Further Selections From the Mixed-Up SCO Files

grahamlee writes "It may be a case of 'do as we say, not as we do' over at the Santa Cruz Operation. The Netcraft statistics meter says that for the last year, SCO's web site has been served by Apache on Linux. Indeed, it's been more than a year since the site was ever served from a SCO Unix machine. So what is the possible reason for this? Your humble author suggests that SCO found themselves requiring a multithreaded web server, and as SCO UNIX is based on an ancient version of The UNIX spec it just couldn't cope ;-)." Read on for one of the strangest-yet turns to the SCO story, and several merely insipid ones.

An anonymous reader writes "SCO have made much of how their claims about UNIX code being improperly copied into Linux were verified by 3 teams including 'MIT Mathematicians.' However, MIT can't seem to find the mathematicians concerned!"

(SCO's explanation is that the company is talking about a team made up of people who formerly worked at MIT, rather than a group still associated with the school, but "due to contractual obligations, we cannot specifically name the individuals.")

kuwan writes "SCO has responded to the massive debunking of their 'evidence' last week. Chris Sontag claims that the BPF code was 'not intended to be an example of stolen code, but rather a demonstration of how SCO was able to detect "obfuscated" code.' That, however is a flat-out lie. If you look at their Obfuscated Copying slide (#15), it clearly states 'Obfuscated System V Code Has Been Copied Into Linux Kernel Releases 2.4x and 2.5x,' and then the slide labels the BPF code on the left as 'System V Code.'

At this point I think they realized that their case has been severly weakened and they need to spin it any way they can. And in their case this means more lying."

Captain Beefheart writes "According to this story over at The Inquirer (crediting a special edition of Terry Shannon's Shannon Knows HPC newsletter), SCO has officially announced that HP is safe from their infringement lawsuit brigade ... This leads one to suspect that HP is the Fortune 500 company that SCO claimed recently had paid for a license."

Maybe HP just wants to avoid Microsoft/BSA-style hassles: FatRatBastard writes "According to an article on Commentwire.com SCO has started sending invoices to Linux users. If a company signs up for SCO's 'Intellectual Property License for Linux,' they allow the possibility of being audited at SCO's expense to ensure that the user has been truthful about the number of Linux installations it has. Should the audit reveal that the user has underpaid SCO by 5% or $5,000, whichever is highest, the user also agrees to pay the price for the audit."

Blacklantern writes "The SCO lawsuit has made it into "Halloween Documents" gallery. Eric Raymond takes on the contents of the lawsuit point-by-point. "

Comments

Perfectly logical

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they own the underlying IP in Linux, they can use it for whatever they want. In fact ONLY they can. Why won't you people undertand this? Why does everyone think I'm joking??!??

Re:Perfectly logical

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the parent post is 100% correct. You need to re-read the post and then, and only then, will you realize that you are a complete tit.

Please remove your head. Can I put my giant scrotum on the top of your head?

Can /. do me a favour?

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

You've got a Mac /., and a games /., so why not a SCO /. and just save the rest of us (who aren't interested) the trouble?

Thanks.

licensing fees

[Frostalicious]

'do as we say, not as we do'

This doesn't apply. SCO doesn't want you to stop using Linux, they just want you to pay a licensing fee. One would take for granted that SCO does not need to pay themselves a licensing fee to run their webserver.

Re:licensing fees

[arcanumas]

But it does raise the question, If Linux indeed has code stolen from SCO then shouldn't SCO's OS be just as good? Did linux coders take it out in addition to stealing it?

Re:licensing fees

[11223]

Well if the code truly was stolen SCO wouldn't have it.

I hate the current collusion of theft and copyright infringement.

Why pay license fees now?

[Mr. Sketch]

Why would any company pay their license fees to SCO right now? They haven't proven anything yet, so it would stand to reason that _after_ SCO proves its case in court then companies can begin paying SCO license fees. As long as the issue is disputed, I see no reason any company would decide to pay a license fee to a company that just claims to own some IP without actually proving it.

Re:Why pay license fees now?

[DataPath]

I think some economics could answer that question. SCO can't ask a really high price for licensing right now. No one would buy it. Before they prove their case, low license fees.

