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SCO: Code Proof Analyzed, Linus Interviewed
Arker writes "Bruce Perens has now obtained a copy of the entire slide show from which the recently scrutinized SCO-related Linux code excerpts came, and has analyzed the remainder of the 'evidence' they presented there. Their other code exhibit turns out to have been the venerable Berkeley Packet Filter(!), and their revised line-counts are consistent with simply adding together all the lines of code that have been contributed by Unix licensees." Also, Iphtashu Fitz writes "A new interview with Linus Torvalds has been posted on eWeek.com. In it he slams SCO over the recently leaked source code. Among other things, he points out in the interview that some of the code in question has been removed from the 2.6 kernel ['because developers complained about how "ugly" it was'] before SCO even started complaining."
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Come on Linus, stop dancing around the issue. Tell us what you really think about their claims.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
SCO has committed the most vile of sin. They not only created FUD, not only stole our source code, not only tried to steal our limelight, but they revealed that we used ANCIENT BSD CODE!
The evil ones must die!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Filter the packet... drop drop drop...
let the major media outlets catch on to this.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
We've gone plaid. Settle down, everyone, and enjoy the show. This will solidify the GPL and the viability of OSS in a federal court. Kick ass.
Feh.
Perhaps Linux could simply get rid of all the BSD code. That would avoid this kind of crap in the future. Not that SCO has a point, but it just seems like Linux ought to be it's own purebred thing.
Isn't Bruce setting himself up for a lawsuit by SCO? Can he be sued, because isn't the slideshow confidential, and he is knowingly redistributing company confidential material?
Likewise, if I were to republish confidential documents from someone like Cisco Systems, couldn't I be sued for damages?
I copied/pasted.
.
:-)
Analysis of SCO's Las Vegas Slide Show
Bruce Perens, Perens LLC
With help from Linus Torvalds and the Open Source community.
You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.
An SCO presentation shown in Las Vegas on August 18th alleged infringement by the Linux developers. The presentation, in Microsoft PowerPoint format is here, and an conversion of the presentation that can be viewed using a web browser is here
SCO released the presentation to Bob McMillan, a reporter for IDG News Service, without any non-disclosure terms. Bob asked me to comment upon it. here's his story.
I will start with SCO's demonstrations regarding "copied" software. It is likely that SCO would present the very best examples that they have of "copied" code in their slide show. But I was easily able to determine that of the two examples, one isn't SCO's property at all, and the other is used in Linux under a valid license. If this is the best SCO has to offer, they will lose.
Slide 15 shows purports to show "Obfuscated Copying" from Unix System V into Linux. SCO further obfuscated the code on this slide by switching it to a Greek font, but that was easily undone. It's entertaining that the SCO folks had no clue that the font-change could be so easily reversed. I'm glad they don't work on my computer security
The code shown in this slide implements the Berkeley Packet Filter, internet firewall software often abbreviated as "BPF". SCO doesn't own BPF. It was created at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory with funding from the U.S. Government, and is itself derived from an older version called "enet", developed by Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon Universities. BPF was first deployed on the 4.3 BSD system produced by the University of California at Berkeley. SCO later copied the software into Unix System V.
The BPF source code is here on the Lab's web site. A paper on its design, published in 1993, is here
BPF is under the BSD license. That license allowed SCO to legally copy the code into Unix System V in 1996, but since SCO doesn't own the code, they have no right to prevent others from using it.
So, in this case the SCO "pattern-recognition" team correctly deduced that the Linux and SCO implementations of BPF were similar. But I was able to determine the origin of BPF after a few minutes of web searches on google.com . Why couldn't a "pattern-recognition team" do the same? It's difficult to believe they simply didn't bother to check. It's also likely that SCO dropped attribution of the Lab's copyright from the System V copy of the BPF source code, or the team would have known.
The Linux version of BPF is not an obfuscation of the BPF code. It is a clean-room re-implementation of BPF by Jay Schulist of the Linux developers, sharing none of the original source code, but carefully following the documentation of the Lab's product. The System V and Linux BPF versions shown in slide 15 implement the same virtual machine instruction set, which is used to filter (allow, reject, change, or reroute) internet packets. And the documentation for that VM even specifies field names. Thus Schulist's and the Lab's implementations appear similar. Had Schulist chosen to directly use the Lab's code, it still would have been legal. But the version in Linux is entirely original to the Linux developers. There is no legal theory that would give SCO any claim upon it.
Slides 10 through 14 show memory allocation functions from Unix System V, and their correspondence to very similar material in Linux. Some of this material was deliberately obfuscated by SCO, by the use of a Greek font. I've switched that text back to a normal font.
These slides have several C syntax errors and would never compile. So, they don't quite represent any source code in Linux. But we've found the code they refer to
eWeek: For its part though, SCO has said that there are so many lines of code, and a variety of applications and devices that use that code, that simply removing the offending code would not be technically feasible or possible and would not solve the problem. Do you agree?
Torvalds: "They are smoking crack"
---
You gotta love Linus. It's not just that he speaks his mind, it's that he's just cavalier about what he says.
On a serious note, I'd like to see some the guys involved with SMP or JFS or NUMA get together and *sue SCO.* Tell them they want a cut of any license they collect on unless they can PROVE they aren't claiming ownership of parts of their GPL/BSD contributed code.
Does it matter that the code in question was 'removed from the code because it was ugly'? It was still obviously there in the first place and used as a basis for the new code.
Even if the code wasn't in there at all, but they examined the original SCO code in order to create their own, that would still be in violation of their IP rights.
I.O.U One Sig.
I actually mentioned this in my submission, but it got cut out.
The 'SCO' slide of their 'own' code shows the Berkley Packet Filter. The Linux code they showed, they claim is an 'obfuscated copy' but it is in fact a well documented clean implementation written from the published spec. The interesting issue is that SCO seems to be under the misapprehension that the BFP is their own code to begin with - that seems to imply that they illegally stripped a copyright notice somewhere along the way.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You sure? I could've sworn they were doing some LSD and had a REALLY bad trip...
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
and that includes all moderators who mod that redundant crap up.
Will a criminal prosecution of McBride and co-conspirators happen if this lawsuit turns out unjustified?
It seems frivolous and an abuse of the justice system.
Sco: You put my quarter you found on the street to buy your new car!
Victim: Relax, I'll give you your quarter back. (It was so dirty that I had to wrap it in a tissue)
Sco: But I don't want it back! I want your entire car! And if you hurry, I won't charge you damages caused by you driving it after buying it.
what asshat modded this overrated? it's not EVEN RATED yet you numbskulls!
Here. Nuff Said.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
misinformation. For example,
"SCO's legal theory fails, because they ignore the fact that if a work doesn't contain some portion of SCO's copyrighted code, it is not a derived work. This is especially glaring on slide 20, in which SCO claims ownership of JFS, IBM's Journaling File System. The version of JFS used in Linux was originally developed for the OS/2 operating system"
JFS actually came from AIX to OS/2 and not the other way around. Do a google search on "JFS OS/2 AIX" and you can confirm this. e.g
http://freshmeat.net/projects/jfs/?topic_id=142
Tarek
After everything that has been stated it is clear SCO has no case. I would be very surprised if the executives of SCO didn't know that. They already seem to be doing the pump and dump with the stock. So who wants to bet they just decide to take an overseas trip sometime before any trial starts?
"was found to have lost its copyright to the code in question"
I'm wondering if this isn't where SCO is going with the attack on the GPL. I think they are going to claim that since the license allows widespread copying, that the copyright holders are not attempting to protect their work, and therefore it is in the public domain.
Repeating this from the last SCO story, needs more exposure...
...
I just got off the phone with the FTC. If everyone calls and complains then the chances they will investigate SCO goes up. They look for patterns. In other words, if the majority of their calls are about SCO then they will investigate. It is time to take the Slashdot effect to the phones.
These are the key points to make:
-You did not purchase software from SCO
-The company that "produced" your software did not purchase it from SCO
-It was not marketed or packaged by SCO
-Despite this SCO is asking for $199 from home users (You) and $699 from business for 1 CPU
They will ask for your name, phone number, address etc. That is mostly to verify your identity and citizenship I think.
Here is the number:
1-877-382-4357 option 4
They are nice and listen well. The lady I talked to even took the time to get a better understanding of what Linux is. The best quote from her "You didn't purchase it from them and they want you to pay them? That sounds crazy."
--
Call FTC 1-877-382-4357 opt 4
-You didn't buy from SCO
-Vendor didn't either
-They want $199
Here's some information that may help. They actually asked for this info:
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
801-765-4999 phone
The guy I spoke with was actually somewhat familiar with what Linux is. One of his first questions was how this company got involved with me, which my answer was "Well, that's the problem. They didn't."
He eventually asked if SCO has contacted me personally with regard to this situation, which they have not. Don't lie to them. Be completely truthful. At the end of the call I got a reference number, and he said that if SCO does contact me personally, I should call back and let them know.
It was very easy to do, and took about 5 minutes of my time. The recording while I wated for the counselor to pick up the phone did say that the FTC does track trends in complaints. If we get enough people to complain, something will happen. Please, take a few minutes and call!
'because developers complained about how "ugly" it was'
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I really respect the guy. I hope that he is around when Linux finally overtakes the OS world once and for all.
First SCO said they weren't going to show the code because they had to "protect their secrets" -- those secrets being the copyrighted code itself.
.c file written by anyone at Sun, SGI, H-P, IBM, Sequent, Cray or any other licensee belongs to them.
Then they went on extortion trips to Japan and around the U.S. Neither panned out, with major companies like Oracle, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and H-P calling their bluff. Accusations without proof are meaningless.
They showed code snippets under super-tight NDAs, mostly to non-geeks, who promptly said "yep, they look the same". Of COURSE they looked the same! Would SCO show code that doesn't match? The fact that it was all out of context didn't seem to matter.
When THAT didn't convince anyone, they started showing bits of code without an NDA -- and the rest of the world found out why IBM, Oracle, Fujitsu, et. al. isn't afraid and why SCO was so reluctant to show the code in the first place.
SCO is clueless. They have no idea what they own and what they don't. They don't know what they, as Caldera and SCO, gave away and what they "borrowed" from others for their own. They simply assume that any
Somebody just did a "diff" between the SCO source and a Linux kernel and went off from there.
Just watching them escalate the claims day after day gives a clue. First it is dozens of lines, then hundreds, then thousands, and now MILLIONS!
The truth is SCO probably had NO intention of this getting to the discovery phase -- they were hoping for a settlement or buyout before all this came to light.
They are quite desparate now.
Damn! I wish I bought SCOX back in November.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
SCO Sues Linus Torvalds for Libelous Crack-Smoking Comment
JoAnn
Before two long, they're going to claim to have IP rights on my firstborn.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Oh! It's a fat lady singing.
SCO's arguments are toast.
Please, please, PLEASE! Let's hope Bruce's analysis receives a wide distribution. (Not that there's much doubt of that happening.)
I have a feeling I'm not going to get much work done at the office tomorrow. I'll be watching SCOX prices dropping. And laughing.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
And dammit, why does Linus Torvalds have to have 'S' at the end of his first and last name? I can't figure out where the apostrophy goes. ;)
...and how does it relate to the story? I may be dense (yes I am), but I don't get the reference? SCO sleep 'til Brooklyn?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
While this still seems like a pump and dump for SCO's execs, the biggest danger here is that SCO lands itself in the courtroom with a stupid and/or tech ignorant judge who will agree with their baseless, stupid claim that they own this code.
It may be one heck of a long shot for them, but dumber rulings have been made before.
Suddenly SCO not only owns Linux, but that could also qualify them as owning BSD as well as anything that even closely resembles UNIX in one way or another. They might even be able to lay claim to parts of every operating system out there so long as that OS borrowed concepts from UNIX (or BSD, Linux, etc.) Doesn't Windows have code copied from BSD too? Or maybe that is what Microsoft "lisenced" already...
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The Caldera license Parens cites as allowing the use of code in Linux does no such thing, according the FSF. It is similar to the original BSD license, which is NOT GPL-compatible, according to FSF, because of the advertising clause.
