thought I'd peek at their site right now, to see what phantasm they were conjuring now.

They had a promising looking link at http://www.sco.com/licensing. The link says REGISTER , which in good fun, I clicked... Getting pages of badly escaped error in SQL connection. A Caldera URL, domain and coding are evident... Enough info in the error to guess that their CGI fields map to names in the table space.

A decent SQL injection could probably drop the DB, who knows? Maybe more. Real amateur job they've done.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[zpok]

Yes you would owe them $$. We all do.

They own everything going from programming principles to Unix methods. Anything created anywhere after they stopped making or buying software is clearly derivative. It has to be. If it's not Windows of course. And anyway, your license is in violation of copyright laws.

It's simple, see?

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, ok, but what about embedded platforms like Tivo that have absolutely no "SCO IP" code?

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[plugger]

I just went to their piracy reporting form. I thought they would be interested to hear about a company which is distributing GPL code combined with code which said company claim to be proprietry, in violation of the GPL. I hope they take this as seriously as any other 'piracy' that is brought to their attention.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the most ironic part of this is that the code in question (at least as is rumored) is not even SCO code, but stuff written by IBM. So basically SCO is trying to appropriate the work of others, never having made a useful contribution to Sys V themselves.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Demanding $ from Linux users for the use of the code is a form of double indemnity and is generally not allowed by courts.

While this might normally be true, a common misunderstanding by most Linux users is that the IBM contributions are the only potentially illegal ones. However, true or not, SCO publically claims a "majority" of the duplicate code from Sys V herritage came from "other" Unix licensees. Look into it further if you doubt it.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the most ironic part of this is that the code in question (at least as is rumored) is not even SCO code, but stuff written by IBM.

While possibly not written by SCO, they CLAIM there are many other potentially illegal contributions to Linux by other Unix licensees besides IBM. They supposedly found these by looking through the Linux mail lists and then found the code duplicated in Linux.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the Q&A explains, the case is SCO vs IBM. If IBM pay up a court is unlikely to allow SCO to also persue users of Linux.

The Q&A is WRONG if there are in fact other portions of code that licensees besides IBM contributed to Linux, which is what SCO has claimed from the beginning. Those '80 lines' you get to see via NDA? That wasn't even from IBM.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[dtfinch]

"Thank you for your interest in Anti-Piracy"

"If you requested more information, you will hear from us soon."

I probably typed way too much in there, since they're going to delete it anyway.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, read the article. The laywer clearly said
that even if you use SCO code in violation (assumeing
they ever provide proof), you still don't
have to pay SCO because it is IBM who will
pay for damages, and SCO cannot collect twice.
This answers the question of the poster which
was about having to pay damages, and was
not about whether he will be in violation
of SCO's (alleged) violation of trade secrets.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[screenrc]

Read the article, please. The laywer clearly said
that even if you use SCO code in violation (assumeing
they ever provide proof), you still don't
have to pay SCO because it is IBM who will
pay for damages, and SCO cannot collect twice.
This answers the question of the poster which
was about having to pay damages, and was
not about whether he will be in violation
of SCO's (alleged) violation of trade secrets.
Read the article, please. The laywer clearly said
that even if you use SCO code in violation (assumeing
they ever provide proof), you still don't
have to pay SCO because it is IBM who will
pay for damages, and SCO cannot collect twice.
This answers the question of the poster which
was about having to pay damages, and was
not about whether he will be in violation
of SCO's (alleged) violation of trade secrets.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[screenrc]

I am not even convinced they plan to show
in court with such week case. Maybe the objective
is not showing in court, so far, their actions
indicate that their are more interested to
spread FUD (as per Microsoft's intructions).

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assume for a moment that there is IP-violating code in Linux (hope not).

Linux code was founded over IP-violating code, which was happilly accepted by the 2.5 (and 2.4 ?) branch leaders. GPL is already cancelled. GPL would hold if in this particular case it had been lawfully employed. Not the case for Linux.

If that's your non-violating GPL code which was donated to Linux, then the only way to view it is as an enhancement to the scam. Linux fails as a whole in this case. They are no relicensing your code found in other software, but Linux as a whole.

I say that because Linux continued developing due to employment of IP-violating code.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Fareq]

But of course they are little shits.

No disagreements here, but that wasn't the point I was making. I was just helping to define "use" of IP according to US copyright law. That is not to say that, in this particular case, I think it will come out that way.

Just read SCO's outlandishly absurd reasoning why the GPL is invalid. It went something like: 'Copyright law gives right X, no contract that can be construed as granting any rights beyond X are valid'

Woah!!! but... what if I buy 5000 licenses to SCO's bullshitware. Those licenses would also be invalid by the same logic: after all, they grant me the right to make 5000 copies. 5000 is more than one, thus: not valid

Oh, and about not being liable because IBM is?
Assume, for the moment, that SCO owned IP that IBM gave to Linux. I know, it could never happen, but... just pretend for a minute.

Also lets assume that you are using Linux.

In this case, SCO can sue IBM for trade-secrets violations for giving code to Linux that is wasn't allowed to give away.

Additionally, however, you are using SCO IP without permission. Since IBM (or your distro) chose not to indemnify you against IP claims, you COULD (not necessarily, but quite possibly) be liable for damages. If you are a public library or educational institution and had a valid reason to believe that you had the right to use the IP (like you acquired a license that said you could from a provider without the authority to make that claim) then you would be allowed to remove the IP and avoid paying damages.

Otherwise its up to the judge.

Oh. I missed one other essential assumption: SCO never released a copy of its IP under a license that allows limitless copying (such as, say, Caldera under the GPL) Because, you see, if I am offered a license (a contract granting me certain rights, and forbidding me others in exchange for some (possibly monetary) value) to duplicate the software, and the organization granting the license had the right to do so, then I can do whatever the license says I can do. After all, thats what we agreed to. Contracts are binding like that. If you sign on the dotted line you are stuck. Especially if you wrote the contract (or offered the boiler-plate contract)

In short: because SCO released a copy of Linux under the GPL (assuming it survives a court test), and especially because it can be easily proven hat they know they did so (I'm sure it had a copy of the license on it) they are SOL.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[ninthwave]

Yes but Unix code in general has been used as examples in operating system programming. One of the big problems SCO has is Unix has been around so long that core features of it have been used in many other places than Unix.

So here are some links with some history and the battle SCO has is to prove that the code they see in Linux didn't come from these sources instead of IBM because if it came from these sources there is nothing SCO gets.

Public Money, Private Code

Quote from above: In 1992, Berkeley released its version of Unix and TCP/IP to the public as open-source code, and the combination quickly became the backbone of a network so vast that people started to call it, simply, "the Internet"

Why Caldera Decided to Release Unix

From that article note that Caldera did release Unix source code on some version and again SCO has to defend against the chance that code came from this source. And though it appears in protected System V it was also present in the release V7 and V32.

Introducing the Caldera OpenLinux Workstation

From thie quote on the above:OpenLinux is Caldera's self-hosted source code Linux distribution that conforms to commercial software release procedures. OpenLinux is based on the most current stable open source technologies, but subjected to rigorous testing procedures similar to those used for proprietary operating systems. How can SCO clain they did not see infected code go into Linux if they had standards that if up to proprietary operating systems would include a check as such.

Berkley Lab Notes
My question here is if you follow the links on this page and understand the history of Unix and how it became freely released can anyone tell me what if anything was left propietary in Unix?????
And maybe that is a question SCO should be answering.

And really this needs to be explored in detail because what does System V have that BSD does not and how does the BSDi vs USL case affect the Unix propietary code.

I know this is redundant it has all been said before but the Q&A is right. Without SCO showing the code in question and that code be compared to so much of the Unix system that legally leaked into the world they have no case.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't you agree that the current way of alien code being merged to Linux is prone to IP issues regardless it being open? I think that a third person, would view Linux as a pool where developers dump code and nobody gives a damn where that code comes from. Sooner or later, a framework has to be established, to avoid future SCOs. And, I believe this is serious, because people do contribute code and want to claim participation to something they really don't know what sort of complications it raises. In closed-source projects, developers tend to re-invent the wheel just for that very reason -yes, there is still the potential for "bad" code coming in. Then, when you publish code you drag yourself into a non-stop seach of projects that use you code in an unapproved fashion.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[stu_coates]

...and if you look here, you'll see that SCO are still using Linux themselves....

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Charlotte]

Never ascribe to maliciousness that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

Hanlon's Razor actually goes like this: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Read more here. Strange, I always thought this was a quote of Oscar Wilde.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[ninthwave]

No because you can see the code what would stop a company from dumping third party ip into their code and hiding it in binary only distributions????

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[arkanes]

A clarification: You can't CONTINUE to use the code after the lawsuit, assuming that part of the settlement is an injunction, and a settlement without that wouldn't be considered a win for SCO. The damages are for (theoretical) past damages, not future one.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[arkanes]

The Q&A is totally accurate because it's talking about the only thing with any legal weight, which is the SCO vs IBM lawsuit. Any unauthorized use of SCOs source by anyone except IBM hasn't even been alleged.

And the provenance of those 80 lines shown under the NDA has never been stated by anyone, SCO or not, so I don't know where you get that from.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[usotsuki]

>:[=

I'm unsure about the "SCO distributed Linux, therefore the code in question has been released by SCO" hypothesis (although even IBM seems to be using it).

re sig, :D I have a homebrew e-mail client, and it only accepts ASCII text. It's got a nicer interface than telnet, but it's no more powerful. ;)

Berkeley Mail 4 Evar! :D

-uso.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The crappy server I hit was "Oracle Web Server", whatever that means.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[B'Trey]

Yes, I'm aware of how the original quote goes. I prefer this version.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to be fairly flatulent since I eat a lot of beans and lentils but I've become concerned lately that someone out there owns the patent on this. Should I be concerned and who do I send the check to each time I bust some gas?. Obviously I want to make sure I am properly "licensed" for this, legal and that I'm not infringing on someone elses patented method of "farting loudly while in a standing position such that an ear-shattering noise of significant amount of decibils is produced". Should I just stop eating beans???. Please help!!!.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Lost Penguin]

SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag said "there are millions of lines of offending code involved and that it's highly unlikely the matter could be resolved by removing that code"

Translation: We will add more Linux code to Unixware as you remove it from Linux, You will never see all "our" code. We own our Unixware development logs, and change them at will.

Re:What if I do not use SCO code?

[Bun]

"While this might normally be true, a common misunderstanding by most Linux users is that the IBM contributions are the only potentially illegal ones. However, true or not, SCO publically claims a "majority" of the duplicate code from Sys V herritage came from "other" Unix licensees. Look into it further if you doubt it."

While this may be true, SCO must therefore sue the "other" Unix licensees, not the individual users. The vast majority of Linux users have not infringed on any copyrights. In a case where SCO tried to sue a user (even a large corporation) that hadn't submitted any disputed code, the judge would simply throw it out of court, (perhaps with a suggestion to go after the "offender"). The threats are obviously a FUD tactic that everyone should just ignore.

Document summary

[mhesseltine]

Q: Should I buy a license from SCO?

A: No

Re:Document summary

[killthiskid]

The thing I don't get is this...

SCO claims that IBM took SCO's confidential information about Unix and the AIX operating system and improperly contributed it to Linux. The Linux operating system, they assert, was infected with SCO's confidential information and, because Linux is open source, that confidential information has been disclosed to the world. Now that Linux is replacing Unix in the operating system marketplace, SCO has lost business. It claims over $1 billion in damages.

So this is the thing: what does this have to do with SCO declaring the GPL invalid? What the HELL does it have to do with their lawsuit against IBM. I do not understand.