After they would have proven it, though... They can milk that cow for all its worth until no one would buy or use linux. Then they get the multimillion dollar prize from Microsoft. Cash. To the execs.

Re:Why pay license fees now?

[Verteiron]

Ah, but companies who pay now will pay less. You can bet that if by some miracle of chance (or more likely, idiocy of judge) SCO wins their court case, companies who were given the "chance" to pay earlier will be paying a lot more afterwards.

It's a gamble: Pay a little now or risk a chance of paying a lot later. Pointy-haired bosses don't like gambles. If they can pay a little now to make the problem go away (and incidentally add strength to SCO's claims), they'll do so.

Re:Why pay license fees now?

[JoeBuck]

Almost all of it is from Microsoft, and for them it's a good investment if they can slow down Linux deployment by creating fear.

Re:Why pay license fees now?

[eyeball]

Apparently some people are paying license fees, If you take a look at their most recent Quarterly Report
they mention

"During the quarter ended April 30, 2003, we recognized $8,250,000, or 39 percent of our quarterly revenue, from our intellectual property licensing initiative, SCOsource, launched in January 2003."

Obviously some people are stupid enough to license.

If Enron taught us anything, it's that dollar amounts are not necessarily based on anything real.

Re:Why pay license fees now?

[MuParadigm]

"1) Don't ask for legal advice on /. We're not lawyers."

I suppose that's correct. Frankly, though, I don't see why anyone should need to consult a lawyer before telling an extortionist to piss off.

However, I feel no one should be given the advice to consult a lwayer in regard to SCO, without also being told that if they are planning on migrating to Windows, they had better consult a lawyer before clicking on any MS EULA.

Finally, not accepting any license from SCO should be a no-brainer at this point. Why pay hundreds of dollars for a contract worded in such a fashion as to make you liable for someone else's quote "IP" unquote infringements, and gives further rights to sue you to a company that has been historically litigious? Remember, according to SCO's CEO, "Contracts are what you use against those you have relationships with."

In fact, forget the lawyer. If you get an invoice, just scrawl the words "Piss off, Darl!!!" across the front of it, photocopy it for your records, and send it off to Darl McBride, c/o The SCO Group.

Since this advice is free, I disclaim all warranty and indemnification.

Lots of talk, little action

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are so many companies who are doing Linux business (SuSE, for example) complaining, but not unleashing their lawyers. The last thing SCO needs right now are more countersuits, which in turn makes it for us the first thing we should do right now.

Examples and exhibits

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at their Obfuscated Copying slide (#15), it clearly states 'Obfuscated System V Code Has Been Copied Into Linux Kernel Releases 2.4x and 2.5x,' and then the slide labels the BPF code on the left as 'System V Code.'

Actually that doesn't make it a "flat-out lie" - it could easily be interpreted as Sontag says. Think of it as a explanatory diagram rather than an example of alledged infringing code.

Doesn't matter whether you or I would interpret it that way, but whether a judge or jury can be made to. And that might even be what it really was - since they apparently don't want to release the code, they might have just picked something similar in style or lineage to illustrate their point without revealing the actual sources of their claim.

Re:Examples and exhibits

[dazk]

Yes, it might of course have been an explanatory diagram. Question is, what does it explain? It simply explains that there is code from other sources that was copied and unsed in the linux kernel. But what exactly does that tell the crowd? Nothing much really especially nothing at all related to SCO's claims. Additionally, why would they label the code Sys V code if it isn't Sys V code? Why would they risk being shot down in public the way they are if they actually have close to a million lines of code as they claim. What's a few lines for a slide out of about a million?

Naah, I think they used this piece because they really thought it was a good example and now they are backpaddeling and probably someone got his butt kicked for giving management "evidence" that useless.

My guess is that Darl McBribe will not so soon repeat the lines of code claim since they will probably do better checking and come up with much less lines if any. If he really doesn't repeat the close to a million claim I'd say that's a good indicator because they definately would if that number wasn't questionably in their minds.

