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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."
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
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.
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.
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