Torvalds: They are smoking crack.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
It is called adding insult to injury FYI
Help fight continental drift.
I agree with the guy. There are three SCO stories on the front page right now. Do we really need to debate SCO's every (rather predictable) move? This is worse than the days when every other story was a dupe.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
As many people complain about having to read about SCO, at 24 comments your site was damn near dead. I hope your server survives.
Thanks for making the Slide show available. Some of us knew SCO was smoking crack, just as Linus stated.
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
"The Linux version of BPF is not an obfuscation of the BPF code. It is a clean-room re-implementation of BPF by Jay Schulist of the Linux developers, sharing none of the original source code, but carefully following the documentation of the Lab's product." They have tarnished Jay's reputation, accusing him of stealing code, poor guy must be loosing sleep over this. I see grounds for litigation...
Check the image out, it's hilarious.
/. to make this the new SCO logo...
We need to get
"Torvalds: They are smoking crack."
Awesome.
Most people know that SCO is Santa Cruz Operation, but how do you say SCO? I ask, because Perens writes
"An SCO presentation shown in Las Vegas"...
implying that he just says the letters, saying it like ess-see-ohh, but I've always said (as well as all of my colleagues) it as a word, sounding like "skoh". Stupid post, and way offtopic, but I'd be interested in the replies!
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
...and promptly spewed beer all over my desktop...
That's actually not true. If I steal something from them, I'm culpable. Having free speech does not relieve you of the consequences of what you say, or the concepts of libel and slander wouldn't exist. This is a civil matter, not a criminal one, and the first amendment is irrelevant here.
That said, Bruce got the thing from a guy who was, himself, non-NDA'd. So he's not liable.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
about the SCO case. Not because SCO's denial of service attack on commons sense was wearing me down, and not really because I thought IBM might drop the ball. Basically, my faith in the US legal system had sprung a leak and I truly feared the Chewbacca defense could actually work. Hey, stranger things have happened.
But after reading the Perens analysis (ya I know, against the rules to read the article) I can't possibly believe SCO has a case based on code infringement.
Now, it seems SCO's case will be an attack on software engineering itself. Any original code added to SCO's Unix code becomes the property of SCO? I am not a computer scientist (IANACS), but is it me or does this statement violate the entire known history of software development and licencing, including SCO's own corporate behavior?
I think Linus is right, they are smoking crack.
"Ack. Yech. Barf. Snort." - Bill the Cat
You provide no evidence. ISTR IBM has said that they ported JFS from OS/2 (which was a clean re-implementation, not a port from AIX) to linux, not from AIX to linux. That is what's important.
If you say otherwise please provide some evidence. Your link didn't provide any, that I could see.
In Bruce's commentary, there was a link to an Infoworld article/interview with Bruce. It's pretty good. Bruce disputes SCO's claims, and the reporter didn't minimize/trivialize it. Coupled with the eWeek interview, I think we might stand a fighting chance in the court of public opinion.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Linux is dying!
to short SCOX. Can anyone believe they're still at over $10? They just seem to be going crazy releasing PR newswires to crows out the other news on their stock...
IBM is COUNTERsuing SCO. I'm talking about straight up suits that aren't in response to SCO stirring up the shit. Out of the blue ones that says "Hey assholes, *I* wrote some of that code you're claiming ownship of, so let me see some of that cash."
"No Sleep Til Brooklyn" is a song by the Beastie Boys.
Oh, no! It's an insidious plot to kill Linux by implanting BSD code, because as well all know, BSD is dying, and has been for over a decade now.
It seems BOTH MS and SCO would be happier if Linux was BSD licensed instead of GPL.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
This came up in the recent Samba discussion, but I think it's worth reiterating.
If you have hold the copyright on any GPL code that SCO is distributing, sue SCO. They have stated that they do not intend to be bound by the GPL; their actions show that they do not plan to adhere to the terms of the GPL. It is reasonable to believe that they intend to violate the license (indeed, I think they have already). I think it would be reasonable to seek an injunction against SCO to prevent them from redistributing your code unless they agree that the GPL is valid and they are bound by it.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of lawsuits, hackers in jurisdictions all around the USA (or around the world) filing suit against SCO. Their stock price will plummet - that's a language they'll understand. They will be forced to respond.
What are the possible outcomes? These come to mind off the top of my head:
- They capitulate and agree publicly that the GPL is valid and they intend to adhere to it in redistributing GPL software. Major PR victory for free software.
- They agree to stop redistributing GPL software because they agree that the GPL is valid. Major PR victory for free software; major loss for SCO because they then have no viable product. This seems unlikely. Without product, SCO's sole source of income is lawsuits. Furthermore, in acknowledging the validity of the GPL, they open themselves up to further lawsuits seeking damage for their violating the GPL (which I think it is clear they have, in DEMANDING fees for GPL software). Their stock price plummets.
- They refuse to acknowledge the validity of the GPL. A judge (or judges) grant injunctive relief and force them to stop redistributing GPL software, affirming the validity of the GPL. Minor PR victory for free software. SCO no longer has products to distribute. This seems unlikely simply because I don't think SCO would go this far; again, without product to sell, their stock price plummets.
- Other companies avoid dealing in or distributing GPL software, fearing a Beowulf cluster of lawsuits. This seems quite possible; care must be taken in pointing out that suits are filed ONLY because SCO has violated and has stated their intention to violate the terms of the license.
So head down to your local library and check out a couple of legal texts. Find out how to file a copyright infringement suit in federal court in your jurisdictin. Learn to use "Whereas" in a sentence. Pay the filing fee, and pay a process server to Fed-Ex a letter to SCO to let them know they're being sued. Specify damages if you wish, but the goal (IMHO) is their acknowledgement of the validity of the GPL.
Most importantly, publicize what you've done; email every Linux news site out there, as well as major tech news sites. Get the information out there where the mainstream tech and stock analysts can find it and be disturbed at the liability that SCO has incurred in declaring that they do not intend to abide by the GPL.
SCO should have backed down before they had suits filed against them. The more facts come out and the more SCO management opens it's lips, the more likely it seems that they don't have a leg to stand on. They should have gotten out of it before suits were filed against them, but with Big Blue and redhat filing against them, I can only see them losing miserably and providing a legal precident for the open source community. I can understand the pump and dump but they really don't know how to pick their fights.
I do security
His problem is that he's been wearing his Official Mormon Underwear so tight that it's cut off the flow of blood to his brain.
Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and to prepare derivative works based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT, provided the resulting materials are treated hereunder as part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
Personally, I find this very subject to multiple interpretations. Nothing in the contract explicitly grants ownership of derivatives to ATT, so IBM could argue that even without the amendment that grants ownership of derivatives to IBM, nothing gives ownership of the derivatives to SCO. This might be important for code developed at Sequent.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
vnuet has an interesting tidbit about SCO vs RedHat, specifically how SCO wanted to suckup to RedHat... Does it have something todo with RH's market share? http://www.vnunet.com/News/1142812
~ In Trust, We Trust ~
Poor SCO pointy-haired-bosses... I can see it now (names omitted to protect the guilty):
-------------------
PHB1: "Hey PHB2, I'm putting together this PowerPoint. I suppose I should slap some code in there to make this suit look more legit."
PHB2: "Yeah, good idea." (PHB2 goes to Etrade to dump a bit more stock)
PHB1: "I've got this copied code the IPI [Intellectual Property Investigative --ed] Team passed on to me, but Legal says we can't release it."
PHB2: "Yeah, $600 an hour to tell us we can't disclose it to the press and claim it's top-secret priceless intellectual property at the same time."
PHB1: "No kidding." (pause) "You ever seen code like this?"
PHB2: "Linux hippies. I dunno, it's all greek to me."
PHB1: "Genius! What a brilliant idea, I'll show those hackers the code in Greek!"
PHB2: "Hey, you're good..."
(peck, peck, peck)
--LP
I have personally ran SCO OpenServer in the past and I was really not impressed at all. Their kernel sucks and blows (kind of like a suck-blow if you know what that is). This was in, oh 2000 I believe, and SCO OpenServer reminded me of the ancient UNIX system I used to toy with at Penn State in the 80's except it wasn't as good. My former employer paid out some tremendous sum to run this crap.
They had installed a UniBasic system which ran the company database, written for the TeleVidio terminal family which was being emulated by Wyse-30's. Naturally I found this intolerable so I modified the UniBasic code and inserted VT100 escape sequences to fix the most important screens so that we could telnet to the SCO box instead of using the Wyse-30's which were blowing up and not being replaced.
That was until I dumped the entire UniBasic system. I wrote a terminal macro to repeat a sequence of keypresses and logged the session to a text file. Then I wrote an awk script to parse the text file into a bunch of smaller files. Then I prepended and html-ized these little files, and finally I indexed them with Glimpse.
Man it rocked. You could do a glimpse search and get exactly the same info that you would have gotten by using the Unibasic from the Wyse-30 right from your web browser.
Right after I did this ( I was a temp ), the parent company completely shut down our company and moved it to Massachussets, firing everybody at my factory. Unfortunately, they still haven't figured out how to connect the SCO box back up and make it work again. Eh? Fixed IP what the hell is that!?! Hahahahah you dumb asses!
SCO is so ass-backwards I can see how this whole thing came about. They must have fired anybody with brains decades ago, and they are just milking their cash cow until it dies.
Clickety Click
we should probably update this classic guide to state that SCO has staked a claim to certain undisclosed, yet crucial parts of the Unix gun. Recently leaked reports indicate it to be the "load bullet in first hole" algorithm, which has actually been around since BSD muskets.
All attempts to fire the gun will now incur a $700 license fee, though there are no restrictions on where you can subsequently fire it.
Beastie Boys song - No Sleep 'til Brooklyn
As I suspected they would, SCO screwed up and showed someone the slides while forgetting to put them under NDA. Once the cat is out of the bag there is nothing they can do.
Now for the evidence: As I also suspected the people at SCO thought that code that was put into Unix from BSD sources was their original code.
The second bit of code which was released as open source by Caldera as part of the system 3 code is even more hilarious.
SCO has no case whatsoever.
However, the government does have one motherf***er of a case against them: criminal fraud is just the beginning..
Don't be surprised If Darl and his cronies try to skip to the Bahamas with the money they have made from their stock manipulations.
Now you're just trolling, that link doesn't say a gawd damned thing about the origins of the linux JFS code.
""The obfuscated code example is not SCO's property," said Perens. "It was developed by the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in 1993, under funding of the US Government. The code was added to SCO's version of Unix in 1995 or 1996, he maintained. "SCO took (the BSD) source code, lost the attribution, and now believes it's theirs."
SCO disputed Perens' claims. "We're the owners of the Unix (AT&T) System V code, and so we would know what it would look like," he said. "Until it comes to court, it's going to be our word against theirs."
I swear I thought that the SCO/McBride quote was a joke for a full minute and doubted the whole story as a result. Then I remembered what morons they are.
Here are some suggestions:
"skum"
"ch(ee)t-ers"
"bas-tards"
"krak sm(oo)k-ers" (Thanks Linus!)
"ek-st(oo)r-shun-ists"
I personally used to say "skoh" but now I lean to "skum"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's the sound of SCO's stock falling tomorrow. Now that we've seen the code, their case is clearly baseless. It's downright laughable that they would even try to claim ownership of BSD code and ancient Unix archives. I believe that Linux will get through this. It's a setback, no question, but based off of the facts we have SCO has about as much of a chance of winning their lawsuits as Gary Coleman has of landing himself as the next governer of California. I think most of us already knew this, but these new findings just solidify it. The real question here is how long will SCO be allowed to continually extort people without any real reprocussions?
SCO =
Acronyms:
- Smoking Crack Operation
- Stupid Childish Ogres
- Stealing Code Often
- Stock Crashes Outrageously
- Scarcely Curtailing Open source
Anagrams:Anagrams
---
WARNING:Slashdot karma not redeemable in the afterlife.
Seems to be some reference to a Beastie Boys tune. But I'm far too old (by two or three years) to understand such music.
To anyone who *knows* what's going on - the lineage of the BSD sources, and so forth - this is a no brainer.