BPF

[henbane]

Isn't it possible that something as obviously non-infringing as the BPF filter is just an effort to make the community relax? I can't see how anyone, even a company as litigious as SCO, could possibly be stuck with examples like this. You can dig the algorithm and comments from textbooks over 20 years old. If you was to use it in a college assignment as is it would just be considered proper use of the tools at hand so how can SCO possibly believe that it is infringement.

Am I the only one who believes there has got to be more to this claim? I know that all their actions seem to be designed and timed to boost their stock price every time it seems to be flagging a little from its already inflated position but surely BPF and similar code is not all they have?

Those AT&T contracts IBM signed were pretty damn restrictive and having read the responses from Perens and Raymond I can understand how someone "reasonable" with an understanding of the issues involved can see that this is not the same as a derivative work but we are talking about something coming from a legal point of view which doesn't always look at things reasonably especially when it comes to U.S. copyright law. Even though this is a contract dispute it still looks like it could become another copyright mess so I don't really understand the seemingly overwhelming confidence of the OSS community.

Re:BPF

[BooRadley]

First of all, this is a lawsuit. That hasn't made it to court. And probably won't.

Disclaimer: The following is my opinion, so if you are easily offended by sweeping generalities, outright ignorance, bad grammar, or misspellings, do not read further. Thanks.

The lawsuit states that IBM used licensed code from the UNIX kernel source to create some functionality or other in AIX and linux, which they redistributed. And that's all it says.

SCO will not allow IBM to see what the supposed "infringing code" is, so they are trying to maximize any damages, instead of helping to remedy the situation.

The only mention of going after Linux, Linux users, or the Free Software community that has been made has been utterly without any legal or court filing, and only through press release. SCO realized that the AIX user community didn't give two shits about their claims, and by extension IBM wasn't about to be blackmailed into buying them out. So falling back to plan B, they spewed one press release after another to generate all the press they could, and behold, their stock price has jumped through the roof.

IBM amd RedHat, on the other hand, have filed court motions to out SCO's proof, and to penalize them for unethical behavior, slander, tort, and all sorts of other slimy shit. Not to mention IBM's patent portfolio.

There has been no mention of copyright, patent, or any other intellectual property violation on sco's part, except through press release that they are "preparing" to sue someone.

I can say I'm "preparing" to light my farts and fly to the moon, but until I actually do it, it's not going to get a lot of attention.

SCO's going to get pounded into the ground, and until there is a motion of actual litigation on their part against someone for infringing code in linux, there's not much to get riled up about. Until then, it's just a contract dispute between sco and IBM.

So lighten up and go write some code!

Re:BPF

[Kismet]

The effect of the "Big Lie", as Hitler put it, is to suggest to reasonable minds that they must be in err. The claims are so preposterous, so fantastic, that we suppose we must have overlooked some critical piece of evidence. Therefore, we question ourselves and our conclusions. We say things like "I don't understand how we can be so confident about this."

This was a Nazi propaganda tool, and it was very effective. I see a lot of similarities today in the SCO case.

Part of our responsibility as reasonable thinkers, is to remove any bias we might have, and evaluate assertions on their factual merits. By removing our bias, we seek to give each side of the argument equal footing.

Many people believe that, if they are unbiased, then they are thinking reasonably. What we fail to realize is how facts and evidence can prove the truth of any assertion beyond reasonable doubt. People have a hard time with facts because facts tend to restore bias in favor of the truth. Reasonable people are uncomfortable being biased, and are therefore more susceptible to the Big Lie.

There are two sides of the SCO issue. The SCO side is supported entirely with allegations, without a single shred of factual evidence that has been disclosed to the public.

The other side has a mountain of facts to refute every allegation that SCO has made.

I suggest that it is unfair to give SCO an unbiased benefit of the doubt when all of the facts clearly contradict everything they have said. That would be like presenting a Suicide Cult as a reasonable doctrine for society to consider.

We have no reason to not be confident in our position. SCO has no proof of their claims, not a single bit.

Re:BPF

[Tony]

The stock scam angle, and the MSFT-puppet angle are just yammering conspiracy theories from linux zealots without the mental accumen to think outside the slashbot party line. I dont buy it.

The stock scam is the only angle that fits all the facts.

Fact: SCO has filed a lawsuit against IBM concerning breach of contract.

