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SCO: FSF Reply To GPL Claims, Conference Sponsors Back Off?
bkuhn writes "Last week's Wall Street Journal (and other news outlets) carried statements by SCO's Mark Heise challenging the "legality" of FSF's GPL.
FSF has
issued a response to this baseless claim." Also, mcgroarty points out that Intel and HP seem to be backing swiftly away from their sponsorship of SCO's in-progress Las Vegas conference (a EWeek article suggests that "Intel Corp. was recently billed as one of the lead sponsors of SCO's Forum 2003 conference here this week, but then suddenly disappeared from all marketing and press material for the forum. It appears that Hewlett-Packard Co. also got cold feet. As late as last week, SCO was telling attendees that HP would be giving a partner keynote at the forum on Tuesday morning. But on Sunday the schedule of events given to attendees when they registered makes no mention of an HP keynote...") M adds: Now we've got a few stories from the conference: News.com.com and Eweek. Despite some bad headline writing at News.com, SCO simply continues to employ the Chewbacca defense, showing no code to back up their claims. Amusingly, Darl McBride started his rant about copyright infringement by copying some footage from a James Bond movie. Bravo!
Actually, if you read all the articles, you'll notice that the Bond clips were provided by MGM (who owns the hotel SCO is at) for SCO's use.
Thus, no piracy.
I dislike SCO's tactics as much as the next guy (unless the next guy is Gates or Ballmer), but a touch of fairness isn't going to hurt our cause.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
PJ at Groklaw is doing a wonderful job at cutting through the SCO fud. I suggest you check out if you havent recently. The article's comments are quite good too.
Actually while I had mentioned that Intel had backed out, when I submitted an article last week, HP was still listed as a premier sponsor of SCO's event. I urged Slashdot readers to write Carly Fiorina and let her know how you felt about HP supporting SCO. The point is moot now as the event has already started and HP has already retreated their support somewhat. Still, you might still write and express how you feel about HP having pulled out: a visible reaction from the Linux community this time around might well shape how they deal with SCO in the future.
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are huge Star Wars fans. There have been several Chewbacca references on the show.
In the "Chef Aid" episode, Chef is accused of trying to steal the song "Stinky Britches," which he really wrote many years ago. The record company takes Chef to court, and they hire Johnny Cochran to prosecute Chef. The whole town is wondering if he will use his famous "Chewbacca Defense," which he used during the O.J. Simpson trial. Here's a transcript:
Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: (pulling down a diagram of Chewie) this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense! (jury looks shocked)
Why would a Wookiee -- an eight foot tall Wookiee -- want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? (calmly) Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
Later in that same episode, Cochran has a change of heart and defends Chef when Chef sues the record company. Again, he uses the Chewbacca Defense, although with some minor changes:
Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, you must now decided whether to reverse the decision for my client Chef. I know he seems guilty, but ladies and gentlemen... (pulling down a diagram of Chewbacca) This is Chewbacca. Now think about that for one moment -- 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 does not make sense. If Chewbacca does not make sense, you must acquit!
(pulling a monkey out of his pocket) Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey! (one of the juror's heads explodes)
Eventually, Chef wins the case and all is well.
Unfortunatly MCCI is based in Ithaca, New York not Pembrook Pines Florida.
It looks like the wrong company.
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarc
(Soon there will not be any original code left!)
While it was difficult to ascertain the exact code being shown on screen, attorneys pointed to exact copying of some code from Unix to Linux and claimed that IBM improperly donated almost a million lines of Unix System V code to the Linux 2.4x and Linux 2.5x kernel that infringe on its Unix System V contract with SCO -- and SCO's intellectual property.
SCO claimed that much of the core code of Linux including Non-Uniform Memory Access, the Read Copy Update for high-end database scalability, Journaling File System, XFS, Schedulers, Linux PPC 32 and 64-bit support and enterprise volume management is covered by SCO's Unix System V contracts and copyrights.
For example, 110,000 lines of Unix System V code for read copy update, 55,000 lines of NUMA code and more than 750,000 lines of symmetric multi-processing code from Unix System V has made its way into Linux, attorneys and SCO executives claimed.
The GPL just spells out under what circumstances the copyright holder is willing to give you that permission.
SCO's argument rests on the fact that since one of these cases outlines how to lawfully make one copy of something, and the other deals with how to make unlimited copies of it, they must somehow be mutually exclusive. This is completely illogical. It is like saying that because it is possible to get a one ride ticket for the bus, it must therefore be illegal to buy an all day pass. Sorry SCO, your reasoning seems just a little bit flawed...
