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SCO Says IBM is Beating Up on Them
SCO's McBride claims that IBM is stage-managing all the attacks and bad press, which would probably explain why I cleared this article with IBM World Headquarters before running it (not!). The publisher of Linux Journal invites SCO to sue. One of SCO's lawyers has this barely coherent interview where he spouts legal rubbish for a gullible reporter. There's an interview in German (machine translation) with SCO's execs. And finally, SCO is still hoping for a settlement with IBM. Update: 08/22 18:26 GMT by M : ESR responds.
... didnt ask any questions about the BSD involvement. almost like she didnt know about bruce peren's findings. yet, the day before (8/20) she published an article with peren's assertions. question becomes: when did this interview take place?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I've talked to him via e-mail. He's very pragmatic and tends to be a racehorse with blinders on.
"However, SCO's public relations (PR) department has had a busy few months. McBride proudly dumped two phone-book-sized binders of press clippings on the stage during his SCO Forum keynote on Monday as proof that his company had become more relevant in the high technology industry. SCO has issued 46 press releases since filing suit against IBM on March 7. Last year it issued only 29 press releases between March and August."
;-)
More relevant in the high tech industry? Just by spouting trash all this time will make you more relevant? I guess writing good code and marketing it properly wasn't part of the business plan after all. Sad.
"McBride also pointed to the involvement in the dispute of the Free Software Foundation, whose legal counsel, Eben Moglen, has issued a position paper critical of SCO, and Linus Torvalds, who has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Unix company. "You've got all of these guys and it looks like the whole world is coming against SCO. It's really IBM that has wired in all of these relationships," he said. "That's why it looks like they're sitting back and not doing anything. It's us fighting a whole bunch of people that they put on the stage."
What's amusing here is that SCO doesn't realize that it really IS the whole community going after them and they REALLY HAVE pissed off everyone on the planet. WTF did they think would happen? We would simply bend over and pay up like good little lemmings?
Speaking of which... I still haven't received any payments from SCO for the use of my code in UnixWare. I'm pretty sure it's there. Honest
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Regarding the interview with the lawyer, I got the impression he was largely spouting the party line for his client. It did feel rather incoherent and he honestly didn't seem to believe what he was saying.
Meanwhile back at SCO, apparently they're not buying crazy because they've got a stock of it. Claiming IBM is orchestrating some conspiracy to attack them is just another one of the bizarre psychological acrobatic displays we've seen from SCO, admittedly one of the more impressively stupid ones since this started.
Looking at the articles, I'm feeling SCO is stuck in a "ratchet it up until they give in" mentality, where they'll keep making attacks and outrageous claims until someone gives in and buys them or gives them lots of money. However, they have to count on people backing down - which isn't really happening. Since they have no other options, I think they're going to keep at it.
I actually do wonder just how in touch with reality some of the SCO execs are. Now that they've committed to a business path based on lawsuits and dubious legal claims, they can't really back out, so it seems they're becoming wrapped up in the worlds they created to justify their claims.
Expect it to get even more insane.
Get your popcorn out.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
That interview was full of softball questions. What are the questions I would ask?
The Open Source community has shown pretty definitively that the source code you displayed was not stolen. Was that your best shot and if not, show me your best shot now, not under NDA.
Your theory of a derivative work is really stretching. Would you please tell me why you think that JFS is a derivative work of Unix? Under a theory that makes JFS a derivative work, aren't you saying that all Unix device drivers are also derivative works? What are the limits to your theory of derivative works?
SCO insiders have been dumping a lot of stock lately. Why aren't your execs holding onto what should become a vastly more valuable commodity?
I'm sure others can add a bunch more hard hitting questions. The interview was a fluff piece at best.
Quote:
Uhhhmmm... It isn't fair to make fun of people with learning difficulties, I know; but -- they pay this guy to work as a lawyer? He can't even construct a sentence!
And then further down he says:
Well, no you're not, but only because the SCO Group is just a new name for Caldera. You'd forgotten these ones, had you, Mark?