Re:Document summary

[ePhil_One]

Q: Should I buy a license from SCO?

A: No

But what if I were trying to protect my monopoly on x86 operating systems?

Re:Document summary

[mhesseltine]

But what if I were trying to protect my monopoly on x86 operating systems?

Well then, Mr. Gates, go ahead and purchase as many licenses as you see fit.

Re:Document summary

[ryan76]

Its the Chewbacca defense as mentioned in the early article today..

Re:Document summary

[interiot]

• what does this have to do with SCO declaring the GPL invalid? What the HELL does it have to do with their lawsuit against IBM. I do not understand.

But ladies and gentlemen this is Chewbacca. Now think about that for one minute. That does not make sense. Why am I talking about Chewbacca when a man's life is on the line? Why? I'll tell you why. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. If Chewbacca does not make sense you must acquit.

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked SCO some questions on the website :

I asked if they claim was only in the US or also in Europe/worldwide.

I asked them how I could buy the license (Hypothetical question but any way ;-) )

I asked them for proof that I needed the license

(that was a week ago - no answer)

I guess they do not need the $$$

Re:Document summary

[vpetersen]

Chewbacca defence is fine.. in a kangaroo court.

Re:Document summary

[BrynM]

Are you trying to say that /.ers aren't even good enough to be a supposed jury?

Re:Document summary

[TheFrood]

Q: Should I buy a license from SCO?

A: No.

Q: But what if...

A: No.

Q: Okay, but suppose...

A: Even then, no.

TheFrood

Re:Document summary

[rainmanjag]

Quite simple.

The secondary element to this whole clusterfuck is that SCO is threatening to sue individual businesses and individual distributors of Linux unless they pay SCO licensing fees. If Linux is covered under the GPL, then SCO cannot legally force anybody to pay them license fees. It's against the GPL.

However, if the GPL is a legally invalid license, then SCO is released from that restraint. They can go to whomever and invalidate a potential license-purchaser's argument of protection under the GPL and have a stronger legal threat to extort^H^H^H^H^H^Hcollect license fees.

Of course, Rosen is absolutely correct that the courts would be exceptionally unlikely to allow SCO to claim damages from individual users of Linux *and* from IBM.

Disclaimer: IANAL

-jag

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

One of IBM's counterclaims is that SCO violated the GPL. So SCO saying that the GPL isn't valid is possibly their response to that (though they haven't yet claimed this in any legal way -- only in a conversation with the press).

Re:Document summary

[DaveAtFraud]

Step 1: SCO sues IBM over supposedly contributing confidential, proprietary SCO information to Linux and thus disclosing it. IBM tells SCO to shove it.

Step 2: SCO starts FUD campaign to scare people into not using Linux. Part of their FUD is to sell a license for their intellectual property that has been included in Linux which they have also distributed. Selling this license violates the GPL.

Step 3: SCO now finds itself in the position of having made probably unproveable claims about copyright infringement against IBM and Linux and having committed very public and thus proveable violations of the GPL. The only way SCO can continue their FUD campaign and charge people to use Linux is if they can now also get the GPL declared invalid.

The original lawsuit between SCO and IBM had absolutely nothing to do with the GPL. SCO brought the GPL into the mess by asserting they could sell licenses to Linux users for the portion of Linux that was based on their IP. This violates the GPL becuase they had distributed Linux with the offending code which makes it subject to the GPL.

If the issue had been strictly about copyright violations, it would have burried on the back page of some legal journal. SCO and their behind the scenes backers (think about who benefits from Linux and open source being discredited) have turned it into a public attack on Linux and free/open source software.

Re:Document summary

[eric76]

It appears that they even want you to pay licensing fees if you're using their own Linux distribution.

By the way, there is some question of whether they can double collect damages.

If they collect from end users, can they also collect from IBM?

If they collect from IBM, can they also collect from end users?

One article that was written by a lawyer says that courts tend to take a very dim view of such double dipping.

Re:Document summary

[RickHunter]

The real problem is that, if the GPL is not invalid, SCO is in some serious legal problems. Because not only did they distribute their code under the GPL unknowingly, but they continued to do so after they were informed of the fact. And they still continue to do so, because otherwise they'd loose what few customers they have left. (The distribution in question is them providing Linux binaries, patches, and possibly source from their FTP site) If the GPL's valid, they have no right to do this unless they license the code/IP in question under the GPL, which makes their case (and stock price) collapse.

Unfortunately, they're equally screwed if the GPL is invalid. Just because Linux was "infected" with "confidential information" doesn't give them ownership over all the other IP in there. And if the GPL's invalid, that falls back to the default of US copyright law. Which means that SCO has no right to distribute it or modify it. So if it is invalid, they're equally screwed.

That's why they're now (IIRC) trying to not only claim that its invalid, but that anything formerly under the GPL is now public domain. Why? Because this is Chewbacca. No, wait, that's wrong. Because the author allowed unlimited copies.

Yeah, everyone else is just as puzzled.

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, so many wrong answers. It's not a Chewbacca defense.

In addition to licensing their code to IBM under whatever license they used, but they ALSO licensed the entire Linux 2.4 kernel, including things they claim to have IP rights over, to their customers under the GPL.

Any of SCO's customers, under the GPL, has the absolute right to commit those updates into the main Linux kernel tree. So in a way it's irrelevant if SCO has any rights to the code in question at all--even if they did, they gave it away.

Thus the GPL challenge. If the GPL is declared invalid, *nobody* would have any rights to use Linux except the copyright holders of the original code. Luckily, most things in Linux have their copyrights ascribed to the Free Software Foundation. If, however, SCO proves that it owns the copyright on this code, AND they invalidate the GPL, that would be the only way to successfully remove the code from Linux (legally speaking).

Just because it's a dumb-ass defense doesn't make it a Chewbacca defense.

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM is calling on the GPL in their counter claim, saying that SCO breached the GPL. So, SCO has to counter that.

Re:Document summary

[whittrash]

No, especially since they can rip off others intellectual property, on their web page they rip off James Bond. http://www.sco.com/2003forum/

Re:Document summary

[Pieroxy]

Well, that's probably questionnable. At what point of time did they remove the distribution? I mean, not the files standing in their ftp server, but the actual commercial pages advertising Linux ?

Re:Document summary

[evanbro]

How about this: Document summary: You may continue to use Linux without fear. I'd say that sums it up pretty well

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, they're still (mostly) there

Their FTP site has the download

Their web pages are full of stuff about Linux

The only major thing they've changed is not to link the to ...Oh, and they are still participating in UnitedLinux

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

The original lawsuit between SCO and IBM had absolutely nothing to do with the GPL. SCO brought the GPL into the mess by asserting they could sell licenses to Linux users for the portion of Linux that was based on their IP. This violates the GPL becuase they had distributed Linux with the offending code which makes it subject to the GPL.

I won't respond to your general view of things legal/editorial comments about the progess of the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, but what you say here is factually incorrect (and I'm no fan of SCO). I've read all the publicly available court filings. The GPL was brought into the lawsuit in IBM's counter-claim against SCO. Yes, SCO blew a ton of public hot air about the GPL, but SCO did not formally introduce the GPL into the suit. If a claim is not formally before the court, the court has no power to settle it. And IBM was the party that filed the formal papers bringing the GPL before the court, and thus into legal scrutiny.

Re:Document summary

[darkonc]

Thus the GPL challenge. If the GPL is declared invalid, *nobody* would have any rights to use Linux except the copyright holders of the original code.

Right. But if their argument stopped here, all of the owners of original Linux code would have the right to sue SCO into the ground for violating their copyright anyways -- except that we'd have the right to sue them starting with their first distribution of Linux code.

The only way around that would be to say that anything put under the GPL was actually put into the public domain. Once it's in the public domain, SCO would be able to do anything that they want with the code -- including asking for further license fees.

On the other hand, this would also mean that -- since their code was distributed by them (with their knowledge) under the GPL license, IT would be public domain as well... and they wouldn't have any legal force behind a request for more money..

In other words, the worst case of this argument would be that all of Linux (including the SCO code) is public domain, and nobody has to pay anybody for any of it. (but SCO would be free to relicense it in the future).

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, Rosen is absolutely correct that the courts would be exceptionally unlikely to allow SCO to claim damages from individual users of Linux *and* from IBM.

This could be true unless SCO has as they claim OTHER significant instances of duplicate code from OTHER Unix licensees besides IBM.

Re:Document summary

[screenrc]

A small note. If SCO was for real, it would
seem that not only they will show proof, but
they would ENCOURAGE users to continue using
GNU/Linux so that they can be awarded as
much damages as possible, not as least damages
possible.

But of course, if your real goal is to spread
fud (as per Microsoft instructions), they they
should be in the fud bussinees (while they
pretend they are in litigation business).

Re:Document summary

[grahamm]

IANAL but I beleive that not all countries have the same concept of public domain as does the USA. I think that in some countries a work is still in copyright until that copyright expires but that someone still owns the copyright until such time as it expires. The copyright owner may, of course, allow others to copy, and perform other actions reserved for the copyright holder, free of charge. While the effect is similar to the US public domain, it is not the same.

Re:Document summary

[pants1973]

It has NOTHING to do with it!! You're missing the point of SCO's floundering actions ... it's a dying company being funded by M$ to spread deathbed FUD around in a last-ditch effort to survive for a few more months to make its shareholders rich. What they're doing doesn't NEED to make sense - that's not the ultimate goal. Watch SCO's stock price. I bet that every time it drops to around $8 or so, it will release some ludacris statement about how the GPL is invalid, how ALL operating systems belong to SCO, and next how those oxygen molecules you're breathing contains electrons based on SCO's IP. It's all a smokescreen BS act. The BEST thing the Linux community as a whole can do is to get on with our development efforts and ignore SCO. Any company acting as panicky and outlandishly as SCO is will do the most damage to itself by itself. It's like the tazmanian devil right right now, but eventually it will run out of breath (and money) and will be just left at the bottom of the canyon to wither and die in the sweltering sun. hopefully!

Re:Document summary

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM & Linus need to explicitly revoke SCO's license to distribute Linux, based upon their demand for licensing fees from customers. Just about any other player who has a customer among the 1500 recipients of the demand letter could also sue SCO to cease and desist from distributing based upon this GPL violation. Probably, some judge could then grant an injunction based upon the obvious violation.

Re:Document summary

[arkanes]

At least 2 weeks after the filing of the lawsuit against IBM, which is certainly long after the plans for the suit were laid. Files on the ftp server (it's anonymous access at ftp.caldera.com - hardly hidden in any way) certainly count as distribution, however. Whether or not it's advertised is really irrelevant.

Re:Document summary

[Pieroxy]

You know, just because a file is free to download doesn't mean you can/should/are allowed to download it.

My grocery store consistently displays tons of fruits and veggies on the front and no one is checking if I take one and walk away. It doesn't mean I am allowed to do so.

Just because they have a couple of binary files sitting on their ftp server does mean nothing at all when it comes to the question: "Does SCO still distributes Linux".

If they specifically claim that they don't, then you are in violation of their copyright if you download the file. The fact that you can doesn't mean you are allowed to do it.

And if they give a good reason to still have these binaries out there (and they do, it's for their existing customers), I don't see why Linux on their FTP server is relevant here.

Re:Document summary

[arkanes]

This has nothing to do with whether or not it was a a legal download (it was, period). This has to do with whether or not SCO was distributing Linux in violation of the GPL - the existence of that server is distribution. Period.