Fact: though not in any way related to the breach of contract (which would be incumbent upon IBM to provide renumeration should SCO win the suit), SCO has sent out letters to large Linux users demanding money. (I don't mean big-boned Linux users, of course.)

Fact: SCO has stated they have evidence proving their claims, but refuse to present the evidence.

Fact: SCO has kept upping the ante, their statements growing wilder and wilder each week. Oddly, their stock goes *up* after many of these wild, unsubstantiated, sometimes incoherent claims.

Fact: SCO execs are dumping their stocks, and their parent, The Canopy Group, is shuffling holdings around, "selling" portions of some Canopy companies to SCO in exchange for inflated SCO stock.

As the old saying goes, follow the money. This is all about the money, both from stock and from any Linux user stupid enough to pay the shakedown. SCO has no established legal right to demand money; they won't until after it has been judged in a court of law that their IP was misappropriated.

I believe there are many levels to this whole deal. The first is the stock scam angle, which is undeniably part of their scheme, whether they think they are right or not. Secondly, they appear to be trying to make a nuisance of themselves to the point IBM or Red Hat finally gets them to shut up by buying them outright. And, in a Shoot The Moon sort of gamble, they may just win in court and become one of the richest Unix companies in existence.

This isn't conspiracy theory; this is simply trying to explain all the facts. Do you have an explaination that covers all the facts?

This is more than a pump-and-dump scam, else they're about the most pathetically inept corporate criminals in history.

Hardly. Their legal claims against IBM have not changed substantially, and it is the legal aspect that matters, not their absurd public statements about owning millions of lines of Linux code. But, it is the public statements that are pumping up the price of SCO stock.

It's doubtful the SEC will look twice at SCO. It would be nice, but since they've not even managed to nail those Enron bastards, I don't see when they'll get around to picking up someone as penny-ante as SCO.

Lets ignore the fact that there are countless politically motivated anti-corporate types in the linux "community", any one of which would not hesitate to dump corporate IP into the kernel. SCOs allegations are not as far fetched as /. would have you believe.

And your proof for this is....? No, "My nose goblins told me so!" does not count.

It doesn't matter what /. thinks, as most on /. don't contribute to any Free Software project, let alone the kernel. Linus & co. have had an excellent history of removing *any* code which might not be completely untainted. Yes, it is possible for one person to claim corporately-created code as his own, and submit that; however, if that case were to arise, Linus would not hesitate to remove that code, as demonstrated both by statements on record and by past action.

And, as one of those "politically motivated anti-corporate types," I resent the statement that I do not respect the work of others. I would never claim another's work as my own; nor would I do anything with that work contrary to their wishes. Most other programmers I have met feel very strongly about this, as well, *especially* the Free Software crowd.

But, if you feel comfortable with your head in the sand and your fingers in your ears, please don't let me destroy your delusions.

BTW, IANAL, IDNPOOTV, ETC.

Re:Some wild speculation

[TMB]

Darl is no moron... he's making a tidy wad of cash selling stock that's risen dramatically in price on the promise of tons of licensing revenue...

[TMB]

Why mathematicians?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, I know, I should really RTFA before posting, but unfortunately where I am working they are severely watching all of our net access. Due to quite a few die-hard Linux fans, we are allowed to view /. but our non-relevant-to-coding sites are being restricted. As such, my subject:

Why mathematicians?

After recently completing my BSc in Computer Science with an extensive math background, why would SCO hire mathematicians to peruse software code? OK, maybe they are mathematicians who are proficient in computer software, but most of the mathematicians that I have been exposed to in university can use a computer to surf, but cannot write a line of code to save their lives. And then SCO wants us to believe that these mathematicians not only read the UNIX source code, but were somehow able to.. what? Identify that line 397 in UNIX is the same as line 397 in Linux? Any trained individual can do that. So why the big deal about (supposed) MIT mathematicians?

Re:Why mathematicians?

[X]

This is an information theory/pattern recognition problem. Something that mathematicians would be very good at. In a lot of ways, this is a lot like a cryptography problem.

It's sad when people in Computer Science don't realize that what they are doing is essentially math.

Anti-OSS bias in media?

