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.
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.
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.
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.
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