As a side note, if you're running an FTP server on a public server with a login banner that gives you anonymous access, and the files on that server are accompanied by license files that give you a free right to download them, you'd have a heck of a time pushing a copyright infringment claim.

Re:Document summary

[Pieroxy]

As a side note, if you're running an FTP server on a public server with a login banner that gives you anonymous access, and the files on that server are accompanied by license files that give you a free right to download them

Well, giving that their FTP server contains a notice that they don't distribute Linux anymore and that the files are just for the convenience of their existing customer, I'd say that it is not really true.

Re:Document summary

[arkanes]

"I'm not giving away money any more. Here's 20 bucks". You should read things BEFORE you reply to them.

Re:Document summary

[Pharmboy]

Well, giving that their FTP server contains a notice that they don't distribute Linux anymore and that the files are just for the convenience of their existing customer, I'd say that it is not really true.

Having it on a FTP site IS distributing it openly to the public, regardless of any notice. If they only distributed it to people that purchased a license, it is still distribution. Allowing it to leave the company in any way is distribution. If they wanted to use it inhouse for testing, fine, but this is clearly distributing it. I downloaded it myself, via wget and don't remember seeing any notice anyway.

This is like having a basket of porno with a sign that says "you must be 18 to take this free porn" and no one monitoring it. You are still guilty of allowing children of accessing it, in spite of your sign. Under all cases, you are still distributing it.

The GPL doesn't limit or classify "distribution" in any way. If you put it on CD, allow downloads, or print the source out on paper and hand out copies, you are distributing it. Having it available for anyone to download it IS distribution and makes any contributions you added GPL. Saying "we don't distribute Linux, but here it is" doesn't change the fact that they ARE distributing it.

YOU being able to differentiate "for customers only" or "general public access" doesn't matter. The law clearly views this as accessible to the public under any analogy you can draw. This is such a simple concept, it really doesn't merit discussion. This aspect can't honestly be debated.

SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO, wow, I haven't heard about them for a long time! I was starting to wonder what happened to them.

Good Job Slashdot!

Re:SCO

[Styx]

Couldn't you just run hercules? It is an System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture emulator.

Re:SCO

[BrynM]

Thank you for that. I never knew there was an emulator and I miss the stark nature of JES2 (another sign your a geek).

Re:SCO

[Clovert Agent]

If you are anyone that you know runs SCO, find out why, and have the software that runs on SCO ported to Linux.

It's not always that easy. Just to pick one example: if you use a CyberGuard firewall, you are using a SCO OS. Porting just isn't an option.

Re:SCO

[xcomm]

I can not see any more way for SCO to escalate its FUD more from this point on!

Re:SCO

[zexxxx]

I propose:

nosco.org
no-mo-sco.org
non-scooperation.org

Any takers?

Let's start the counting!

They didn't answer the real questions

[rf0]

How far up is SCO's head up their own ass?

- Normal service is now resumed -

Rus

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[Anonymous Coward]

How far up is SCO's head up their own ass?

Far enough to recieve legal advice from yesterday's dinner.

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a link to their ass.

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[Biomechanoid]

Did you know SCO became so good at putting their heads up their arses, that people went ahead and patented it as an "arse in ass technique"? People are now suing SCO because they are using this patented "arse in ass technique".

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[Ixitar]

I think that it is so far up ther that it came back out and they went back for a second round.

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[DaveAtFraud]

How about? So far up that they now need a glass navel to see where they're going. I think that's one of the patents that IBM is going after them on.

Math note: Topologically, it doesn't matter which way they bend, they still need a glass navel to see. Over backwards tends to work best since at least that way you're not in your own way when it comes to seeing where you're going. Also an IBM patent.

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[FFFish]

SCO's head is so far up its ass that it can lick its own tonsils.

Re:They didn't answer the real questions

[bubbha]

SCO's head is so far up it's ass...that it can see Bill Gates.

Ugly site

[Robawesome]

Did anyone else notice that the Q&A site was poorly formatted and ugly-colored?



"SCO purports to be a respecter of intellectual property- but in fact at this time is violating no less than four IBM patents" -IBM counterclaim

Re:Ugly site

[Anonymous Coward]

They designed it during the blackout, give them a break.

Re:Ugly site

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you just clicked the wrong link. You're were looking at Slashdot YRO.

So...

[grasshoppa]

..they are saying what we already knew: "SCO is full of shit".

Wouldn't that be great if a big time lawer for IBM called a huge press conference to say just that?

"Thank you all for coming today. We would like to say, in response to SCO's most recent *finger quotes* allegations, that SCO is full of shit. Thank you all for coming."

Re:So...

[Shivetya]

I still prefered the summarized version of the 46 page counter suit.... (someone posted on that thread)

ARMONK, NY - Aug. 8, 2003 -- "Dodge this."

License not needed

[allway]

I read the document, and it informed me that i did NOT need to buy a license. Thanks for the clear up.

Re:License not needed

[xxltjx]

I read the document, and it informed me that i did NOT need to buy a license. Thanks for the clear up

You needed a document to tell you this? :-)

Paranoia

[Faust7]

a Q&A paper written by noted technology law and intellectual property expert Lawrence Rosen

Boy, that gave me a nasty start.

Re:Paranoia

[Feyr]

eh it caught you too ? :)

Re:Paranoia

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it, what's so surprising about the name Rosen???

Re:Paranoia

[GnuVince]

My reaction was quite the opposite: I thought it was Lawrence Lessig, hero of all Slashdot geeks.

Re:Paranoia

[gibodean]

I got a bit of a fright too.

Hillary Rosen is the enemy. She is a lawyer or similar for the music companies. I'm sure someone will correct me.

Re:Paranoia

[be-fan]

Who is Lawrence Rosen? The love-child of Lawrence Lessig and Hillary Rosen.

That sound you just heard was the heads of every single slashdotter simultaniously exploding...

Re:Paranoia

[Anonymous Coward]

I felt the explosion. It hurt.

Re:Paranoia

[JamesP]

I thought it would be better. They can subpoena SCO and threaten them with a nice lawsuit...

BTW, are we sure we cannt find something compromising at SCO's site? Then we could send a nice email to RIAA...

Q&A in Html

[ebacon]

Here:

Re:Q&A in Html

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you

Re:Q&A in Html

[jmorris42]

It is amazing that OSDL can't produce HTML that renders correctly in Mozilla.

Re:Q&A in Html

[Zigg]

Err, what Mozilla are you using? My copy of 1.4 has no trouble. Mind you, it's not pretty, but neither are any of the Google-autoconverted PDFs; this looks similar to one of those. Perfectly readable though.

Re:Q&A in Html

[jmorris42]

I'm still on 1.0.1 because every time I have tried upgrading Moz, Nautilus breaks. I had text splattered atop text in places. No excuse for that.

SCO this, SCO that

[notque]

OSDL released a Q&A today written by Lawrence Rosen, noted expert on technology and intellectual property law. The Q&A points to serious flaws in SCO's claims that end-users have to pay for Linux licenses." The press release is a little more diplomatic, saying that the document only helps one determine whether or not one should buy a license from SCO.

Oooh! I don't have to read the article, I am going to guess... NO! Anyone who purchases a license from SCO is either extremely paranoid, or a moron. Granted, I would be paranoid too with the ammount of money that these lawsuits are generating.

The real question is will Al Franken defeat the "Fair and Balanced" Fox News.

Re:SCO this, SCO that

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is will Al Franken defeat the "Fair and Balanced" Fox News.

"Franken flew into a rage near a table of Fox News personalities at a press correspondents' dinner in April and acted 'either intoxicated or deranged.'" -- from the Fox suit.

Fair and balanced, or mentally unbalanced...

Re:SCO this, SCO that

[IceDiver]

Anyone who purchases a license from SCO is either extremely paranoid, or a moron.

Or is Microsoft making another contribution to the anti-Linux warchest.

Politically Incorrect - and Proud!

Same old Same old

[Crashmarik]

Sco's stock price drops below 11 and their claims grow louder and more rediculous. My only question is how do they think they will avoid the inevitable insider trading and fraud investigations.

Re:Same old Same old

[wfberg]

Obviously, the employees at SCO read slashdot. With so much, perhaps unfounded, speculation going on at slashdot about insider trading, perhaps it's a good time to point out to our SCO readership the Insider Trading Bounty program. If there are any transactions going on by insiders that isn't listed here or here, the SEC, and slashdot, would like to know!

Re:Same old Same old

[Thumb-One]

Of course, were I a SCO insider that also read Slashdot, when the inevitable investigations came, I would have a response ready:

"It wasn't insider trading! I sold because it was common knowledge that we were fscked; hell, I read it on Slashdot fuhchrissakes."

Re:Same old Same old

[zpok]

I'd like to come forward and report that our CEO is hiding Saddam under his desk.

Thank you, God bless America.

Re:Same old Same old

[Anonymous Coward]

Figures the yahoo link would be easier to make sense of.

Re:Same old Same old

[screenrc]

I think they will avoid SEC, almost everyone does.
Unless, of course, you are a 14-year old who
hypes a stock on the Yahoo board. The real, big-time,
criminals don't seem to attract interest from the SEC.

Re:Same old Same old

[macshit]

Sco's stock price drops below 11 and their claims grow louder and more rediculous. My only question is how do they think they will avoid the inevitable insider trading and fraud investigations.

My question is: What are they going to do when their stock price hits, oh say, 1?

It's going to take some serious talent (and a lot of LSD) to get that freaky...

why would a user pay for the seller's crimes?

[sirshannon]

if I bought a copy of Red Hat and it contained illegal code, there is no way I would even begin to consider paying SCO for the illegal code. Either Red Hat would pay SCO or Red Hat would refund my money and I would stop using the product.

Re:why would a user pay for the seller's crimes?

[Fluid Truth]

And if I just downloaded the kernel from kernel.org? What then? There's no money to refund and no company who would pay SCO for the illegal code.

Not that I think their claims have any merit, anyway...

Re:why would a user pay for the seller's crimes?

[sirshannon]

1. I wouldn't just download something like that, I would support the company with my $, right?

2. I don't know if their claims have merits, either, but saying that the user owes them money makes me think not.

Re:why would a user pay for the seller's crimes?

[Simon Brooke]

I wouldn't just download something like that, I would support the company with my $, right?

You really don't understand the concept of Open Source, do you? Why should you 'support' RedHat (or SuSE or Mandrake - or SCOX) for Linus' work? He doesn't work for any of those companies and never has. Nor have most of the people who have written contributions to the Linux kernel. Yes, I know Alan Cox does...

The value that RedHat and SuSE and Mandrake add is not in creating a kernel. It's in creating a distribution - a bundle of software which has been tested to work together, with installation and administration tools to make it easy to use. So sure, if you use RedHat's (or SuSE's or Mandrake's or...) distribution feel free to support them with your dollar. But the kernel? Buy your local kernel developer a beer.

Re:why would a user pay for the seller's crimes?

[sirshannon]

I just love it when people jump at the chance to insult my intelligence/knowledge. Now can you please insult the color of my socks, my hairstyle and anything else you can think of to pretend you know about me? Thanks.

PDF v.s. HTML

[thenextpresident]

Let's see, they offer a PDF version and an HTML version. Hrm? I know! This is Slashdot, and we have to try and bring them down. Rather than link to the HTML version, let's link to the PDF version. I mean seriously, HTML is so not the prefered format for reading things on web sites.

Re:PDF v.s. HTML

[wfberg]

Let's see, they offer a PDF version and an HTML version. Hrm? I know! This is Slashdot, and we have to try and bring them down. Rather than link to the HTML version, let's link to the PDF version.

Good idea actually, as the HTML version stinks. Looks like they used google to convert PDF to HTML(!)

