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SCO Roundup
Time to clear out the bin of the taint of SCO, hopefully we haven't posted these already... The Economist has a piece titled Face Value -- Of Monkeys and Penguins. The EFF is pushing an email campaign about SCO. An anonymous reader submits this completely unverified claim that SCO needs to change the password on their mail server: sco.txt. And another reader presents a theory about SCO's stock performance.
I just read Rob and Eric's long, well-written rebuttal to SCO's complaint but missed any remarks from them on paragraph 141.
To me, it seemed too important to be not commented. Has it been commented upon since?
...should be McBride's mantra.
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
and it was rejected.
I'm not grousing.
The Economist has captured the issue very well, and in a way that any businessman (your boss, your clients, for instance) will understand.
It has also defined the core of this issue, namely the realignment of the IT industry from old to new, with SCO/MS on the old side, and IBM/OSS/Linux on the new.
I never thought I would see IBM on the right side of IT, but there we have it.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
If you feel like lowering yourself to their level, keep that sco.txt link there.
I thought the whole point was to take the high road?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
...when the EFF is coming after you. The EFF is not light-handed on the legal representation side, and if they're coming down on the side of Linux against SCO, then SCO has problems.
What I want to see happen, however, is an injunction that holds all funds paid for "Linux licenses" in an escrow account until this matter is settled permanently.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
They run Linux... SMP version even. So I guess Linus can sue them for copyright infringement if they won't follow the GPL? Assuming this is a valid text log. Would a Netcraft report count as evidence?
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
"SCO Stock Goes Up After SCOForum Code Revealed as Baloney... Does This Make Sense?"
No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
What this tells me is that maybe business folks/investors think the Linux/open source community is sort of just a group of whiners and will always be dogging SCO no matter what. Although SCO seems to be clearly just looking for a buyout offer and the execs, a runup in stock price, I think this tells me that maybe we need to start trying to be a little more objective so that we can get more respect from the people with lotsa money... I'll believe it when I see a posting on Slashdot that says, "newest version of redhat sucks" or something to that effect... :-)
the1:/home/the1# john sco.shadow Loaded 1 password (Standard DES [24/32 4K]) guesses: 0 time: 0:00:00:20 (3) c/s: 5150 trying: 1951 - stanney guesses: 0 time: 0:00:00:22 (3) c/s: 4688 trying: stephes - sunnette guesses: 0 time: 0:00:00:24 (3) c/s: 4334 trying: samart - bunny guesses: 0 time: 0:00:00:26 (3) c/s: 4021 trying: 1182 - carison guesses: 0 time: 0:00:00:46 (3) c/s: 3196 trying: chammen - mady157 . . .
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I imagine he is using 'we' in the royal sense meaning 'he.' It's a little shocking to me that so many people are devoting so much time to this. Wouldn't we be better off to just ignore him and let IBM squash him and his claim unnoticed as a something as unsubstantiated as his is should be.
Instead we spend an awful lot of time and energy talking and reading...and making SCO a household word. And worse, making people nervous about linux and open source software in general for (so far) no reason at all. This seems to be a guy who likes to make his money suing people and is getting some free publicity at everyone's expense. Until they are willing to pony up with some real evidence let them slither back to the obscurity more fitting companies that have nothing good to offer.
but after months of this SCO bullplop... I wonder why i am up at 12:57 in the morning reading this stuff. is it just me, or has development on this story slowing down?
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
The fact that SCO stock increased while there case was shown to suck, really shows we are not kicking SCO in the right place. We need to hit them where it hurts.
We finally got to see what was presumably their best evidence, and it was a steaming turd of donkeyshit. They were either lying or were unbelievably negligent. While this was all over geek websites, it didn't make much of a ripple in the business press, and as the last article points out, SCO stock actually got pumped in the business press after the bogus code was released. And the business press is the place to hit SCO -- all they care about is their stock price, and the corporate hacks who determine stock prices don't read Slashdot.
