Slashdot Mirror
Further Selections From the Mixed-Up SCO Files
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. "
It seems to me that SCO is just trying to get a "free" updated version of their old code. Which from the sounds of things has been vastly improved since they have had any updates done to it.
who is been invoiced? that link contains no useful info. big companies? random users? anyone have any more info?
OK, this is just a crazy thought I suppose, but why in the world would a company the size of SCO take on a company the size of IBM if they knew their claims were bull? Is it that their claims are "just arguable enough" in a court of law, and they think somehow that choosing the right jurisdiction with the right judge will net them a win? I.e. Choose a really clueless judge in a really backwards jurisdiction or some such crap like that? Or maybe they already have a judge up their sleeve? Or some other MAJOR leverage point that will make this worth their while?
I just don't see how any person could act so completely ridiculously in a business setting. Then again, the boom of the '90's gave us such wonder-boys as the Enron exec's, so maybe it's not so far fetched that Darl really is a "moron."
How many of you would do business with a company who would buy a license from SCO?
I think buying a license, and then allowing it to be public knowlege that you did so would be corporate suicide. Unless you didn't want Linux (or to an extent, Unix) to succeed.
Vip
SCO's web site has been served by Apache on Linux. 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
If SCO needed a multithreaded web server, why would they use Apache 1.3.14?
cpeterso
I'd much rather see a FUD section. SCO will go away (how long is anyone's guess) but the FUD is going to be a long term problem.
If not FUD maybe a *nix section, but I think FUD would be more interesting.
Quack, quack.
Anyone here works at a place that actually got one of these "invoices" from SCO?
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
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.
The latest SCO acquisition is Vultus, which even sounds evil. The SCO stockholders are the eventual losers, but I find it difficult to develop sympathy for someone who buys into a shakedown racket.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
But Sontag said the BPF routines were not intended to be an example of stolen code, but rather a demonstration of how SCO was able to detect "obfuscated" code, or code that had been altered slightly to disguise its origins. The slide displaying the code should have been written differently to reflect that intention, he said.
But that slide said "one example of many", didn't it? I wonder how far Sontag can fit his foot in his mouth.
This definitely sounds like a candidate for the We Love the SCO Information Minister page.
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Unfortunately, it looks more like Darl wants to do an episode of "Trading Spaces" with Linux. Something like he gets to bring over all the good Linux ideas into SCO in exchange for licensing his vaunted SCO Unix Intellectual Property.
This makes for an interesting approach to covering all the Linux IP that SCO has been stealing.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
SuSE, as you gave for an example, is in Germany where SCO was given a "put up or shut up" mandate, which is a part of the German legal system.
SCO hasn't said anything to any Germans since.
Maybe.......
CHAPTER 17. DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES
SUBCHAPTER E. DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
17.46. Deceptive Trade Practices Unlawful
Text of subd. (24), as amended by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 962, 1, effective Sept. 1, 2001.
(24) failing to disclose information concerning goods or services which was known at the time of the transaction if such failure to disclose such information was intended to induce the consumer into a transaction into which the consumer would not have entered had the information been disclosed;
It would seem by not divulging exactly what they are trying to license they are breaking the above law. If they said gimme $699 for GPL code would you buy it?
Do you want to know what's really intersting and funny?
IP block ir.sco.com
OrgName: Sequent Computer Systems, Incorporated
OrgID: SCS-65
Address: 1000 River Street
City: Essex Junction
StateProv: VT
PostalCode: 05452
Country: US
NetRange: 170.224.0.0 - 170.227.255.255
CIDR: 170.224.0.0/14
NetName: SEQUENT-B
NetHandle: NET-170-224-0-0-1
Parent: NET-170-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS1.RALEIGH.USF.IBM.COM
NameServer: NS2.RALEIGH.USF.IBM.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 1995-04-21
Updated: 2001-04-06
TechHandle: ZI22-ARIN
TechName: Role Account
TechPhone: +1-866-373-6714
TechEmail: noc@ibm.com
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2003-08-26 19:15
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
So the one SCO Server which still works and coincidentally is for Investor Relations is hosted on the IBM Global Network (I think), and the IP block is still registered for Sequent. The irony.
OK, even assuming Chris Sontag (who's rapidly replacing McBride as "Biggest Idiot I've Ever Seen In Charge Of Something He Has No Idea About") honestly intended the BPF code to be an 'example', he missed the point.
It's not obfuscated code. Not at all. It's a clean room implementation, and if he doubts it, he can go to the door of the person who wrote it, and kiss his ass.