[GreenCrackBaby]

I've been following the SCO case, and other IP-related cases, with great iterest -- collecting as many articles as I can about everything related. One thing I've noticed is that SCO's grandiose claims were plastered over all the business-related media pretty quickly, but all the rebuttal arguments (that make SCO's case looks like Swiss chesse) aren't showing up in the same outlets.

Unless some IT manager also read sites such as /., it's quite possible they would still believe SCO has a good case on their hands.

The whole thing is damning to Linux specifically, and open source as well. I cannot help but see a media bias against OSS. Anyone else notice this?

Re:Anti-OSS bias in media?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Funny, since a couple of years ago, people said there was a pro-OSS bias in the media, back when Linux was the darling child of the dot-com boom. In the end, it's not bias against OSS, it's bias toward controversy which gets readers. Just like Slashdot and its obsessive string of SCO and Microsoft hole stories.

Re:Anti-OSS bias in media?

[hackstraw]

Easy. The headline:

SCO sues IBM for 3.5 Billion for Contract violation

is business news. The retaliation:

Linux kernel programmers find that "stolen" code was actually BSD licensed

Is geek news, not business news.

Huh?

[heironymouscoward]

There are perfectly good - and fast - multithreaded web servers that will run on SCO, at least as fast or faster than Apache.

Xitami (which I admit I wrote huge chunks of) is one such beast.

SCO are stupider than I thought.

Re:HP supporting SCO?

[jorlando]

I think that 2001 is really appropiate, since that was the year that the merger with Compaq was approved.

IMO 2006 will be the year that the company formely known as HP, still using the HP brand but recognized only as the producer of crappy compuers, shitty scanners and so-so printers (but losing market share since people already will know the HP's expensive printers don't have quality or features to justify it's tag price) will say "uncle" and will "reinvent itself" with another smiling CEO... in more 5 years they'll be completely forgotten...

hail carly and her golden parachute!

Re:invoicing

[hackwrench]

What and get on their radar? Now that you've called them they are probably preparing a lawsuit to get more than $100k from you right now.

Re:Some wild speculation

[El]

They have no expectation of winning the lawsuit... they plan on having all their shares of stock sold before they get a judgement! Yes, it's a crazy world where you can run up your share prices by spouting bullshit... but then, people have been put in jail for less obvious frauds.

Step 2: ?

[chundo]

Well, I think they've just spelled out part 2 of their business plan.

Step 1: Declare the GPL invalid, and claim ownership of Linux.
Step 2: Steal liberally from Linux source code in order to reinvigorate their nearly-dead OS.
Step 3: Profit.

Granted, step 1 is a long shot, now 'm starting to see other ways they could benefit from this lawsuit besides a hefty settlement from IBM.

-j

How about

[bongoras]

I know... this is a radical idea...

Why don't you try... NOT CLICKING THE FUCKING LINK if you don't want to read the story? If you don't want to read stories about SCO... the DON'T READ THE STORIES ABOUT SCO!

or is that too simple? Is it better to click the link, read the story, find a good spot to bitch, and then bitch and bitch about how much you don't want to read the story? FINE, don't read it! Bye! /me sits to watch his karma disappear

Re:Some wild speculation

[steveha]

There has been speculation that Darl and company wanted to make a big noise, and that IBM or someone would buy SCO to make the noise go away. This would avoid an Enron-like ending.

It quickly became clear that IBM didn't intend to buy SCO, but was (and is) willing to fight SCO forever in court. But perhaps by then they felt they were committed.

steveha

Re:"no provisions for refunding IP license fees"

[Anonymous Coward]

can they get away with this once the courts decide that they're full of shit?

If the mobsters shaking down your corner store finally get arrested, do you think they would offer refunds?

This is really no different.

Re:Boycott Canopy Group Companies

[Creepy Crawler]

Yeah, and guess who else is owned by Canopy group???

(ting ting ting!) QT by TrollTech. And you wondered why Stallman was worried about a non-free widget set becoming popuar in use in linux...

Re:Why would anyone buy a license?