Playing on the defensive as the EFF is doing is good, but we also need to go on the offense more.
People and organizations should contact biz journalists, or write letters to the editors. Send out press releases. Post the information at stock sites -- wherever. If stock traders know how bogus SCO's claims are, it will hurt the fuckwads at SCO. While the SCO story may not be of interest to the general public, it is of interest to the business community. I am sick of seeing unbalanced articles in businessweek or whatever, which contain no viewpoint from the free software software community.
And hackers can go on the offensive by filing lawsuits or threatening such. Send out cease and desist letters and make it public with a press release. Specific people and development teams have been libeled. They have accused the kernel team of theft. Now that code snippets have been made public, further lies by SCO can even be considered as slander against the specific people who contributed that code. And those who are the public face of the kernel team can claim damages as well. While the damages one could claim would not be enough to retire on, it can damage SCO's stock price with the publicity. SCum needs to be told to put up or shut the fuck up.
Stick it to the bastards!
Deconstruct the State
Sorry to point this out, but it's spelled D-A-I-L-Y ;)
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
Yeah, I'll believe that "sco.txt" link when SCO releases every last one of those allegedly misappropriated snippets of code to the LKML.
Well, I take that back. I wouldn't be surprised if SCO released that themselves in the hopes that they could catch a OpenSource supporter breaking into their server...
You know you have to watch out for them sneaky commie bastards!
Bad idea.
When reading all available information from both sides it appears that SCO has a weak case against linux (I am biased, but com'on, non-sensicle statements, back pedaling, inconsistencies, the only evidence shown has been refuted with facts not with "our word against theirs").
With that in mind you might think that shorting their stock would be a good way to make some quick bucks. But beware.
If these people are as deceitful as they appear then there is a high likelihood that they are manipulating the stock price by any means possible.
And if that is the case normal logic will not hold. If you short and they start to play some of their manipulation tricks you will lose big time.
IANAFA but that is my financial opinion.
burnin
In case the SCO.TXT file gets /.'d, here is a copy of it, along with a rough Czech -> English translation. I will post an exact translation when my Czech buddies wake up :)
:-)
:-)</b>
/ /boot /home /tmp /usr /var /dev/shm
----------
Subject: schvalne jestli ve SCO ctou ceske servery
From: root <root@mail.sco.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 05:59:24 -0600
To: redakce@root.cz
jestli ano,
urcite se budou lepe venovat svym serverum.. a nejen tomu nasledujicimu
<b>if yes,
it will be better to get the whole server.. trace/follow the server
mail:/usr/share # hostname -f; uname -a
mail.sco.com
Linux mail 2.4.19-64GB-SMP #1 SMP Fri Feb 7 16:29:22 UTC 2003 i686 unknown
mail:/usr/share # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2068160 1997756 70404 0 210712 1527008
-/+ buffers/cache: 260036 1808124
Swap: 2097136 0 2097136
mail:/usr/share # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 2.0G 410M 1.5G 22%
/dev/sda1 99M 10M 84M 11%
/dev/sda8 3.3G 33M 3.1G 2%
/dev/sda6 1012M 35M 926M 4%
/dev/sda5 3.0G 1.6G 1.3G 55%
/dev/sda7 325G 905M 308G 1%
shmfs 1010M 0 1010M 0%
root:6X7liA1zmJhyA:12255:0:10000::::
----------
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
But I did think that the articles were pretty well written. They were not polarized and edgy(as I would have written it...something along the lines of 'those lying cheating @#$% call my @#$# code @#$@theirs??'.
I also, just for kicks, tried to telnet into the mail.sco.com server. No luck. They don't accept telnet links. That would have been fun ehh?