SCO?

[Biomechanoid]

SCO? Whats a SCO? Is that Danish? I noticed a couple of other people talk about a SCO also on slashdot.

Re:SCO?

[molarmass192]

I think it's an abbreviation for SCOW which is a Dutch (not Danish) word for the common trash barge. In slang I think it would be referred to as "a floating pile of sh*t".

Re:SCO?

[Xeth]

I know! I feel so betrayed, the slashdot editors have failed badly in their attempts to bring news of this "SCO" pastry to their loyal readerships. Perhaps if they had posted stories now and again...

Re:SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO? Whats a SCO?

Slashdot Cowards' Online.

It's a sort of club for trolls, a bit like Adequacy I guess except that we managed to club together enough money to buy the rights to Unixware and hire a top firm of lawyers to troll the world.

Re:SCO?

[Styx]

Actually, there used to be a company in Denmark that made bicycles, named Smith & Co - abbreviated SCO.

Re:SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not a Danish. A Finnish.

Call to linux developers

[ciroknight]

I know this is a difficult request.. but could someone PLEASE start a project to replace what ever code SCO claims to have copyright over? And start NOW instead of after SCO wins or loses? This way half way through the case, SCO will lose plainly because they couldn't even claim they had hold in the kernel at all....

This is made difficult by the fact that SCO refuses to tell anyone what code actually is "theirs" in the kernel, other than it has to deal with computers with more than one processor.. I'm just getting sick and tired of hearing SCO's lawyers and execs and everyone else flaming because they can't figure out who really owns the code.... It's disgusting really. Please help :-)

Re:Call to linux developers

[plierhead]

could someone PLEASE start a project to replace what ever code SCO claims to have copyright over ?

Actually I claim ownership over the whole of linux myself - I wrote most of it in my spare time using notepad on the computer here in my cube at Walmart's admin offices. Oh yeah, and some of it I wrote on my palm pilot on the bus on the way to work..

Why are you panicking? Life is full of people who act like bullies. Usually they get whats coming to them. The key here is to draw SCO so far into this that they overstretch themselves, go belly up and take their shareholders down with them.

Re:Call to linux developers

[mark-t]

This is a largely irrellevant suggestion, I'm afraid.

Even when the code is replaced, SCO would still be legally entitled to whatever damages were appropriate for infringement in the first place (assuming they ever had a case), and the amount that they could be eligible for would not and could not change based on whether or not or how long it took to replace the code.

What's really bizarre is that this shows that SCO's reasoning for refusal to publically disclose the location of the code in question is rationally flawed. I'm sure this has already been pointed out to them and yet they continue to stick to that story.

Two words.... "stock scam".

Re:Call to linux developers

[FreeUser]

I know this is a difficult request.. but could someone PLEASE start a project to replace what ever code SCO claims to have copyright over? And start NOW instead of after SCO wins or loses? This way half way through the case, SCO will lose plainly because they couldn't even claim they had hold in the kernel at all....

No. It is neither appropriate, nor reasonable, for hard working developers to throw out the code they wrote and reimpliment it anew because a dying company, owned by a group of litigious thugs, makes wild and unsubstantiated accusations designed to intimidate and extort.

If and when Caldera, now calling themselves SCO, reveals the specific source code they allege infringes upon their copyright, then and only then can developers begin to audit the code (and its history) and ascertain (1) whether or not there is any possible truth to the allegation (unlikely but possible) and (2) what action should be taken. Obviously if, once the nature of the alleged infringement is known, there is a possibility that SCO is right (again, very unlikely but not impossible), then they can begin rewriting the code in question. If on the other hand they have good evidence that the code is legal (either an original clean-room implimentation, taken from a common source such as FreeBSD, or provided by IBM from the source code SCO has already admitted IBM owns the copyright to) then they can tell SCO what they can do with their untruthful allegations and continue improving the kernel, rather than wasting their time jumping through Caldera created hoops of busywork.

This is made difficult by the fact that SCO refuses to tell anyone what code actually is "theirs" in the kernel, other than it has to deal with computers with more than one processor.

It is made utterly impractical. Keep in mind that, in several iterations of SCO's ranting, they claim ownership of all of linux, much of GNU, FreeBSD, and even Apple OS X. They have said, among other absurd things, that there are only two operating systems in the world: Windows and UNIX (so much for DR DOS/FreeDOS, VMS, et. al. I guess). So, for anyone to acede to your rather unreasonable request, the entire kernel and all unix-like tools would have to be thrown out and an entirely new system would have to be rewritten, with no similiarity to UNIX whatsoever.

And of course, there would be nothing to prevent SCO from alleging equally absurd claims of ownership to that new operating system as well, making the entire collassal effort an utter waste of energy anyway. After all, it talks to computer hardware, loads itself from disk, and provides a software abstraction layer between the hardware and userspace programs, i.e it is an operating system, and "there are only two operating systems in the world, so it must be a derivative!"

People have worked very hard to build Linux, for themselves and for others, and it is utterly unreasonable to request, much less expect, them to give up their hard work because of a despicable little group's stock pump-and-dump scheme and the unsubstantiated rhetoric that surrounds it.

It's disgusting really.

Indeed. But wasting our productivity aceding to their unsubstantiated, much less unproven, wild claims of ownership over other people's hard work is hardly the answer.

On the positive side, this is a GOOD case for the GPL to be tested with. It is pretty clear even to the casual observer who is ethical here and who is not, who is in the right and who is not. The GPL is about to get upheld in court irrespective of the outcome of the SCO v. IBM contractual spat (with IMHO almost 100% certainty at the outset, and a probability equal to unity at the appelate level and above), and thereby strengthened even further (although it really doesn't need to be), and those who bought SCO licenses are likely to have the terms of their employment reevaluated by their employers before this is all over. With a little luck we may even get to read about Darl McBride's new

Re:Call to linux developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it so happens that the job is already done. SCO's claim is without substance.

Re:Call to linux developers

[veldstra]

Just wait and see, somewhere during the trial the 'infringing' code will need to be entered as evidence, and before a verdict is reached, the replacement is likely to be in the kernel. After that it's up to you to install it as fast as possible.

Re:Call to linux developers

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFFAQ

or so it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new OSDL Q&A on SCO Legal Actions Release overlords.

Maybe it was not /.'ed

[PeteQC]

but blackouted! Because, for me the page is loading in normal times. Maybe some packets will take a more long route to go around NYC blackout. (Where I suppose many routers are down)

SCO

[cluge]

I have used SCO in the past to develop IBM mainframe software on. SCO was the base OS, and an emulator allowed us to emulate OS390 ran on top of it. Now with most big Iron able to run linux Vm's we can program directly for Linux. Where am I going with this? We are suggesting to writer of that software that it needs to be ported to Linux - we no longer run SCO on any machine.

If you are anyone that you know runs SCO, find out why, and have the software that runs on SCO ported to Linux. It's usually quite easy, and it makes your skin feel better knowing that your SCO free. Somone (wink wink nudge nudge) should put up a web site that counts the number of SCO de-installs since the law suit was filed. I bet such a web site wouldn't make SCO stock holders feel so good. I've de-installed SCO from the 2 machines - any one else?

cluge

It came from PDF

[cheezycrust]

The HTML version was generated from the PDF version using pdftohtml (you can see it in the source).

The real question is: why did they use PDF in the first place? Users hate PDF. If you want to give some quick, easy-accessible information, use HTML.

Re:It came from PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yea, Jakob Nielsen is god... everyone follow all of his commandments. NOT

Re:It came from PDF

[Maserati]

1. Buy a Mac. Get HTML editing software of your choice.
2. Format your HTML as beautifully as possible.
3. Print it to PDF. Optimize PDF as desired.
4. Post HTML and PDF to website.

Four steps, one of them expensive, two of them you'd do anyway. One of them supports shareware.

Here is the Q and A from the site.

[DRWHOISME]

Licensed under the Open Software License version 2.0 (available at www.rosenlaw.com/osl2.0.html).

Q&A re:

SCO vs. IBM by Lawrence Rosen General Counsel, Open Source Initiative*

The following questions and answers were prepared by the author at the request of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) as a result of intellectual property issues arising in the wake of SCO Group's lawsuit against IBM. This position paper is intended by the author to calm some of those uncertainties. Filed a few months ago, SCO's lawsuit against IBM has rankled the Linux community and disconcerted its users. Much of the worry is caused by press exaggeration. Not many lawsuits, and certainly not this one, deserve to be called the "trial of the century." SCO vs. IBM should not be over-rated. It is a contract dispute between two companies with deep pockets, both of whom are prepared to send their attorneys into battle to protect their reputations and their economic interests. SCO is seeking lots of money from IBM and IBM refuses to pay. SCO obviously wants to force IBM's hand, and that accounts for at least some of the tactical moves being undertaken by SCO and its allies to stir up fear among Linux customers. IBM has responded with a countersuit, and now Red Hat has entered the fray to defend Linux and the right of the open source community to distribute that operating system to users worldwide. The entire situation must seem very murky to those of you not following it intently. These questions and answers may help you understand what's happening.

Q: Is this a lawsuit against Linux? A:No. This is a lawsuit by SCO against IBM, with counterclaims by IBM against SCO. SCO claims money damages for breach of confidentiality and the disclosure of its Unix-related trade secret information to the public. IBM and SCO had an agreement to work together on IBM's AIX operating system. SCO alleges that, when IBM changed its business strategy and refocused its efforts on Linux, IBM disclosed SCO's *Attribution Notice: Lawrence Rosen is founding partner of Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm, with offices in Los Altos Hills and Ukiah, California (www.rosenlaw.com). He serves also as general counsel and secretary of Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org), which reviews and approves open source licenses and educates the public about open source issues. While this paper is
written by an attorney, you are not my client and I am not intending this to be legal advice. You are
encouraged to show this article to your attorney and obtain his or her independent advice about how
to proceed. This paper was written at the request of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL).
The content of this paper and the opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of OSDL or its members. Page 2 confidential technical information. That confidential information, they assert, ultimately found its way into Linux. IBM denies all of SCO's material allegations. Recently IBM filed a countersuit against SCO alleging, among other things, that SCO is infringing some IBM patents, a move on IBM's part to put its strategic patent portfolio to defensive use. As this Q&A paper is written, the SCO vs. IBM litigation is still in its early stages. If this were a typical federal civil lawsuit, it would probably continue for 12-18 months and then settle before trial. But this case is such a public event that it may linger for a while before resolving itself at the end with either a defense judgment or with money changing hands. This lawsuit, with its claims and counter-claims, is at heart a legal dispute between those two companies over money. The Linux operating system itself, and its contributors, distributors and users, are not parties to this litigation and cannot be directly affected by it. But the indirect effects are being felt. The real problem for Linux and open source is not the lawsuit itself, but that the SCO vs. IBM case is creating confusion and doubt among Linux users.

Fuck diplomacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO has shown their entire M.O. at this point is to lie until they get what they want, which is apparently "everything". OSDL shouldn't be calmly wording this as if they were helping executives make a decision. They should be upfront telling the reader that they are alerting the reader to a scam, and warning them that any business relationship with SCO would be most unwise at this point.

- "Should you deal with company X?" by company X's competitors

- "Why company X is out to defraud you, and a debunking of their public statements about their competitors. We are putting this document out to defend ourselves against outregeous and untrue libelous comments." by company X's competitors.

Which is going to catch someone's eye more? Which is more approprate given that Company X is accusing its competitors of everything short of murder rape and assault?

Back to windows, then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I switched to Linux to get away from all this crap.

Free as in beer, remember?