Documentation/networking/tlan.txt:(C) 1997-1998 Caldera, Inc.
drivers/net/tlan.c: * (C) 1997-1998 Caldera, Inc.
drivers/net/tlan.h: * (C) 1997-1998 Caldera, Inc.
net/ipx/af_ipx.c: * Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc. <greg@caldera.com>
net/ipx/af_ipx.c: KERN_INFO "IPX Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc.\n" \
You know what would be really interesting (editors, bloggers, are you listening)? It would be really interesting to hear what Marcus Meissner <Marcus.Meissner@caldera.de> and Greg Page <greg@caldera.com> think about all this.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Considering there is 12.6Mu shares outstanding and 40% directly owned by Canopy and 20% indirectly, yesterdays volume is 8% or so of "normal" outstanding tradebable shares.
So question arrises WHO IS BUYING especilly after the code snippet flap earlier in the week.
Consensus, most likely MS' investment arm.
It's the quid pro quo for SCO committing legal suicide.
Help fight continental drift.
The more I read of SCO's garbage, the more I think that SCO Really Does Not Get It.
:)
I think that McBride and Cronys really do believe in their heart of hearts that people are not capable of organizing, co-ordinating, and for that matter, producing functional code, without the direct support of some company as a mastermind.
When you think about it, the forces and processes behind Linux and other Open Source/Free Software are so contrary to what are taught at business schools that it must threaten to make your average MBA's head explode.
In many ways, the whole Free Software movement is a direct refutation of the core principles of the MBA curriculem* I can't wait to see how Alan Cox does on his MBA.
When one reads an SCO press release, one cannot help but imagine a group of dinosaurs confronted by an ice age - and mammals.
DG
* One may interpret through this that I think Free Software in inheritly Communist - and I don't agree. One of the central principles of Communism is Central Planning, and that's NOT how Linux etc development is done - it's more like a free market of ideas. Where the MBA-brainfuck comes in is that this "free market" has absolutely nothing to do with MONEY. There's no PRODUCT here - instead, it's a "free market" designed to provide something for the common good.
So we have a quasi-Capitalist process - with no capital, per sae - in the service of a quasi-Communist ideal. This is, I think, something new and scary, and this fear colours everything coming out of SCO.
Ah, brave new world!
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Nope, it's not paranoia, it's desperation!
There's no clearer sign that SCO is walking on thin ice here than the desperation of their tactics lately.
Desperate acts:
* They accuse IBM of being this manipulating orwellian company that could somehow motivate us open source advocates to hate them.
* They claim the GPL is invalid on grounds that would effectively destroy the publishing industry if upheld.
* They make many of their claims sound like legal claims without actually filing them in court
They are trying to win a war of public opinion to infalte the stock price. They will lose in court, without question, so they are doing everything they can to try to make IBM bail them out.
IBM is an evil corporation, don't get me wrong, but it's nice to see them excercising a little enlightened self interest and playing chicken with SCO.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
They are claiming they are the copyright owners and that as such only they have the right to put the code under GPL and that if IBM (or anyone else) put that code out under GPL it is meaningless because they never had the right to do so.
The question of whether SCO distributing Linux has made the code available under GPL only comes into play if IBM don't own copyright in that code.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Hmmmm - let's see:
- SCO ammends lawsuit to claim damages done by IBM's 'interference' with their business.
- SCO announces new 'secure' initiative (don't they all)
- Darl McBride claims that the original BSD/AT&T lawsuit is invalid and therefore not relevant to SCO, i.e. 'All Code Are Belong To Us'
- SCO accuses the GPL as promoting communism in China, socialism in Europe, and drug use in California.
- David Boies will never make another appearance unless SCO 're-rents' him for another day.
- SCO will continue to reap the benefits of open source projects like GCC and SAMBA and yet slam the GPL for being too 'restrictive' on IP.
Far Future Prediction:
SCO's execs will be living in luxury on some tropical island while their customers, users, resellers, and programmers get totally screwed.
"That's just the way it is. Some things will never change." - Bruce Hornsby
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I posted this thought as an Ask Slashdot submission, but it was rejected, so I'll state it here.
Perhaps it's time for Linux developers to consider suing SCO for slander. After all, SCO is accusing them of theft and therefore damaging their reputations, which not only hurts Linux, but could hurt the developers' ability to advance their careers. Would you hire a programmer accused of stealing code to put into his software? And note that SCO won't precisely define what they allege is stolen or who stole it, but it is crystal clear that they're accusing Linux developers of illegal acts.