At first I didn't think they were up, still DDoS...but I was able to ping them. Ping Ping Ping. I only did it once, but I'll bet you guys could ping them too...just to make sure they were still up of course. Purely curiosity.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
I read that as "it is time to clean the taint of sco"
yup. bedtime. I swear I haven't been watching porno.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
You're definately not reading it right. This is what shadow files look like. This is a shadow'd password.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
Interestingly, the economist article says that Darl is a devour mormon. Don't they have a bible that some guy allegedly dictated from behind a wall? Doesn't it infringe the trade "secrets" of the normal bible in some ways?
What "secrets" are you talking about?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I thought I was going to have to go Cold turkey. I was starting to get delerious from SCO story withdrawals.
Yes I can't spell and often leave out whole words let alone the endings of words. Some place I lost 20 IQ points. I am only a slightly above average 120 now. maybe I should have some more to drink.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Unfortunately, the Slashdot editors always seem to forget to verify that there's a link to the SCO website somewhere in the stories. Does anobody knows what their URL is ? I'm Google-impaired and it would help me a lot to go and buy a Linux license for my Debian box. Thank you guys.
*wakes up* AAAAAAAAAAH ! What the hell was THAT ?!
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
Lokking at the password line, you will notice that the password is stored as a standard crypt password.
I can't remember how many years ago it became standard to use MD5 sums instead, which are way harder to crack. The only reason to use crypt passwords today is because you had to carry hundreds of users forward, and was not willing to re-issue a new password.
I have now put john the ripper at the job to crack the password, so I can see if the password looks likely to be true.
Darl McBride, capitalist crusader against the commie horde of Linux users
There is nothing "capitalist" or "fundamentalist" about McBride--his is a campaign of lies and stock manipulation, and McBride's company is apparently engaging in intellectual property theft. Like so many other dishonest people before him, he is hiding his misdeeds by accusing his opponents of being un-American and communists.
There is nothing "communist" about Linux. Linux has thrived in free market economies because it's a highly efficient way for commercial entities to develop software. Linux is about free markets at their best: goods being produced at marginal costs, which, in the case of software, happens to be zero.
Please.. Do you know what that will look like to the rest of the world? Maybe Michael should read the Linux Advocacy FAQ, or at least what not to do!
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
I've created a random comment generator for stories about SCO, with Slashdot in mind. All you geeks with no ability to write +5 Funny articles, here's your savior. Have fun!
StickMan
www.rageagainst.net
Damn it, I swear I read this as:
All as it takes is one sanguine penguin to turn the tide...
And this bizarre mental image of a sanguine penguin explaining to Mr Gerstner what the future looked like and why it involved lots of ice and fish.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
If the password line is true, they know they have been cracked, so they probably have changed the pass anyway.
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
The last article looks like it'd be of interest to the SEC, though I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.
I think SCO have two strategies here. The main payoff is the licence money paid to them by Microsoft. If they want to safeguard they're only reliable source of income, they need to keep the FUD coming. That means slow development, but a constant sense of threat for IT managers thinking of investing in Linux. The second string, of course, is that they manage to distort the facts enough that they get awarded the rights to linux and can start selling it.
Now then, for the first strategy, going to court would be a disaster. They have _no_ case apart from FUD, and as they are rapidly learning, the open-source community are not so naieve or so inept as to let themselves be brushed aside in the legal arena. If it comes to court they'll lose - and that's the end of their income stream.
On the other hand, it it goes to court and they win, and adopt strategy two - then Microsoft crushes them like a bug, takes the rights to linux and embraces and extends it into oblivion. Once again - end of income stream, and end of SCO. Which isn't to say that Darl McBride won't get some sort of reward from Little Willie Microsoft, but it'd be a bad move for SCO, and bad for SCO investors.
Meantime, we have to keep countering the FUD without dropping the ball, image-wise; a tesk that gets harder as time moves on and peoples attention spans start to time out.
Meanwhile, IBM are playing the game cautiously. They may as well - SCO aren't hurting them, but may yet have a trick or two to play. IBM's best strategy is to emulate the mills of the gods and grind "slow, but exceedingly fine".