Re:Back to windows, then?

[zpok]

So what you're saying is you stopped drinking after your first hangover too?

You sissy!

Too bad he's stuck creating document in windows

[adamshelley]

PDF Producer: Acrobat PDFWriter 5.0 for Windows NT. :(

Outstanding achievement

[Timesprout]

He points out that SCO has a long long shaft up its ass

Finally legalese I can understand

I thought the mods stopped falling for that

[Anonymous Coward]

From the parent:

"He points out that SCO has a long long shaft up its ass before it can assert broad intellectual property claims against an operating system that was written by thousands of open source programmers worldwide.

While this is actually kind of funny, and I am almost impressed the poster managed to be subtle enough to get up to +5 Informative with a line like that in, I'm amazed moderators are still falling for this. Couldn't the mods be buggered to read the entire article mirror to ensure it's accurate before voting it up?

The Current SCO Situation...via the medium of song

[Gourou]

The Current SCO Situation...via the medium of song

Please mirror and spread if you agree with the sentiment (if not the singing :-)

The Asshat Song [2.73MB MP3]

To the tune of You're So Vain by Carly Simon ;-)

Troll Alert

[Lochin Rabbar]

The original link, second paragraph, states:

He points out that SCO has a long way to go before it can assert broad intellectual property claims against an operating system that was written by thousands of open source programmers worldwide.

In the so called repost this changes to:

He points out that SCO has a long long shaft up its ass before it can assert broad intellectual property claims against an operating system that was written by thousands of open source programmers worldwide.

Come on folks! Stop modding up these trolls.

Re:Troll Alert

[Anonymous Coward]

Is reposting information all you need to get modded up these days?

Re:Troll Alert

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be new here

Should I pay for a SCO license

[zakezuke]

I'm probally one of the few people that have a Caldera distro. It was given to me freely as a promo. I thought cool, I can see what this is all about. I installed it on a 486sx laptop, in fact it was one of the few distrobutions that wouldn't crash due to the absence of a mathco. It's just a glorified network terminal. I know I could have recompiled the kernel to take this into account, but I'm lazy and I was given something that works.

The way I see it, Caldera gave it to me for free. They didn't have to, but they did choose to. If they wanted money they should have asked for it. Any code, propriorty or not, was given to me freely.

Because it was made clear on the CD I was sent in the mail I could make unlimited copies of it... SCO is NOT going to get any money from me.

Re:Should I pay for a SCO license

[siskbc]

The way I see it, Caldera gave it to me for free. They didn't have to, but they did choose to. If they wanted money they should have asked for it. Any code, propriorty or not, was given to me freely.

For God's sake - what kernel was that? Because it hasn't been until somewhere in the 2.4 that SCO claims this crap. 2.2, I believe, is supposed to be untainted. That old Caldera distro isn't relevant here.

Re:Should I pay for a SCO license

[Anonymous Coward]

For God's sake - what kernel was that? Because it hasn't been until somewhere in the 2.4 that SCO claims this crap. 2.2, I believe, is supposed to be untainted. That old Caldera distro isn't relevant here.

Caldera v2.4 edesktop used the 2.2.14 kernel. FYI

Re:Should I pay for a SCO license

[flafish]

And Open Linux 2.2 had a 2.2.5 kernel. Can't find my 2.3 but it was somewhere in between.

Re:Should I pay for a SCO license

[zakezuke]

I honestly don't know that specific kernel SCO expects people to pay for. It would seem I'm running 2.2.14 on my 486sx laptop. I'm only 1/2 way aware of vague fingerpointing newer versions... as in I find it impossible to sift through the FUD SCO is generating to find actual facts.

Re:Should I pay for a SCO license

[Anonymous Coward]

For God's sake - what kernel was that? Because it hasn't been until somewhere in the 2.4 that SCO claims this crap. 2.2, I believe, is supposed to be untainted. That old Caldera distro isn't relevant here.

http://www.caldera.com/scosource/linuxqanda.html
Q: What about Red Hat, SuSE, Turbolinux, Conectiva, Debian, Mandrake, and other Linux distributions-do their distributions contain SCO UNIX code?

A: We have discovered SCO proprietary code in Linux; however, at this time we are not commenting on specific Linux distributions.

Anagrams of "Santa Cruz Operation" (SCO)

[Alien Being]

sue a corp, anoint tzar
ran crap zoo, sue titan
i can root azure pants
rapacious, not zen art
can't earn it, zap our os
ip rat unto an os craze

- a post one czar in a rut

Redundent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that already mentioned here?

I for one...

[Blue Lozenge]

I for one welcome our new... hmmm... this is getting old isn't it?

Not written for us

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the Q&A and it doesn't seem like it's written for us, the poeple that understand what is truely going on.

But, it is written for all the bosses out there that are scared with what is going on. My boss is worried about this whole thing because of a major prodoct that we are releasing that will run on a Linux server. He is concerned that if SCO wins, can we still use Linux.

I for one am going to be sending him this Q&A.

Like I said, we all understand that SCO is full of crap, but our bosses don't.

Re:Not written for us

[Anonymous Coward]

How do people get to be bosses, that aren't even capable of understanding a simple issue like this?

assume, assume, assume...

[MegaFur]

It's a good Q and A, but I'm concerned that busy execs will only rapidly skim it (if they ever even see it) and only hit the parts where it says:

• the jury, in its wisdom after hearing all the evidence, concludes that there are a few of SCO's trade secrets that ended up in Linux
• Ask your own attorney to read these Qs and As and form your own judgment based on his or her advice
• IBM improperly copied or modified some portion of SCO's trade secret copyrightable work and contributed it to be part of Linux.
• Assume the very worst: Assume SCO wins its case against IBM and IBM writes a big check for damages. Assume SCO proves that some portion of Linux is a copy or derivative work of its trade secret software. Assume SCO gets an injunction to prevent anyone from using any version of Linux containing infringing code

Taken out of context, these quotes look horrible--even though they're mostly intended as hypotheticals and worst case scenerios demonstrating how not bad things will be for Linux users no matter what.

Re:assume, assume, assume...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you ASSUME you make an ASS out of U and ME.

Those quotes, honestly, are absurd. Anyone, PHB, or otherwise, reading the article and interpreting the generally positive message through a carefully edited selection of words is, well, working for SCO.

Re:assume, assume, assume...

[Malcontent]

It's a well known fact the busy executives have no reading and comprehension skills.

What a funny world we live in when an average person perceives the average businessperson/manager as such a nincompoop.

Boycott SCO

[stealthkaz]

Ok, SCO wants to take it to court. They believe the power of the GNU & Linux projects are in the terms of the License agreement. What they do not understand is that the power of Opensource is in the people commited to opensource. Law exists to serve the populous, and maintain fairness. If SCO wants to challenge the fairness of what we (opensource supporters) have determined to be fair, then lets challenge back. Please visit Bapudi.com and post to the bulletin board in support of boycotting SCO. After we collect your posts, we will mail out our boycot postings to remind SCO that challenging the ideals of opensource is more than just detrimental to opensource, it will be suicide for thier business.

Re:Boycott SCO

[zpok]

opensource is more than just detrimental to opensource, it will be suicide for thier business.
br> Hear hear... Only problem: they don't have a business.
This lawsuit is their business, the best business they had in years.

Re:Boycott SCO

[dtfinch]

It'll be a bit hard to boycott them since I had little or no chance of ever becoming their customer.

I can encourage others to boycott and refuse to do business with people who have bought from SCO in the time since they announced their war against all that is good and pure in the software world. But I doubt they will survive that long. They've broken a dozens of laws, violated at least 400 copyrights (that I know of), and more. If businesses don't sue them out of existence, the US legal system will tear their company apart.

An Allegory: The SCO Poker Game

[Gourou]

It's a saloon in the wild west.
There's a poker game on. Texas Hold 'Em.
There's five cards on the table.
The first player is from Utah.

He says "I got Ace High. I win the hand."
The second player. They call him the Finn.
He's got lots of friends, says "Show me your cards then."
Utah says "No, just hand over your cash. You don't need to see my cards."

Then the third player, Bluebeard pipes up: "Well I got a flush. So I beat ya anyway."
Utah says "Show me *your* cards then."
Bluebeard replies "Nope. I'm gonna wait to see your lame ass ace."
Utah smiles nervously "Did I say ace high? I meant four aces. Yeah. Four aces."

Now the silent fourth player, Berkeley pipes up
"Well I got a Royal Flush and I've had it since the flop."
But Utah has turned to Joe at the bar and says
"Well, you owe me $32 for this game."
Joe looks puzzled "But I ain't even playing the game."

Utah gets a mean look now and starts sweating.
He pulls his guns and shouts "Look, just give me your money now. No questions. I MEAN IT!"
Suddenly Utah is surround by a whole boatload of guns.

There's Joe Public, he has no guns, but good fists,
Linus the Finn and his friends have guns, but they rarely use them,
they're rumoured to be really quick on the draw.
Berkeley is calmest of all, he's won a gunfight just like this one already.

Finally Utah turns to Bluebeard. He has a shotgun.
Bluebeard smiles, and pulls the trigger.
And that's the legend of how old SCO died.

Re:Power Outage

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously. Matt Drudge spends all his time being outraged at hollywood/big media and what kind of mustard politicians put on their hot dog.

SCO's bulletproof action plan:

[rice_burners_suck]

For immediate release:

Scam Con & Overcharge (NAZDAC: SCO) today announced a barrage of new lawsuits against users of pornography processing software called Linux. A proprietary IBM product, Linux allegedly violates SCO intellectual property. This new development comes on the heels of another SCO lawsuit against God for denying immortality to SCO CEO Darl McBurglary.

"Women and young children are viewing cartoon images of NAKED penguins!" shouted McBurglary, throwing his coffee mug across the room during an interview. "It's disgusting! And besides, it contains OUR intellectual property! It's a conspiracy! And everybody's in on it!!!"

When asked which SCO intellectual property was found in Linux, McBurglary commented, "IBM invented, developed, trademarked, copyrighted and patented certain technologies. Therefore, they are infringing on OUR intellectual property rights!"

SCO spokespersons refused to specify what constitutes the allegedly infringing properties. McBurglary had to be escorted back to his home at the looney bin by two big black guys in pinstriped suits. "Die, fucker, die!!" he yelled at some child walking down the street with a stuffed penguin doll. (I know we're only joking, but with SCO, it could happen!)

Boycott my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

And then why don't we all gather as well in our mohair jackets, smile lovingly at each other and reaffirm our own reasons for being here, and then chant gently up to the moon, so that the SCO execs feel our dissaproving vibes wafting in on the night breeze through their windows ?

Get real Dick. What counts is the courts, not your lefty petition. Don't get yourself worked up, SCO would laugh in your face even if you got a million supporters. They are in it for the money.

Re:Boycott my ass

[stealthkaz]

At least you are incensed about something. My mohair jacket seems to be itching your nuts. Let SCO laugh in my face. At least they will have diverted their attention in my direction from trying to undermine opensource. Incremental action to expand freedom. Watch "A beatiful mind" and pay attention when he talks about working together. The mathmatics of group coorperation earned a nobel prize. Proof that it works.

Bad source for legal advice

[Anonymous Coward]

"The press release is a little more diplomatic, saying that the document only helps one determine whether or not one should buy a license from SCO. "

I wouldn't take this guys advice if I was concerned about SCO and wanted an independent analysis of the risk. This guy is general counsel for OSI, which makes him extremely biased. That would be like asking Johnny Cochran is OJ is guilty.