But read more and you will see
Much of the Unix code in the slides was obscured, because the company wants to keep its intellectual property under wraps, but SCO is allowing people who want to see a more extensive side-by-side comparison during the conference to do so if they sign a nondisclosure agreement.
So basically they show nothing again
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
The last paragraph of the Rumor Central column of eWeek this week claims that a couple of big unnamed linux shops are considering racketeering charges against SCO because of their recent actions. The clip states that at least four more companies would have to come forward.
One a similar note eWeek is also reporting that members of the open source community have approached SCO with a proposal for viewing the supposed offending code.
SCO CEO Darl McBride met Monday with CRN senior editor Paula Rooney to talk about the company's Unix crusade and product plans. The interview took place at the SCO Forum 2003 in Las Vegas. CRN is a sponsor of the conference.
CRN: SCO attorneys say if there is no settlement, a trial would begin in April 2005 and last roughly five weeks. Following that, there could be appeals. Is there any chance SCO can expedite this case to free up customers, partners and vendors so that the Linux industry doesn't get hurt?
McBride: We tried to move this along, but IBM kept asking for delays. Now with the counterclaim and patent infringement, it could go even longer. IBM can put this on a slow track [with additional legal moves]. But IBM might be throwing hard balls to [get ready] for the soft pitch [to settle].
CRN: Why do you say that? What's happening behind the scenes? Might this case be resolved quietly, rather than become the intellectual property [IP] case of the century?
McBride: They're putting this on a [slow, legal] path. But customers have been putting pressure on IBM to get this resolved. This is not a case IBM can get knocked out on -they'd be filing motions to dismiss the case [if they thought they could win]. Our case is up to $3 billion- they'd have to come up from a few hundred million dollars to settle. Every month, we keep finding more and more [Linux code that violates out Unix System contract]. We'd want a settlement and royalty [on Linux] going forward.
CRN: Have you met with Linus Torvalds yet, especially since he has become an OSDL fellow? What is your assessment of the open source community activities?
McBride: I've talked to him via e-mail. He's very pragmatic and tends to be a racehorse with blinders on ..he doesn't want to know about IP or
[commercial issues] He readily admits that IBM has put a lot of code in
Linux and says if you want to pursue it ]legally], go ahead. But I said
to him, 'I appreciate you didn't create the problem, but you have
inherited it. But he won't sign an NDA. There's a lot of discussion
going on at the OSDL, IBM and open source community they're working
though.
CRN: Many in the open source community are upset about the impact of this case on the Linux industry. Open source guru Eric Raymond-among many others - say they are respectful about IP issues but they are challenging SCO to specify exactly which code it believes to be infringing, by file and by line number, and on what ground it is infringing.
Raymund says the open source community is not willing to sit idly by while SCO asserts proprietary control, and the right to collect license fees, over the entirety of Linux. What do you say to that? Why doesn't SCO just leave Linux customers, partners and developers alone and out of its dispute with IBM?
McBride: That's like if someone comes into your house while you're sleeping, takes your jewels, and as you start chasing them down [to retrieve your property], and now they want to say you're the one doing the bad thing. I have to read [Eric Raymond's letter] and am meeting with [The Linux Show's]Jeff Gerhardt on it later.
CRN: SCO shares, as you mentioned during your keynote, have soared from less than a $1 to over $10 since you took the reigns and since the case began. There have been some reports of SCO executives recently trading shares. This casts some doubt in the minds of some about the integrity of SCO's allegations against IBM.
McBride: I personally haven't sold any shares. [laughter]Look, Red Hat executives have sold over 500,000 shares just since January. [Other SCO execs sold shares to offset tax losses but does not know more than that.
Help fight continental drift.
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/Tril
Dr. Stefan Hildemann claims to have had a chance to see SCO's code show without having to sign the NDA; he has posted his impressions (in German).& t=1716
Well, one of the core SCO developer responsible for the development of the SCO Groups current Unix Intel port, also contributed to the Linux kernel. Compare this post of Jun's including the commentshttp://forum.golem.de/phorum/read.php?f=44&i=1774
Thanks to Robert Taylor this English translation of the posting
http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/5312/2001/1/
To this actual part of the Linux 2.4 kernel
http://lxr.linux.no/source/kernel/sched.c?v=2.4.1
and consider the comment of Dr.Stefan Hildemann.
This raises more interesting questions. Since the SMP scheduler in question was specifically written directly for Linux kernel, and both Caldera/SCO employees only added patches, does it not seem more likely that if there is common source and comment then it is likely that the source in question was copied from GPL'ed Linux source to The SCO Groups own Unix?