Second, they argue that the malloc() implementation is still valid, even after Linus says "well, it was removed" - ignoring the screams by the damned authors of the code saying "Screw off, SCO, it's OUR code, we wrote it, go the hell away."
For everyone out there that thinks there might be something to their claims, there isn't. They're idiots. There's absolutely nothing intelligent that they've pointed out at all, and they've simply proved that they're really attempting a shell game. No, no, look in the other hand. That's where we've got the infringing code!
There was an article a week or two ago suggesting this, that any company that receives an invoice should file mail fraud charges against SCO! They are trying to bill companies for something that they have no right to bill for (fraud), and they are doing it through the mail (I presume).
Besides getting postal investigators in on the action, in the worst case scenario, i.e., SCO wins everything, companies can claim that they were waiting on the outcome of the mail fraud investigation and so shouldn't be liable for any extra damages due to failure to pay in a timely manner.
In summary, please publicise the suggestion that any company who receives an invoice for Linux from SCO file mail fraud charges!
This is all pretty amusing stuff, but I can't believe they left this story out:
I just wish the slashdot editors would check the submitted blurbs against the content of the articles, even superficially.
HP Doesn't appear to claim or remotely imply they might have bought licenses from SCO, or that they recognize SCO's outrageous claims in any sense whatsoever. Indeed, this article seems to indicate that they are ignoring SCO, as everyone else ought to as well (the trial will determine this, and the judgement, while virtually a foregone conclusion -- SCO loses, will determine what, if any, licensing fees anyone should pay.
HP LAST WEEK claimed that it doesn't infringe on the copyrights SCO claims it owns on Linux, according to a special edition of Terry Shannon's Shannon knows HPC newsletter.
The newsletter quoted Linux business strategist Mike Balma as saying at HP World that while HP didn't comment on law suits, HP "has found no infringement issues" using Linux.
The same newsletter claimed that HP has 3.2K Linux boxes installed throughout HP.
It seems rather clear that management at SCO talked to legal, who probably advised them that SCO's claims are frivolous and will not hold up in court, and not to pay. Ergo, HP claims it does not infringe on SCO's copyrights.
Or SCO looked at the Heise images, realized that they do not use the hardware platform the alleged infringing code is in, but rather Intel. (As an aside, since almost everyone uses Intel, Power PC, Alpha, or ARM architectures, that includes HP and 99.999% or more of all GNU/Linux deployments everywhere.)
HP certainly would have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by going along with SCO, so in light of this article it seems the blurb's innuendo is more than a little misplaced (hardly a first for slashdot, but still...). Indeed, quite the opposite is happening here: HP evaluated SCOs claims and likely filed their "invoice" right where it belonged, either under "pending litigation against litigious thugs trying to shake us down" or the more general Circular File.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I've said this before and I'll say it again. It's time for we the people who have had our reputations tarnished by SCO's actions to take them to court. It takes years to build a resume of Linux qualifications, experience, certifications, etc. And it's damn hard enough to find a job in this economy.
SCO's executives come along with what can only be described as a scheme to enrich themselves by inflating stock, and they run our reputations into the mud. As a result of SCO's executives' actions it is now more difficult for me to get a job.
I believe that a case can be made that the executives of SCO knew from the outset that their allegations didn't hold water. I believe that a case can be made that their actions were motivated by personal greed - the evidence for this is the pattern of press releases correlating with dips in stock prices and the sale of stock by those executives.
As a result, I believe that the SCO executives should be held personally responsible in a court a law. They made decisions that have cost me potential income, and I think they should be the made to defend those decisions in a class action suit.
"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 ;-)."
Given the fact that until recently, SCO was Caldera and trying to sell linux solutions, I don't find it surprising at all that they run a linux web server. Your explanation is much more far-fetched. Try thinking a little bit and lose the bias before posting next time
Ok, people, this whole thing is starting to press a little to far. What exactly is going on in the U.S. that makes and let's SCO America raise all this stink?
If this were in Germany, they'd by sued blind by now and nickeld and dimed to death by temporal decrees and acompanied non-compliance-fees. Two of which are set allready (summing up to 500 000 Euro) and have shut SCO Germany up for good. Along with that would be something like a bazillion trials for 'commerce obstruction', 'copyright infringement' and whatnot cueing up on an hourly basis.
As I gather there is something like the 'Boersenaufsicht' called 'SEC' in the US, no? Correct me if I'm wrong with that. Anyway, by now the Boersenaufsicht would be all over SCO like a polyester safary suit giving them a good 'up you'rs' from behind. Without Vaseline.