Suing SCO will have at least two consequences. First, it'll make SCO clearly define and prove their allegations. Second, any lawyer worth his salt will ask a judge to slap a temporary restraining order on SCO to stop their constant threats and accusations.
Any developers out there who want to consider this?
Ms. Bowman:
Yes, copyright law governs, but Mark Heise's interpretation of copyright law is one that would not pass muster in a beginning journalism copyright course, and would get well-buttered dinner rolls hurled at him if he presented it in an after-dinner speech in front of any professional writers' organization.
USC 17 106 Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4-6 deleted because they only deal with visual arts)
If the owner of the copyrighted code wants to authorize, via the Gnu Public Licence or the Lesser Gnu Public Licence, or a license of the owner's own devising, unlimited reproduction and distribution and modification into derivative works, they can do it. USC 17 106 says they have the EXCLUSIVE rights to do so. And when licensing one's work, one can place restrictions in the license if one wishes. The GPL has a "poison pill" restriction in it: if you violate the GPL, the GPL ceases to apply, and your permission to copy and distribute and modify also ceases, making you immediately in violation of USC 17 106, and immediately infringing upon the copyright of the author or authors of the work.
As for the USC 17 301 that Heise cites, claiming that it pre-empts the GPL, I sincerely hope he did not say what your article said he said: The section he cited has nothing at all to do with the author's absolute right to authorize use of the author's work:
301 Preemption with respect to other laws
(a) On and after January 1, 1978, all legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright as specified by section 106 in works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression and come within the subject matter of copyright as specified by sections 102 and 103, whether created before or after that date and whether published or unpublished, are governed exclusively by this title. Thereafter, no person is entitled to any such right or equivalent right in any such work under the common law or statutes of any State.
... that does not affect the GPL at all. It does prevent the states from writing their own copyright laws, and nullifies any such laws they might have had before January 1, 1978. Heise fails to grasp that the GPL is not a law, it is a "license" in the legal sense of the word, and it does not conflict with USC 17 in any way. It is merely a widely used way to grant rights which a copyright holder is authorized to grant by USC 17 106.
The way I see it, an attack on one member of the Open Source community is an attack on all of us.
I don't see this as just an attack on the Open Source community. This is an attack on our society, because it is an abuse of our legal system. As far as I'm concerned, abusing the legal system is worse than breaking the law. I noticed in an article that some SCO users, who even had booths at SCO Forum, were outraged by what this company is doing. And has been doing. Forbes points out that SCO has pulled this same shit with Microsoft -- and won. In this case they bought the rights to an old, 'decrepit' version of DOS and proceeded to sue the shit out of Redmond. They are crafty bastards. And they basically leverage intellectual property law to fuck other people over. Obviously.
This kind of behavior, taken to these extremes, has the potential to seriously disrupt the fabric of our society. Especially since our society is becoming increasingly dependant on software. If SCO wins, which they might (I mean hell, they beat MS), their example has the potential to make the software industry even more litigious, even less focused on solid product design and just generally shittier. EVERYONE should be up in arms about this... Darl McBride makes Bill Gates look like freakin RMS.
The only thing that came close to pissing me off this much was when Rosa Parks sued Outkast -- although the stakes were much, much lower.
Maybe partying will help...
Just by spouting trash all this time will make you more relevant?
No, but it will give SCO grounds for it's next round of lawsuits, against the news media. Those press releases are SCO's intellectual property, you know!
Of course, the media's lawyers may bleat that the press releases came from SCO attached to terms that allowed redistribution, but that's just as stupid as the people who have copies of the Linux kernel from ftp.sco.com; just because you receive a license for SCO's IP directly from SCO doesn't mean they can't sue you for using it, you know!
This is just like in politics. I've noticed many times that the bad guy accuses the good guy of doing what the bad guy himself is doing. From what I've seen, it is a pretty good indicator of the bad guy's own tactics.
Facts are stubborn things.
The SCO lawsuit, then, is a conspiracy by Microsoft against Open Source.
Baahh! You say! Here's the Evidence:
There you have it. Microsoft is SCO. Have you indulged in your favorite conspiracy theory today?
Cheers!
-Mybrid