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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."
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.
I really respect the guy. I hope that he is around when Linux finally overtakes the OS world once and for all.
Well, they are smoking crack.
The funny thing about this whole mess is that it just doesn't seem to matter how clear it becomes that SCO is just completely insane -- people in the press still put on a game face and act like they are serious. That is truly, truly sad.
I want to see an article from a non-open source advocate called "SCO is Smoking Crack". Maybe the judge will hold as much.
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?
I wish someone would analyze the IBM patent claims. Unlike SCO, IBM has named specific patents. It should be rather easy for someone familiar with SCO's products to assess whether these are hair-brain patents or real-deal patents.
I understand people don't like software patents (I don't either), but given that the law is otherwise, I'm interested in how credible IBM's counterclaims are going to be.
Thinkgeek needs to put this priceless quote on a t-shirt and donate the proceeds to the legal fund RedHat created.
Generally, no. I work with NDA material that's subsequently leaked (by other parties) all the time, and usually it's the leak-er that's considered at fault, not the person who republishes the leak. Presumably SCO could go after whoever sent the powerpoint pitch or took digital photos of the slides if they could find them.
Most of the companies I know that find sensitive material that is still marked "confidential" re-published by the press simply request that it be removed, but it appears that the reporting on the material itself is fairly well protected; I would imagine Bruce's commentary would fall under the reporting but things like slide photos or the slides themselves (if the "confidential" remained on the slide during the presentation) might be iffy.
As an aside, a lot of companies knowingly let "confidential" documents leak as a way of unofficially distributing the information. SCO could be hoping that this would result in very damaging reports without ever having to provide the code snippets publically -- it leaves an out of deniability "that was an internal document never meant for the outside world and it wasn't reviewed by our lawyers for accuracy, yada yada"
But this is SCO, so the fact that Bruce used the same alphabet as SCO in his report is probably grounds enough for them.
Obviously it doesn't matter in that sense. But it's a great vindication of all of us that have been skeptical of SCOs claims, because it's exactly the kind of thing we predicted. It's, at worst, a piece of BSD licensed code that should have had a copyright notice preserved that got lost along the way. This isn't the sort of thing you can justify a $3billion lawsuit on, regardless. They should have sent an email and asked for the copyright notice to be replaced, that's what anyone else would have done.
On top of that, it's code contributed by SGI, so they're on the hook for actual damages (not bloody much) but even if SCOs novel ideas about suing users were correct, they couldn't sure more than about 5 people over this anyway. It's a file that's used only to support one of SGIs old machines, it's totally irrelevant to the vast majority of users.
Wrong.
First off there's no such thing as 'IP rights' per se, that's just a rubric used to cover four different sorts of rights; patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets.
SCO has no related patents, so that's not an issue. SCO doesn't own the Unix trademark (the Open Group does) and even if they did that's not an issue here. Copyright doesn't prohibit learning from someone elses code, only copying it outright, so it doesn't back up your claim.
A trade secret would come closest - if someone saw the code under NDA and then copied it into Linux, then that person would definately be liable. But only that person, and the trade secret status of the code would be ended.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Also, don't pay the extortion when the letters start getting sent out!
Step 1) We need to arrange a class action against them the moment the first individual is sued. Let's be 100% cohesive here, to fight one Linux user is to fight us all.
Step 2) Ensure that language is in our class action that we stipulate no payment ("relief") whatsoever until all pending litigation concerning this matter (IBM. Redhat) is brought to a close and found for SCO. If there is no finding for SCO, then make SCO liable for our legal costs.
I proudly run the 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels.
Hedley
It's interesting that the slides mention XFS and NUMA, two SGI contributions. Also, the BSD malloc() seems to have come from SGI, by way of HP. Will SCO "revoke" the Irix, Tru64, and HP-UX licenses?
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.
It might be a good idea to write to the Utah attorney general office as well.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
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
""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.
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...
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.
They're silly but probably valid under our current system; e.g., one of them is a patent on tree-structure GUI widgets for system configuation.
And they have a million more. I'm infringing about twenty-three IBM patents just by posting this.