But to the common peon (Wall Street analysts, your parents, etc), they *don't* understand the lineage, and they barely understand how copyright is supposed to work. ("How can pirating music be illegal?" / "How can copying files be legal?")
As such, while anyone with an ounce of knowledge can kick back and chuckle when Linus reveals the 'offensive' code has already been disappeared, the fact that it *was* removed - and that he's laughing about it - will be misinterpreted by roughly half the population, including some of you numbskulls who've created this thread.
Unfortunately, the interview was short enough that this point sticks out. When an uninformed person reads through this -- or an uninformed journalist skims it for quotes -- he's going to gloss over the 'boring' copyright stuff, and pull out the choice soundbite: "They are smoking crack," and what seems to him to be the latest newsworthy development: "...the piece of code that [SCO demonstrated this week] had already been removed in [the Linux kernel] 2.6.x..."
Think they won't? Look at the Slashdot article, and we're supposed to be the ones who understand this crap!
I've been wondering for a while... Is NUMA's not from SGI??? And if RCU is derivative work why XFS (the file system code) not? In recent press release, the SCOX said that they're not going after SUN and HP but did not mention anything about SGI... Why SGI is nowhere in sight in this big fiasco painted by miss. Darl??? maybee it is just late and i just can get things right!
The Unix History Graphing Project could use some updating if Linux really does have (legally obtained) code from Sequent, AIX, Irix, etc. It would be really great of Linux were responsible for the de-fragmenting of Unix! It looks like we are heading that way...
Bally, creators of "Space Invaders" have found their source code in over 25 million software products.
They produced great slides showing the following:
IF
AND
GET
Where obfuscated into source code for other products.
They feel, since they missed the 90's, they deserve 100 billion dollars!
Interesting, although I don't think this ultimately will do much to silence the noise. We already knew that SCO was up to no good, and the public sees us as rather biased. (Which is true, of course.) The PHBs will "wait for the trial" since they know darn well reality may or may not have much to do with the law or what's "right". There are so many levels to this nonsense, but almost none of the worrysome ones have to do with the source code. Let's review some of the tidbits:
:-). The real annoyances here are their refusal to make their claims explicit (remember this was a leak) and them saying (in essence, afaict) that they don't want to provide the opprotunity to remove the code because that would allow people to stop infringing and limit their options for collecting $$$, and expecting that to be a justifable reason for not saying anything. It's disturbing, mainly because you have to wonder what kind of mind is coming up with this.
Issue #1: Contract dispute between IBM and SCO.
Impolite to say the least, but not directly the business of the Linux community. Not directly our problem.
Issue #2: Claims of infringing code in the kernel. Wildly varying claims, with no proof to date that has withstood any study.
Not much we can do here (except wait for them to point out where all the crappy code is for us
Issue #3: Claims that they are owed money for a "Linux license"
Now it begins to get personal. They want to go after end users. Lots of things wrong with that, only one of which is...
Issue #4: Bizarre attack on the GPL, claiming it is invalid.
I still don't understand this. Someone speculated they might be hoping to get GPL code ruled public domain, and then suck it in with SCO rights arguements. Mind numbingly stupid. The only worrisome part is how dumb the courts are, and I don't think they are that stupid.
Issue #5: Claims that virtually all OS software in existance has it's roots in SCO IP, and thus owes them money.
They haven't hit this one too hard yet, but depending on how bad things get for them...
Anyone else get the feeling we are watching the legal equivalent of a suicide bombing?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Torvalds: They are smoking crack.
Smoking Crack! I never expected him to say something like that. Hey Linus, we should party!
The reason it was ugly was that it duplicates the function of some other code in the kernel.
It is hard to believe that the code was ugly. After all, it was written by ken/dmr and withstood 30 years of scrutiny.
Torvalds: They are smoking crack.
That's basically what we've been saying all along, isn't it?
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
They were doing some BSD! And they've been asking people to "sign our MDA".
To paraphrase Inspector Clouseau, they are asking us to buy "a leesenzzz for their minkee". But it is not their minkee!
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
In a case like this there is never one person to blame.
I want names!
So I know who to throw a banana cream pie in the face at.
The Linux version of BPF is not an obfuscation of the BPF code. It is a clean-room re-implementation of BPF by Jay Schulist of the Linux developers, sharing none of the original source code, but carefully following the documentation of the Lab's product.
/dev/bpf (or any other device), making it impossible for people to run network sniffers (for a legal reason) without having to fall back to sudo and/or the root password.
Linux BPF doesn't use
See my page about tcpdump for mortals about it.
At least I now have a name to blame! Yay!
bash$
Heh, well, maybe I shouldn't have clicked on it, but that's another web addy that goes in the hosts file. DIE
Remember, IBM as a company has made their money by keeping their "i"s dotted and their "t"s crossed. Several world governments contract IBM to handle very important and sensitive data. I doubt that IBM does anything of the scale that this is on without reasearching very carefully what they're doing.
This isn't to say that I especially trust IBM over any other vendor, but they have a much greater tendency of putting their money where their mouth is, delivering good business products and supporting them.
Remember that Aptiva that you played around with for a while and hated back in your introductory computer gaming phase? It probably still works, doesn't have capacitors that blew out like ABIT and Gigabyte have had, has drivers for every major OS from Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.1 to XP, and will run for the next ten years without much trouble. They build computers, not consumer appliances.
I have an IBM PS/2 Model 95 at work that I still have powered on. It's a 50MHz 486 with Microchannel architecture. It's probably the best built computer in my office. IBM doesn't do things half-assed.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Torvalds: Hey, until they can be bothered to show something real, I don't think it's even worth discussing.
The only reason I keep my Windows partition is so I can mount it like the bitch that it is.
In his commentary, Perens contends, "It is likely that SCO would present the very best examples that they have of `copied' code in their slide show." I disagree. SCO will save their best examples for the courtroom, where it really counts. They've deliberately been secretive in disclosing instances of purloined copyrighted code because they don't want to give away any piece of information, no matter how meager, which might help the other side (IBM in this case, who has their own team of top lawyers and considerably less desire to be in the spotlight). That's classic lawyer-like behavior, nothing more.
Having said all that, I still believe they don't have a leg on which to stand.
CEO of the company, S-C,S-C-0
With snip, snip here, and some very questionable source code whose origin that cannot be determined and most likely taken out of context while backed up with ludicrious claims that have no bearing on reality and in fact show a complete disregard for sanity in conjuction with alienating their customers and angering those who created it in the first place while simultaneously suing those who use it and impressing on the community the need to imprison the asshats who are pumping and dumping their stock at the expense of the shareholders and in spite of FTC rules there,
Here a line, there a line, everywhere a stolen line!
Old Da-rl McPrisonBride, S - C, S - C - OOOoooo!
Second verse, same as the first! Everyone!
Sorry to be a bit of a downer here, but I'm wondering: how legit was this presentation? I mean, this is awfully easy...a bit too easy frankly. Okay, the paranoid part of me is working overtime, but it just seems to be too weak and too easily obtained to be SCO's true backup for all this legal and PR wrangling.
Can they really be this stupid?
In slide 20, SCO alleges that it owns essentially all of the code in Linux that has been touched at all by pedophiles, homos, and Scott Lockwood.
There is a lot of "that license allowed it to be legally copied" stuff going on here. What happens to licensed code that gets combined with code that will be released with a different license? Do various sections have various license agreements applied? Or does the new license apply (implying that the licensed code was licensed to allow the merged code to be licensed differently)? Does anyone involved with modifying open-source code have to be aware of all applicable licenses, and make sure none of the agreements interfere? And if there is an interference, who is liable?
Apparently, SCO is arguing that the one who modifies the code is liable (IBM), but so is everyone else.
These questions worry me, and a case like this could really determine a lot of important things regarding what can and can't be done with copied code. Some devastating roadblocks to source sharing could be created.
It seems that the legally safe way to manage code is to keep everything secret, and keep others' secret code that you've stolen extra secret, and have a quick and quiet court case when they find out. Most big software companies have evolved this way due to copyright laws, and I think copyright laws have evolved to keep such companies' interests in mind. The whole open-source methodology is being challenged in this case, and there are a lot of details it's going up against. I think.
It's obvious the current business plan is doomed.
I would think that calling people would have a bigger effect than emailing, don't you? Somebody calling me leaves more of an impression than if they just send a couple of angry emails.
Let them hear the tone of concern in your voice!
There will be a single comment by SCO when this is over:
YHBT. HAND.
It's not as if SCO ever had anything (ever) to do with it.....
Hmm, IBM invented it, and SCO UNIX don't run on PPC...
Can anyone shed any light on this for me?
Best GNAA post ever. I hope you continue your hard work providing quality 'first posts' to enhance my -1 Reading Experience!
(..( ^)))^) ^___^ O_o
Thats funny, I don't see anyone new on my fans list... ;)
In seriousness, thats what happens when you hire an IT guy for 40 hours/week and only assign him 2 hours worth of work per day.
now shhh!
The unofficial
The so called infringing code is all public domain, and what is one thing SCO is pushing? that the GPL is invalid, so maybe there entire argument will be, that incorporating public domain code into the GPL is not allowed. Any thoughts on this slashdot lawyers?
Microsoft IIS is to webserving as KFC is to healthy eating
Actually, while I find this quite funny, I also find it a bit odd (and perhaps telling). I have read several previous interviews with Linus Torvalds on various topics and he almost never says something like this. (At least that's how I remember it. I'm sure many will correct me if I'm mistaken.) Although he always clearly states his opinion, he usually avoids getting into this sort of direct attack on an organization or person. This quote from him could mean a few different things. It's possible his nerves are getting a little frayed from all the SCO threats and related media blitz. I know I'm starting to get tired of it and I'm just a random, lazy slashdot poster. It must be much more uncomfortable where Linus is at. Also, although MS has frequently tried to marginalize Linux or say it doesn't count for anything, they never actually tried to claim ownership of it. Perhaps Torvalds considers that more of a personal attack.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
"SKO" also means "shoe" in Norwegian.
ROFLMAO!
If SCO can simply assert that your Linux is infringing, despite the clear refutation of their "evidence", what's preventing the Linux user from just asserting their "Linux" is non-infringing?
Like in response to a SCO letter: "Our 'Linux' is a non-infringing custom build. Goodbye."
The burden of proof lies with them, doesn't it? How would they go about proving otherwise, assuming there's even anything there to prove?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I'd hate to be totally paranoid... but someone should run ethereal while opening the power point slideshow (I'll settle for the converted version)... Power Point presentations can have macros right? That would be such a kick in the pants to have SCO put something in a power point document... (duck)
Up untill now i thought this whole lawsuit had been a scam to pump the stock up and then sell it off at huge profit
i changed my mind
Darl and co are just fucking morons who have no clue about what they do and dont own
Now I finaly know what that Rocky Horror Picture Show callback line was talking about!
Little Brother, watching the watchers
I think it's been made official:
SCO = Smoke Crack Often?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Send them a link to this article. http://www.perens.com/SCO/SCOSlideShow.html
See what they have to say.
If it trys to send you to another part of their site, simply hit back, and send it again ;)
I'm sure the 'owners of unix' can handle a slashdotting.
Speak for yourself.
English makes my head throb. Am I the only one?
Slide 15 shows purports to show "Obfuscated Copying" from Unix System V into Linux. SCO further obfuscated the code on this slide by switching it to a Greek font, but that was easily undone. It's entertaining that the SCO folks had no clue that the font-change could be so easily reversed. I'm glad they don't work on my computer security :-)
:)
When will people learn!!! If you truly want to obfuscate code you need to put it into an elvish font with a small print underneath asking viewers to please not change the font
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
Informative
What if some people who hold the copyright to Linux code (maybe at least 250,000 lines) licensed their code to, say, slashdot, and then all the slashdotters, who now have a partial share in the Linux code (being members in the illustrious /.), just go and complain to their attorney general? Seriously, I don't have any claims to Linux code (I'm mostly a Java guy), but if I did, I'd be writing to my attorney general complaining of this violation. Can I get some lawyer opinions here?