Re:Bad source for legal advice

[craigoda]

yes, but SCO's viewpoint is extremely biased to benefit SCO. In any debate, you need to here two sides. Up till now, SCO has been making all the noise.

My personal opinion is that if you read the QA, it is a much more balanced argument than the stuff that SCO puts out.

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[walterbyrd]

Scox isn't selling anything anyway. All scox earnings are fud money from msft and sunw. You need to boycott scox's controlling company: Canopy Group. I urge you to email these companies and explain that you will not do any business with them. I have included the letter that I sent to these companies as a sample.

---
salesinfo@altiris.com
help@customercare.av enueme.com
support@culturegrams.com
sales@center 7.com
sales@cerberian.com
sales@cogitoinc.com
s ales@communitect.com
yslew@datacrystal.com
info@ devicelogics.com
info@directpointe.com
info@fatp ipeinc.com
info@geolux.com
sales@helius.com
inf o@homepipeline.com
sales@iArchives.com
sales@ind ustrialtrainingzone.com
brutledge@linuxnetworx.co m
tyler@luxul.net,
sales@maxstream.net,
jclary@ mi-corporation.com,
info@mti.com,
pr@myfamilyinc .com,
info@perimeterdata.com,
ProTools@SaberToot hTools.com,
ronastarns@aztecenterprises.com,
sal es@caldera.com,
info@trolltech.com
info@tuglet.c om
sales@viawest.net
Sales@wrenchead.com
---
B oycotting all companies affiliated with SCO/Canopy

I have worked in IT for 25 years, and have been involved in several major purchasing decisions.

I am infuriated at SCO/Canopy's attempts at fraud and extortion. As well as SCO's FUD campaign against Linux.

As such, I will no longer purchase, or recommend the purchase, of any products or services from any company that is even partially owned by SCO/Canopy. I intend to encourage my colleges to do the same.

OSDL Attorney Declares SCO Invalid

[cnb]

... would have made a nice headline coming
right after "SCO attorney declares GPL invalid"

What Is A Shame...

[vigilology]

...is that when this is all over, all we will remember is that 'SCO were a bunch of scumbags'. Nobody'll say, 'Misters Such And Such formerly from SCO are a bunch of scumbags'. They'd virtually get off scott free as far as their reputation with the general (Slashdot) goes. They could set up a new company that does something that gets a headline and we're all full of praise, without even knowing it's the same people.

Re:What Is A Shame...

[I_redwolf]

You don't know how wrong you are about this.

Re:Any relation to Hillary Rosen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get anti-SCO, anti-RIAA t-shirts and political gear. Get it at POLITINERD:

SCO'S NOT Linux: http://www.cafeshops.com/politinerd.7061748

F@#K THE RIAA: http://www.cafeshops.com/politinerd.7145728

Conectiva Linux Position

[yajacuk]

I just read on the conectiva linux site, their position on the SCO X IBM court case.

"There is no evidence that any piece of the Linux Kernel, from version 2.4 up, is of SCO intellectual property."

I just wonder if there is anyone out there that supports SCO in its claims.

FYI - SCO's stock symbol is SCOX

[Anonymous Coward]

Rhymes with SUCKS.....

I hereby nominate

[pair-a-noyd]

the goatse "person" to replace the /. SCO logo. Tubgirl is first runnerup.

Re:I hereby nominate

[EmagGeek]

AAARGH!!! Just when I had forgotten all about those horrible horrible images!!

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[Anonymous Coward]

sales@caldera.com

Caldera... that name rings a bell, who are they? ;-)

info@trolltech.com

Trolltech... hmmm, yeah, I've heard of them. Aren't they the people behind KDE? Remember KDE? That was the desktop true pragmatists were supposed to support because RMS wasn't happy about the licensing flaws associated with it, and TRUE pragmatists hate RMS because he has opinions... and seems, quite often, to be right.

As right now.

Re:The Current SCO Situation...via the medium of s

[pair-a-noyd]

OMFG!! I'm hurting now damnit!
That's some funny ass shit!

I love it, thanks!!

BSD is alive and well!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD is alive and well!!!

Free Legal Research

[Goyuix]

As I am a big subscriber to conspiracy theory, I have to admit that it seems awefully nice of the community to continue to point out the strong and weak points of the whole SCO mess. What firm wouldn't kill to be able to cruise along with a bit of PR each day to fuel the fire and get people to view the story from a thousand different angles - making it that much easier to plug those holes and stand in court....

Not that SCO has much of chance, it just seems intersting that pretty much everyone who is anyone (including myself now) has had to drop their two cents in the bucket regarding the case.

So, lets add 2 and 2 together to get 5.

[Admiral Justin]

So, lets see if I have this right.

SCO loses, IBM does the happy dance and the world goes on.

SCO wins, does happy dance, and counts the billion dollars. but can't go after the home users.



So, I own myself some linux, SCO can do whatever it feels like, and I don't have to pay attention.
Dang, and I was so much enjoying the bickering and badgering between SCO and IBM...

Anyone else think this court case will end up on Pay-Per-View?

Re:The Current SCO Situation...via the medium of s

[Mryll]

That was funny - thanks for spending the time.

CEO of RIAAA

[gibodean]

Answering my own post after a google search.

Her name is Hilary Rosen (one "l" in Hilary)

She is the president and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, which is the long arm of the law for major record labels.

Re:CEO of RIAAA

[Gherald]

Yes, but she is leaving

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, here is a list of companies that are supporting SCO by attending SCO's "Forum 2003". It is interesting to note that HP, a company that has extremely close ties to Microsoft, is a major sponsor of SCO's little get together.

Anyone notice this??

[pair-a-noyd]

On the bottom of the CBS market watch page a few
interesting links?? (see below)

Coincidence??? Or prophecy?????

Sponsored Matches
(What are Sponsor Matches?)

Avoid Bankruptcy - Learn to Manage Your Money! Free Credit Counseling Services & More

Bankruptcy Alternative - Savings to 70% on Credit Card Debt on $20,000 up: Call 866-7xx-xxxx

"I Filed Bankruptcy" - Read my story and see what it is really like before you file

Patents and other IP claims

[Anonymous Coward]

ianal But I am surprised the articles don't say more about IBM's counterclaims for patent infringement. Patents are the legally strongest form of IP. It doesn't matter if SCO has a trade secret, a copyright, or a registered copyright: if IBM's patent claims are upheld, then SCO's products are infringing, and cannot be legally produced or distributed by anyone without permission from IBM. This leaves SCO with an illegal product, so their claims against big blue become moot.

Meanwhile, SCO has conveniently stated they value each infringing article at $1398 US. IBM is seeking treble damages for deliberate and malicious infringement, so that comes to $4194 US per copy. SCO also stated that a product without the infringing technology is useless, "the equivalant of a bicycle". That certainly helps IBM justify large damaages for infringement!

So what may become of this? If IBM prevails on their patent claims, SCO faces check-mate. Their best hope would be to settle, on IBM's terms. Based on previous results, these terms would likely include:

SCO agrees to drop all claims against IBM

SCO agrees that those claims had no foundation in fact

SCO agrees that IBM has a perpetual, irrevokable right to use and distribute aix, linux, etc.

SCO does all this as partial compensation for delinquent patent royalties

In addition to paying a large cash settlement

In other words, SCO surrenders.

Re:Patents and other IP claims

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly, IBM's patent weapons are so generic (menu system?) that they actually carry little value as they are being exploited everywhere. The fact that IBM refused to even assign a dollar value is a good indication of their insignificance.

Only Windows and UNIX? Yeah right...

[MsGeek]

They have said, among other absurd things, that there are only two operating systems in the world: Windows and UNIX (so much for DR DOS/FreeDOS, VMS, et. al. I guess).

That's fsckn hilarious...I have a whole herd of computers that don't run either Windows or UNIX. They run the old-school classic MacOS. Most run 7.5.3 (Unity) but the newer ones run 9. I'm sure folks who run AmigaOS, BeOS and OS/2 and other classic-era operating systems are chuckling right now.

Oh yeah, I actually bought DR-DOS a long time ago. Back when it seemed Caldera was on the side of the Angels and were on the way to successfully stickin' it to Da Man (aka The Beast of Redmond) I broke down and bought a copy. Not a bad little version of DOS, although IBM PC DOS 2000 had some niceties that definitely outclassed it. I might just stick it on an elderly PC so I can play some moldy old DOS games. Doom II! Boo-yah! ^_^

A slashdot novella

[whittrash]

I wish I was in high school, I would copy your post and turn it in as a reasearch paper. It takes vast amounts of space. I bet I could stretch it even further if I switched fonts to Helvetica or Courier.

Clip from one of the Federal IP offices

[3seas]

Unfair Competition

The repression of unfair competition is directed against acts or practices, in the course of trade or business, that are contrary to honest practices, including, in particular:

* acts which may cause confusion with the products or services, or the industrial or commercial activities, of an enterprise;
* false allegations which may discredit the products or services, or the industrial or commercial activities, of an enterprise;
* indications or allegations which may mislead the public, in particular as to the manufacturing process of a product or as to the quality, quantity or other characteristics of products or services;
* acts in respect of unlawful acquisition, disclosure or use of trade secrets;
* acts causing a dilution or other damage to the distinctive power of another's mark or taking undue advantage of the goodwill or reputation of another's enterprise.

Protection of industrial property is not an end in itself: it is a means to encourage creative activity, industrialization, investment and honest trade. All this is designed to contribute to more safety and comfort, less poverty and more beauty, in the lives of men.

If you get a SCO invoice: Claim Mailfraud

[bstadil]

There is a strong rumour that SCO is preparing invoices to be send to "selected" Linux users.

IRA McGee over at LinuxToday had a brilliant suggestion, if you get one.

Call your local USPS or FBI and claim MailFraud

the objective of mail fraud is to accomplish a desired result by deception, trickery, concealment, and/or dishonesty, albeit through the use of the United States Mail Service or other private/commercial interstate carriers

This is taken serious and hopefully will result in Darl getting his behind serviced on a regular basis.

Finished the DRDOS lawsuit, need something to do?

[Peter Greenwood]

Caldera (back when SCO were called that) bought Digital Research, apparently just to get the right to sue MS over DRDOS.

3 months ago this was wound up. I suppose SCO's lawyers need to keep looking busy. Or maybe there's something more sinister going on, since this is Slashdot?

SKO

[bstadil]

As I Dane I strongly object to this slur on our proud language (If you have to poke fun, Swedish is much more deserving. there is a reason the Chef was Swedish)

SKO in Danish is what Darl need to have inserted where the sun don't shine. If you need a hint SKO is someting the Nazi storm troopers wore on their Feet.

Re:If you get a SCO invoice: Claim Mailfraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember that you can be held accountable
for making a false or misleading claim or
accusation against an individual or corporation.
You better think twice befor you make accusations
that you may not be able to back up.

Doesn't completely answer indemnity problems...

[mjh]

This guy doesn't completely answer the indemnity problems that arise from the SCO lawsuit. Yes, it doesn't look like users are going to be in trouble from SCO, even if SCO wins this thing. But that doesn't totally answer the question.

If you're a big company, say Citibank, and you're considering whether or not to use Linux, or ANY open source or free software for that matter, (including sendmail, bind, etc), you have to consider what the risk is that someone has slipped code into the software that is under intellectual property restrictions. Take, for example, a patent. Suppose someone puts a challenge response antispam system into sendmail. Right or wrong, mailblocks claims to own the patent on that type of system. Mailblocks is not a party to the agreement between sendmail.org and Citibank, and they see that Citibank is infringing on their patent without a license. Mailblocks can sue Citibank for patent infringement, and Citibank doesn't have anyone to go to in order to complain because there is no indemnification provided by the license to use sendmail.