Isn't there something 'The Land of the Free', 'God's own Country' or whatever you prefer to call it can do about this sorry excuse of a scandal? Momentarily you're giving of a sad picture, I'm sorry to say that.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Most business articles speak about SCOs claims as if they are absolutely true, and rather non-chalantly at that. It's really amazing, because like you said, this is what the PHBs hear, not the sensible and factual statements.
Bit of a question for the 'IANAL but...' types of people really. I find it highly unlikely either myself or the college I work for are going to recieve one of these SCO invoices. Invoices for what.. I mean, its hardly like they have provided a service.. well, other than a good example of how NOT to run a business :)
Anyway.. so what exactly should those who recieve one of these do? Just ignore it? Throw it away? Talk to a lawyer?
It drives me insane that they are STILL getting away with this whilst everyone just seems to be standing and watching them.. they have no right to do this, yet nothing is happening to prevent them.
Oh, and the obligatory - FUCK YOU SCO.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
I'm one of those who called SCO's bluff and both called and e-mailed them, requesting "licensing" info. That was the first week in August, and I received the usual form message telling me I'd be "contacted."
/. Poll asking, "Has SCO called you back yet about taking your (protection) money?"
I'm still waiting for a real call back.
How about a
This diagram appears to be hosted on an SCO server. In the diagram, there are no arrows going from unixware to Linux, but there is an arrow from Linux to Unixware, suggesting Linux code has been copied into SCO's non-GPL product...
they don't actually own the code they say they do and (a linux user) has actually paid them for the license? And can we get damages?
I was baffled by the following entry in my http log yesterday, it seems that the actually DO eat their own dog food:
/~marcelk/ HTTP/1.0" 200 5506 "[...]" "Mozilla/4.77C-CCK-MCD Caldera Systems OpenLinux [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.0 i686)"
132.147.67.17 - - [26/Aug/2003:21:45:52 +0200] "GET
The IP (the Internet address thing, not their other `business'..) resolves to somewhere in caldera.com
I think that you missed the really important quote in there:
It sounds as though SCO has done quite a thorough job of shooting itself in the foot on the issue. Even if they do somehow manage to improve their current UNIX line to the point that it can compete with Linux, they've pissed off the people they might have sold it to to the point that they're not going to be able to close the deal. Great going, Darl!
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Ok this is mail fraud plain and simple.
So report any invoices you get from SCO to your Postmaster Inspectors at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Report it and get these guys in jail, 5 years per Invoice.
This will not cost you a dime and it is up to the postmaster to go after them. SCO must prove it to the postmaster.
The more people the better to quote the webpage:
Postal Inspectors base their investigations of mail fraud on the number, pattern and substance of complaints received from the public. The Postal Inspection Service is interested in your concerns and will carefully review the information you provide.
OK, Mr McBride, you have two choices. Either pay me extensive damages for distributing my copyrighted code without a licence, or start paying me a licence fee for it. USD$698 per CPU should do fine.
If you're reading this and you're a kernel developer, a letter to The SCO Group along these lines, CC'ed to a good many media outlets, should be quite entertaining.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I try to keep reviewing all of this in the perspective of someone who would be more inclined to watch CNBC, or read the Wall Street Journal and, 'shudder', consistantly vote Republican-Conservative, rather than read /.. They, for the most part would tend to believe that the Microsoft business model is a sound one, and our community consists of anti-capitalists and socialists and this SCO must be onto a valid premise.
SCO seems to me and many others, to be singularly working to keep the stock bubble elevated for as long a period as possible. Perhaps some of the price sustain is some assurance that they are winning the game of approval in the public investor mainstream. This mainstream is probably a significant voter/economic influence in the US. Perhaps there is some hope this mainstream public opinion is perceived to be of value beyond the stock price manipulation. If I had some money to burn, why not put some on a long shot like SCO. We all hope justice will prevail. Quite often it does not. Oklahoma pursueing MCI today in light of little else occurring to punish the wrong perpetuated to date, the New York Attorney General's actions in light of utter SEC failure to regulate, Microsoft's protection by the DOJ, show us the business of the day is BIG Business in the US.
SCO's business appears to be simply based on litigation and stock manipulation as we've seen demonstrated and documented nearly everyday. Their value is definately a perverse benefit to the software giant that has effectively become a primary power and influence in the US and their benefactor to a purpose. Their daily responses are absurd to many of us, but seem to be effective in sustaining the stock bubble. They appear well prepared to sustain public opinion in their selected forum. Our discussions probably assist them in determining their next move. Fortunatly there are those in the Open Source community with the resources, knowledge and training to keep forcing the issues to the surface.