I'm sure there'd be at least two or three people at slashdot who'd know the crackz and warez newsgroups quite well, and would be prepared to post
requests - uhhh, DEMANDS for the sake of the cause - in this case, the just cause of a good belly laugh.You forgot South Asia. It would be interesting to see how many xenophobes job emigration has bred.
... but since Microsoft has been using the BSD networking code has there been a notice that Windows includes code copyrighted by UCB? I haven't seen any mention of that when the Windows systems at work boot up. (Buried in the EULA perhaps?)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This is just a cheap publicity stunt.
Boycott SCO. If you use SCO, switch
to Linux. Do not buy anything from
SCO. SCO is Caldera. Caldera is a
member of the Canopy Group. The Canopy
Group's Prime Mission is to promote
Novell. Novell is an extremely proprietary
software maker. Do not buy anything
from SCO, Novell, or any other member
of the Canopy Group! They are worse
than Microsoft! Sheesh! As if MS wasn't
bad enough.........
We should all wear this T-shirt with pride: Smite Thy Enemies!
Go you for posting that.
In this case for every 10 "experts" fielded by SCO there are 100's (even 1,000's) of better educated, brighter open source techies to pull apart SCO's misguded ramblings. My hat's off to Bruce Perence for an excellent review of the SCO code fragments.
If I worked for SCO I'd be planning my exit strategy right about now. Of course I wouldn't expect to get a job with any company where fans of open source work -- oh wait, that's everywhere. Whoops. Sorry lads.
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
i want to know when expect a headline about a final word about this case, anyone can help me?
Wow, your oh-so-cool "$" spellings, lame XP embellisment, and stupid conspiracy theories must make you the king of cool among all the other pallid geeky 14 year olds.
Did anyone notice the definition of RCU in the eweek article
(McBride Bullish on the Battle Over Unix - 6th paragraph from the bottom)
They call it:
Read Copyright Update (RCU)
How appropriate
nt
The only thing not slashdotted is your ineptitude at common literacy and spelling.
What baffles me is not how they can peddle this lunacy with a straight face, but why they believe that the fabric of society has broken down so much that this kind of thing is something you can do without shame.
Even twenty years ago, nobody would have had the giant brass clangers it would take to do something like this. Have our values eroded so badly? Has society really become so decadent that literally anything goes? And if it has, how do we go about the process of healing civilization itself?
Shit, it hasn't even been two hours and already the site has been Slashdotted. Jesus Christ, give ME a chance to at least see it before you all start jumping on it! EEEeeesssshhhh!!!!
w00t!
But, those 99 other files have probably been released under a BSD license, used in text books, etc. That's why they have been so hesitant to show off the infringing code. Given enough eyeballs, not only are all bugs shallow, but the origins of the code becomes very clear.
And we used to think the Jobs' Realtity Distortion Field was something to behold. Expect a lawsuit from McBride claiming that he is the creator of the RDF and that Jobs is infringing on his IP. Maybe both of them could be in a Celebrity DeathMatch.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Aren't those slides are SCO's uhm, what's that spin phrase they like to call it? Oh yeah, 'Intellectual Property'.
Did they give him permission to publish their slides in their entirety? I doubt it.
He ought to be able to, as a matter of commentary, I agree.
But then the same argument could be used to say he should be able to publish their proprietary "secret" System V UNIX source.
Torvalds: They are smoking crack.
im still laughing and its been 10 min since i read that
Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community
You can only attack what you can see. Until recently, SCO had put nothing real on the table. What can anyone say about nothing? Now that there's something to talk about, Linus accurately describes it. There is nothing at all odd about that, he simply refused to speculate about what kind of fairy tale SCO was going to make up or their motives.
While it might be obvious that SCO's leadership is deranged, fruadulent and bribed, Linus has been smart enough to keep his mouth shut about things he can't prove. Good for him, he's got better things to do.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate
Fuck my ass, fuck it now.
Also, please check out the subscriber option. It's not JUST for homos!
Thanks,
Taco
When we are old men in our 90s, we will be able to say ''I was there when Torvalds said: They are smoking crack''. These are times of change; times of plenty. And we are living in the present my friends. The future shall be our foe, but the history shall always be our savior.
... Is the Man. I'm going to start printing T-shirts that say "SCO is smoking crack."
No it would be better if the foot was in their mouth with a gun pointing at it. that would be an accurate depiction of the current situation.
What exactly would they gain though?
If they never had any real infringements, and they knew it, but they were just hoping to be paid off before anything went to trial, then now they need to demonstrate plausible deniability, and make their false accusations look like accidental stupidity instead of deliberate fraud.
I don't believe any of the above, mind you, since "they're dumb" seems to be the simplest explanation; this is the only alternative I can think of though.
Those are some big punches to pull and the only reason to pull them is to cover your ass in case someone really presents something infringing. If you say it's all BS instead of demanding a look, you hurt your credibility. By continuing to demand an honest answer from SCO, the free software world continues to show that SCO is not being honest. You can only refute SCO's nonsense as they put it before you. You can demolish claims on end users, you can show monitary damages don't exist, you can show revealed code is public, but you can't prove that there's no infringing code at all. If you do that, it makes you look irresponsible and that is something free software coders are not.
The "smoking crack" phrase is just a figure of speech for deranged and fradulent, which the current claims are based on the code presented. It would be very difficult to prove that cocaine is actually part of McBitch's Microsoft compensation package, so I doubt someone level headed like Linus would use the phrase literally. Not yet at least.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, we're there already, aren't we? JFS is an IBM code donated to the Open Source community, and NUMA was developed by Sequent, which was bought by IBM.
And Big Blue is countersuing SCO. And there was much rejoicing.
Old IBMers all over the world are all misty-eyed at the sight of all these Linux-loving Communist hippies siding with the Company instead of deriding and hating it. Man, the 70's are sooo dead (deservedly so, I might add).
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
I managed to download the Power Point presentation before it was totally Slashdotted. Following are 2 links to the presentation on the edonkey/overnet file sharing network.
ed2k://|file|SCOsource_Briefing_II.2.zip|389072|fa f8f74f7afc98c21284cce152642424|c 2c6bfa65cd82f1d88300f8f2dbbeea|
ed2k://|file|SCOsource_Briefing_II.2.ppt|582144|4
Note: Slashdot doesn't seem to support linking to the ed2k protocol, so just do a search on the bolded text, or else copy and paste the entire link into edonkey/overnet client if you know how (note: remove the space in the hash portion that Slashdot inserted).
I would encourage everyone to share this presentation on other file sharing networks so everybody can have a chance to see the goods.
Simply put: no. Less[er[ly]] simply put: I often find myself thinking to create a fork of the english language (and suing anyone who doesn't license it? (just trying to keep mildly on-topic here)). English syntax, for example, is often very ambiguous and troublesome to parse. Not that this post, however, uses either standard english or my supposed fork.
Linus Torvalds is a great programmer, but his place in history is totally different to those guys. Babbage, Turing, and Von Neumann developed the idea of the universal, general-purpose computer, figured out what it could (and couldn't) do, and in Von Neumann's case described the general architecture of how to build one. Linus led a team that did a modern reimplementation of a 20-year-old (at the time) operating system, using techniques that were already in the published literature.
Linus's real contribution was that he found a way to build an operating system at a lower development cost and equivalent quality to other products. In that, you might compare him to Henry Ford, who pioneered the mass production of automobiles.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I don't think crackheads would want to be associated with a bunch of scum bag liars like SCO.
Indeed Bruce aludes to this:
I was able to determine the origin of BPF after a few minutes of web searches on google.com . Why couldn't a "pattern-recognition team" do the same? It's difficult to believe they simply didn't bother to check. It's also likely that SCO dropped attribution of the Lab's copyright from the System V copy of the BPF source code, or the team would have known.
Great stuff. It's hard to tell what happened to the attribution. SCO is careless, dishonest or both. In general, dishonest people only think they are smarter than those around them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Taco:Yes, of course! The Holy Slashdot of OSDL! 'Tis one of the sacred relics Brother Cowboy Neal carries with him. Brother Neal! Bring up the Holy Slashdot!
AC's chanting: Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
Brother Neal: Armaments, chapter two, verse nine to twenty one.
Brother Neal: And Saint Stallman raised the Slashdot up high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy Holy Slashdot that, with it, Thou mayest slashdot Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy'. And the Lord did grin, and the AC's did feast upon first posts, trolls, GNAA posts, and...
Taco: Skip it a bit, Brother.
Brother Neal: And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou click on the holy link called Slashdot. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, clickest thou holy Slashdot of OSDL towards thy server, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.'
Taco: Amen
Some of the code in question was released under a BSD license, and that has been stated as meaning that it is completely kosher. But I'm not entirely sure
The BSD license does, of course, permit copying and redistribution - but my understanding is that the license is conditional on maintaining the attribution, that is, stating that it is BSD licensed and noting the copyright owner. The code in Limux does not contain that original attribution.
Did I miss something here? Honest question... no flames please :-)
Krill
"Torvalds: They are smoking crack."
...god what i wouldn't give to have heard him say that :)
The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
yahoo biz link
"Blepp, a former VP of International Business at SuSE, brings to SCO a wealth of experience in marketing and business management from time at Network Associates and Computer Associates. Blepp's appointment is taking place at SCOForum in Las Vegas this week where he is being introduced to SCO partners and resellers."
Okay, there are plenty of comments analyzing the code in SCO's slide show. Let's have a look at the legal argument.
Slides 3, 4, and 5 document SCO's contract with Novell to acquire Unix IP. I don't see anything funny there.
The funny part is on slides 6 and 7. Slide 6 contains excerpts of the AT&T License Agreement with IBM. Slide 7 contains more excerpts from the AT&T License Agreement with IBM, except that "AT&T" is changed to SCO in one place.
However, this is just the Licensing Agreement. This just the contract that allows IBM to use AT&T Unix within its organization.
Beyond this contract, IBM also has a Sub-Licensing Agreement. The sub-licensing agreement allows IBM to sell Unix products to its customers. SCO's presentation does not talk about the sub-licensing agreement at all, but this agreement is one of the contracts filed with the Court.
To draw an analogy: the License Agreement is like the agreement that lets you run Windows on your PC. The Sub-License Agreement is like the contract that lets Dell sell Windows to other people. SCO's presentation quotes the License Agreement, and says that license prohibits IBM from distributing code. But SCO's presentation ignores the Sub-License Agreement, which allows IBM to sell UNIX to its customers.
On top of that, IBM has a third agreement with AT&T which grants IBM additional rights on top of the Sub-Licensing Agreement. The third agreement explicitly states:
2. Regarding section 2.01, we agree that modifications and derivative works prepared by or for you are owned by you.
7.06(a) Nothing in this agreement shall prevent LICENSEE from developing or marketing products or services employing ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques related to data processing embodied in SOFTWARE PRODUTCS subject to this Agreement, provided that LICENSEE shall not copy any code from such SOFTWARE PRODUCTS into any such product or in connection with any such service and employees of LICENSEE shall not refer to the physical documents and materials comprising SOFTWARE PRODUCTS subject to this Agreement when they are developing any such products or service or providing any such service.
You can read the contracts for yourself. They are Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C at SCO Lawsuit Documents.
So IBM has an explicit right for their engineers who have worked on the UNIX source code use ideas, concepts, know-how, or techniques in other IBM products. IBM paid good money for this right from the lawful copyright holders. (This may explain why SCO is attacking the Sequent contributions, because Sequent doesn't have as much rights in its contract as IBM has in theirs).
This brings us to Slide #22, where an IBM engineer posts information about his experience with scalability in AIX. Under section 7.06(a) above, IBM has the explicit right to disseminate such information about Unix (let alone IBM's rights to talk about property which is purely theirs, such as JFS).
SCO knows this. SCO filed these contracts with the Court (accessible through Pacer) and SCO also published these contracts on their web site.
I would love for reporters to dig into the actual exhibits and ask questions based on the exhibits. Just hit the SCO Lawsuit Documents link above and read the exhibits.
For those who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the condensed version [It's a brave new world]:
Analysis of SCO's Las Vegas Slide Show
You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may *snip* edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.
An *snip* infringement by the Linux developers.