Nope, I can see this one might run and run.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Seriously, when I saw the title, SCO Roundup, my first thought was that somebody rounded up all the SCO executives and were now patiently waiting for someone else to come up with a suitable way of disposing of them.
/. poll in there somewhere.
There's a
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Suppose:
1. I am a small time kernel contributor. I have about 10-20 lines of code in the linux kernel.
2. My copyrighted work is available to SCO for distribution only under the GPL (which is a copyright licence).
3. Caldera/SCO sold my code for 4 years (and complied to the agreement) - attach press releases detailing Caldera/SCO contributions to the kernel - including their praise of the GPL.
4. As of May Caldera/SCO has breached the GPL as follows:
4.a. Section 3 - SCO does not make the source code to the program available.
4.b. Section 4 blah blah - SCO is licensing Linux.
4.c. Section 6 somewhat disputable - accompany with SCO press releases - especially when they threaten to sue GNU/Linux users - again licensing.
4.d. Section 7 - SCO continues to distribute although it seeks to apply additional retrictions through yet unfounded copyright claims - the key term of secton 7 is "believe" - SCO "believes" additional restrictions apply.
Claims:
They breached contract. My hourly consultant fee is 200$. It took me one hour to write it. I want 20$/loc + court expenses. Nothing else.
Their guy:
This is an obvious copyright dispute.
Me:
What do you mean? Do you mean you didn't break the GPL and you stole my copyrighted work?
Their guy:
We never agreed to the GPL.
Me:
If you didn't agree to the GPL then how come you sold my code for four years? Did you simply steal it?
Nah, they'll just leave the server down for the weekend. It's cheaper than paying overtime for a tech. They need the money for lawyers.
If they even know they've been cracked.
Of course these tablets somehow "disappeared" before anyone but a few devotees actually had a chance to verify their existence.
I found this letter from Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College (now Columbia University) to be quite interesting. More here.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Ummm, yeah, you're the only one who thinks that. :)
SCO's business plan:
1. Sell $12 million of UnixWare and OpenServer, at a cost of $14 million. Loss of $2 million.
2. Sell $8 million of "SCO Source" licenses to Microsoft and Sun, at a cost of $2 million. Gain of $6 million.
3. $4 million profit !
SCO has executed this business plan successfully for two quarters now. Read their quarterly earnings announcements at finance.yahoo.com. It's right there. They are already in stage 3 and have been there for six months.
Now, in Step 2, what are Microsoft and Sun getting for their $8 million per quarter? They are getting anti-Linux FUD. Linux takes sales from Microsoft and Sun, and this is a way for Microsoft and Sun to attack Linux without getting their own hands dirty. That's the value-add of using SCO as a sock puppet.
Darl's bragging about the number of press releases from SCO rather than products and customer wins. Well, in my opinion, future "license payments" from Microsoft and Sun may very well be based on the number of anti-Linux press releases that SCO puts out!
Canopy, the parent company of SCO, also has a business model based on suing other companies: $150 million lawsuit settlement from Microsoft, $40 million lawsuit settlement with Computer Associates.
If they have multiple Unix flavours and/or and NIS setup then they are most likely using crypt and not MD5.
-- Leeeter than leet
It's a typo - he's a devout MORON.
At a more general level (and surprisingly for a Linux distributor), he (McBride) found the entire free-software trend "communistic", he says: "We don't get the whole free-lunch thing."
,a notch on their CV for them to earn bread with and the support of users who pay their way by submitting feedback, bug reports etc.
I still don't get the constant references from Gates, McBride et al about Linux being communist.
In Soviet Russia which was communist in name if not nature, the provision of all goods an services was centralised in the hands of a few, huge agencies. These agencies excercised a vast amount of power over those it "served" and generally with property being theft and all that no-one could truly be said to own their their property, e.g. house, car etc. This basically constitutes the large organisations licencing the use of "their" property to the members of the society and as many dissedents found, these licences could be revoked along with the issue of a new one way licence to Siberia.