The indemnification problem is NOT specific to the SCO case. But looking at the case points out that there is a general problem. It means that anyone who uses free/open-source software has to consider the additional risk of potentially getting sued into oblivion by some unknown 3rd party with a patent portfolio.

And before you think I'm making this up, read this.

I don't have an answer for this, short getting rid of software patents. Some please tell me there's another way to see this.

Re:Doesn't completely answer indemnity problems...

[hotair]

So how is this different from a typical commercial software license? I notice that the License that SCO recently published excludes indemnification against the incidental inclusion of IP they don't own, even in the code that they claim is all theirs. I don't think this is unusual. Nor is it unusual for the software to come with a statement that it isn't warranted to do *anything* at all useful and a warning that it may do something harmful. The only obvious risk to the vendor is that you might stop buying.

Re:Doesn't completely answer indemnity problems...

[mjh]

Well, you have to ask the question of whether or not it's an individual you're talking about or a corporation. The typical individual user does not get indemnification from commercial or free software providers because they don't really need it. But, Dell, on the other hand, almost certainly has indemnification from Microsoft. So if I have a patent portfolio that I'm looking at, and I see hotair, mjh, and Dell in my radar screen of infringers, who am I going to sue? Dell gets the nod. And Dell knows this, so they expect an indemnification from Microsoft who almost certainly provides it. Same thing goes for large corporate customers (e.g. Citibank, etc).

But with opensource/free software, there's no one who provides this indemnification. Not for individuals and not for large corporations. For individuals this isn't a problem because it isn't necessary. But for Citibank it is a problem. And really, it's incredibly risky for someone like IBM or RedHat to actually provide such indemnification. While being part of the development process for Linux, they aren't in complete control of what does and doesn't get into the code. Consequenlty, it's very difficult for them to provide such indemnification without potentially risking a huge portion of their business.

Now, if Citibank (et al) are doing their job, this risk is simply part of the risk analysis that should go into any decision. On the one hand, you have the risk of misappropriated IP being incorporated into opensource or free software which you use and could cause you extra liability. On the other hand, you've got the upfront and long term additional costs from using proprietary software. Many companies will still choose to engage the risk with opensource/free software. But the risk is there, and so far I haven't heard any good strategies for mitigating it. Consequently, our only answer at this point is, when we try to convince corporate customers who are considering switching, is that it's a risk that they have to accept. Some will. Some won't. It'd be better if we had something that we could answer which would mitigate the risk. But I can't think of anything.

Re:Doesn't completely answer indemnity problems...

[Todd Knarr]

Why should there be indemnification? Take the prosaic example of cars. Large companies own fleets of cars. Those cars could be using stuff that's patented by someone else, who could then sue for patent infringement and win, then perhaps go after the companies still using those infringing cars. The cars could be defective, and the families of employees injured or killed by the defective cars could decide to sue the company instead of the car maker. In neither case do the car makers indemnify companies that buy their cars. Why should software makers indemnify?

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[Anonymous Coward]

not sure if my colleges are interested. How many do you own again? I am thinking you may have missed some schooling during that 25 year IT career. Does PC sales at Circuit City count or something?

Info on the FTP server

[Anonymous Coward]

From ftp://ftp.sco.com/Legal_Notice :

NOTICE: SCO has suspended new sales and distribution of SCO Linux until
the intellectual property issues surrounding Linux are resolved. SCO will,
however, continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux
customers consistent with existing contractual obligations. SCO offers at
no extra charge to its existing Linux customers a SCO UNIX IP license for
their use of prior SCO or Caldera distributions of Linux in binary
format. The license also covers binary use of support updates distributed
to them by SCO. This SCO license balances SCO's need to enforce its
intellectual property rights against the practical needs of existing
customers in the marketplace.

The Linux rpms available on SCO's ftp site are offered for download to
existing customers of SCO Linux, Caldera OpenLinux or SCO UnixWare with
LKP, in order to honor SCO's support obligations to such customers.

Re:Info on the FTP server

[mikolas]

"The Linux rpms available on SCO's ftp site are offered for download to
existing customers of SCO Linux, Caldera OpenLinux or SCO UnixWare with
LKP, in order to honor SCO's support obligations to such customers."

Isn't this breaking the GPL? I mean, if they have done _any_ modifications to the original kernel, the rpms should be available to _anyone_ due to the "viral" nature of the GPL.

Re:Info on the FTP server

[arkanes]

Short answer: no. The GPL doesn't require you to make the source public (a common misconception), but it does require you to provide the source to anyone who you provide with binaries. Because you also can't restrict the people you give the source to from re-distributing it, most people simple have public source tarballs or rpms or CVS or whatever, but it's not strictly required.

Re:Info on the FTP server

[mikolas]

This is something that I also thought. But what caught my eye was (verbally) "limiting" the download only to their existing customers. I'm not quite sure they are legally able to limit the distribution to their customers only as the GPL has no such restrictions to my knowledge. If the GPL has no such restriction, then in effect they're violating the license.

Non disclure agreement null and void?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought. Why doesn't somebody enter into the non-disclosure agreement with SCO to see the portions of code that they claim infringe their copyright, and then go public with it anyway. After all, the portion of code that they would be "revealing" is already openly accessible to the public anyway, which surely negates the effects of the NDA making it null and void?

SCO-Linux EZ registration kit!

[pair-a-noyd]

Due to all the confusion about licensing and registration of your Linux package,
we good folks at Blackbag Opz have completed work on an all new registration kit for the confused.

Just run *this* easy to use SCO Registration Kit,
fill in the blanks, check "Number of Cycles, Infinite" and press the SEND button.

Sit back and wait while your SCO-Linux EZ registration kit does the hard work for you!

And sleep well tonight knowing that SCO got your message!

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[plugger]

Yikes, I was gonna question Trolltech's inclusion on that list but you're right, they are right there on Canopy's front page.

Already Started

[Little Brother]

In fact they started before Linux was started. This replacement contains no code in common with the Linux kernel and thus cannot have any of the code that was entered illegaly into the Linux kernel. So ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you linux-free linux!

Now I wait for Stallman to put a price on my head for not only calling the Hurd Linux, but also for not calling it GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux. :)

Re:Already Started

[Little Brother]

Insightful?? That was supposed to be either funny or troll!

PDFiles

[danger ian]

Am I the only one that hates PDF files?

Re:PDFiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the only one that wants to bitch about PDF instead of SCO? :D

Intel Skips SCO Forum Only HP left

[bstadil]

Intel skips SCOForum sponsorship

Let me suggest you all email HP

Re:If you get a SCO invoice: Claim Mailfraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahah. I bet if I send an invoice out to the 1500 companies, I would get some money. I claim IP rights to some of MS office. Proof? Cause I said so, so pay up!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The hangover equivalent of over two months of 2 (or more) topics on Slashdot, and hundreds of thousands of frighteningly awful jokes?

Been there, done that..

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[ashpool7]

previous trolltech/canopy group discussions

beneath your current threshold.

[Anonymous Coward]

beneath your current threshold

90 cent solution ...

[Oper Sorcerer]

... to a billion dollar problem. In countries without free speech, they just take 'em out back and pump a couple slugs in'em. No problem!

Suggested FAQ entry

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Is it true that SCO blows dead dogs?

A: Yes.

Mod parent up!

[ultrabot]

Really, some pressure should be applied on HP. Are they indeed so clueless how much PR damage this is going to cause HP, as opposed to the positive PR they would get by loudly dropping out their sponsorship?

It appears that in the end, IBM is the only HW manufacturer worth supporting.

Re:Mod parent up!

[minkwe]

Yesterday, I had to make a choice between buying a ThinkPad or an equally spec'ed HP notebook.

Guess what choice I made. My cortex is HP tarnished at the moment.

IANAL, but I have sued a negligent company once

[Discoflamingo13]

Only in a kangaroo court would double-dipping be allowed to take place. The whole process of suing for damages is not to "screw them what screwed me" it is to make the plaintiff "whole". Courts, in general, do not like the idea of paying for a single wrong twice - it doesn't make legal sense.

even IF code was leaked...

[wrathcretin]

I don't think the paper addressed the question that if in fact SCO's proprietary code got into Linux, how that necessarily means IBM did it. Wouldn't there have to be evidence shown in the form of SCO source code vs IBM contributed source code, belonging to SCO, as being the same? Even then, it would only take about a few weeks before SCO published the specific code, already in Linux and fixes were made to exclude the code...invalidating the whole concept of a license. Its not a fine for using linux, its a license of SCO's proprietary code. Next: Does SCO have the right to sell licenses to code they may not own? Through their own propaganda, they think so...if this is the case and we all flock to buy SCO licenses, could we file a class action suit against SCO for our money back because SCO never owned the code? I could imagine my ass getting sued if i sold the rights to the rolling stones catalogue to some gulliable moron...

When do the fireworks start ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone any idea when this is going to trial ? I keep on expecting a counter on /. '.. 60 days and counting ...' so we all know when to start cheering for IBM.
Maybe we should have 'cheer for IBM' day to ring up and wish them the best !

Re:When do the fireworks start ?

[Cackmobile]

/. the IBM switchboard!!!

Because they have not proof

[screenrc]

Simple. They every few days they have to
issue a press release to keep the soap opera
going. It is quite typical of them to outdo
their previous nonsense with even greater nonsense.
And if this shift the talk away from the main
issue, which is PROOF, then it is a good strategy.

These people have to show us proof before they
are allowed to open their mouth again.

SCO is not in danger

[screenrc]

SCO management dumped their stock, and the
company has little money. If they already
plan to close their business and open a
new one, it makes not difference who much
money they will have to pay for all the
people the screw. If they empty the bank account
ahead of time and close shop, nobody will
get a dime. Make no practical differense if they are
liable or not.

Re:SCO is not in danger

[raju1kabir]

SCO management dumped their stock

Yup. I'd say they did okay for a few months' fudding. Significant sales since June:

• Reginald Broughton, SVP: $853,200.

• Jeff Hunsaker, VP: $300,000.

• Robert Bench, CFO: $153,300.

• Michael Wilson, SVP: $136,920.

• Michael Olson, VP: $86,000.

$5000 limit

[hughk]

Unless the total is over $5000, the FBI can't be bothered. Even then, they would probably say that this is just a civil law issue.

OT but relevant, its amazing what the DMCA criminalizes, but if you want to fight back, it then is alwways your dollar. The point is that if if you hit a major commercial user of Linux for less than their lawyers cost, then they are more likely to settle.

Re:$5000 limit

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that total of $5000 cumulative or per case?

What Trolltech too?

[hughk]

Aren't these guys pretty much ok and happily deploying a dual license solution themselves for Qt?

However, I agree that if the SCO stuff starts exploding in Canopy's face, SCO would be reined in very quickly.

One things for sure

[maroberts]

..anyone claiming long Linux uptimes in the Eastern US is almost certainly a liar or a survivalist!! :-)

Who are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is SCO?

Linus did that

[Nice2Cats]

Linus himself came out and said something to the effect of "I think SCO is full of it", if I remember correctly. I always wonder if he added something in Finnish (or rather Swedish) that got lost in the translation. What do northern Europeans consider a good insult? "Go eat yellow snow"? "May the northern lights fall on your head"?

Precedent?

[CrazyWingman]

I know the Q&A said that there will basically be know effect to the Link/Open Source community if SCO wins this case. This was based on the idea that the offending code will just be ripped out and replaced. It also says that the case is not specifically against Linux/the GPL/FSF/etc.