*snip*
SCO's demonstrations regarding "copied" software *snip* present the very best examples *snip* to determine that *snip* one is *snip* SCO's property at all; *snip* Linux *snip* will lose.
*SNIP*
eWEEK asked:
Who is going to compensate us the users of Linux for all the stress we have suffered over SCO's fraudulent stock manipulation scam? Are they going to pay the entire Linux community all the profits they have made from their artificial inflations of their stock plus punitive damages?Better yet: How about a class action suit against Canopy Group? They have made millions during the course of this scam while threatening busnesses and everyone's freedom. People of the World v. Canopy Group sounds nice. They should pay for our anguish with a multiple of the profit they made by these actions.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
No no, it's *spelled* S C O, but it's pronouned "ass hats"
According to Dan Gilmore (I think), it's pronounced "sco", rhymes with "doh!"
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Do they still use firing squads in Utah...
I think that it's still on the books, but nobody's had it done. There is talk of repealing it (the firing squad). Personally, if I were to be executed by firing squad, I'd like two guys aiming at my head, one at my heart, rather than all three at my heart, as then I'd die faster. Luckily though, I have no plans of ever doing anything that would earn such a "reward."
A solution to the problem with music today
http://www.sco.com/scosource/
What is this about? You can run a binary only version of Linux and you have to get a licence from sco? haha.. I wonder about my WRT54G from Linksys that just happens to be Linux based.
(I noticed I can program the most annoying things over and over while drunk and high)
No.
Well the problem is, these "news" sources are trying to sell papers/subscriptions, get advertising revenue, or some other self serving purpose, and do it all with the least amount of effort. They don't care if something is accurate or the truth, they just want ratings. This is the whole reason there is little point in reading or watching so called "news" anymore. At least in the old days, they'd usually try to be somewhat objective and really investigate. Now they just reprint press releases and (if they feel like it) do quick interviews with a few key figures. Not enough info to tell the real story...
eWEEK: For its part though, SCO has said that there are so many lines of code, and a variety of applications and devices that use that code, that simply removing the offending code would not be technically feasible or possible and would not solve the problem. Do you agree?
Torvalds: They are smoking crack.
...I disable sigs...do you?
Put it on your car!
Remember, states have two senators. Orrin Hatch has a lot of seniority, but he's not all-powerful. Also, he's not an entirely bad person. I agree with many of the causes he fights for, and also disagree with many of his positions. The computer destruction comment was a bit off the wall, and probably inappropriate. That doesn't mean Utah is a lost cause.
A solution to the problem with music today
I just thought of something. If any company gets threatened or sued by SCO for using Linux ( given that there is no pre-existing contract with SCO ) then the potential defendant can require SCO to sign an NDA if SCO wants certain details about the company network ( a security risk - so an NDA would be wise ) including details concerning the number of CPUs running linux. Personally, I would set company policy to forbid such information from being released to unsolicited vendors period - the only thing is that perhaps an NDA for unsolicited vendors policy could prevent an SCO lawsuit? Just a thought.
"Torvalds: They are smoking crack."
Go Linus! Damn! That's freaking excellent!!
Man, I need a picture of Linus to put on my wall above my Unix history timeline 8 foot long poster
Ah, the perfect blend of truth, humour, and flamebait.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Ten years from now BillG will be remembered for the security problems his products created and the extremely expensive and seemingly never ending cost of trying to keep script kiddiez, virii, and worms from taking down the network.
Twenty years from now BillG will be remembered for ongoing abuse of monopoly status, security problems, and his lack of original vision, proved by his quote about nobody needing more than 640k.
Is there even any reason to go on to 30 years?
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
SCO = smoking crack often?
If SCO claims ownership on the Statue Of Liberty,
they are the ones who need to provide proof.
I am afraid, the standard of "it is my word against yours",
is not an acceptable standard.
I as far as Linux, I am the real owner of
all kernel code. Since SCO provides no proof,
I am not required to provide proof either.
Not meant to be a flame, but if you're going to file complaints in writing and you want to be taken seriously, you really ought to learn how to spell basic words like "their" correctly. There's a lot at stake here, and a bit of basic professionalism will go a long way.
What we have is actually a very thorough response and rebuttal to Darl's proferring of HANDSE to the GIVER (investors who have nothing better to do than hang around Las Vegas).
When the enforcer (Perens) puts down the law, all those trash-talking hos (McBride) are besmote and put IN THEIR respective PLACES.
On the other hand, now THIS is goatse.cx. Get it right, AC. You also forgot to post as PARENT IS A GOATSE.C, asshat. ^_^
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The Perens article doesn't mention GPL at all. He says that the code is under the BSD license. He doesn't mention whether it is the new version or the old version. The issue is that it is under a public license that excludes SCO's claims of infringement. The biggest threat to this whole issue is going to be religious evangelism from the FSF if this keeps up.
Not Linux's code, Linuxes' code or any other damned thing.
And you're right, code derived from the Ancient Unix Caldera published is not under a GPL compatible license, because of the advertising clause. So in the end anything that is really under their copyright will have to be removed.
The examples they've shown so far haven't been, however. The SGI file is their best case, and there's a good argument that it's not copyrightable (we're talking about a tight implementation of a straightforward and basic task - any number of programmers could produce it or something nearly identical to it without ever having seen it before) and that if it is copyrightable it's public domain anyway, either because K&R published it and encouraged its use, or because it's found in 32v, which is probably in the public domain (the judge in the BSD case thought it was, but the case was settled so it's not a precedent.)
But then their other example inadvertantly revealed that they're probably in violation of Berkley copyright.
At any rate, even if they have dozens or hundreds of such technical violations, that doesn't really get them squat. They can sue the contributors (like SGI in the example shown) for actual damages but that's peanuts, not worth the legal fees. As soon as such cases become known, they get reimplemented properly with little fuss. There is no basis for them to sue users, which is why they aren't suing them - just trying to frighten them into signing a contract they can use to sue them later and some money to keep them afloat in the meantime.
The only part of SCOs noise that has a chance in hell of translating into more than a token win is the trade secret and contract issues they are suing IBM over, and even there it doesn't seem like their chances are very good.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You must be joking right. We had some old pile of cdroms and tapes. There was no usable media anywhere to be found. If that server died that was it, there was nothing because the company decided that SCO's license terms were outrageous and stopped paying them years ago. I was hacking on a totally unsupported old SCO machine which license had expired years ago. I even fixed a Y2k bug when I rebooted it once.
Clickety Click
Embassy packets make better roaches cos the cardboard doesn't go soggy as fast.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
HAHAH -- I laughed for 5 minutes straight after reading this, while modding you up. Beautiful. This is by far the best anti-ms rant ever.
The lawyers/pirates at SCO and Rambus etc... have a lot of money to invest in their ventures and no respect for anyone. The target is IBM now, next it will be MicroSoft (now a SCO licensee!).
I am suprised that MS did not see trough these guys. But then, neither did Intel when it came to Rambus. MS legal department seems to be high paid crap (IAAL, sue me). Well anyway, MS it will find itself open to a comparable attack to what IBM is under now in the near future. Good :-)
MS will propably be forced to show windows source at the trial which can be leaked and we get to see it. What a feast that case will be.
You can get your share of the loot too, just remember that the news always come as good-bad-good-bad series in these cases and the SCO stock goes up-down-up-down accordingly.
Okay, so it looks like this thing is even more bogus than people initially thought. I'm pissed off! What a ridiculous waste of money, effort, worry, energy and time. Screw civil action. Where's the SEC? Get these fsckers and their lawers off to jail. The whole thing has been one big SCAM. I hope lots of US criminal justice laws have been broken. Don't let them get away with it and with their sneaky stocks profits!!
Funny? WTF
Clearly this is a troll since it doesn't even touch on the SCO topic.
Whomever modded this up need never mod again.
Hmm. Well, I've smoked crack as well, and I don't think Linus is so off beam. Lets look at the facts:
Smoking crack is expensive. You need a fair few dollars if you're going to have a decent binge. For some people at least, they'll do pretty well anything to get that money. Lie, steal, whore.
Smoking crack makes you obsessive/compulsive. After that first hit, all you think about is more crack. You talk and think about it obsessively, and when you aren't making progress towards your goal of getting more crack, you're kinda depressed.
Now look at SCO. No integrity at all. Prepared to do or say anything to get more crack (an increase in stock price.) Talk obsessively about it in the media, even though their tales are demonstrably filled with lies.
I'll accept not everyone reacts in this way, so perhaps Linus should have been a bit more careful in his characterization. SCO isn't just smoking crack. SCO is the Skanky Crack hO, hustling a nasty bony ass that nobody but other crazy crackheads wants to buy.
Now where's that motherfucker who keeps on boasting about his SCO stock? I hope he's been on to his broker in the last few hours.
"SCO's legal theory, explained in slide 6, is that the AT&T Unix license compelled all of these companies to assign to AT&T, and later SCO, all derived works that they created incorporating the Unix source code. Here is the key clause on slide 6:
Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOFTWARE PRODUCT and to prepare derivative works based on such SOFTWARE PRODUCT, provided the resulting materials are treated hereunder as part of the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Under SCO's theory, if any code created by a Unix licensee ever touches Unix, SCO owns that code from then on, and can deny its creator the right to make use of it for any other purpose."
Wow! And M$ cribs about the GPL being a viral license.
It looks like stupid licenses like this are signed by major corporates all the time. Wonder why they crib about the GPL being a viral license then? At least the GPL keeps things free.
I've heard a couple of comments to the effect that it's almost impossible for a small developer to sue for heisted GPL code and not being a lawyer a question occurred to me...
In a case where someone is licensing their software under the GPL and someone else hijacks their code and starts selling it, it's been said that you can't really sue because you can't claim damages -- you weren't selling the code so you didn't lose anything.
Isn't there a way to flip that on it's head though? (For someone who can say IAAL?)
The villains (this is what SCO is trying to do) are selling something that they do not have the rights to sell. Can't it be claimed in some legal way that *all* of the gross proceeds of those sales actually belong to the party that *really* "owns" the code?
It seems exceeding strange that someone can in effect "steal" something, sell it to someone else and legally keep the money just because the original party was willing to give it away but only to someone who would *not* sell it.
Quoth he
"It's all academic anyway..."
Since System V seems to incorporate a whole lot of BSD code, as well as System 3 code that has been open sourced, couldnt we just use SCO:s own arguments against them? :)
System V is a derivative work of the ancient and know open sourced Unix:es, meaning that they in reality do not have copyrights or rights to anything..
I've not spoken to him about his work for a while (way before the SCO thing started) but I do recall having a conversation during which he said that the Linux group did not get help from the AIX group.
Indeed, as another poster said, there seemed to be quite a bit of rivalry between the two. As I recall on the weekend in question he had access to a particularly beefy piece of IBM kit for a few days and they were keen to work on it and demonstrate that Linux could scale as well as (or better than) AIX on it.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I would like to remind everybody to not get all caught up in the details of being "right", and thinking that just because you have irrefutable evidence that the SCO claim is a sham, means in any way, they don't have a very realistic chance of screwing the Linux community hard.
In the new United States, being right doesn't mean you're going to win. It's all about money now folks.
Let's take this into account when we rally to protect the rights to our software, and not assume that the "facts" are going to be as relevant as the overwhelming wall of bullshit that seems to surround the amazingly fucked up stuff that the government claims is fair.
Yeah right. Nice try SCO, but Austin Powers was actually funny you know...
Oh well, what the hell...
the parent pleas:
I wish someone would analyze the IBM patent claims.
the '746 patent is miller & wegman's anticipation
of the "welch" modification to LZ78, the lempel-ziv
algorithm used in 'compress' from bsd/sysV/unixware/etc.
i've long wondered when ibm would get around to
asserting this patent, essentially beating sperry/unisys
to the u.s. patent office door. filed first, it has priority
in any interference. yet, ibm watched as unisys boosted
many an enforcement career with the GIF flap.
but now, intriguingly, while many were prematurely
celebrating the expiration of the unisys filing earlier
this year, '746 was overlooked. so why should this
matter if it was filed first -- wouldn't it expire first?
well, no, courtesy a wrinkle in a uruguay round
amendment to the berne convention. patents at
one time expired 17 years from grant date, but now it's
modified to *the greater* of 20 years from filing
date *or* grant date + 17. looking up '746 yields
the info that it gives up the ghost in year 2006...
likely ibm never asserted because they prefer
cross-licensing (was AT&T bell labs, but now
with the likes of sun, microsoft, and apple.)
now we see patent offense against the riff-raff
like SCO. neatly, since LZW is no longer part of GNU,
stallmanites need not worry about collateral
damage from IBM, at least for this claim.
haha, why is this still at 1 :)
Oh no. I know the Greek alphabet, so I translated the text in my head. Did my brain violate the DMCA?