Ultimately, the actions of those who have been in the Open Source movement for the duration to document and rebut the daily FUD, strengthen the eventuality that the GPL will have to sustain an 'ultimate' test in a court of law and will prevail. Isn't that where this all ends up? At the end of the day Microsoft wants to force this issue to a vote, and hopes it will prevail.
I become determined everyday, to do everything in my power to do as little as possible to continue perpetuating anything related to a Microsoft solution.
I benefit as a relative newcomer to all the analysis and historical review of Unix and Linux.
What the hell am I going to read after this is all resolved!? I'm afraid...:-)
sig mind freed
It's not been for lack of effort. I have sent them 5 messages so far asking about licenses and offering to perhaps purchase. In one email I asked them for a cost breakdown of Linux (If their contributed code is worth $699 then how much is the remainder, the bulk of the code worth).
SCO hasn't even given me the courtesy of a reply.
In my last attempt to contact them I offered to purchase a license if they could prove the necessity. But I also mentioned that this was my fifth attempt at it and that if I did not hear back in 72 hours then I would consider them not to be serious about the license issue and proceed with business as usual.
SCO still hasn't given me the courtesy of a reply.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I haven't looked at Netcraft in a while but did anyone notice www.windowsupdate.com running Linux with IIS? Is this a hack?
Putting pressure/negative publicity on the group is bound to create problems for McBride, and hell, he has it coming in truckloads. Just call it Karma
Also LinuxNetwrox has a cluster of linux boxes listed as an example on its website: with 2,304 Intel Xeon processors
http://www.linuxnetworx.com/news/6.23.2003.43-Linu x_Networx_C.html
I wonder if they are paying the license fees? And if they arnt and they are part of the group, why should you?
Gordon Staines
IF, and IF they are the ones to pay the license, and it is proven that SCO owns nothing then HP can probably sue SCO for fraud and end up putting it out of business for good.
That might be the aim.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
this is SCO's official history: http://www.sco.com/company/history.html
scroll down to 1999, just before caldera's purchase of old SCO's unix busines and you'll find this:
1999 SCO launches numerous Open Source initiatives: 1) Offers free Open Source applications and tools to SCO customers; 2) Extends Professional Services to include audits and deployment consultation for customers interested in installing Linux and Open Source technologies; 3) Invests in LinuxMall.com, the leading portal for Linux-related products and services; 4) Enters strategic agreement with TurboLinux to develop services for TurboLinux's TurboCluster Server and provide Linux Professional Services for TurboLinux customers.
not only caldera was a linux company before the purchase, old SCO was also moving ahead to become one. go figure...
What ? Me, worry ?
Apparently some people are paying license fees... $8,250,000
Look at the quarterly report more closely:
The two licensing agreements signed by us to date resulted in revenue of $8,250,000 during the April 30, 2003 quarter and provide for an aggregate of an additional $5,000,000 to be paid to us over the next three quarters.
TWO licences.
The first of these licenses was with a long-time licensee of the UNIX source code which is a major participant in the UNIX industry and was a clean-up license to cover items that were outside the scope of the initial license.
Other sources show this is Sun Microsystems, Inc.
In connection with the execution of the first license agreement, we granted a warrant to the licensee to purchase up to 210,000 shares of our common stock, for a period of five years, at a price of $1.83 per share. This warrant has been valued, using the Black-Scholes valuation method, at $500,000. Because the warrant was issued for no consideration, $500,000 of the license proceeds have been recorded as warrant outstanding and the license revenue reduced accordingly.
SUN bought a big fat stock option. The details of the SUN deal are not disclosed, but it's quite possible that the licence was insignifigant. SUN may have actually paid zero in licencing.
The second license was to Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft)
It has been reported that the Microsoft deal was "between 10 and 20 million". All of the 5 million to be paid over the next three quarters comes from Microsoft, and a minimum of 5 million of the 8.25 million comes from Microsoft. Probably all of the 8.25 million comes from Microsoft.
The Microsoft deal also includes a clause where Microsoft can at will hand SCO an undisclosed sum of additional money if they decide they want to expand their licence.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
"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."
Has anyone noticed that if you check NetCraft for microsoft.com, it says that they are running IIS on Linux? I realize that a previous article here indicated that Windows Update was running on Linux for a time, but I'm talking about the main Microsoft site here!