The free enterprise west on the other hand, benefitted from competition between many decentralised comapanies, organisations and individuals that in some cases formed alliances and co-operated when it would benefit.
If anything, the behaviour of the vast corporations bears more resemblance to the overpowering Soviet interpretation of communism than Open Source. On the other hand, open source follows the free market evolutionary pattern with projects popping into existence all the time with the weaker pointless ones falling by the wayside and the stronger useful ones maturing.
The open source system negates the need for money as developers receive the kudos of a job well done
In the meantime, please stop giving us this shit about open source and communism. The one thing it offers is freedom of choice and action. I don't remember the Russian people having much of that before the wall came down and I don't see that in any EULA from Microsoft, SCO or any other proprietry software company for that matter.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Nah, they'll just leave the server down for the weekend. It's cheaper than paying overtime for a tech.
They will leave the server down for the weekend not due to cost issues, but due to PR issues. They want as much PR as they can get.
Tuesday, September 2, 2003.
At SCO headquarters this morning, SCO's CEO Darl McBride was quoted as saying: "Those evil hackers are still attacking SCO's superior Unix servers!". He then added "...and it's all IBM's fault!" "We know that IBM is behind this whole affair, including our poor security. We have evidence that proves it -- but we can't show it to anyone."
"If we were to prove that IBM were behind the attacks on SCO, then the attacks would stop."
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
It certainly explains who has been buying SCO stock.
I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
Following is an opinion - all Speculation & conjecture - could SCOX = BRE-X?
BRE-X was a struggling small town Canadian mining company.
SCOX is a struggling small town Utah software company.
Midland Walsh, one of the principals of BRE-X was famous for suing a former employer and getting a settlement for an undisclosed sum.
Darl McBride, one of the principals of SCOX is famous for suing a former employer and getting a settlement for an undisclosed sum.
BRE-X suddenly said they found these incredibly huge gold deposits in a mine in Indonesia. This despite considerable prior evidence that this mine never contained gold before.
SCOX suddenly says they found these incredibly huge illegal UNIX code deposits in Linux. This despite considerable prior evidence that Linux never contained illegal UNIX before.
BRE-X brought in well-known outside experts (Kavanagh and Francisco) which made their claims of gold found, look more credible. Investors didn't know if these outside experts were directly involved in the search for gold - it later turned out that they weren't.
SCOX brought in well-known outside experts (Boies and Heise) which made their claims of gold found, look more credible. Investors don't know if these outside experts were directly involved in the search for UNIX code - how will it later turn out?
BRE-X said they had their own secret teams of experts, whose identities they couldn't reveal, supporting their claims (assaying of core samples for gold).
SCOX says they have their own secret teams of experts,whose identities they couldn't reveal, supporting their claims (finding illegal UNIX code in Linux).
Industry experts criticized the BRE-X techniques for assaying which were unorthodox, which they say didn't follow industry standard practises, and lacked concrete details.
Industry experts criticized the SCOX techniques for code search which were unorthodox, which they say don't follow industry standard practises, and lack concrete details.
BRE-X's reports (with incredible claims) were criticized by industry experts for the same reasons. The industry experts were ignored.
SCOX reports (with incredible claims) are criticized by industry experts for the same reasons. The industry experts are ignored.
BRE-X kept issuing new reports, with no verifiable concrete details, upping and upping their claims of gold found.
SCOX keep issuing new reports, with no verifiable concrete details, upping and upping their claims of UNIX code found.
Despite the obvious reasons to doubt, media and stock analysts preferred the BRE-X version of events to that of the industry experts. Some stock analysts (Bianchini of Nesbitt Burns) really pushed the stock hard.
Despite the obvious reasons to doubt, media and stock analysts preferred the SCOX version of events to that of the industry experts. Some stock analysts (Cohen of JHC Capital Management) really pushed the stock hard.