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.
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.
It's true that, in this imperfect world, Bad Things sometimes happen to Good Software.
But, while the judge might not know much about Linux or malloc() or any of that, the judge most likely knows quite a bit about copyright law. (probably has three or four books citing copyright related case law in his chambers too) If Perens can lay out a fairly convincing argument in a single web page, I think IBM and it's army of vicious attack sharks/lawyers should be able to more or less decimate SCO's claims without every getting much into the technical side of things. The case is about ownership and copyright more than it is about what the malloc() function actually does.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
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!
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.
SCO executives have already been dumping their stocks. I doubt the SEC will get involved too, but that's because they're understaffed and have bigger fishes to fry.
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?
That's the "fallacy of a balanced story" in action. Usually you see this effect in politically controversial coverage - one "side" makes a fairly reasonable, if a bit biased, statement and the other side says something totally whacko that sounds like it might be reasonable if the only background in the topic you have is the news coverage itself.
I bet if I were to actually cite such a case in current events I'd get modded up to +5. Instead, I'll just do something equally inflammatory and say, "turn to any major news channel - CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Al-Jazeera - and you'll see it in almost every story they carry." You just might not recognize it as such since your background in the story topics is probably as limited as the general population's background in unix/linux.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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 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...
Sure first things first you have to consider that SCO and the intellectual property it holds are not the only ones running on multiprocessor systems. SUN, IBM, Cray etc etc have been doing it for years. IBM in fact has been doing it for ages before even UNIX itself existed. So why couldn't IBM have put their knowledge into Linux.
Next think about the fact that if other people have written this sort of code before then other people can too.
Also do not be blinded by the big words SCO uses. SCO wants to make it sound hard with their 25 years claims but how long did it really take? How long before UNIX ran on those machines anyway? Was the original code written in a state of the art UNIX lab or just a university lab by university students?
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
Can you explain why you think it might be true? It's not very plausible. It's not as if multi processor systems are amazing new technology, they just got cheap in the past few years, so everyone and his dog took a look at the literature to work out how to make the most of them.
That is not, of course, to say there is no skill involved in doing it well but we are not talking about the cutting edge of blue-sky computer science.
BTW `a fraction of a millisecond'? How impressive is that! SCO has the technology to implement a semaphore in less than a million instructions!
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Sure first things first you have to consider that SCO and the intellectual property it holds are not the only ones running on multiprocessor systems. SUN, IBM, Cray etc etc have been doing it for years. IBM in fact has been doing it for ages before even UNIX itself existed. So why couldn't IBM have put their knowledge into Linux.
Not only that, but IBM et al have published in excruciating detail their basic methodologies for handling multiprocessor systems in hardware and software. I would not be surprised if a lot of their ideas were taught in certain decent universities for decades. It is not impossible for a good developer to be able to take publicly available ideas and code and start to work up something like multiproc support. Hell, Linus started the Linux kernel based on coursework and x86 docs he had at hand over a couple of months.
Clearly, IBM and others have improved Linux in these areas and they have many many decades of expertise in these fields. No one needed a drop of SCO code to do any of this.
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.
Actually, they better care. If it is 100% bullshit, and they know about it, they will probably be looking at an SEC investigation for stock manipulation as well as shareholder lawsuits.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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...
I certainly don't agree with this. 'Just a university lab by university students' tends to be the state of the art. Especially if the students are PhD students. I have never done anything in industry even remotely as state of the art as I did as a PhD student.
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>
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.
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.
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.
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!
Hmm ... that would have been funnier if Linus
actually came from Iceland :-(
>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
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
Yeah -- although I'm seeing more explicit than implicit bias these days anyway. People are becoming more polarised in these dangerous times. :(
I just see a lot of people claiming that, for example, American news media is biased to the right or to the left; it all depends where you're standing. Similarly with tech issues. A lot of journalism is based on profit first, ideology second anyway, so they'll be saying what they think people with money want to hear, or at least what will bring in the advertisers (controversy, shock and horror -- "if it bleeds, it leads").
deus does not exist but if he does