Here http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=7896/ddj0309m/ :)
is a really good, in-depth write-up of the whole case. Single page, easy to understand
almost as cool as a guy complaining about it posting as frickin AC ;-)
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Excellent nomination.
However, I must warn readers of Slashdot that the terms "crack", "crack cocaine", "crack head", "crack house" are trademarks of El Mellin Cartel & Co. Any use of these terms in the literal context (as compared to "SCO crack me up") is subject to a $699 licensing fee, payable in small bills.
The good thing is we supply you with stuff you can smoke, SCO just stuff you with smoke.
This aside, I agree with the previous posts, and our records confirm that a Senor D. MCBRIDE is a serious consumer of our prime products.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
In other comments here, it has been suggested that because GPL'ed code does not have a dollar value tagged with it, it has no value and thuis estimating damages is impossible. This is simply untrue.
In a breach of the GPL, a person/ company/ organisation is selling GPL'ed code for a dollar amount. It is thus charging for software that the user could obtain for free. THIS dollar amount is the figure which could be used as a basis for damages. Also, equivalent software to GPL'ed code has a development cost, a marketing cost and a general overhead cost.
It should be remembered that damages are often based on an ESTIMATE of the value; for example, the RIAA in charging $100,000 per song is simply making an estimate; there is no reason GPL'ed code should be any different.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I wish the court would make SCO reveal the list of idiots who actually bought a SCO license for using Linux, so I can laugh at them.
I think Linus has displayed an irreverant humor on countless occasions. Quite the opposite of showing a stressed out or "(nerves) frayed" Linus as you say, I think the interview showed the typical rigorously logical, well-spoken, slightly aloof, and occasionally flippant Linus.
Linus put this in perspective. This is a great article for the novice to read, if you're unfamiliar with this whole SCO mess.
regardless that the code was "ugly" or that it has been removed - the fact is that the code DID GET INTO THE KERNEL. w
Mmm, charlie hunnan....
SCO - Sniffing Coke Operation , managed by 'coke sniffing glamour boys', driven by greed and overrated self esteem; lost their technically competent staff a while ago, and now tries to make money from their worthless UNIX IP ownership, by fantasizing unhindered by any knowledge of law and programming issues, and exploited by layers, Microsoft, speculating investers and their own greed???
After reading the replies, I keep wondering. Some kind of summary would be nice. Can we calm down? Is SCO completely without a chance?
What about the issue of original BSD code mixed within the Linux GPL kernel code? Does that mean SCO _has_ a chance of winning?
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
From Bruce Perens article:-
These slides have several C syntax errors and would never compile.
It the Law, all programming presentations have at least one syntax error in the example code
If like me, your are getting a bit fuzzy on your UNIX history (dating back to '69) you could always check out this.
It shows where SCO/Unixware fit into the Unix derivative tree, (and also where Linux got its roots) quite interesting really..
(it claims V7->Minix->Linux).
Sad, but here in good ole Germany I cant call the FTC. So you have to. Come on...call em, make their ears bleed!
I miss the Cue:Cat...
We know they are, metaphorically. But if the litigous bastards don't sue Linus for slander, they must doing it literally. Ah, what the hell; they might as well sue him anyway, even if it means doing time for drug posession. the sentance will just be tacked onto their RICO conviction for the biggest pump-and-dump in history.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Is showing sections of the code without their appropriate license the equivalent of SCO breaching the BSD license on distribution?
RMS even called Linus only an engineer and not an advocate.
While the point RMS was making is valid in a strict sense, the larger effect of their positions is complementary.
RMS holds the ideological line, he gives people a reference implementation for programming ethics. You don't have to think precisely the same way, but he'll tell you if you're not conforming to spec.
On the other hand, Linus, in his public comments and in his approach to linux development and licensing, is more like an optimized implementation with a few out-of-spec hacks included to keep things greased.
Put together, their public personae add up to a goodcop/badcop act that works pretty well. RMS will fume about all sorts of things, while Linus will maintain a more zen attitude about it all. Even if RMS is right about whatever he's talking about at any given moment, people have a way of filtering out the Free Software gospel because it requires them to do things that may not be in their personal interest, even if it's the right thing to do. But when the stars align properly and Linus is as angry as RMS, the full fury of the FSF is unleashed.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Torvalds: They are smoking crack.
Oh Linus we love you..
What about me. Those bastards at sco are responsable for my recent sharp increase in consumption of various nicotine products. Let's all sue them for our pain and suffering. It's a far better case then they have.
... of crack-smoking SCO lawyers.
You insensitive clod!
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I've never heard RMS and Linus characterized so clearly.
*sigh* back to work...
SCO is smoking crack out of their crack (a**)
Not only did i call the FTC, but i also called SCO's toll free "sales" number to register my "illegal" copies of linux. after listing off like 20 boxes to the lady on the other end of the line, and giving them my phone and address, they told me that sales was really busy and they would get back to me withing 2 to three weeks. (no i do not intend on paying them unless...):
What if some of us did pay them. (currently they do not legally own Linux. they haven't won the case). Since they would have charged us for something that they don't legally own as of yet isn't that illegal. Also:
One could sue them when they lose the case, which they will. ("I want my money back, and more for my trouble etc...").
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk who carried a gun and ran from the mob. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it. That does not make sense. 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 important, you have to ask yourself what does this have to do with this case. 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 software 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.
I know he seems guilty. 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 company'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. Here look at the monkey , look at the silly monkey.
I rest my case your honor.
--- stolen from http://www.connect-dots.com/Poofs/chewbacca.html
-- Windows security? Sure, which ONE would you like? -me
I am buying SCO Group stock to turn into expensive toliet paper..
..hey wait this an excellent idea..
The first roll is getting sent to McBride..:)
Don't Tread on OpenSource
They say Unix code has been in Linux since 2001 and that vendors and end users have been profiting from this since then, and they want to be compensated for that
This is interesting. They claim that vendors and end users have been profiting from the code violation, and therefore they're entitled to compensation.
I have been running my own linux server, in my basement, for about +3 years now. I have made NO profit from it. In fact, I have SPENT money on a high-speed internet connections (IDSL and Broadband), purchased a new server to run linux on, upgraded networking equipment to support a faster server (switches, cat5e, etc.). So, near as I can figure:
ISP: 36 months @ $70/month (don't ask) = $2520
Server: PowerEdge 600SC w/ Raid card+4 disks = $1000
8 port switch: $125
Box of Cat5e w/ connectors: $100
Total: -$3740
Subtract off that a SCO license @ $699: -$3046
So, if SCO wants to 'share' in my 'profits', then their share comes to -$1523. Please make the cashiers check or money order payable to me, as my finance department tells me that SCO's business checks are 'questionable' and therefore not welcome here.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
I say we set up a massive fund to criogenically freeze Linus if somethign should ever happen to him. At the very least we can put him in a museum or something that way. Maybe a monument like "The Linus Memorial" I'm actually partially serious. He deserves everything we can give him for all that he has given us. Joke or not, he actually has provided an immense amount of freedom to us all whether we realise it or not.
Since he clearly circumvented the copy protection that SCO placed on it's code (by using the Greek Font method) is Bruce now violating the DMCA?
These Open Source guys just don't care about IP rights.
</sarcasm>
The daily SCO post on the lunchbreak.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Because all those people can read the text as if it were plain text. Next are russians, since the russian alphabet is derived from greek (actually i could read the text using the hazy bits i remembered from a few russian lections).
Sure, let SCO sue anyone using greek/russian for violation of the DMCA. Their silly shareholders will probably think they really have a case. Man i'd like to get an address list of those shareholders, there's some property on the moon i'd like to sell them.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
This article is a great analysis of what SCO has published to date. There are some points we can argue and that I suspect will be argued in court. The problem I see is that SCO has not and will not reveal the full extent of their claims and proof until this gets to Court.
SCO wants to win the suit or collect fees or both and seems not to care about reaction to their suit from the Linux community. This means that they have no incentive to release details and their strongest evidence until they must, in Court. At that point, they will either be found to be the winner or loser by the Court.
Until then, the Linux community analysis of the material SCO presents is interesting and possibly damning, but it also helps SCO. The analysis helps them determine weak spots in their case and which kind of evidence to use or not use. Will the analysis clear up confusion and doubt? Among Linux adherents, probably. These folks never believed SCO anyway. Among corporate clients? Hard to tell. Many will stay way from using Linux on any mission critical system or deeply embedding Linux in their operations until this is settled.
What is needed is for someone who owns a set of UNIX licenses to run the same analysis as SCO says that they are running. Then the team must do the same forensics as Bruce did in his analysis. The results can then be published, but carefully so as not to violate the non-disclosure terms of the base UNIX license. One assumes that IBM is doing this as we speak, so as to defend themselves. It will take time and there will be uncertainty. It is possible that there will be some questionable code and then the issue becomes where did it come from, do folks have to stop sing Linux until it is purged, what damages get paid by who and the like.
502 Remedies for infringement: Injunctions
(a) Any court having jurisdiction of a civil action arising under this title may, subject to the provisions of section 1498 of title 28, grant temporary and final injunctions on such terms as it may deem reasonable to prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright.
(b) Any such injunction may be served anywhere in the United States on the person enjoined; it shall be operative throughout the United States and shall be enforceable, by proceedings in contempt or otherwise, by any United States court having jurisdiction of that person. The clerk of the court granting the injunction shall, when requested by any other court in which enforcement of the injunction is sought, transmit promptly to the other court a certied copy of all the papers in the case on file in such clerk's office.
So why haven't they done it? It would put IBM, HP, RedHat and a host of others out of the Linux business quickly and effectively. What is in Title 28, section 498? Just the 3-year time limit and a bunch of reasons when government employees can sue. And that you can't sue anyone for anything developed for the US Government after 1918 (there goes a lot of code developed under government contracts).
Could it be that they have to swear, under penalty of perjury, that the filing is true? Could it be that this entire slide show was just another marketing dog and pony show to prop up the stock price?
Through all of the hysteria and shouting matches and FUD, count on Bruce Perens to come in and make sense of it all. This is very good news. Now, we only need to make damn sure that IBM's team of lawyers have managed to get this!
:)
ATTENTION IBM LAWYERS! STOP READING THESE COMMENTS AND GO READ PERENS' ARTICLE!
There. I did my part
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
Torvalds: Hey, until they can be bothered to show something real, I don't think it's even worth discussing
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Without warranty or representation as to particular merit, I would like to offer the following suggestion and form:
Every linux end user should sue SCO asking for a declaratory judgment regarding their ability to use linux under the GPL vs. SCO's claims. Please review the form with an attorney of your choice to make sure that it is appropriate in your jurisdiction, of course.
SCO is likely to drop the ball somewhere, and one, just one, default judgment would ruin their day. Plus, being sued in thousands of jurisdictions would be just wonderful. Spend your "license" fee on filing and service costs instead:
ACTION FOR DECLARATORY JUDGMENT
COMPLAINT
AND NOW, TO WIT, this ____ day of August, 2003, comes the Plaintiff, ______________ ("Plaintiff"), who files this Complaint as follows:
1. The Plaintiff is an individual with a residence located at ______.
2. Defendant, The SCO Group, Inc. ("SCO") is a Delaware Corporation, with a primary place of business located at 355 South 520 West, Suite 100, Lindon, Utah 84042.
3. SCO is a major corporation, listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol "SCOX", which sells operating systems and web services.