However, it seems to me that there COULD be a direct effect on the community. Wouldn't this case set a precedent by which other cases would be judged? If one person can get away with it, won't others be able to do this same by siting this decision?

P.S. IANAL
P.P.S. All I ever see when someone types that is the word "anal" in all caps. :P

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[koekepeer]

i would not *ever* use FUD in and official letter to *anyone*. it's very unprofessional to use acronyms/abbreviations. imagine the receiver of a letter, when he/she has to search the internet (if he/she goes through this trouble in the 1st place) to understand your writing, you lose, and they are more likely to trash it immediately.

if you send any letters, use proper language, and not formulations like "As well as SCO's FUD campain..." use references, link important documents stating the situation, and you are more likely to sort some effect.

your .sig [OT]

[koekepeer]

"give me ambiguity or give me something else"

who are you quoting? i really like this .sig!

Re:your .sig [OT]

[bstadil]

I can't remember most likely someone from Slashdot.

It is not anyone famous since I normally include the source on Sigs if I know it.

A while ago I started to collect Sigs I see and like for one reason or other. Posted below for your enjoyment. Cheers

What's another word for "thesaurus"?

Knowledge is knowing a street is one way. Wisdom is still looking in both directions

Old age is too high a price to pay for maturity.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest - Diderot

That that is is that that is not is not

War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.

My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction

Timing must be perfect now. Two-timing must be better than perfect.

Television is a medium because anything well done is rare. -- attributed to both Fred Allen and Ernie Kovacs

Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait

What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you. -- Nietzsche

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.

Tis more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents. -- H.L. Mencken

I don't use drugs any more . . . than the average touring funk band. -Bill Hicks

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read - Groucho Marx

Re:your .sig [OT]

[koekepeer]

heh

amusing :)

tnx

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Scox isn't selling anything anyway. All scox earnings are fud money from msft and sunw. You need to boycott scox's controlling company: Canopy Group. I urge you to email these companies and explain that you will not do any business with them. I have included the letter that I sent to these companies as a sample. ...
info@trolltech.com ...


Whoa...what's Trolltech (the makers of Qt) doing there? I can't believe that Trolltech would want to be associated with SCO in any way.

Hmmm, just found this:
Myth: Trolltech is owned by Canopy Group which is the owner of SCO.

Re:The Current SCO Situation...via the medium of s

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +5
Thank you very much
It is really funny
Spread it!

the SCO version of "The life of brian"

[PrImED73]

You can just see the end now. The dilcit tones on an IBM lawyer showing the SCO employees to their bankruptcy...

"Cruficixion? good, line on the left, one cross each"

Darn McBribe attached to an IBM branded crucifix,
with Bill Gates and his gang singing "for he's a jolly good fellow"

Out comes the Centurian shouts out to all those attached to their crosses...
"OK lets vote, who wants to file for chapter 11 protection?...right, thats settled then"

And after the legalities end...
"cheer up Darl, some things in life are bad, your litigation makes us mad, your license fees made us swear and curse, when you're chewing lawsuit gristle, daaant grumble, give a whistle, and this will help things turn your pockets out...aaaaaaaaaand......"

DARLMCBRIDE.COM

[joostje]

seems his vanity-domain has an interesting take on the whole story.

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

It very much resemble when Bagdad Bob said "We have everything under control, they are not close"..

ROFL

Re:If you get a SCO invoice: Claim Mailfraud

[maroberts]

SCo has a dispute with IBM; there is currently no legal action against Linux itself. Therefore the point is not sub-judice. You have no contract or agreement with SCO. You have reasonable grounds for a mail fraud claim in this case.

Re:Boycott Canopy Group

[Anonymous Coward]

Guilty by association. Next?

unknowingly!?

[minkwe]

SCO claims that they did not knowingly distribute their IP under the
GPL so they are not bound by it?

Now check these links from SCO's own website:

SCO releases OpenLinux 4 for Itanium
Date April 15,2003, 1 month after filing the suit against IBM. SCO
releases OpenLinux 4.0 for Itanium. Remember what SCO's amended
complaint states as their claims (NUMA,RCU,SMP,JFS).

Product Features
The product features of OpenLinux Server for itanium, released on April
14,2003, advertise JFS,SMP as enterprise features of the new version.

"Journaling file systems add a higher level of reliability and
faster recovery time. JFS, ReiserFS, XFS and Ext3 journaling
file systems are included with SCO Linux Server."

Core Technology whitepaper for OpenLinux 4.0 32bit
This document is the core technology white-paper for SCO Linux 4 32-bit
version released in December 2002. Under features for business on the
second page, the document advertises NUMA,O(1) scheduler, SMP, JFS as
enterprise features for business for OpenLinux 4.0

"Linux 2.4.19 Kernel The core of SCO Linux Server 4.0 is the
2.4.19 Linux kernel. New features include broadened USB
support, Logical Volume Manager, improved journaling file
system support, POSIX-ACLS, new O(1) scheduler (improves
SMP support), Asynchronous I/O, Enterprise Volume
Management System (EVMS), PCI Hot Plug Support on
supported hardware, NUMA support, and many other
performance enhancing capabilities."

"Journaling File System Journaling file systems add a higher
level of reliability and faster recovery time. JFS, ReiserFS,
XFS and Ext3 journaling file systems are included with SCO Linux
Server. Each of these file systems has been tested and optimized
for the best performance and stability."

Thus even if NUMA,RCU,SMP,JFS are derivative works of SysV ( a long
shot) they are now legally GPL'ed. IANAL but their lawyers may have
realized this and that is why they are trying to fight against the GPL.
That is their only chance (no matter how slim) of winning anything in
this saga.

Good Article

[dphish]

Thank you Mr. Rosen. Good Work!

Double Dipping.

[SnarfQuest]

According to the article, it is illegal for SCO to extort money from both IBM and from the individual users.

If even one individual user has bought the SCO license, wouldn't that force SCO to have to sue individual users and drop the IBM suit, or fall into trouble with these double dipping laws?

SCO has to change the symbol

[TheConfusedOne]

Turns out Steve Jobs is filing suit against the possible confusion with OSX.

Trying to get Score 5..... a bit too desperately

[ngyahloon]

This is a very cheap way of getting mod'ed with lotsa points: SCO sucks. Microsoft sucks. Anything else doesn't:P

They can't sue you for damages, but...

[Gverig]

I don't know, most likely this point was already made, but as the article says, SCO will not be able to sue you for damages. I totally agree that this is the case. However, there may be a big BUT(T).
This but(t) is that should SCO win the suit, they get the damages AND they retain copyright on the parts of Linux. And these parts of Linux can no more be distributed under GPL and you can not use them. So, should SCO win the suit, you will have two choices: rip IP source from your Linux installation or pay license fees to SCO. As SCO claims IP on lots of very nice and sometime essential features (like multiple CPU) you may not be able to rip all IP out.
As for whether you want to buy license now... I believe it is somewhat a gamble. You pay now and SCO looses (or partially looses)- you loose your money (unless you can get them back). But if you do not pay and they win, license fee for Linux will not be $600 any more, it will be thousands.
Naw, I am not a lawyer so maybe all beforementioned is complete bull, but just something to think about.

Re:They can't sue you for damages, but...

[BigBadBri]

As the Q&A states, by the time SCO wins (if this worst case scenario is accepted), there will be a clean version of Linux available, because SCO will by then have had to identify the offending code in open court.

If the code is identified, it can be fixed.

So the solution is simple - ignore SCO until doomsday or they win the court case (whichever comes first), then upgrade to the newly de-SCOd Linux, and flip McBride and Sontag the bird.

Re:They can't sue you for damages, but...

[Gverig]

Yep, maybe we will have dc-SCOd Linux by the time this whole mess is settled. It will take at least few generations to settle with decent performance/ stability so I would not expect it to be a smooth transaction (and if something like API and the methodology are under copyright it will not be smooth at all). I do not know. All I wanted to say is that if SCO wins people will either to move to different version of kernel or pay license (or move to FreeBSD, Windows, Solaris, so on). And you better be monitoring the case to be ready to take actions.

well

[Anonymous Coward]

as one of the article-posting-and-then-changing-something-to-som ething-sexual trolls.... I always do it AC... but if I did it with my own account, I would easily have 50 (excellent) karma by now... usually only 1 in 5 or so gets 'caught'

Noted lawyer, maybe; smart lawyer, not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, the OSDL didn't see this Rosen hack embarrass himself in the back of the Linux Journal for a year and a half.

He demonstrated his clarity of thought almost before he got started this time: in his preamble, he refers to "those uncertainties" without first having written about any uncertainties.

Then, to begin his introduction, he says that Linux users are disconcerted because of the lawsuit and then immediately changes his mind and says it's mostly because of press exaggerations. Then, still in the short first paragraph, he says that this "lawsuit" doesn't deserve to be called the "trial of the century", as if the press calls it that. (They aren't stupid enough to call a "suit" a "trial" or even to exaggerate as much as Rosen did by saying that.)

I could go on (and on) and even get to his poorly supported legal theories. But since /. hides anonymous posts by default, it isn't worth the effort.

Re:If you get a SCO invoice: Claim Mailfraud

[BennyTheBall]

from federalcrimes.com

"Potential Punishment: One may be found guilty of a felony, imprisoned up to 5 years, and fined up to $250,000. If a financial institution is involved, one may be imprisoned up to 30 years and fined up to $1,000,000. The punishment is per transaction. For example, if 8 letters are sent through the U.S. Mail and 10 packages are sent through FedEx, the potential punishment above is multiplied by 18."

so, by sending just a couple hundred letters and being found guilty theyd face up to 1,000 years in prison and fined 50,000,000 dollars... now THAT's and outcome i'd like to see

Utah hold 'em?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... They might be playing a poker game, but I don't think its Texas Hold 'Em.

A (rare) comment on the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Geesh... It's hard to find any posts about the actual article and it's ideas. Here's one.)

Rosen makes a big deal about how IBM is defending Linux users -- that if they lose to SCO, then SCO can't also come after Linux users. Double-dipping and all that. As is often the case with him, he's wrong. If Linux is determined by a court to have copyright-infringing content, then many other Linux users (distributors are at worst risk) could easily be found to have damaged SCO fully independent of IBM, at least those who acted after the time of IBM's supposedly damaging actions a couple of years ago, especially those who continued after being warned about illegal content several months ago. SCO might be wrong, but Linux users are still betting (without no indemnification from Rosen) that SCO won't come after them. The risk might be acceptable, but Rosen understates the risk (which I guess was the reason for the Q&A).

Rosen also errs when he says that the worst case is SCO winning it's case. No, the worst case is that they settle under terms of confidentiality, so that we don't learn which parts of Linux SCO is willing to sue over. And we all know that almost all lawsuits are settled before important facts are disclosed.

Step 4:

[StringBlade]

PROFIT!!!

Just Curious

[red floyd]

Anybody going to go?

Oops

[maroberts]

Should've gone in the article about power. Stikll good though

Re: Refund from SCO?

[CdnYoda]

Question I have! :-)

I picked up a couple of boxed copies of Caldera Linux at a flea market for about $10 (yes, yes, I know, I paid too much...:-)). However, what I'm wondering now is since I haven't used them, can I return them to SCO for a refund of $699 each?

Or should I hang onto them for future antique value, once SCO has disappeared? :-)

Opinions I need! :-)

Re: Refund from SCO?

[mhesseltine]

My guess would be, hang on for nostalgia value. Also, if the SCO police come to hunt you down, you can use them as evidence that you are exempt from paying their extortion. IIRC, IANAL, YMMV, HAND, (other acronyms)