As more and more discrepencies in the BRE-X story came to light, the company produced a series of increasingly unsatisfactory explanations, and more outrageous claims, which were disputed by industry experts too.
As more and more discrepencies in the SCOX story come to light, the company produced a series of increasingly unsatisfactory explanations, and more outrageous claims, which were disputed by industry experts too.
The BRE-X stock prise rose and rose on the Toronto Stock Exchange, driven by massive relatively uncritical media coverage.
The SCOX stock prise rose and rose on the NASDAQ, driven by massive relatively uncritical media coverage.
BRE-X insiders cashed out millions of stock. It was a tiny fraction of the total company stock, but still a lot of money to them, especially considering their prior investment in the company was worth a relative pittance.
SCOX insiders cash out millions of stock. It was a tiny fraction
Well, given that they are quoting code from 1979 and earlier as infringing, how many good techs do you think still work there?
I wonder how many people are removing thier time at SCO from thier employment history at this moment?
my fav quote: "The world is moving to a Unix operating environment, and SCO owns the intellectual property rights to it"
SCO to rule the world then? heh!
"if i'd known it was harmless, i'd have killed it myself"
Ripped from Yahoo's RHAT message board:
===
Possible explanation of SCOX price
by: heimdal31 08/29/03 04:34 pm
Msg: 98717 of 98729
I've tried to put some of the information I've gleaned from the SCO board into more easily digestible form.
I think the most interesting one is
http://www.threenorth.com/sco/cohen.html
but all 4 are linked from
http://www.threenorth.com/sco
How much would a hostile takeover of SCO cost?
It would be impossible. As has been repeatedly detailed here, they are 95% privately held. The shares you would need to buy to take them over simply aren't available on the market.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
I'm SO tired of that load of low-IQ FUD. Let's drop that bullshit already, goddamn it....
[rest of rant cut]
So yeah, there's probably some Gnome people getting a chuckle out of all this, so what. This is bigger than Gnome vs KDE. The point isn't to punish Trolltech, it is to put pressure on them so that they, in turn, complain to Canopy. This applies to all Canopy group companies. If Canopy hears enough of it, they just might get the message
That KDE has a better desktop than Gnome is completely irrelevant. I like KDE, I don't like Gnome. I've switched to using IceWM for the time being, and sent KDE/Trolltech letters telling them why. According to you that makes me a "low-IQ, lying hypocrite"? Oh *you* come on.
-
Let's Put SCO Behind Bars
Also, in the day and a half since posting the link a Google search for "Let's Put SCO Behind Bars" went from 2190 to 3250 matches.The article is under a Creative Commons license. Please copy it to your website, your weblog, or other message boards. The markup is very simple and the page completely self-contained to enable easier copying.
There is a UBB code version for message boards that use that format. When I get some time I'll make a plain-text one suitable for email and usenet news.
Thank you for your help.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
See the news here.
Disclaimer: If I disagree with you I'm probably trolling...
Still under a DDOS :P
:)
The Slashdotting will continue until the DDOS improves.
I can't agree that The Economist captured the issue all that well. I am glad that they were clear that SCO refuses to detail the violations because then Linux would quickly be rewritten around it because Linux people WANT to fix it. However, I found the heavy editorializing, like calling Mr. Perens an evangelist, to be clouding the issue.
I was also disappointed by this:"Roughly as apes and humans allegedly have common ancestors, several operating systems can trace their lineage to UNIX, including Linux."
That is just plain incorrect, isn't it? Linux was written cleanly, it doesn't have any parents, right? More like it sprung whole from Mr. Torvold's head, like Athena out of Zeus, if one has to have an analogy. It is a workalike to Unix, but that is a different thing.
I'm glad the economist at least covered the fact that SCO distributes Linux and in being sued for copyright violation on that account, but I still hope that the mainstream press will get it right, and not resort to generalizations or incorrect simplifications.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.