4. It is believed, and therefore averred, that Defendant has engaged in, and continues to engage in, a continuous and substantial course of business within _______(state and county).
5. SCO has threatened to sue individual users of software which SCO claims ownership or control over. The software in question is allegedly contained in Linux kernel 2.4.
6. Plaintiff uses personal computers that are capable of running Linux.
7. Linux is a UNIX-like computer operating system that enables computer users to run applications to perform standard computing tasks, such as word processing, accessing the internet, playing games, etc.
8. The centerpiece of Linux is the "kernel" which handles basic operating system functions, such as memory allocation, access to hardware resources, and other similar functions.
9. The current Linux kernel is version number 2.4 with a new version, number 2.6, in development.
10. Linux is commonly represented to the public as being a product that contains software code which is either entirely original or which is in the public domain or which is appropriately licensed.
11. Linux is developed by a group of volunteers.
12. Linux is distributed subject to the terms of the GNU Public License ("GPL") (See Exhibit A).
13. All distributors of Linux are required to distribute the source code that they are selling subject to the terms of the GPL.
14. The GPL terms require that any computer source code released under its terms be distributed freely and for free.
15. SCO has raised a number of allegations in a variety of judicial forums stating that it claims to own or otherwise control intellectual property which SCO alleges has been wrongfully incorporated into the Linux kernel since at least version 2.4 of Linux was distributed.
16. To wit, SCO has sued IBM in federal court over IBM's alleged participation in incorporating proprietary software into Linux kernel 2.4.
17. SCO has distributed Linux for years for free, including kernel 2.4.
18. Plaintiff believes, and therefore avers, that SCO was bound by the terms of the GNU Public License, which would therefore prevent SCO from claiming ownership or control of any software which SCO released under the GPL.
19. SCO knew, or should have known, what source code was in the software it distributed, especially since it distributed the source code as part of its a Linux product it sold and continues to distribute.
20. SCO refuses to publicly identify which elements of the source code of Linux kernel 2.4 it claims ownership and/or control of, thereby preventing parties from excising any "tainted" code from the Linux kernel 2.4.
21. Any intellectual property SCO may believe was improperly included in Linux kernel 2.4 was distributed by SCO in its own Linux 2.4 kernel and distribution.
22. SCO has distrib
There seems to be "slam-dunk" against scox practically every day. But:
1) The USA justtice system seems to be just fine with scox's actions. Serveral agencies have been notified, probably hundreds of times, but no action.
2) The market seems to be just fine with scox's actions. Scox share price stays in the same range, no matter what sort of news comes out.
some stuff
Lots of petrified grits
that they've got us right where they want us. Think about it: why would they do a presentation on allegedly stolen code, especially when it is the first time they publicly release which code is tainted, without making sure it's not bogus? And why would they use the Greek font subterfuge when they should have known that anyone with half a brain could get through it? Okay, they might just be stupid, but that stupid?
What if this is all a clever trick to lull the Linux community into a false sense of security? Maybe they really think that they've got something really damning. I will admit that the biggest thing arguing against my theory is that it would, if anything, tend to depress their stock for the time being. But that would only argue against the theory if we assume that McBride, et al.'s intention has been all along to inflate stock prices, dump the stock, and fly to Costa Rica before the trial's over. What if they really believe, crack or no crack, that they have a case?
Maybe they are reliable and my friends got a bad batch but even so, maybe they should take a look at Apple and stop building those damn ugly laptops.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Perens kicks ass! There's just no other way to describe my reaction. The guy is smart, his thoughts are collected, and he writes with his brain, not with his emotions. This is a guy that you can count on to come up with an excellent response to a ridiculous argument.
:)
And you know, it's refreshing these days to see that some people still believe that the value of their work has nothing to do with the font, color, alignment, shape of the bullets, or animated "next" buttons. It's plain text. It's content. No Powerpoint templates with ridiculous wipes and swooping text. The guy knows that what he has to say can stand on its own merits, and doesn't require all that crap to distract you. Thanks, Bruce! (you know you're reading this thread...
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
...but we need to make sure that the SCO-specific code in that software has plenty of memory leaks buffer overflow/overrun vulnerabilities and weak security.
...that this guy was kicked out of SuSE for a good reason.
I applaud you for being a model consumer, but really... if there's one thing you should want in a product, it's that it'll run till the power goes out. Anyways, how are you going to get rediculous uptime on a computer that falls apart after five years?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The justice system can only document, judge and enforce what people say. You can't catch criminals if the populance is silent. Witnesses must step forward to build a case.
Linus might be bright enough to keep his mouth shut, but someone has to cry foul. In his position, it makes sense for him to keep his opinions to himself. CNN does not camp out on my door step, so I feel a little less restrained.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
like you'd expect from an Icelander :-)
103 Subject matter of copyright: Compilations and derivative works
(a) The subject matter of copyright as specified by section 102 includes compilations and derivative works, but protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(b) The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.
The "derivative work" issue is a snarly one: If I allow Spielberg to make a movie of my blockbuster novel, with my settings and characters, it is a derivative work. The movie would be copyrighted by Spielberg, not me. I can probably be in line for some money for any video games made from the movie (depends on how the contracts are worded) ... however, none of that licensing gives me ANY rights to the artwork and code for the video game or to any other movies made by Spielberg or games made by the games company. I cannot prevent them -- under
copyright law -- from asserting ownership of whatever originality exists in the derivative work. I have no rights to any extra characters written into the movie script, the costuming, special effects, software to do the SFX, and can't demand a cut of the popcorn sales.
And on the flip side, Spielberg gets absolutely no rights over my novel, nor any previous or future novels, and can't launch a sequel without my permission. He acquired the right to make ONE movie based on my novel. Period. And Spielberg probably wishes he had done what Lucas did and wrote the screenplay himself, so he would have ALL the rights.
A few years back, there was a semi-satirical comic named "Quantum and Woody". It had a lot of really funny lines, including one where (IIRC) a blind man interrupted the a superhero on the street with the advice:
"Son, you gotta stop smoking that there crack cocaine. It's making you ignorant!"
A very superficial examination is enough to raise suspision. Microsoft is funding them and they are saying all the same things Microsoft used to. There's always more when you are dealing with liars, but the superficial details should be enough. If it stinks, don't put it in your mouth.
Microsoft is the only member of the technical community to pay SCO's Linux extortion. This comes despite the fact that Microsoft has no Linux software and publically states that they have no plans for any either. Microsoft has used BSD code forever and that was sufficient, until recently, for their Unix products. SCO has one other corporate custormer that they refuse to identify. I imagine that they have suffered a devistating DLoP (Distributed Lack of Purchasing) attack that makes their former poor sales look great. Without Micfosoft's money, SCO would be bankrupt by now. They will go that way, a great tragedy for all those employed there who made the great Caldera Linux packages and other good software.
All the things that SCO is now saying sound exactly like the FUD that M$ used to put out about the GPL and free software. They insinuate that free software is dishonest and stollen as if only commercial software writers ever have a novel idea or are able to read computer science texts. They claim irresposisble tracking of contributions because free software developers can't look at the code comercial software vendors keep hidden, and claim this creates liabilities for users of free software. All of this, of course, is the kind of double talk that's been comming out of Bill Gates mouth from the beninning of his career, pay up you thieves, or you will have no quality software. The treat was bullshit then and it is bullshit now. People can and did co-operate to build software that's both superior to comercial software and honestly free. People realize that, and Microsoft understood that thier anti-GPL campaign, calling the GPL a cancer, unAmerican hippy ware and all that, had backfired. SCO is now saying all the same things under Microsoft's pay.
Microsoft thinks it's getting their money's worth out of SCO investment, but they are wrong. Their scheeming is transparent, easy to explain and will blow up in their faces. Thier other missdeeds and poor performance proved they were an evil company. Security problems convinced me not to use their software for networking. Their anti-GPL campaign convinced me to avoid their software and vocally oppose them. This SCO shit makes me want to throw rocks at them. Here, I am, Microsoft free, and still I have to worry about their nonsense. It should convince everyone that there is no escaping Microsoft's influence and misdeeds until they are out of business.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"No, no, I said that a 'Caldera's a smoking crack.'"
Here is the email resposne SCO sent to newsforge ...
As the company that owns the UNIX System V source code, we think we're sufficiently qualified to identify this code.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
The name FORTRAN doesn't consist of initials, but two syllables from other words. As such there's really no question of whether you should verbally spell out its name.
-- My comment is above.
Now that I've seen those words, my time at Slashdot is done. I can move on.
I can't. I'm still waiting for some enlightenment regarding Darl mcBride, Natalie Portman and the Hot Grits connection...
It's just not going to work. It would be nice if it did. They'd shut the F*** up until they finish themselves off.
Open source- the greatest equalizer mankind has ever seen.
I mean it's not like Linus wrote this thing yesterday, or that there hasn't been years upon years of development on any number of code trees. All of which you can view the source at any time. So why the hell are they crying now? It makes me sick. Sick I tell ya. Sick Sick Sick.
Generally, the purpose of research is to demonstrate a concept - a new concept that has never been seen before. Therefore, the code would be modern but not necessarily
-robust: only need to run it on one system - probably this is the case more than anything else
-usable: programmer=user means that the code may be very difficult to use for other people
-clean: who cares if you write ugly code? only you have to see it. You're publishing a paper, not the code
-comments: don't need comments! You're the only one using the code and you're worried about getting it done!
So...if you think that any of those fall into state-of-the-art, I'd say that Academic code isn't. At least, this was the case in the lab that I used to work in.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
When do we start shorting the stock? Should be any day now. And why does it keep going up? Speculation?
Look at that!
/. where quoted copyright law is accordance with common sense are too rare.
The moments on
Where is governor ARNIE going to kick ass on SCO
ASTA LA VISTA BABY
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
pcJunior -
Another fine product from IBM !
pcJunior aside,
SICK 'EM IBM !
Chew a big hole in SCOs back side !
>Computers should work well for the first 5 years of their life, and then ... who cares what.
Sorry Charlie, but not all computers are bought by Gam3rB0yz and CD-R1pperZ for lame leisureware or running the latest M$ Office bloatware. Most of my computers, including laptops, are 5+ years old and still have many years to go. They're a snap to work with due to the time I've invested in them and the stack of cheap spare parts in my closet. I recently worked at a radio observatory where much of the control system ran on vintage 8086-class machines. They were adequate for their tasks and optimized into the system through many years of experience, and to replace them and re-test the system would have been a huge waste of valuable time.
bkr
Yes, states do have two senators. Why, just look at South Carloina. Until recently, they had Strom Thurmond and Ernest Hollings representing them. The people could certainly be sure that their senatorial representatives were in touch with their constitutents.
Dyolf Knip
So what's the difference?
This sig no verb.
All this criticism is all fine and well, but can someone explain why the stock is up $1.53 so far today?
That comment gets a +4 for insightful?
Comments like that are scary! So you're saying that all 43 of this Fortune 500's Linux servers should just turn into dust! They're all rack-mounted Pentium II's with redundant power supplies, SCSI RAID, and 1G RAM. They're not useless as you infer. You're the one on crack.
But it is fun decyphering and mocking his weasel-babble. :)
:)
:)
Heise said even if, hypothetically, some older Caldera code were open-source, it wouldn't make a difference to the case.
Nice technique there. Imply it isn't true with a nice weasel-word, but don't actually deny it. How well does that work? "If, hypothetically, the earth revolved aronud the sun..." Also funny how he says it wouldn't make a difference to the case. When all the evidence you've shown is proven to be invalid, that could only not affect the case if all your evidence (shown and unshown) is invalid. But since he already knows his case in a paper sack is worth the paper sack, he isn't lying when he says having his "evidence" publicly shredded doesn't change anything.
"Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL (GNU General Public License). That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files," Heise said.
More wonderful weaseling! What he says is precisely true. He is saying "putting one file under a certain license doesn't force you to put other files under that license also". What he's hoping you don't think about too hard is that those other 99 files could be under the GPL also.
He's also probably hoping you don't think to hard about what he's saying at all, since it basically comes down to "Just because every verifiable claim we've made has been proven to be bullshit doesn't mean we're completely full of shit!" Sure, Mike.