[A Commentor]

The 'one' Fortune 500 company that bought the licenses, had to be Microsoft. I'm sure they have linux boxes for competitive analysis, review, etc. There is no better way to supply cash to someone that is doing your dirty work, than to pay for these licenses. If they just handed over cash, it would look too fishy.

Re:Some wild speculation

[DashEvil]

1) Lie
2) Sell stock
3) ???
4) Live in Mexico

Re:Some wild speculation

[Tony]

The top execs are not selling their stock, or else they might draw the fire of the SEC.

What's happening instead is a shuffling of stock to other Canopy Group shell companies, and it is dumped from there. Bruce Perens supplied a link in one of the commments around here someplace. So, the deal is probably like this:

While SCO has stock that is worth something more than toilet paper, they "buy" companies already owned by their parent company, The Canopy Group. The Canopy Group liquidates those stocks, and at the end, Darl and Friends get a nice hefty bonus, as SCO stock tanks.

It's a nice scam, if you can get it.

Re:Get your facts straight

[Newtonian_p]

Wouldn't that be a bit stupid since there's a UnixWare port of Apache.

Re:Vultus runs Windows. SCO walked away from Unix

[tarranp]

Basically, SCO printed more stock, and gave it to Canopy which then sold it to speculators at an inflated price.

They gave the stock to canopy in return for equity in Vultus.

Thus, Canopy reduced their stake in SCO slightly (while making SCO slightly more valuable equitywise), which is pretty much a null action, while selling shares to speculators at a very inflated price.

The money is coming from people who buy SCO stock in hopes of getting rich if SCO gets bought out or wins its lawsuit, and people looking to short SCO stock.

Though thinking about this, I am reminded of a great bit of imagery in Bujold's "Shards of Honor"
"'Put all the bad eggs in one basket,' she muttered. 'And--drop the basket?'"

Re:Where might a recipient of a SCO 'invoice' stan

[Anonymous Coward]

so what exactly should those who recieve one of these do? Just ignore it? Throw it away? Talk to a lawyer?

If you are lucky enough to get one of these, do these things:

Call them back and try to get ALL the information possible from them about what they are selling you, why, and what is the proof. Document where possible. Do this so later you can say you made a good faith effort to try to ask what code you are recieving a license to and on what grounds.

Call up your state attourney general IMMEDIATELY and complain, say you think they are running a scam, note they're demanding money for something they didn't create and won't even provide proof that is in infringement, etc.

CONSIDER a small claims court case for deceptive trade practices. Even if you have no basis for this and lose, it will air SCO's dirty laundry in public, which is all that needs to happen to trash their stock price.

The last two steps here are MUCH easier if you've recieved one of these mythical invoices.

Re:Sorry, try again

[11223]

Nope. Not at all. I'm anal about it because it's being used by our legislatures and courts, who should know better. This is our lives they're screwing with, and we deserve people who at least can understand the legal differentiation.

The courts ruled in the 50's that copyright infringement is not stealing.

Re:Get your facts straight

[4minus0]

OpenUNIX, formerly UnixWare, which is about as modern as UNIXes get

About as modern is correct. OpenUNIX is UNIX95 certified as seen here.
As modern as UNIXes get is UNIX98 (according to The Open Group). Which as you can see by the link does not include OpenUNIX.

Recognized revenue ain't money in the bank

[NetworkImpossible]

Recognized revenue means income they booked. This is not necesssarily received. Indeed, it almost certainly isn't.

What we're looking at here is a bunch of receivables. Ever tried to collect on a bill? (or have someone try to collect from you!)

Some of it may be from MSFT and Sun, the only two known licence holders, and some may be paper shuffling with other Canopy group shell firms. "Three Card Monte" comes to tech.

Re:How'd they miss this???

[jeti]

>> "It's like a house that hasn't been maintained in a few years,"
>> McBride said. "We're going to come back and spruce the place up."

> Sure, a little paint and some nifty accents from Pottery Barn,
> and SCO will be swimming in cash, right??? Thanks again,
> Darl, for making my day just a little funnier...

No, no, no. You misunderstand. SCO UnixWare Ng will be an
up to date, enteprise-worthy OS. They just need to wait for
Linux 2.6 to get final before they can create it by ripping out
all these misattributed copyright notices.

SCO knows what it owns.