The enemies of Democracy are
IBM practically owns the patent on 1's and 0's.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"I doubt the SEC will get involved too, but that's because they're understaffed and have bigger fishes to fry."
Like Martha Stewart?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You must be new here. You forgot to preface your comment with the obligatory IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer). We here at slashdot sometimes wear this as a badge, but more often that not it's a revolver with which we use to shoot from the hip about all things legal.
Anyone who follows these instructions deserves what they get. A mountain of paperwork dealing with intricate and complex laws, that makes peer reviewing the source for Windows XP seem like a walk in the park.
Want to know how to really handle SCO? Get yourself several bags of money and an IP lawyer who will tell you how to wait things out for the IBM suit.
People, IBM is mobilized, althought it may not seem like it. If SCO is not taking the IBM countersuit seriously, the officers are going to be lucky to escape with their freedom when all is said and done. IBM is going to snatch out their eye balls and grind them to the deck. IBM probably has a room full of manuals labeled "HOWTO Sue SCO" parts 1-255. All they had to do was walk down the bastard Unix wing, find the SCO room and dust them off.
This is waiting gamepeople. I know some of us have ADHD, but SCO is digging the hole, and IBM is letting them. Until any of you actually have a lawsuit or an invoice in your hands from SCO. SCO is all talk. Also, if they are distributing GPL code, and they are providing a method for getting the source...seems like they are compliant to me for that piece of software.
No.
Stock up today, tomorrow's press release:
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX - News), the owner of the Linux and UNIX(R) operating systems, today confirmed the guilt of Linus Torvalds, IBM and Red Hat. As SCO has consistently maintained, all rights to the Linux, UNIX and UnixWare technology, including the copyrights, were transferred to SCO as part of an Agreement between Linus Torvalds, IBM and Red Hat dated September 19, 1995. Any question of whether the Linux and UNIX copyrights were transferred to SCO under this Agreement was clarified in the signed confessions dated October 16, 1996.O GO )
.
SCO Confirms IBM and RedHat guilty
Friday, 22nd August, 8:01ET
Signed confession confirms guilt
LINDON, Utah, August 22
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990421/SCOL
"This agreement simply confirms SCO's long stated position that it owns all copyrights associated with the Linux, UNIX and UnixWare businesses, and IBM, Red Hat and Linus Torvalds are guilty of anything we feel like accusing them of" said Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager, SCOsource intellectual property division, SCO. The confession was signed by Linus Torvalds, various Red Hat offers, and Lou Gerstner, Opel and Akers of IBM.
The text of the confession states:
A. We accept that SCO owns all right and title to Linux, UNIX and UNIXware, including all our, and third party amendments to Linux.
B. Despite future denials we might publicly make, we, because we're among friends, admit to our guilt in any and all allegations that SCO may bring against us, now or in the future.
C. IBM transfers its ownership of all patents that it owns (it has now or may obtain in future), to SCO.
"SCO is the owner of the Linux operating system, as well as all of the Linux contracts, claims and copyrights necessary to conduct that business," said Sontag. "None of the litigation we are currently involved with asserts claims based on copyrights or patents. Because others have called into question SCO's ownership of the Linux copyrights, and IBM's patent portfolio, we are satisfied that we have now proven without a doubt that SCO owns those copyrights and patents."
About SCO
The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX - News) helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries around the world grow their businesses everyday. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a network of more than 11,000 resellers and 8,000 developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services, visit http://www.sco.com
SCO, Linux, UNIX and UNIXware and the associated SCO logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of their respective owners.
That the SCO pony show was created on a Windows box?
They used a M$ greek font and it was in M$ Power Point.
Anyone find that interesting like I do??
Think about it...
I'm reminded of a story I was told some time ago when IBM came knocking an a company-to-remain-nameless' door and claimed they were violating some patents and should license them. Coincidently, it was 4 patents they claimed infringement on. The company did their research and had a meeting the the IBM representatives and explained how none of those patents actually applied. The IBM people listened politely and replied that they do have a very large library of patents and if they didn't like those there were others...
In the end, the company decided to just license those first 4 patents and IBM left them alone.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
We, the Linux community, are spending a great deal of time attacking SCO for their actions, but I personally don't think they are the source of the problem. (Not to say they don't deserve all they get for being willing pawns.) I really think this whol thing is orchestrated by (drum roll please) Microsoft.
Sure, they are a favorite target and everyone in the Linux community loves to take a shot at them, but lets look at what we know.
1) Microsoft is a master of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) as a marketing approach to fight competition.
2) Just before (or maybe just after, I don't recall the exact timing) SCO started their assault, Microsoft signed an agreement with SCO for Unix technology (considered by many as something of little use to them).
3) Shortly after the assault by SCO began, Microsoft releases Windows Server 2003 with a large and still on-going campaign.
Every day that the SCO circus continues is another day of Microsoft spreading FUD about the competition. It has already been suggested (I think by SCO) that it could be well into 2005 before the case even reaches court. That's got to be worth a lot to Microsoft in marketing Server 2003. By getting SCO, a dying company by most accounts, to throw itself of the sword for a price, Microsoft apears to have its hands clean. (Similar to the way organized crime works, huh?)
I suspect there is a money trail or, even though they should know better by now, an e-mail or memo trail.
For the purposes of Microsoft, it doesn't matter how much of a circus SCO turns this into or if they even make it to court. I would suspect it never goes to court and SCO backs down. That way SCO execs walk away with their pockets full of M$ and Microsoft gets the marketing they wanted.
Again, PersonalOpinion
Executive summary:
There are three pieces of good news for SCO about the evidence they revealed on 18 August 2003. One is that the evidence does support a claim of code-copying; the second is that GPL is not in this case a usable defense; and the third is that BSD probably doesn't save us either. But the rest of the news is all bad for SCO: most of the supposedly infringing code was (a) released as open source by SCO/Caldera in 2002, (b) didn't come through IBM or Sequent, (c) isn't present in 90% of all running Linux distributions, and (d) was removed from Linux 2.5 in June 2003 on grounds of being too ugly to live. If this is representative of the quality of SCO's evidence, their case is dead on arrival.
Help fight continental drift.
I work in an architecture office. There is nothing worse than crappy computers. Its not that a fast new one wouldn't be better, that misses the point. When I put time consuming data into a computer, and need to retreive it reliably, many times, over a span of years or longer, it is more than a big problem if the system goes down. I have spent 3 years on a project, entire computer upgrade cycles have come and gone, but the drawing set is stuck with linkages started in 2000, and built upon with hundreds and hundreds of hours of work. Each part of a major design is spread over several machines as well, with linkages from consultants, engineers, et cetera, that CANNOT fail, or the drawing set goes to hell, chaos, wasted time and $$$ by the truckload. Everything goes down with it, if one critical machine goes down, and the entire staff is left surfing the net instead of working. The big stuff is always backed up, it is usually small enough, but you can NEVER recover the nuance of a finely tuned drawing setup. You don't need lots of space or fast speed, you need consistency and predicatbility. Computers are like light bulbs, if it goes out in your bathroom, no problem; if it goes out in an operating room you are dead.
...if SCO's IP was actually fully vetted, top to bottom, and all IP not belonging to them was outed, and it turns out the entire UNIX V project is free to all.
Booooyah! Got modded up twice too! To all moderators with a sense of humor, keep it coming!! To all moderators who are humor impaired, fuck off and die!
Something needs to be done these bastards are getting away with it. guess what morons, if the general public believes that SCO is right than they will win and Linux will die. /. community does not take immediate action that Linux will die. and you will be responsible for it. //// this is not a troll and if you mod me down i will find your computer hack it and, and crash it. ////
if you do not take action immediately, write your senator, sue sco, report them to the sec and the doj, if the Linux community does not take immediate and overwhelming action against sco, they will win and Linux will die.
instead of waisting your energy writing a post use it to right letters to the doj sec senate and house. than post about that. people who show proof of starting a law suit should be given 100+ karma points. if the
Is SCO Smoking Crack?
96.68% Yes and counting...
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
Ridiculous claims like he invented the question mark. If he is married to a web footed prostitute named Cloe, and likes to make meat helmets in the summer, I think I know Darl's true identity. THE FATHER OF DR. EVIL!
Because I'm going to buy all the code from System III Unix. Then I'll sue SCO!
I mean, SCO-Unix is obviously an illegal and unauthorized derivative of the System III Unix codebase.
(The same way that the mashed potatoes I ate when I was 3 years old means I'm derivative of a potato patch in Idaho...which means I'm legally bound to indentured servitude to a potato farmer.)
Can SCO really do anything about people running Caldera? Perhaps the Linux community could um use the Caldera Distro. I smell a download link ...
http://web.archive.org/web/20010603104324/www.cald era.com/support/download/
Collaboration on GNU projects, at least until that point in time, was considerably more regimented. Later, projects like egcs/gcc have moved to a more open model of the type pioneered by the Linux kernel.
None of this is to criticize RMS. RMS's contributions were very important. But Linus did stumble on to something else that was new.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I agree. You have to do something, if your copyrights are actually being infringed. However, from what I understand, SCO is walking a very thin line.
For example:
1) The only company actually served with a lawsuit has been IBM based on a contract dispute.
2) They are charging money, for a license that agrees to hold you harmless for use of any infringing code in the Linux operating system. As far as I can tell, they aren't actually breaking the law, if anything it sounds like they are selling SCO IP insurance.
3) They are absolutely right. There are matching lines of code in both SysV and Linux. Where they came from, why, and how, and all of that is an exersize for the courts to determine if it is a derivative work or not, and this is all back to their case against IBM. I think the real truth of the matter is SCO has publicly shown all of the infringing code in the Linux kernel. (for the slow and dim witted, I am making the point they haven't really shown any)
4) They are preparing lawsuits against Linux end users, especially the ones who use AIX, Dynix, and Linux. One company who I know they are preparing a suit against is IBM, who most certainly qualifies for operating all three. They aren't technically lying about doing this either.
5) The GPL is invalid under Federal Copyright law. This is a twist of words, but Copyright law doesn't exactly govern licenses for distribution, it defines the rights of the copyright holder. I think stuff like the UCITA would be more applicable, for the GPL.
6) SCO is still offering the source code for the Linux kernel, which means they are still in compliance with the GPL.
This is spin doctoring and FUD at it's legal best. They are pushing the edge of what is legal. Some would say that is shady and underhanded, others would say that is what having a good lawyer gets you.
Lawyers are masters at this. They are suppose to take the argument of my client helps out at the orphanage, and is finishing their PhD, while at the same time saying the opposition hasn't even finished their education and hangs out with little children in his spare time.
Enjoy the drama, until there is actually something to worry about. Redhat and IBM have probably actually lost money from actually being slandered, so the countersuit and pre-emptive suit makes sense. SCO has yet to actually issue a countersuit against Redhat AFAIK.
"When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." - Quote from the Caine Mutiny
No.
How about this ... modify the GPL and other open source licenses to specifically exclude use on SCO. Or better yet, require a license for use on SCO $1,399 for a single CPU server, $199 for a desktop machine ...
As for the whole wastefulness issue, it's a completely different debate in and of itself. I will say that we are wastefull and that we shouldn't be, but if wishes were fishes we'd all be butterflys.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If you've been smoking crack and (incidentally, just what is "crack"? I always thought it was something to do with the rectum, having been told on innumerable occasions to "stuff it up your crack, bro!") you haven't had the slightest urge to gratuitously insult strangers, threaten lawsuits and make an ass of yourself for the purpose of a transparent pump-and-dump scheme, you'd better take your suppliers to the cleaners. They been ripping you off, cuzzy-bro!
Make sure you check out the eWeek poll: "Is SCO Smoking Crack?"
Almost 97% have voted yes.. the other 3% must be smoking crack.
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
I'm not aware of any time limited liceses from SCO. Even OS 5.0.6 (End of life release) only posts warnings about not being registered, but it doesn't do anything about it other than give phone numbers for calling to report unlicensed installs.
On a more positive note, my employer is dropping technical support for SCO and going end of life on the SCO platform. A much needed action accelerated by SCO making such an ass of themselves.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.